By Kashif-ul-Huda, TwoCircles.net,
Mahatma Gandhi started his satyagraha from Champaran district of Bihar. This force of truth is what ultimately led to India’s independence. After independence, India adopted “Satyameva Jayate” [Truth Alone Triumphs] as its motto. A 23 year-old youth from Champaran is testing India’s commitment to its truth and in the process showing the mirror to the Indian republic and asking them the same questions that Gandhi’s followers asked the colonial rulers.
Afroz Alam was born in Champaran district of Bihar in 1987. He is acutely aware of the historical importance of Champaran in India’s freedom struggle. Through Right To Information (RTI) Act, he has started his own “satyagraha” for seeking out the truth. Since 2005, he has filed thousands of RTI applications seeking information on local and national issues but what has made him famous is his unprecedented successes in finding truth of Batla House killings of Sept 19, 2008 that was termed as encounter by Delhi Police and fake by the population living in that area.
RTI activist Afroz Alam Sahil
Two years ago today, in Batla House area of Jamia Nagar, Delhi two civilians Sajid and Atif, and a police officer Mohan Chand Sharma were dead after some gun-shots were heard in the morning. What had happened there in flat number L-18 that day that led to three deaths is not clear. Afroz Alam Sahil, then a student of Mass Communication in Jamia Millia Islamia and an RTI activist, filed around 40 applications seeking more information about this “encounter” but has met by deafening silence from all sides.
Getting information through RTI has never been easy but it has been a special challenge to find out anything about the Batla House encounter case. He has filed appeals after appeals with different departments but without much success. He has filed RTI applications with the Prime Minister’s Office, President of India, Union Home Ministry, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi Police, and Delhi Minority Commission with little or no response from most of these organizations.
But his dogged persistence has paid off when in March this year, NHRC finally released the post-mortem report of Atif Amin and Mohammad Sajid, two youth who were killed in Batla House encounter. The post-mortem report, which AIIMS and Delhi Police still refuses to give, revealed that both Atif and Sajid had injuries on their bodies which occurred before their death. Delhi Police’s version of event had it that no physical interaction happened with the youth and the police but then how would one explain these injuries that AIIMS doctor clearly marked as “ante-mortem” or before death.
[ http://www.twocircles.net/2010mar17/batla_house_post_mortem_report_confirms_atif_sajid_were_hit_blunt_force.html ]
Just a few days ago, RTI officer at AIIMS again refused to give any information about post-mortem reports of Batla House victims, thought it has been already made public by the NHRC. The reason for refusal, cited by the Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) is RTI act 8 (g) and 8 (h):
8. Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, there shall be no obligation to give any citizen,
(g) information, the disclosure of which would endanger the life or physical safety of any person or identify the source of information or assistance given in confidence for law enforcement or security purposes;
(h) information, which would impede the process of investigation or apprehension or prosecution of offenders.
I would leave it to the readers to figure who will get hurt from the information that is being refused to be given by various government agencies and who benefits from this silence?
Though harassed along the way and humiliated by government officials, Afroz has refused to give in. It was big news when in July 2009, NHRC gave clean-chit to Delhi regarding their action in Batla House. “We are clearly of the opinion that having regard to the material placed before us, it cannot be said that there has been any violation of human rights by action of police,” the commission wrote in a report submitted to the Delhi High Court. But a year later, in June 2010, NHRC finally admitted that it never paid a visit to Batla House flat, where the encounter took place, or talk to anyone involved in the case. In fact, India’s statutory human rights body conducted the enquiry only after they were ordered by the Delhi High Court and relied solely on Delhi Police version and evidence, and that too uncritically. One might ask what is the usefulness of NHRC if they will enquire only when ordered to do so and then believe what police had to say about the incident.
But what Afroz Alam has seen so far leaves no doubt in this mind that Batla House encounter was fake. And he finds it strange that though CBI is enquiring encounters in Gujarat, where BJP is the ruling party but not in Delhi, where Congress is in power.
Another unintended revelation from Afroz’s RTI activism was that Muslim organizations have been totally ineffective in India. Muslim youth in India were hunted down in the name of terrorism since 2001 and Muslim organizations except for issuing statements have not been able to do much in this regard. They were unable to convince the larger population that various encounters were fake or work with the government to get innocents released those that had been arrested and framed on terrorism charges. The story of Afroz Alam Sahil is a matter of inspiration and hope for Muslim youth and organizations- there are many legal means of getting justice in India, though it may be a long and frustrating journey but there is no other way to hard work and the truth will prevail.