New Delhi: Describing the recent incident of the alleged killing of 20 Tamil “woodcutters” in a forest by the Andhra Pradesh police as a “cold-blooded murder”, many Opposition members on Thursday demanded that the incident should be probed either by the CBI or by a senior judge.

However, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh rejected the demand saying there was no such demand from the state government. The minister was replying to a discussion on a calling attention motion on the issue in the Rajya Sabha by CPI’s D. Raja and others. Mr Singh also gave the details of activities related to Red Sanders smuggling.

After some members objected to the word “encounter” as mentioned in the minister’s statement, Mr Singh said the killing of the woodcutters cannot be termed as “fake encounters” till the final judgement on the matter.

Singh said that human rights bodies have taken cognisance of the matter regarding payment of compensation to the next of kin of victims.

Mr Singh said the Andhra Pradesh government has decided to constitute a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code to investigate the case as it needed a comprehensive probe.

In his statement, the minister quoted reports from the Andhra Pradesh government and informed the House that relatives of the deceased had approached the High Court of AP and Telangana which has ordered a post-mortem of certain dead bodies.

The statement also said that the HC has directed that no officer must divulge the results of the investigation to anyone except before an appropriate court or official.

Mr Raja said he finds it hard to believe that the AP police had fired in self defence and it was not an encounter. He said there were testimonies of eye witnesses, according to which what had happened was not an encounter.

He demanded creation of a SIT by the Centre to probe the matter. CPM’s T.K. Rangarajan said brutalities were committed on those killed. DMK MP Kanimozhi said that TN was “filled with grief” at the deaths.