The Andhra Pradesh government on Monday submitted before a Division Bench of the Hyderabad High Court the post-mortem report of all the 20 persons who were killed in the sensational Seshachalam police encounter, that took place near Tirupati on April 7. It, however, sought time for submitting the report of re-post-mortem of the six deceased which has been conducted as per the court order.

When the matter came up for hearing, the government informed the court that the re-post-mortem of six of the deceased persons was also conducted in Tamil Nadu and that it was awaiting the reports. After perusing the first autopsy report of the forensic doctors at Ruia Hospital, who had conducted the post-mortem of the 20 deceased, the Bench, comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta and Justice PV Sanjay Kumar, had asked the AP State Advocate-General about the reports of the re-post-mortem.

When AG P Venugopal sought time for submitting the same, the Bench granted time till next Wednesday for filing the reports. It may be recalled that the Bench had last week ordered the re-post-mortem of the six deceased persons - A Sasikumar, Murugan, Murthy, Mahendran, Perumal and Munusamy while hearing petitions filed by thier relatives. The bodies were preserved at the district headquarters hospital in Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu.

In all, 20 wood cutters, belonging to Tamil Nadu and hired by the red sanders smugglers, had died in the police encounter in the Seshachalam Hill ranges, near Tirupati, in Chittoor district. Petitioners Muniammal and others who were relatives of the victims impleaded themselves in a PIL case filed by Chilka Chandra Sekhar of the Civil Liberties Committee seeking to register Section 302 IPC (murder) against the police personnel involved in the said encounter.