7 Nov 2002
ANSAL ENCOUNTER
OR DOCTOR'S BLUFF?
From Our Delhi Bureau
NEW
DELHI: The Home Ministry has ordered an inquiry into the Police
killing of two alleged terrorists in the Ansal Plaza shopping complex
basement parking here Sunday evening in the wake of the National
Human Rights Commission (NHRC) asking Delhi Police to file a detailed
report on the encounter.
Despite a report received from the
Special Cell of Delhi Police on Wednesday, the Ministry decided to
conduct the inquiry as NHRC chairman Justice J S Verma reportedly
telephoned Union Home Secretary N Gopalaswami to point out that a
"fake encounter" and that too in the capital would be a
very serious matter if true as alleged in a complaint to him.
The
NHRC had issued notice to Delhi Police on Wednesday to explain the
killings on the basis of a complaint by senior journalists Kuldip
Nayar and Prafull Bidwai who quoted the newspaper reports of an
eyewitness Dr Hari Krishna stating that the killed persons had no
weapons and there was no encounter but firing only from one
side.
The doctor has not gone missing as alleged by these
journalists resulting in the NHRC also directing Delhi Police to
provide him full protection. He has actually left for Australia on a
private visit scheduled prior to the Ansal Plaza shootout.
The
Intelligence officials were, however, able to corner the doctor
before he took off for Australia to know more about what all he saw
besides his "eye-witness account" already published in a
section of Press. The Home Ministry sources said Dr Krishna feigned
ignorance and pleaded that he was in the area but did not see the
actual incident. He claimed he was "compelled to speak like that
by reporters," the sources said.
Maybe the doctor is a
"mental case" or has been bluffing to gain instant
publicity, the sources said, pointing out that he had also claimed on
the basis of two women passengers of an Indian Airlines flight that
was hijacked to Kandahar in Afghanistan that all the women passengers
aboard were raped by the three hijackers.
Had the rape really
taken place, it would not have secret for so many years particularly
when there were so many passengers on the flight and this itself
should put a question mark on the so-called eye-witness account of a
deranged doctor, the sources added. END