By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: The infamous Batla House encounter is again set to be the hottest of all issues to be raised in the byelection for Delhi’s Okhla Assembly constituency wherein falls the Jamia Nagar Muslim ghetto, the witness to the September 19, 2008 bloody shootout at House No. L-18 in Batla House locality in the area. Okhla seat is vacant in the wake of Congress MLA Parwez Hashmi got elected to the Rajya Sabha.
A huge protest was held last night at Batla House chowk to denounce the National Human Rights Commission’s report giving clean chit to the Delhi Police for the encounter in which two allegedly terror suspects were killed along with a Delhi police inspector. Local residents, families of the two Azamgarh youths killed in the encounter and human and civil rights activists have held the encounter as fake and so demanded a judicial probe.
Launching his election campaign at the protest rally yesterday local politician Asif Muhammad Khan who scared three-time Congress MLA Parwez Hashmi by ending up a few hundred votes from him in last assembly elections, reiterated his demand of judicial probe into the encounter, and threatened to intensify the agitation. He announced to form a committee to help the families of the victims and others made accused in the Delhi serial blast case and are now languishing in jails in Gujarat and Jaipur.
To intensify the demand for judicial probe, he announced to hold a month-long agitation during Ramazan from after Travih prayer till Fajr prayer at Batla House chowk. Clearing doubt in some minds that he is doing politics on the encounter, Khan said he would not fight election the day judicial probe was ordered.
To support the agitation a big Khan had come from Rampur. Former UP minister and MLA from Rampur Muhammad Azam Khan termed the Batla House encounter as a historic injustice in a democratic country. He described the encounter as a blot on the face of Indian democracy. “The youths were killed in cold blood, I have no doubt about it,” said Azam Khan who recently left Samajwadi Party, of which he was a founder member, while opposing the alliance between SP chief Mulayam Singh and former chief minister Kalyan Singh under whose regime Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992.
While not supporting judicial probe in the encounter as ‘this may also give clean chit to the police’ he called for judicial action against the ‘killer’ policemen. He said case under Section 302 should be filed against those policemen who were involved in the encounter.
Political Council of India chief Dr Tasleem Rahmani said Independent India has seen two great injustices to the Muslim community – demolition of Babri Masjid and Batla House encounter. “As we will never let the Babri issue die until the reconstruction of the mosque we will never sit down until the judicial enquiry into the Batla encounter,” he said.
MLA Shoaib Iqbal also spoke on the occasion.
In the first three assembly elections Parwez Hashmi of Congress won the Okhla Assembly seat with thumping majority but in last election held last year he could just manage a win. Riding on the wave of public anger against the Congress on Batla House encounter, Asif Muhammad Khan on RJD ticket gave several sleepless nights to Hashmi who could win the seat with a few hundred votes. As he is out of the race this time – Congress has sent him to Rajya Sabha – chances for Khan are said to be brighter.