By TCN Special Correspondent,
Azamgarh: Ulama Council was permitted to hold a rally in Menta/Ambedkar Park, Azamgarh in protest of Batla House encounter. In view of impending festive season and calls for protests given by various organizations on Batla House encounter anniversary, the district administration had promulgated section 144.
Ulama Council was formed as a protest group in the aftermath of Batla House encounter in which two youths of Azamgarh were killed on 19th September 2008 at Batla House area of Jamia Nagar in New Delhi. An inspector of Delhi Police also mysteriously succumbed to seemingly non-fatal bullet injury on way to Hospital. Nobody could have guessed death of Inspector MC Sharma who climbed down a four storied building and walked down the road on his feet with little assistance from his colleagues on either side. Subsequent to the encounter, the security agencies crossed all limits and threw to winds their stipulated rules and regulations (http://uppolice.up.nic.in/humanrights.html). The peaceful sleepy Sanjarpur village of the slain youths was turned into a Police Cantonment. Villagers alleged the policemen trampled age old traditions of respect for elders and women during raids.
Ulama Council was quite successful as a Protest Group as it translated into form the collective feeling of despair, anger and extreme alienation of Muslims, in particular, and right minded citizens of the country in general in the wake of infamous Batla House encounter. A debatable point was the conversion of this protest group into a political party “Rashtriya Ulama Council” without wide ranging consultations not only among Muslims but among all downtrodden and weaker sections of society who happen to be on receiving ends of atrocities of executive machinery. However, it has now taken into its folds non-Muslims even entrusting them important portfolios as office bearers. Mr. Pramatma Saran Pandey is one of them.
In the well-attended rally here on Wednesday, one speaker graphically described as how the encounter was stage managed. He emphatically stated the impossibility of alleged terrorists in possession of dreaded weapon like AK-47 receiving numerous bullets (at close range; muzzle touching the skull) on head in a downward trajectory. Other speakers pointed out initial exclusively Muslim protest in 2008 turning out to be a joint ‘Hindu-Muslim’ protest now true to Ulama Council’s slogan ‘Ekta ka Raj chalega, Hindu-Muslim sath chalega’. They also deliberated upon the joint responsibility of Hindus and Muslims to clear the name of a unique place like ‘Azamgarh’, famous for its communal amity and traditions of peaceful co-existence.