A Forgotten ‘Encounter’

Harsh Thakor

Exactly 50 years ago, on the night of 25 July 1975, in the forests near Girayipalli village of the then Medak district, the police tied five young men to trees and cold-bloodedly shot four of them dead.

Although Girayipalli was only a short distance from the Hyderabad–Karimnagar highway, this incident had scant coverage. In those days, there were no appropriate television channels or social media, and even newspapers were few. Those that functioned were censored just a month earlier as part of the Emergency.

As a result, though the incident occurred on a Friday night just 90 kilometres from Hyderabad, it was reported in newspapers until Tuesday or Wednesday. Even then, what was published was simply a trumped-up or fabricated or the state police headquarters. According to the report, the police had gone to a hillock after receiving information that “Naxalites who had already committed one murder in Sirisinagandla and were plotting another” were hiding there. It fabricated a report that Naxalites opened fire and threw bombs despite warnings, forcing the police to return fire in self-defence. After the exchange, four bodies were found.

One newspaper wrote that “two pistols, one submachine gun, five bags, a satchel full of handmade bombs, and CPM literature” were recovered. All the reports omitted who the deceased were or whether the bodies were handed over to their families. As it was an Emergency, such questions could not even be asked.

The leader of the four youths killed was Surapaneni Janardhan, a mechanical engineering final-year student at the Regional Engineering College in Warangal, who had come from Garikaparru in Krishna district and gone to Medak to help build the revolutionary movement. The other three–Lanka Murali Mohan Reddy from Mustyalapalli, who studied intermediate at Lal Bahadur College in Warangal; Vanaparthi Sudhakar from Deshaipet, who worked at the Warangal market committee after high school; and Kolishetty Ananda Rao from Budharaopet, who had completed intermediate and briefly worked–were all from Warangal.

Since 1969–70, thousands of revolutionaries and ordinary people have been exterminated in so-called encounters declared by the police in Andhra Pradesh and across India. But the Girayipalli encounter must be remembered not only because 50 years have passed, but also due to its unique importance.

This was the first of many police killings in Andhra Pradesh during the Emergency under the pretext of “encounters.” All four of the young men killed were aged between 18 and 25 and were part of the revolutionary student movement that had been escalating over the previous two years. They had gone to the Medak district a few months before the Emergency to organise the peasant struggle. Following a murder in a village a month before the Emergency was declared, surveillance in the area intensified, and the police captured them. Janardhan was captured in Siddipet ten days before the incident, and the other three were arrested in Hyderabad a few days later. All were illegally detained for days at the Mulugu Forest Dak Bungalow, where they were subjected to torture. Many others were also held and tortured illegally. Exactly one month after the Emergency was declared, on 25 July, five of them were taken to the Girayipalli forest, just 50 km away, tied to trees, and four were shot dead. Their bodies were burned to extinguish evidence.

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Frontier
Vol 58, No. 9, Aug 24 - 30, 2025