Alair Encounter: Legal Action Against Media Houses?

The Tahreek Muslim Shabban (TMS) has decided to approach the High Court against the Telangana government and some leading media houses of Hyderabad for calling the undertrials who were killed in the Alair encounter, "terrorists".

In a media statement, TMS President Mohammed Mushtaq Mallik condemned the use of the prefixes "ugrawadi" and "terrorist" by some media houses and news channels while mentioning the names of the five Muslim youth who were killed in the encounter.

He said that although all five of them were facing serious charges, none of them had been convicted by a court of law on terror charges.

He said that it was against the rules of journalism to brand someone a "terrorist" without having any proof. However, some media houses, especially the Telugu media, had been using the term "terrorist" indiscriminately against the Muslim youth. Therefore, all of those houses had to prove the charges or face legal action, he said.

Mushtaq Mallik alleged that some vernacular newspapers were trying to link the entire Muslim community and its leaders with terrorist organisations. He said that the Indian Muslims neither supported any kind of terror activities, nor did they show any sympathy towards terrorists.

Mushtaq Mallik, who also heads the Telangana Muslim Joint Action Committee, accused the state government of behaving in an irresponsible manner. The GO Ms No 184 issued by Chief Secretary Dr Rajiv Sharma on April 13 ordering a probe through a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the encounter had also addressed the undertrials as "terror operatives", he said. He said that the state government should issue a modified GO by replacing the word "terror operatives" with "undertrials" or at least "suspects" or "accused". Else, he said legal action would also be taken against the state government.

He said that the SIT, headed by IPS officer Sandeep Shandilya, was not expected to conduct a fair probe as it was Shandilya who had submitted a wrong and misleading report to the state government on the Mecca Masjid firing incident of May 2007.

"As the then DCP of South Zone, Sandeep Shandilya prepared two separate reports - one on the bomb blast in Mecca Masjid and another on the police firing - wherein he misled the government. While one of his reports described the bomb blast at Mecca Masjid as the result of infighting among Muslim groups, another report justified the police firing on the youth who protested against the bomb blast. Later, it was proved that the bomb blast at Mecca Masjid was done by right-wing extremists, while the Bhaskar Rao Commission report on police firing is yet to be made public," he said.

Therefore, Mushtaq Mallik reiterated the demand that the Alair encounter probe be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation. (INN)