After questions were raised by the civil society, the Telangana government has formed a special investigation team to inquire into the April 7 encounter of Nalgonda district , in which five suspected terrorists were shot dead.

According an official note, chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has taken the decision keeping in view the doubts expressed by certain organisations and some individuals on the encounter.

Chief minister had instructed chief secretary Rajiv Sharma to issue orders appoint a SIT.The move to constitute a SIT comes after Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi and other community leaders had met the chief minister last week seeking a probe and explanation to quell their doubts.

Five suspected terrorists - Viquar Ahmed, Syed Amjad Ali, Mohammed Zakir, residents of Hyderabad, Mohammed Haneef alias Dr Haneef, native of Ahmedabad, and Izhar Khan, native of Uttar Pradesh - were shot dead by police on April 7 when they allegedly tried to escape from a police van near Tangutur in Nalgonda district, while being taken to a court in Hyderabad.

The five had formed a radical terrorist organisation called Tahreek Galba-e-Islam (TGI). Police had earlier said that they were involved in four incidents of firing on police (killing three cops and injuring four others) in Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.

Meanwhile, the police in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh have arrested 63 woodcutters smuggling red sanders trees from the state's Nellore district, on the border with Tamil Nadu.

The authorities arrested the suspects during combing operations in the Marripadu and Veligonda forest areas, with 40 logs of red sanders wood worth Rs one crore seized from their possession.

The arrested woodcutters are suspected to be part of the group allegedly involved in the felling of red sanders trees in the Seshachalam hill ranges of Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh on April 7. They were killed in an encounter with the police.