Bhubaneswar: The widows of the three innocent tribal villagers of Kalahandi district, who were killed in the Nishanguda jungle police encounter mistaking them as Maoists when they had been there in quest of a strayed goat in the first week of this November, on Monday lodged FIRs with the Sadar Police Station demanding action and murder case charges against the police personnel involved in the encounter.

The three villagers of  Panchakula village, 17 km away from the district headquarters Bhawanipatna, identified as Panchu Majhi, Sukru Majhi and Jay Shankar Naik, were allegedly killed in the encounter.

Jaya Shankar was a ward member of the village.

Two other minor boys having received bullet injuries, one on his nose tip and other on his back after rushing back to village were later rushed to the District Headquarters Hospital and later on to the Burla VIMSAR.

The three bodies were lying in the jungle then and as the news spread like a wild fire on electronic media, the bodies were conducted autopsy even late night on the fateful day and were handed over to the bereft family members.

Kalahandi SP denied that the police personnel involved in the encounter have committed any blunder by killing the three innocent villagers.

Meanwhile, the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) has already taken cognizance and has dashed a directive to the concerned DIG to probe and submit report within four weeks.

Human Rights activists have been demanding a judicial probe into the incident.

The Maoists have also protested the killing of the three civilians in police encounter. They had even given a bandh call following which normal life had been badly been affected  in three blocks on Monday last week in Odisha’s tribal-dominated Kalahandi district.

Roads in the three blocks wore a deserted look, buses and other vehicular traffic remained off the roads. Commercial establishments downed their shutters and residents remained indoors at Thuamul Rampur, Lanjigarh and Sadar blocks then.

The bandh call was given by CPI (Maoist) Bansadhara-Ghumusar-Nagabali committee secretary Umakant. Releasing an an audio clip earlier, the top Maoist leader had pooh-poohed the claim of the police that the three villagers were killed in exchange of fire in the Karlapat forest. He had claimed that there was no exchange of fire between the villagers and the security personnel.

He also demanded Rs 10 lakh compensation for each of the bereft family members.