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CONTROVERSY
Facts, Fiction and the
Loudmouthed Amar Singh
By NEERAJ MAHAJAN
 LESS
THAN 80 days since the 22nd July trust vote— the honeymoon between the
Congress and the Samajwadi party seems to be getting over. But much
worse the manner in which Samajwadi Party's laud mouthed General
Secretary has of late been losing friends and making enemies makes one
wonder what the real intensions are.
Amar Singh dropped a virtual
bomb-shell recently when on a recent visit to Azamgarh, he demanded
Home Minister Shivraj Patil’s resignation on ‘moral grounds’ alleging
that the Batla house operation in which Delhi police Inspector Mohan
Chand Sharma lost his life was a fake encounter. This in itself was
such a serious allegation – that one would not expect a national level
politician to make that too without any facts or corroborative
evidence up his sleeve – especially in an age where everything that
happens is covered practically live on camera by some TV channel or
countered by sting operation by another.
Why then did Amar Singh make
such wild claims, without backing them up with substantial facts, is
anybody's guess. Was it a game of shadow-boxing, just to impress his
party's Muslim vote-bank, who knows? It's a fact that the Muslim
community which constitutes a sizable chunk of the Samajwadi Party's
traditional vote bank, has been disillusioned with “Maulana” Mulayam
Singh for quite some time. Their shifting loyalty towards the BSP camp
was in a way instrumental in Mayawati's elephant-ride to power in the
State in the last elections. But even that political compulsion to win
over the Muslim votes, does not explain why Amar Singh had to go to
such extremes as to cast aspersions on such a widely publicized
anti-terrorist operation.
Meanwhile let's take a look
at the impact of his comments. Amar Singh’s contention that if the
Batla house encounter was in fact proved to be fake, he would not only
provide legal support to the accused but his party would withdraw
support, directly hurt the Congress and home minister Shivraj Patil.
Strangely even the BJP official spokesperson addressed a press
conference to condemn Amar Singh for trying to play politics with
anti-terrorist operations. And above all the reaction from the slain
inspector's family which retaliated by returning the Rs 10 Lakh cheque
from Amar Singh’s party too was more or less on the expected lines.
But what many people all
over the country do not know is that Amar Singh won himself some
enemies in the UP police as well. “The UP DGP Vikram Singh and ADGP
Brij Lal wanted to get me killed. Though I have Z plus security cover,
there is no arrangement of my security in the state”, Singh said while
addressing a rally in the state.
Getting back to Amar Singh’s
claims – let’s try to analyze his charges one by one. Amar Singh's
primary assumption is that the Batla House operation was a fake.
Though Amar Singh does not go into specifics but somehow he is trying
to cast a doubt that Inspector Sharma could have been killed by a
police bullet. This is a very serious allegation, if it is proved to
be true. But strangely Amar Singh is not forthcoming with facts to
support his claim.
Independent investigations
by THE VERDICT reveal that while it is difficult to explain why a
person of Inspector Sharma experience was not wearing a bullet proof
vest, there is hardly any evidence to suggest that Sharma had been
killed by one of his own colleagues. Surely it was not an operation
that was planned in a jiffy and one of the primary requirement in such
operations besides human and signal intelligence, cordoning the area
and blocking all entry and exits -- is to check whether one’s personal
weapons are loaded and defensive tactics have been followed. So bullet
proof jacket for all the frontal attack team members should have been
mandatory. Why then Inspector Sharma was not wearing one that too when
quite of few other jawans were wearing on the same location? This is
one question which the Delhi police has not been able to answer
satisfactorily. May be it was just carelessness but when such acts
give an excuse to politicians like Amar Singh to raise doubts, you
have to be careful.
Even if for a moment we keep
aside Inspector Sharma’s family’s strong reactions to this statement,
the consequences, if it is proved that Sharma was not killed by the
terrorists are that he was simply murdered and hence not the hero he
is made out to be. This might also have a bearing on the various ex-gratia
payments received by his family, his pension and compensatory job
offered to his wife by the Delhi police.
Another charge by Amar Singh
is that when Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma had been transferred from
the Special Cell, three days prior to the operation, how could he lead
the operation? Well this seems to be one point where Amar Singh is
close to truth but not close enough. For instance investigations
reveal that Inspector Sharma was in fact in the process of being
transferred to Police Training School, Jharoda Kalan but then he had
not been relieved from the Special Cell. So there is no question of
any administrative lacunae here. Again according to senior police
officers even if he was transferred, does not make a difference as he
was very much on the muster rolls of the Delhi police and the
Commissioner of Police can any time call any officer and assign him a
responsibility outside the jurisdiction of his posting, more so in
such a sensitive case.
Well the ball is now in Amar
Singh’s court… either he proves what he has alleged or else he might
be exposed as the biggest liar…
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