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