Batla house encounter: Indian Mujahideen convicted

A Delhi court on Thursday ruled that the 2008 Batla House encounter was genuine and pronounced Shahzad Ahmad, the lone suspect arrested in the case, guilty of murdering inspector Mohan Chand Sharma.

Additional sessions judge Rajender Kumar Shastri pronounced Shahzad guilty of criminal conspiracy, attempt to murder of other police officials who were part of the raiding team, firing at the police team and of obstructing public servants from discharging their duty.

The court will pronounce Shahzad’s punishment on July 29.

On September 19, 2008, an encounter took place at L-18 Batla House in Delhi’s Jamia Nagar between a raiding team of Delhi police special cell and suspected IM operatives.

Six days before the encounter, serial bomb blasts had rocked Delhi, killing 26 and injuring 133. The police had reached Batla House on a tip-off that some suspected militants involved in the blasts were holed up there.

During the face-off, two of the occupants, Atif Ameen and Mohammed Sajid, were killed, while Mohammed Saif surrendered. Shahzad and another accused, Junaid, now a proclaimed offender, escaped. While Shahzad was arrested on January 1, 2010, Junaid is still at large.

Sharma, a decorated police officer, lost his life in the crossfire.

While convicting Shahzad, the court relied mainly on testimonies of the prosecution witnesses, including six eyewitnesses who were a part of the police raiding team, the circumstantial evidence presented by the prosecution, the ballistic report that said the bullets were first fired at the police, and MC Sharma’s post-mortem report.

The defence counsel had denied all charges and Shahzad had claimed he was innocent and had been falsely implicated. He denied being present in the flat at the time of the encounter. He also told the court that he was picked up by the ATS, Lucknow, from his house in Azamgarh, following which his family had lodged a complaint of kidnapping.

But the court ruled that the prosecution had established that Shahzad and the other accused first fired at the police and the police retaliated in self defence. It was also established that Sharma died and head constables Balwant Kumar and Rajbir suffered injuries after being fired at.

But the court took a strict note of the negligence on part of the Delhi police in carrying out the raid, especially the fact that Sharma was not wearing a bulletproof jacket.

“It agitates in my mind that though the incident in question was not a sudden confrontation between police and the assailants and the police had prior information and thus, a raiding party was formed well in advance, inspector MC Sharma did not wear any bulletproof jacket. Moreover, at least two members of the raiding party had no weapons despite knowing the fact that they may face firing,” the court said.

“It is not clear whether it was merely a misadventure or lack of professionalism in Delhi police or scarcity of weapons. Whatsoever it may be, it did not give any licence to the occupants of the flat to fire at police persons merely because they were unarmed or not wearing bulletproof jacket. They were expected to assist the police and not to attack them. Accused is thus convicted of offence punishable under sections 186/353/333/307/302/34 of the IPC.”

The court also convicted Shahzad under the Arms Act for possessing firearms even though the alleged weapon has not been recovered yet. “He is alleged to have disclosed to the police that he threw that [the weapon] in Gang Nahar and it is now impossible to recover [it],” the court said.