NHRC Rubs Salt into Muslims' Wounds

The two youth, Atif and Sajid, were rightly killed at Batla House on September 19, 2008. The police was justified in killing them. Whatever the police did was in self-defense. The youth fired at the police first, therefore, the police retaliated in self-defense.

There is no lacuna in the police story. Almost after a year since the incident at the Batla House in Delhi in which two Muslim youth were shot dead, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has given a clean chit to the Delhi Police.

Clean Chit to Delhi Police
Had the report come from a police officer, he could not have given the clean chit to the police so shamelessly. The NHRC did not feel the need to visit the incident site, nor did it talk to eyewitnesses or investigate their colleagues in jail.

The NHRC did not even examine the postmortem reports. It did not talk to the defense council of those children or paid any heed to the reports that appeared in the media. What it did was to give a clean chit to the Delhi police in one stroke of the pen.

Raising Doubts and Concerns
Sweeping all doubts and concerns under the carpet, the NHRC reported what the police wanted. The NHRC clearly stated that it spoke to the police, served its report, and jumped to conclusion. Shelving all bleeding questions and queries, it decided to thumb its nose to justice and the truth.

During the past 60 years, whenever any tyranny was perpetrated against Muslims, the Government, instead of meeting out justice to them and hanging the culprits to death, constituted only one commission, and the commission that does not aim at revealing the truth, instead it woks to hide it, and throw cold water on the annoyance and anger of Muslims.

Blackening the Truth.
Commissions of investigation are, in fact, toys given to Muslims to satiate them. Whether it is the Srikrishna Commission on Mumbai riots, or the Nanavati Commission on Gujarat riots or the Liberhan Commission constituted after the demolition of the Babri mosque, all these commissions worked for the same purpose, to sweep the truth under the carpet, save the killers, and by satiating Muslims, make them raise slogans for the murderers. All commissions constituted in the past were only for the sake of it. They superficially acted, but in the case of the Batla House, by putting all norms of justice and morality in backburner, shamelessly and without any qualm, blackened the truth. It did not even feel the need of making Muslims look satisfied.

The Government has understood that the annoyance of Muslims is like soap lather that subsides soon. Else, Muslims residing in Okhla would not have so enthusiastically voted for the Congress.

Until now, all had great reliance on the NHRC, particularly at the time when Justice Ranganath Mishra, who hails from Allahabad and is a former Supreme Court judge, heads the NHRC. None of its members is a Dalit or a minority. These are the communities whose human rights continue to be violated everywhere. Yet, the present Government had the cheek not to take any member of Dalits or minority into it. It appears that the federal Government has constituted the commission in such a way that instead of being a protector of human rights, it becomes a protector of murderers. Its term of reference is not to bring out the truth, but to throw the truth behind the curtain.

Some believe that NHRC is working under Delhi police pressure. Yet, it cannot be true. The NHRC has powers similar to that of the Supreme Court and, therefore, it cannot at all work under pressure of the Delhi police. The home ministry nominates its members and they work under its pressure. Certainly, there are some members on it who perform their duty honestly, sincerely, and responsibly. Yet, it is clear that in the Batla House case, it was under the home ministry's pressure. The home ministry and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh do not want that the truth of the Batla House and other similar encounters should come to public knowledge. They want that the lid on the truth should continue to be on and the mask of secularism that they have adorned continue to be there. Had it not been so, responsible NHRC members would have certainly attempted to reach the bottom of the truth.

Contradictory Statements
The NHRC office is hardly a 30-minute drive to the Batla House. Yet, it appears that the commission was aware from day one that it has to sweep the truth under the carpet. If the commission has been largely dependent on the police statements, it should have paid attention to the contradictory statements made by senior police officers. It should have made a reference to it in the report. Additional Police Commissioner R.B. Upadhyaya and Joint Police Commissioner Karnail Singh have made contradictory statements, which manifest that the police is certainly hiding something.

Additional Police Commissioner Upadhyaya has said in his report of 23 October 2008, "Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma of Sepcial Cell had entered along with his colleague into the L-18 building, Batla House, to arrest some suspected terrorists. While other members of the raiding team stayed behind to keep an eye on the building, the team knocked at the first floor house revealing their identity, but the door was not opened."

Joint Police Commissioner Karnail Singh submitted his report on 19 November 2008. He said that a police team led by Inspector Sharma reached the place of incident to arrest the culprits. A helping team wearing bulletproof jackets and armed with AK47 rifles was stationed at some distance. Inspector Sharma asked Sub-Inspector Dharmendra to enter the flat in the guise of a representative of a mobile company that had come to investigate about the phone number 9811004309. Dharmendra went up the staircase. He heard some voices in the flat, came down to tell Inspector Sharma, then the two of them went up to the flat.

There is a world of contradiction between these stories put up by the police. In Upadhyaya's report no mention of Dharmendra has been made. His report maintains that Sharma went up alone, leaving the team behind while Karnail's report says that he stationed two teams at some distance and went up.

It appears that the NHRC did not take the trouble to study postmortem reports of Atif and Sajid. Both of them were shot at from a close range. Atif received two bullets in his chest while Sajid received five. Three of which were on is forehead, one in the middle of the head and one on the shoulder. Experts say that only a sitting person can receive bullets in such a position and not a person who is standing. They were fired upon with the intention to kill. The NHRC report discusses the postmortem report of Inspector Sharma in detail, but has swept the contradiction in the postmortem reports of Atif and Sajid under the carpet.

Exploit Innocent Minorities
Instead of applying some balm on the wounds of Muslims, the NHRC is attempting to scratch them yet again. How long would the Union Government and Manmohan Singh continue to keep the lid on the truth? How long would they try to appease Muslims by giving them toys to play with? How long would the Congress Government continue to derive mileage from the opportunism indulged in by the Muslim leaders and exploit innocent Muslims.

The NHRC report has made it clear that the Government would no longer attempt to protect the minorities. If the minorities do not comprehend that they are being subjected to a game plan, a time would soon come when there would be none to raise his voice against the tyranny perpetrated against them.