Pages

Showing posts with label Batla House fake encounter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Batla House fake encounter. Show all posts

Sunday, June 12, 2011

New Delhi rulers - frustrating administration of justice

By Hassan Zainagiree
Srinagar, June 11: It's always guilty that must be punished, no matter who he is, what institution he belongs to. What matters is the nature of crime and the spirit of justice which must be the only standard to judge the merit of the case, comments -Aggressors like Halakoo and Changaiz did what history recorded them for. Genocides, macabre death dances, imperialistic arrogance and killing sprees. They hungered for blood and blood they had in full.

They played hosts for the owls to celebrate doomsday. They loved and enjoyed the “music” of innocent hapless yelling in pain, frying in agony. Unlike present day “civilized democrats”, champions of human rights and “secularists”, these “savage tormentors” however, did not wear gloves to hide their murdering hands, nor put on masks to conceal their identity. They raised the minarets of skulls in broad day light. They created tsunami of death and destruction quite openly. To let no one harbor any misunderstanding or misconception about their intentions. In the guise of saviors they didn't masquerade as brutal killers. Summary executions they would take at the wink of an eye. But would be ashamed of carrying out enforced disappearances, take encounters and custodial killings. Merciless tyrants they undoubtedly were. But duplicitous and cunning they certainly were not.

What the “civilized” world is doing today under various garbs and after taking “solemn pledges” of “respecting human dignity” and showing commitment to International Laws and numerous Geneva Conventions, makes it absolutely clear that medieval period ruthless warriors and despotic    monarchs had at least one moral edge over present day “democratic” rulers. In their not being guilty conscience they had not to hide their criminal profile under various “legal” nuances, nor fudge the records and resort to unmarked graves.

If by some miracle the Halakus and Changaizes were to arise from their graves, they would file in defamation suits against their “siblings” in death and destruction for unjustifiably maligning and accusing them for what they “excelled” in perfection themselves.

In a modern state if institutions of justice are deprived of serving the basic purpose of providing justice to the victim and their “constitutional powers” of prosecuting proceedings against perpetrators of heinous crimes, the state is, of its own, blurring the distinction between detestable regime it denounces and the democratic state it takes pride of giving it to its people. In this backdrop, invoking Armed Forces Special Power Act to halt administration of justice has all but exposed Indian state in its tall claims that every one is accountable before the law of land. On April 24 was stayed the trial of involving murdering civilians in fake gunfights by police and army. The ruling came after the counsel for union of India pleaded that army personnel named in case could not be prosecuted as the sanction has not been given by the government of India which is an essential requirement under the section 7 of the AFSPA. Earlier Supreme Court of India stayed proceedings in an identical case (Pathribal case) in which five civilians were murdered and then passed off as foreign militants responsible for massacre of 35 Sikhs in Chittisingpora. Forensic tests revealed they were civilians. It is to be noted that the chief judicial magistrate in Srinagar has asked the army to either stand trial in a criminal court or in an army court. But the army refused to exercise the option and stated it enjoys impunity under AFSPA. 

The fake encounter came to force last year. Eleven persons, including five army personnel, are accused of murdering of innocent people for promotion and “gallantry” award. The guilty police officers have already been arrested and are facing the trial. Justice demanded both troops and police personnel involved in the same crime and who are accomplice of each other should be punished and no discrimination shown. How can a killer in olive green be exonerated while the one in khaki be prosecuted? This is close to apartheid and smacks of neo-colonial approach. A sweeping generalization Delhi insists observers must avoid from making. “Individual aberrations”, it argues in defense.

Prosecuting erring soldiers doesn't mean prosecuting or maligning army as an institution. Only a “miniscule” from 'individual aberration', it means, have to account for their grave crimes they perpetrated against unarmed civilians. It is only when state shields such “action addicts”, under one pretext or other, that, infact, tars black the entire face of Indian army and drills holes in its claim that it is a “disciplinary” force. This attitude of authorities emboldens men in uniform to indulge in more excesses and atrocities. Even those immune to such “heroic” adventures loose the veneer of tolerance and get going. A message flows down the rank and file: We are above the law. State is behind us for every thing we will do. Thus it is state that gives them a license to kill and main, rape and destroy. On one hand Delhi repeatedly talks of “zero-tolerance” on human rights, on the other, it invokes the draconian law to ensure infringement.

The AFSPA requires pre-sanction of Delhi for prosecuting guilty soldiers, which usually is not given as Delhi's rigidness shows. More than 300 cases of gross human rights abuses against Indian forces like army and para-military troops could not be tried because Indian Home Ministry has not granted sanction. This is how authorities in Delhi are bent on frustrating administration of justice.

AFSPA and democracy are irreconcilable and can't be stuffed in one scabbard. Amnesty International too states that the black law encourages and abets abuse of human rights by men in uniform. Why authorities in Delhi allow a handful of soldiers to tarnish the image of the organization and the country they belong to, one fails to understand.For its own sake it is time Delhi repeal the law that has dented its credibility as a democratic state. 
(The edited version of the article written by Kashmiri writer Hassan Zainagiree)

Monday, September 20, 2010

Batla House fake encounter

Lessons from Batla House encounter: Truth will prevail

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_confi
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.