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

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

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