A Delhi court on Monday found Ariz Khan and his coconspirators guilty of murdering inspector Mohan Chand Sharma in the Batla House encounter in the national capital in September 2008. Khan, 35, was apprehended by the city police’s Special Cell in February 2018 after being on the move for ten years.
The opposition parties have been slammed by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) for criticizing the Delhi Police over the 2008 Batla House encounter. Ravi Shankar Prasad, addressing the media here, praised a Delhi court’s decision in a case involving the 2008 Batla House encounter. The BJP called on Opposition parties, including the Congress and the Trinamool Congress, to apologies for casting doubt on the 2008 Batla House case.
“In the matter of security of the country and the fight of terrorism, the parties of the Congress and the opposition stood in favor of the terrorists and questioned the police’s action in the horrific terror attack in Delhi,” he said. “The court has held Ariz Khan guilty in yesterday’s verdict,” Prasad stated.
“There was a conscious, deliberate and consistent attempt to cast serious doubt on the authenticity of the Batla House encounter to weaken the morale of Delhi Police and give clear support to terrorists and their designs. Why? For pure vote bank politics,” Prasad said.
Prasad also noted that Banerjee had described the encounter as ‘fake’ and had sought a judicial probe, claiming that she will quit politics if proven wrong. The Samajwadi Party, AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal and the Left had echoed similar views, he said.
Inspector Sharma of the Delhi Police’s Special Cell was killed in the shootout, which occurred a week after five serial bombings struck the national capital on September 13, 2008, killing at least 30 people and injuring over 100 others. Two terrorists were killed, and two others managed to flee.
Teachers and students at Jamia Millia Islamia University organized protest rallies following the experience on September 19, 2008. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), which investigated the case at the request of the Delhi High Court, granted the Delhi Police a clean bill of health.
The decision is significant because Congress leader Digvijaya Singh has expressed concerns about the police version of the encounter, and the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have both requested a judicial investigation.
On March 15, the court will hear arguments about the sentence’s severity. Ariz Khan faces capital punishment as a mandatory penalty, with a life term as a minimum penalty for murder. After a decade on the lam, he was apprehended on February 14, 2018.
