By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: Imam Ahmed Bukhari of Shahi Jama Masjid today met Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and presented him with the autopsy report of Batla House encounter victims Atif Ameen and Mohd Sajid and their photographs showing bullet holes on the head of Sajid and bruises on their bodies. While saying that these documents clearly indicate the encounter was fake, Imam Bukhari urged the PM to order a judicial probe into the shootout.
Talking to TwoCircles.net after his 35-minute meeting with PM, Imam Bukhari said he put before him the photographs of Sajid and Atif and their autopsy report which says they were beaten with hard object besides being pumped with bullets. The report also says that they were shot dead from pointblank. And he also presented the PM the NHRC’s report of fake encounters in the country, which also includes the Batla House encounter. “The PM was surprised to see these documents. He said he was not made aware of all these facts and he promised me he will talk to the Home Minister on the issue,” Imam Bukhari told TCN.
The NHRC had registered the Batla House encounter as a fake encounter in its register, but under the pressure of the police, the human rights body gave a clean chit to the police in its enquiry report on the encounter and said the Batla incident was genuine, said Bukhari.
“I told PM clearly that the Muslim community feels uneasy over the Batla issue as they think it was a fake encounter and government ignored the demand of judicial probe. While the government says the probe will down the morale of the police but they are not worried that no probe will down the morale of the largest minority community in the country,” Bukhari said.
Imam Bukhari also demanded fast trial in terror cases as hundreds of innocent youths have been put behind bar. To prove his point he gave the example of several Muslim terror acquittals. He urged the PM to understand the agony of the Muslim community as he himself comes from a minority community, and has witnessed the traumatized period of the Sikh community in the 1980s.
The autopsy report of the alleged Batla terror suspects and NHRC list of fake encounters in the country was brought to public recently by eminent RTI activist Afroz Alam Sahil after hard struggle of almost 2 years.