Author: Sobhana K
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: October 5 2008
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/those-who-doubt-jamia-shootout-wont-believe-it-even-if-10-of-us-die-.../369544/
On bed number 3, on the 7th floor of the Jai
Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Centre at AIIMS, sits head constable Balwant Rana,
his head propped against pillows and his bed strewn with newspapers.
Rana, the head constable who was injured in
the Delhi encounter in which Inspector M.C Sharma died, has been here since
the Jamia Nagar incident on September 19. Doctors have told Rana that he would
be discharged on Monday. (He refused to be photographed for security reasons.)
Rana's right arm is still in a cast. A blue
curtain separates his bed in the general ward from others. In front of him
are newspapers and a laptop, which, he says, he uses to read the news of the
Terror arrests.
Rana said he wouldn't speak about the encounter
without permission from seniors but added: "Those who don't want to believe
the encounter was real will not believe even if 10 of us die. It was just
fate that M.C. Sharma did not survive." Rana had worked with Inspector
Sharma for the last three-and-a-half years.
He complains of a searing pain in his right
arm, saying he couldn't sleep a wink last night. The bullet that pierced his
right arm shattered his bones. "We had to remove the fragments and graft
a bone from his pelvic bone," said Vijay Sharma, Assistant Professor,
Department of Orthopaedics, AIIMS Trauma Centre. "His sutures have been
removed and he is progressing well. We will discharge him with a plaster on
Monday."
Rana's wife and two children, four-year-old
Madhav and 11-year-old Varsha, have gone back to their village in Bulandsheher.
Rana will join them after his discharge.
Rana joined Delhi Police in 1996 as a constable
with the 4th Battalion and was posted at Kingsway Camp police station.
SP seeks judicial probe into encounter
The Samajwadi Party has demanded a judicial
probe into the September 19 Jamia Nagar encounter in New Delhi. SP General
Secretary Amar Singh, who visited Jamia Nagar on Saturday, also said the SP
would "rethink" its support to the UPA Government if the inquiry
found the accused youths to be innocent. Incidentally, soon after the encounter,
the SP had disassociated itself from Shadab Ahmed, the party vice-president
of Azamgarh and father of Saif who was arrested in the Jamia encounter.