[Reader-list] The Jamia Enounter: Looking for A Little Less Melodrama and A Lot more Forensics

Rahul Asthana rahul_capri at yahoo.com
Tue Sep 23 05:49:30 IST 2008


Dear Shuddha,
Some questions.

1. If suppose there was a third bullet,according to your theory,what do you think about the possible motive?You seem to indicate that he could be something of a whistle-blower.Is there any basis for this conjecture?
Also it seems highly improbable to me that someone took the risk of knocking him off when he was injured in such a high profile operation.It also seems highly improbable to me that anyone who fired the so called third shot did not finish him off,thereby taking the risk of being recognized.He was alive when he reached the hospital.I don't know whether he communicated with someone in the hospital.

2.Is it possible that he received first aid where he was shot,and thats why he was not bleeding on his way down the stairs?

3.Is it also possible that he might have been carried down the stairs by his colleagues but then found enough energy to walk to the vehicle,maybe for a photo-op?


Thanks
Rahul


--- On Mon, 9/22/08, Shuddhabrata Sengupta <shuddha at sarai.net> wrote:

> From: Shuddhabrata Sengupta <shuddha at sarai.net>
> Subject: [Reader-list] The Jamia Enounter: Looking for A Little Less Melodrama and A Lot more Forensics
> To: "sarai list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Date: Monday, September 22, 2008, 11:32 AM
> A Little Less Melodrama and a Lot More Forensics.
> On Looking at a Photograph taken on the Margins of an
> 'Encounter'.
> 
> (Apologies for Cross Posting on Kafila.org)
> 
> Yesterday's Hindustan TImes published an interesting
> photograph of  
> the late Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma of the Special Cell
> of the  
> Delhi Police, who was killed, allegedly during the course
> of the  
> recent 'encounter' at Jamia Nagar on the morning of
> Friday, the 19th  
> of September.
> 
> [ See 'Braveheart Falls', Page 3, Sunday Hindustan
> Times, 21  
> September, 2008 ]
> 
> < http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/ 
> ArticleImageEx.aspxarticle=21_09_2008_003_002_002&type=2&mode=1
> >
> 
> The page is headlined 'The Hunt for Terror' and
> while the other  
> photographs on the page (of the deceased policeman's
> grieving  
> relatives) are credited, this particular one is not.
> 
> A number of disturbing questions about this
> 'encounter' are gradually  
> beginning to make themselves known. I do not wish to repeat
> or  
> reiterate them in this posting  (though I feel that they
> need to be  
> carefully thought about). I just want to share my doubts
> about  
> particular thing that I can't but help noticing while
> looking at the  
> photograph.
> 
> The photograph shows an injured Mohan Chand Sharma walking,
> helped by  
> two men, presumably towards a vehicle that would be taking
> him to  
> hospital.
> 
> The man on his left is bulky, wears a black T Shirt with a
> red figure  
> of 8 on it. One of Sharma's arms is slung around his
> shoulder. The  
> man on his right is tall, balding, wears a blue patterned
> necktie and  
> a white shirt  (he is also seen on the TV footage from Holy
> Family  
> Hospital, where Sharma was taken). His shirt appears
> stained with  
> fresh blood on his left arm and in the chest area. He wears
> a bag  
> slung across his body.
> 
> Sharma seems to have lost one shoe, appears to be in some
> pain, and  
> clearly needs support as he walks. He is wearing an off
> white bush  
> shirt, over a white vest and has what looks like some
> strong blood  
> stains on his right arm (just below where the man on his
> right is  
> holding him) and some faint stains, (which could be small
> quantities  
> of blood, or could be stains from having brushed against a
> surface on  
> which there is blood) on his right abdomen area.
> 
> Since he is not on a stretcher of any kind, he appears to
> be in a  
> position where it is plausible that he walked down the four
> floors  
> from the site of the encounter at L-18 and is seen
> continuing to  
> walk. He is in pain, but his injuries, at least in this
> photograph,  
> do not appear to be life-threatening, at least not as yet.
> 
> Crucially, there do not seem to be any visible signs of
> excessive  
> blood loss. In serious bullet injuries, especially when
> they have  
> occurred at close range, there is every chance of immediate
> and large  
> scale blood loss. If he came down the stairs as he must
> have, we  
> would have seen a lot of blood on the stairs, had there
> been a lot of  
> bleeding. Having watched the video footage of the staircase
>  
> repeatedly and carefully on the day of the
> 'encounter' I clearly  
> recall that while the staircase was indeed
> 'spotted' with small  
> patches, skid marks and spots of what looked like blood,
> the amount  
> of blood did not suggest that a person who was bleeding
> heavily had  
> walked down, (or even had been carried down) four flights
> of stairs.
> 
> Reports of the autopsy conducted on Mohan Chand
> Sharma's body  
> indicate that he sustained two injuries -  in his right arm
> and in  
> his adbomen.
> 
> [ See - Autopsy Suggests Sharma died of 'excessive
> bleeding'
> by Teena Thacker
> Indian Express, Posted Online, September 21, 2008 at 0017
> hours ]
> 
> <
> http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/autopsy-suggests-sharma-
> 
> died-of-excessive-bleeding/363891/ >
> 
> But no bullets were found, either in X Ray or during the
> autopsy.  
> Suggesting that the bullets would have exited the body.
> This occurs  
> when a high velocity firearm is used at close range, such
> that the  
> force of the impact tears right through the body, causing
> the bullet  
> to be ejected out of the body through an 'exit
> wound'. If there are  
> exit wounds, they tend to be larger than entrance wounds,
> and they  
> are accompanied by profuse bleeding.
> 
> [ For a discussion of how bullet injuries impact on soft
> tissue in  
> human bodies see -
> "How a high speed bullet damages an organ'" -
> from 'Gun Shot  
> Wounds" (CRC Press, 1985) by Dr. Vincent J.M. DiMaio,
> Chief Medical  
> Examiner and Director of the Regional Crime Laboratory,
> County of  
> Vexar, San Antonio, Texas ]
> 
> <
> http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/scientific_topics/wound_ballistics/
> 
> How_a_high-speed.html >
> 
> Sharma died of excessive bleeding. The excessive bleeding
> seems not  
> to have begun at least till the time that this photograph
> was taken.  
> The photograph in the Hindustan Times is consistent with
> the  
> possibility of an injured arm, and the blood stains on his
> escorts  
> shirt also seem to be in consonance with what would happen
> if you  
> were helping a person who has been injured on his arm (or
> if the  
> blood has sprayed on to your shirt at close range from
> another  
> injured person).
> 
> The ground which the three figures are walking on is
> clearly visible  
> in the photograph, again, here too, we do not see the kind
> of marks  
> that should be visible if a severely injured and bleeding
> person were  
> to be walking.
> 
> If this is so, then some rather disturbing questions seem
> to begin to  
> raise their heads.
> 
> Was Sharma shot (at least one more time) after this
> photograph was  
> taken, and before he reached hospital? If so, who shot him?
> 
> The only people who can be said to be with him as he
> travelled from  
> the site of the encounter to the hospital were his other
> security  
> personnel. There were no armed 'terrorists' with
> him, around him, or  
> facing him, at this time.
> 
> While Mohan Chand Sharma's career may have been
> illuminated by  
> several decorations, there is no doubt that not unlike his
> deceased  
> mentor and colleauge, Rajbir Singh, he had, of late come
> under a bit  
> of a cloud. The decision to transfer him out of the Special
> Cell of  
> the Delhi Police to the Police Training College at Jharoda
> Kalan  
> (which has been interpreted as a punishment posting by
> some) is well  
> known. He was asked to stay on, or perhaps himself asked to
> stay on,  
> for this particular operation. It could have been a last
> attempt at  
> another touch of glory in a career that was beginning to
> lose its shine.
> 
> We may do well to remember that Mohan Chand Sharma's
> erstwhile mentor  
> and colleague,the late Rajbir Singh, too died in somewhat
> mysterious  
> circumstances,  apparently to do with his somewhat
> unsavoury sideline  
> as an extortionist and part of a real estate mafia racket
> (after  
> having a distinguished list of 'encounters' and
> 'investigations',  
> including the 13 December case, to his name).
> 
> WIth Rajbir Singh's and now Mohan Chand Sharma's
> deaths, two more  
> people who possibly knew a lot about say, the 13 December
> case are no  
> longer in the reckoning, and with a steady chorus mounting
> for the  
> execution of Afzal Guru, the day may not be far when no
> footsoldier  
> will be left alive to bear witness to what exactly happened
> on and  
> around the 13th of December, 2001 and several other less
> than  
> transparent episodes in the recent history of what passes
> as 'anti- 
> terrorist operations'.
> 
> While today, Mohan Chand Sharma may be commemorated as a
> 'hero', as  
> 'braveheart', as a 'martyr' a dispassionate
> look at his rise may  
> actually reveal different shades. The possibility, that for
> many  
> people within the deep structures of the security
> establishment, his  
> 'neutralization' may not be an altogether
> inconvenient thing, cannot  
> be ruled out.
> 
> Incidentally, Mohan Chand Sharma's funeral was attended
> amongst  
> others by Sachin Vaze and Pradeep Sharma, both top
> encounter killings  
> of the Mumbai police, M.C. Sharma's friends, and both
> currently  
> undergoing suspension, Vaze because of a case of custodiald
> death  
> involving him, and Pradeep Sharma, because of suspected
> links to the  
> Mumbai underworld.
> 
> [ See Tarnished Cops Seek Meaning in Sharma's Death by
> Vikas  
> Shrivastav and Vivek Sinha, Mumbai Mirror, Posted on
> September 21,  
> 2008 ]
> 
> < http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.aspx? 
> page=article&sectid=15&contentid=20080921200809210351171019ca733b6
> >
> 
> Mohan Chand Sharma may have died a violent death, and every
> violent  
> death (including possibly many of those that he may himself
> have  
> authored in his career) is tragic and must be mourned.
> However, much  
> of what he did, or was made to do, or became habituated to
> doing, and  
> all that he represented, still needs to be accounted for.
> His last  
> few hours need accounting for. The 'Jamia
> Encounter' and its link to  
> the Delhi, Gujarat, Jaipur, Bangalore and Varanasi bomb
> blasts  
> doesn't quite look like the open and shut case it is
> being made out  
> to be on prime time television. By Sunday evening, a
> channel called  
> India TV, (famous for predicting apocalypse on a daily
> basis) ran a  
> dramatized 'reconstruction' with the theme of a 13
> headed monster  
> terrorist cell, within two days of Friday's events.
> Times Now,  
> another channel, kept saying that they had
> 'Exclusive' Photographs of  
> the so called 'Terrorists' at the sites in which
> they had planted the  
> bombs. What they showed us were black and white close ups
> of smiling  
> young men. The photographs did not in any way indicate
> 'where' these  
> men happened to be located.
> 
> Perhaps we need a little less melodrama, and a lot more
> forensics.  
> That could help us understand what exactly happened at
> Jamia Nagar  
> last Friday, and what is actually going on in the name of
> the 'war on  
> terror' in this country today.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In a
> 
> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
> The Sarai Programme at CSDS
> Raqs Media Collective
> shuddha at sarai.net
> www.sarai.net
> www.raqsmediacollective.net
> 
> 
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