Who forced Minority Commission to dissolve its enquiry panel on Batla?

By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net

One and half months after the Batla House encounter, the Delhi Minority Commission set up an enquiry committee to probe the shootout of September 19, 2008. The committee was to submit report within a month. The report is still elusive, and will remain so forever because the committee was dissolved soon after it was formed, and silently. Who forced the commission to do it? No one knows.

The Commission issued the order regarding constitution of a four-member Fact Finding Committee on November 5, 2008 to enquire into the police action in Batla House.

According to the official order, the terms and references of the fact finding team were the following:

a) To assess and analyses facts of the police action inside Flate No. L-18, 4TH Floor, Batla House.
b) To assess and analyse the action of the police subsequent to the police action.
c) To assess and analyse the communal atmosphere prevailing in the area.
d) To assess and analyse the current situation of communal harmony, peace and brotherhood.

The order also said: “This committee shall record the statements of the witnesses and immediate residents of the area individually, analyse them and hold further enquiries for corroboration/derogative of the statements. The committee shall also obtain the version of the Delhi Ploice.”

The Commission gave one-month time to the committee to submit its report: “The Fact Finding Committee shall submit its report within a month.”

The members of the committee were:

Mr. Maqsood Ahmed, Allama Rafiq Trust
Dr. D.K.Panday, DCVS,
Dr. Mahender Singh, Director, Bhai Veer Singh Sahitya Sadan
Rev. Manoj Malaki, The Aradhana Christian Welfare Society

Months passed and even a year and more, there was no report. The community and society also forgot about the minority panel’s fact finding team. Once again came up the 22-year-old ‘veteran’ RTI activist Afroz Alam Sahil. He had not forgotten the announcement of the constitution of the fact finding team. As he has been shown the door at every government agency whenever he approached them regarding facts about the bloody shootout of Batla House, he approached the Delhi Minority Commission hoping to get a copy of the report of its fact finding team.

Afroz filed an RTI petition with the Delhi Minority Commission on April 6, 2010. The reply he got on May 11, 2010 was a setback for this RTI ‘jihadist’ of Batla House post-mortem report fame.

“Minority Commission has not made any report in the Batla House case,” Afroz was told in reply to his question: If Delhi Minority Commission has prepared any report in Batla House encounter case. In reply to next seven questions related to the first one, the same first answer was referred.

A member of the Fact Finding Committee, who wanted to remain unnamed, has been quoted as saying: “The Delhi Minority Commission never seemed serious about the committee and we were never provided any resources. Further the Committee was soon dissolved.”

The question that needs reply is: Who asked the Delhi Minority Commission to set up such Fact Finding Committee in first place, and when it was constituted with high goal, who forced the Commission to dissolve it before it could prepare the report?
http://twocircles.net/2010may22/who_forced_minority_commission_dissolve_its_enquiry_panel_batla.html