On September 19, 2008, a week after serial blasts tore through the capital, police stormed into a house in Batla House locality searching for terrorists. What followed has been written into contemporary history as the ‘Batla House encounter’ that polarised the city, caused a media frenzy and was even cinematically recreated in Bollywood.
On Monday, the much-debated Batla House gunbattle in which one Delhi Police officer lost his life, two of his colleagues injured and two terrorists were killed was back in focus with a court convicting alleged Indian Mujahideen (IM) member Ariz Khan. Khan, who was arrested on February 14, 2018, after being on the run for a decade, was held guilty for the murder of inspector Mohan Chand Sharma of Delhi Police's Special Cell and other offences in connection with the encounter.
He faces a maximum punishment of death while the minimum sentence is life imprisonment. The case stirred a political storm, raised questions from rights activists on the actions of Special Cell officers, divided public opinion and became a raging controversial topic in the media that continues to date.
Here is a timeline of the Batla House encounter case: