A Delhi court has convicted suspected Indian Mujahideen terrorist Shahzad Ahmad for murdering a police inspector in the 2008 Batla House encounter.
Additional Sessions Judge Rajender Kumar Shastri said Shahzad is held guilty of attempting to cause death of Head Constables Balwant Singh and Rajbir Singh and causing death of Inspector M C Sharma by firing at them.
Sentencing will be pronounced on Monday.
The judge said Shahzad is also found guilty of assaulting police officers and obstructing them from doing their duty.
The encounter took place at a flat in Batla House in Jamia Nagar locality in Delhi on September 19, 2008. It happenned 6 days after serial bomb blasts rocked Delhi, killing 26 persons and injuring 133 others. Of the five occupants in the flat, Atif Ameen and Mohd Sajid were killed during the encounter.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who became Home Minister 2 months after the attack, said he felt the encounter was genuine. Talking to reporters today he said he was satisfied that the prosecution could prove the case in court. Chidambaram said the encounter took place before he assumed the charge as Union Home Minister and he personally went through the evidence and talked to investigators after one of his colleagues suggested that it might not be genuine.
Congress said all sections should accept the Delhi court verdict on Batla House encounter and guard against politicizing the issue so that the morale of police forces is not undermined. Party leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that judgement is based on facts and the encounter should not be politicized. When asked about questions raised by Digvijay Singh on the genuiness of the encounter in which a Delhi Police Inspector was killed, Singhvi said the Congress had been maintaining that his views should not be treated as the party line.
BJP has said that the Batala encounter verdict will go a long way in boosting the morale of security personnel fighting terror. Senior party leader, Ravi Shankar Prasad criticised Congress leaders for questioning the encounter.
