It was the 17th day of Ramzan and most people at Batla House in Jamia Nagar, South Delhi, had gone off to sleep after the morning prayers on September 19 last year. Somewhere, in one of the numerous narrow lanes in the locality, a shot rang out. Then, gunshots followed each other — smoke rose from flat number L-18 in Batla House, bodies were brought out, and people arrested from inside. Suddenly, L-18 became the centre of Batla House and Batla, a clustered neighbourhood near Jamia Millia Islamia, suddenly came on the radar.

One year after the encounter, the eerie silence that followed the gunshots still lingers.

Even after the National Human Rights Commission said the encounter that came six days after the serial blasts in the Capital was genuine and the High Court ruled against ordering a magisterial inquiry, locals still feel the encounter was fake.

For Aamir Khan, 27, born and brought up in Batla House, something changed forever. While his mother would not let him and his brothers leave home after evening, on the other hand, the dissent against the state deepened within him. “It made everyone suspicious of the police and the government,” he says. “We were scared that this can happen again.”

Post-encounter, he says, the residents “started feeling they were on their own”.

Referring to those arrested on charges of conspiracy in the September 13, 2008 serial blasts, Khan says, “We don’t say they were not militants but why isn’t a judicial inquiry being held?”

... contd.