A court in Vijayawada city issued non-bailable arrest warrants against Police Commissioner N V Surender Babu and four other policemen today in connection with the killing of a person in custody.

Third Metropolitan Magistrate D Venkataramana held that there was a prima facie case of murder against the five police personnel.

He directed the police to book a case against Surender Babu, Assistant Commissioner of Police Rami Reddy, Sub-Inspector G Srinivas, and constables Babu Rao and Nacharaiah under sections 302 (murder), 201 (tampering with evidence), 149 (common guilt of unlawful assembly), and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) read with section 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code. Director General of Police Pervaram Ramulu was directed to comply with the order.

The magistrate also transferred the case to the sessions court for trial.

The magistrate passed the orders on a private complaint lodged by Vijayawada Bar Association secretary Gautam Reddy.

The dead man, K Srinivas Rao alias Budda Shantan, and another suspect Murali were arrested in connection with the murder of a local Telugu Desam Party politician Yerpuganti Satyanarayana.

They were produced before a magistrate who remanded them to police custody and ordered that they be produced the next day.

The two men were taken to the Three Town police station at Governorpet. But on the intervening night of July 14/15, 2002, Shantan was killed in the police station.

The police version is that Shantan seized a sub-inspector's service revolver when he was taken out of the lock-up early in the morning for interrogation and began firing in an attempt to escape. In self-defence, the police opened fire, killing him on the spot.

But the dead man's relatives accused the police of killing him in cold blood.

Subsequently, the Vijayawada Bar Association and the Krishna District Bar Federation filed a private complaint in the court in August on behalf of the family, pleading that the incident be investigated as a murder.

The petitioners alleged that Surender Babu, an Indian Police Service officer who had served as superintendent of police in other districts of Andhra Pradesh, had a record of killing people in custody or in fake encounters.

Meanwhile, Surender Babu has rushed to Hyderabad to discuss the order with senior police officers, including the DGP.