Beyond Headlines Team
From the day one local community and activists had termed the Batla House Encounter as fake. In the response to an RTI filed by Afroz Alam Sahil of Beyond Headlines, the NHRC had provided the post mortem reports of Atif, Sajid and Inspector MC Sharma. These post mortem reports had created shockwaves around the country vindicating the claims of the parents of Atif and Sajeed, the local community and the activists.
Meanwhile, the NHRC in its ‘enquiry’ extensively cited the postmortem report of Inspector Sharma to prove that he had been fired upon by alleged terrorists. The wounds suffered by the slain police officer were provided with great detail such as the places in the body where bullet injuries were found, their impact, ‘entry and exit points’ etc. Even the injury suffered in the arm by injured Constable Balwant Singh carried all this information but the same treatment is curiously absent in the case of Atif and Sajid, the slain ‘terrorists’. This is surely intriguing because the post mortem report mentions quite clearly that:
- Atif Ameen sustained injuries on right knee cap (injury number 7); grazing effects in the interscapular region or back region in layperson’s terms (injury number 11), multiple abrasions on right buttock (injury number 21). See attached photo of Atif’s back and leg which clearly illustrate these injuries. It is further explicitly stated that injury number 7 was “produced by blunt force impact by object or surface.”
The gun shot injuries received by Atif are as follows:
Gunshot Wounds (Entry) on the Body of Atif Ameen
| Gun shot Wound No. (as In the report) | Size | Area |
| 14 | 1 cm diameter, cavity deep | left side back |
| 9 | 2X1 cm, cavity deep having 1 cm abrasion collar | Left side back of chest |
| 13 | 3×1 cm cavity deep with abrasion collar of 9.2 cm | Over midline at back, 30 cm below the nape of neck |
| 8 | 1.5 x1 cm x cavity deep | Right scapular region, 10 cm from midline and 7 cm below tip of right shoulder |
| 15 | 0.5 cm diameter Xcavity deep | Lower back midline, 44 cm below nape of neck |
| 6 | 1.5 X1 cm oval in shape | Inner aspect of left thigh (track going upward), communicating with gsw injury no. 20 at left buttock region from where a metallic object is recovered. The GSW 20 is cited as of unusually large size of 5×2.2 cm |
| 10 | 1×0.5 cm | 5 cm below right shoulder tip & 14cm below midline |
| 11 | 1×0.5 cm | Inter scapular region, 4cm right to midline |
| 12 | 2×1.5 cm | Right side back, 15 cm from midline, 29 cm below tip of te right shoulder |
| 16 | 1 cm diameter | Outer and back aspect of right forearm |
- Almost (8 out of 10) all the entry wounds on the body of Atif Ameen are on the back side, in the region below the shoulders and at the back of the chest, which point to the fact that he was repeatedly shot from behind.
- Another one (no.6 on the table) is on the inner side of the left thigh but suspiciously, the trajectory of the shot is in the upward direction, thus suggesting that in this case the shot was fired from below. What caused the unusually large wound of 5 x 2.2 cm? Why were metallic objects present in the left thigh?
2) 17-year-old Md Sajid also displayed at least two injuries (numbers 13 and 14, interscapular region and right leg), which had been caused by blunt force impact by object or surface.” The gunshot injuries received by Sajid are as follows:
| Gun shot Wound no. 1 | Right frontal region of the scalp (forehead) |
| Gun shot Wound no. 2 | Right forehead |
| Gun shot Wound no. 5 | Tip of right shoulder (going vertically downwards) |
| Gun shot Wound no. 8 | Back of left side chest (12 cm from root of neck) |
| Gun shot Wound no. 10 | Left side of occiput (in layperson’s term, back portion of the head) |
The entry points of each of these gunshot wounds—and the fact that all but one bullet is travelling in a downward direction—strongly suggests that he was held down by force (which also explain the injuries on the back and leg region), while bullets were pumped down his forehead, back and head.
In which genuine cross fire do people receive injuries only in the back and head region??
The all-important question is at why the NHRC deliberately ignored this incriminating and suggestive evidence? In its refusal to pursue any contrary line of investigation, it has proved itself to be in collusion with the Delhi Police, discarding even the minimum pretence of impartiality.
(The BH Team thanks Manisha Sethi, President of JTSA for her analysis of the post-mortem reports. This article reproduces major sections of her earlier analysis. This article is published to cater to the increasing demand for information on the pos-mortem report.)
