Release Batla encounter victims’ autopsy reports: CIC to AIIMS

By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net

New Delhi: The Central Information Commission (CIC) has directed the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to hand autopsy reports of the Batla House encounter victims over to an RTI applicant. The victims include two Delhi serial blasts suspects and a police officer.
In its June 9 hearing on the application of Afroz Alam Sahil, a mass communication student of Jamia Millia Islamia, the CIC decided to ask India’s premier hospital AIIMS – where the autopsy was conducted on blasts suspects Mohammed Atif Amin and Sajid, and Delhi Police Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma – to release the autopsy reports and provide relevant information sought by the RTI applicant Sahil. In the encounter that took place at House No. L-18 on September 19, 2008 the two suspects hailing from Azamgarh were killed and Inspector Sharma sustained bullet injuries which he later succumbed to.
A few months back the Delhi High Court had stayed a similar CIC order on the ground that it will hamper investigation.
“I had sought to know how many people from the L-18 on that day were brought to the AIIMS for autopsy. My second query was: who were the bodies of the suspected terrorists handed over – their family or police. I had also sought the autopsy report,” said Sahil talking to TwoCircles.net. he was the first to move the Delhi Police and AIIMS seeking FIR copy and autopsy report. He filed his first application on September 25, 2008, which was not answered by the police and rejected by the AIIMS.
Following the recent CIC order Sahil has got a letter from AIIMS on July 2 wherein the authority of the hospital has ordered its Public Information Officer to provide the applicant with the autopsy report and information regarding his queries.
“I also wanted to know as to who conducted the autopsy and who prepared the report. But this information was denied to me both by the CIC and the hospitals citing security reasons,” adds Sahil.
RTI activist Sahil has been working on social and political issues for some years. He spends his own pocket money on RTI processes. Very recently he rejected award nomination proposals from an NGO. “I am not doing all these for awards,” says humble Sahil in early twenties.