Mumbai, June 18: A report by a panel of civil liberty groups has slammed as fake the police claim that they foiled a suicide attack on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s Nagpur headquarters earlier this month.

Headed by retired Bombay High Court judge B.G. Kolse-Patil, the 15-member committee, which probed the alleged pre-dawn encounter, has demanded a judicial inquiry by a retired Supreme Court judge.

On June 1, Nagpur police said they had gunned down three militants before they could storm Hedgewar Bhavan.

They said that based on a tip-off, a team of 11 policemen spotted a white Ambassador moving towards the RSS complex and shot dead the three militants after a brief exchange of fire. They claimed the militants ? who were dressed in police uniform and carried assault rifles, hand grenades, 360 rounds of ammunition and 5.6 kg of explosives believed to be RDX ? fired 73 rounds during the 20-minute encounter.

Although the police did not reveal their identities at first, they later said the militants were part of a suicide squad and were Pakistani nationals from Lahore and Gujranwala.

The attack was condemned by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former BJP president L.K. Advani, while RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan linked it to the terror attacks on the Ramjanmabhoomi site in Ayodhya and the Akshardham temple in Gujarat. Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi announced a cash reward of Rs 5 lakh for Nagpur police for foiling the attack.

But the panel questioned the authenticity of the police claims.

The members, from organisations like the People’s Union of Civil Liberties, Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights, the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee, Indian Association of People’s Lawyers, Bahujan Sangharsh Samiti and the Dharma Nirpeksh Nagarik Manch, raised 22 questions.

One of the queries is about the hasty police action in removing the bodies of the suspected militants from the encounter site before the media could reach the spot. The panel’s report, released in Nagpur, also wonders about the lack of eyewitnesses.

It asks why the militants did not retaliate strongly despite possessing sophisticated arms like AK-M, an upgraded version of AK-56 assault rifles, and hand grenades.

It questions why the police allowed the Ambassador to breach the first security barricade 200 metres from the RSS office if they had specific intelligence. It also says the bullet marks on the police vehicles appeared to be single-bullet marks instead of those from a burst of fire from an AK-M.

The report questions why the suspected militants would wear sub-inspectors’ uniforms and use a white Ambassador with a red beacon to move around Nagpur.

Nagpur police commissioner S.P.S. Yadav questioned the credentials of those involved with the fact-finding report. “There is a need to verify the credentials of the people who have done this report. We need to find out more about the frontal organisations of terrorists,” he told reporters.

No militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far. The police last week conducted the last rites of the three alleged rebels after no one came forward to claim their bodies.