By TwoCircles.net Staff Writer,
New Delhi: While the Central and Delhi governments have stonewalled demand for judicial probe into the infamous Batla House encounter saying such probe will down the morale of the police, a court here on July 15 sentenced three Delhi police personnel to life imprisonment for killing two persons in a fake encounter here in 2006.
Announcing the verdict, Additional Sessions Judge Dharmesh Sharma said: “This case is a stark illustration of alarming increase of the criminal behaviour in the police force where the protectors are predators.” Apart from sentence, the court also imposed heavy fine on convicts Ashok Kumar, Surajpal and Sudesh Rana. Kumar and Surajpal will have to pay Rs 1.30 lakh each and Rana Rs 1.50 lakh. Out of the total fine, the court ordered that Rs 1.50 lakh each would be paid to the family of the victims Zulfikar (28) and Nazakat (26).
[TCN Photo: By Mudassir Rizwan]
The three policemen, then posted at Operation Cell of the North District of Delhi, abducted Zulfikar and Nazakat from Ghaziabad court and killed them at a place under Timarpur police station on July 31, 2006.
The court order may give some hope to the families of the September 2008 Batla House encounter victims. They have rejected the police version that the encounter in Jamia Nagar locality was genuine and Atif Ameen and Mohd Sajid, the Azamgarh youth killed in the shootout, were terrorists. Besides the families, various rights groups and a section of media have exposed loopholes in the police version of Batla encounter and said it was a fake encounter.