By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net
New Delhi: Two days before its first anniversary, the Batla House encounter seems to have backfired at last. The demand of judicial probe into the encounter has been the core issue of the electoral campaigns of former councilor Asif Muhammad Khan who today won the Okhla assembly bypoll by pushing the Congress candidate to third – the Congress had won the seat four times consecutively.
“When a judicial probe is ordered into the September 19, 2008 Batla House encounter I will withdraw from the election for the Okhla seat,” announced Khan while kickstarting the campaign one month ago. All through the campaigns he reiterated the demand for a judicial probe into the encounter in which two Azamgarh youth, suspected as terrorists, were gunned down. Even on the day of voting on September 15, he issued a big advertisement in Urdu papers in which he reminded people of his untired movement for enquiry into the encounter.
In the counting today for the bypoll held on September 15, Asif Mohammad Khan polled 23,394 defeating Bahujan Samaj Party candidate Bramha Singh by more than 5000 votes. Congress candidate Farhad Suri came third in the Muslim-dominated constituency with 17,804 votes.
In the last assembly poll in December 2008 he strongly raised the issue and people responded by giving him 25000 votes, just 500 behind the sitting Congress MLA Parwez Hashmi whose ascension to the Rajya Sabha necessitated this bypoll. Khan and his wife had lost municipal council elections some months ago.
The Congress and its governments in the state and at the Centre have consistently denied any judicial enquiry into the encounter which human rights activists and lawyers say was fake. The result of the bypoll against the Congress could also be because of the NHRC report wherein the Delhi police was given a clean chit for the encounter. The public has voted against the Congress despite the fact that the party is ruling the state and the country – support of ruling party is necessary for development which is lacking in Okhla, particularly its Jamia Nagar area where is located the Batla House.