Ulama Council activists demand CBI probe into Batla House encounter

New Delhi, Sep 19 (ANI): Muslim clerics belonging to the Rashtriya Ulama Council led a demonstration here demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the Batla House encounter on its third anniversary on Monday.

Clerics attending the protest demanded an independent judicial probe into the incident.

"We have been following the investigation for a few years now, and are demonstrating here to mark the third anniversary of the shootout. We want the government to accept our demands. If it does not, the government will have to suffer throughout the country," said Mohammed Tahir Madani, the General Secretary of the Rashtriya Ulama Council.

Madani said that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) should do the investigation in a time-bound manner under judicial supervision.

"Whenever there is an encounter, it is investigated. In this case, there has neither been a magisterial or a judicial enquiry. The circumstances of the encounter, the post-mortem report is all suspicious. We demand that the case be investigated by the CBI in a time-bound manner, under the supervision of a sitting Judge of the Supreme Court, so that the country can know the truth behind the case," he said.

The agitators also accused the ruling Congress Party of adopting a two-faced approach to the situation.

"The Congress has a two-faced policy of getting statements issued by party members, and later disowning them as personal opinions. But the Congress can no longer fool the Muslims of this country," said a demonstrating cleric.

The demonstrators said that Monday's protest was symbolic and if the government did not accede to their demands, they would make sure it would suffer in the general elections to be held in 2014.

Batla House encounter officially known as Operation Batla House, took place on September 19, 2008, against suspected Indian Mujahideen (IM) terrorists in Batla House locality in Jamia Nagar, Delhi, in which two suspected terrorist, Atif Amin and Mohamed Sajid, two other suspects Mohd Saif and Zeeshan were arrested, while one accused Ariz Khan managed to escape.

Encounter specialist and Delhi Police inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, who led the police action was also killed during the incident.

The shootout was questioned widely, with the Central Government being accused of killing two innocent people in order to seem pro-active in its fight against militancy. (ANI)