Jamia teachers’ group picks holes in Batla House judgment
Advocacy group Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association has released a report highlighting issues that it feels the court may have overlooked while sending suspected militant Shahzad to jail for life in connection with the death of Delhi Police inspector Mohan Chand Sharma in the 2008 Batla House encounter case.
Advocacy group Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association has released a report highlighting issues that it feels the court may have overlooked while sending suspected militant Shahzad to jail for life in connection with the death of Delhi Police inspector Mohan Chand Sharma in the 2008 Batla House encounter case.
The report lists alleged loopholes in the police investigation that seem to have escaped notice of the court and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), and may be used as artillery in questioning the conviction of Shahzad, a resident of Uttar Pradesh’s Azamgarh district.
“None of the questions we had raised were answered by the NHRC or the court. The NHRC did not investigate those who escaped from the building that day and so it did not probe Shehzad’s case. If the Delhi Police trust the NHRC so much, why they don’t take action against its officer who was the ACP during another encounter on which the NHRC had raised doubts,” Manisha Sethi of the JTSA said.
According to the association, the weakest link in the police’s charge sheet was the escape theory. “In the report, we have given the details of a small flat where the encounter took place and we have tried to highlight how it is impossible to escape from there,” she added.
The plot on which the flats are built is 200 sq yards in size. They were in a flat in the back, the area of which was 70 sq yards.
“Shahzad’s name is not mentioned anywhere. The police have used the moniker Pappu but did not prove that Pappu was Shahzad. The prosecution also failed to prove that Shahzad was Pappu. His family consistently denied that Shahzad was ever referred to as Pappu,” the report stated.
In the charge sheet, neither the police nor the prosecution attempted to explain how the two suspected militant, including Shahzad, escaped while posing as locals in the middle of a raging encounter.
“Would policemen deployed at the gate let anyone leave the building?” questions the report.