Batla House: Some clarity after verdict

Thursday’s verdict by a Delhi court in the Batla House killing case of September 2008, which had created a national furore and led to allegations that innocent Muslim youth were being targeted by the country’s security establishment, at least establishes one thing — that the episode involving Indian Mujahideen desperadoes in which a police inspector of the Delhi police special cell was killed was not a fake encounter.

This is a common enough charge in security-related situations, and it is important to get this out of the way if we are not to lose perspective. There was little doubt that there was an exchange of fire with the police unit that went to take a look at the place following a tipoff. Normal households do not keep multiple firearms, and do not go about shooting at the police instead of answering questions. This had led to the conclusion in people’s minds about the presence of terrorists, and now this has been established by a judicial verdict after the examination of evidence as per laid down procedures. The court has also accepted that the terrorist module was that of the outfit that calls itself the Indian Mujahideen, and is nourished by elements across the border whose professional mission is to target India.
The court judgment has also held guilty the lone terrorist — a young man by the name of Shahzad Ahmed — to be apprehended in this case on the count of shooting dead the police inspector in question and injuring one of the colleagues of the deceased. Nevertheless, two questions are likely to give the defence some material to appeal to the high court against the sessions judgment — that the accused was not found in the flat from which the shooting ensued, and that the murder weapon remains traceless. The police says he jumped from balconies and vanished and was eventually traced in Azamgarh, his native place. Human rights activists may well argue that an innocent person has been picked up from a distant place and framed. The absence of the murder weapon, which the police claims the accused told them had been thrown into a canal, could also give the defence a platform for an appeal.
Thus, we may not have heard the last of this matter. There is, however, no ground for Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh to reiterate his demand for a judicial inquiry into the Batla House killings after the sessions court has spoken. In effect, this casts doubt on the fairness of the verdict. A court verdict can be appealed against, but nothing that is said should shake the people’s faith in the institution of the judiciary.