A COURT has ordered a probe into extra-judicial killings in Gujarat over allegations that 22 people, 19 of them Muslims, were killed in so-called “fake encounters” by the state police between 2003 and 2006.

The Supreme Court told one of its former judges to investigate the deaths.

“We want the investigation to be thorough so that truth in each case is revealed,” judges Aftab Alam and CK Prasad said in an order on Wednesday (January 25).

Former justice MB Shah, who heads a court-appointed watchdog to monitor police excesses in Gujarat, was asked by the Supreme Court to report back on police killings within three months.

Gujarat police in 2004 killed a women and her three companions, which was later established by the judicial watchdog to be an instance of extra-judicial killings.

And a year later the state police shot dead a Muslim man after accusing him of being an Islamic militant. Three Gujarat police officers were later charged with murdering the civilian

Chief minister Narendra Modi’s administration also admitted that the victim’s wife was also slain by policemen and five years later Amit Shah, a junior state minister, was arrested in connection with the killing.