Abdul Bari Masoud
New Delhi: Prominent Muslim organizations and rights bodies on Tuesday have demanded judicial inquiry into the Bhopal ‘encounter’ of eight under trial prisoners as what they called it ‘fake encounter killing has become a policy of Indian government’.
Voicing grave concern over the killing of eight SIMI under trial activists by the police in Bhopal, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) has demanded a high level enquiry under the supervision of the Supreme Court to bring out all the facts about the jail break and the encounter.
Muhammad Salim Engineer, Secretary General JIH said media reports suggest it was a fake encounter as there are contradictory statements from officials over the encounter.
“According to the lawyer of the accused the case against his clients was very weak and there was every likelihood that they would be acquitted soon. If this was the case then they had no reason to escape from prison. The whole incident bears a deep resemblance to the custodial deaths of Khalid Mujahid, Qateel Siddiqui and Mohammed Waqas”, he added.
All India Milli Council the government must clear the doubts and questions raised over the encounter. Milli Council general secretary Dr Manzoor Alam said the entire episode raises a lot of uncomfortable questions like: Was it possible for the accused to scale over 30 feet high wall of the most secure jail in MP? How could they lay hands on weapons? Why are there contradictory statements from officials over whether prisoners had weapons or not. How they got new clothes, watches and bands? If they had connections to get weapons, why couldn’t they get a vehicle to escape? Why no policeman was injured in the ‘encounter’? Why were the CCTVs not functioning? How all of them moved together rather than dispersing and couldn’t go further in eight hours”?
Welfare Party also said the whole episode put question mark on the Police version. Party president Dr SQ R Ilyas has alleged that the encounter is carried out with the aim of diverting attention of public from the BJP-led Central and Madhya Pradesh government’s failure. He demanded that the high level inquiry of the encounter and asked the civil society and political groups to put pressure on the government for initiating a fair probe to bring out truth to the fore.
Another political outfit Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) also reacted sharply to the encounter demanding the resignation of Madhya Pradesh Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Party president A Sayeed said it was a ‘cold-blooded murder’ carried out after a meticulous planning.
Rights body, Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee said there are no words to condemn this brutality and inhuman act done by the Police Lateef Mohammed Khan, General Secretary said “after seeing the Bhopal fake encounter killing and the cruelty of the police personnel backed by the state government it is clear that killing under trial Muslim prisoners in the name of “encounter” has become the policy of the BJP government.
He said their trial was near to completion and they had chances of acquittal from the court, but the state did not want them to be acquitted so they chose them, made plans, scripted and staged drama, killed and then named it as encounter..
He recalled the Aler encounter in Telangana last year by the TRS government and the same has been repeated in Bhopal. It is a matter of great concern that the under trial Muslim prisoners are not even safe in Indian jails. In the present era of BJP’s Hindutva government, the sword of encounter always hangs over them.
Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee appeals to the Chief Justice of India to take suo motu action under section 302 of IPC against the security personnel who are involved and the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh without whose approval this encounter killing would not have taken place.
It seems our country is gradually transforming into the then Germany during the WW2 under the present Hindutva political leadership.