Why You Should Watch 'Batla House' As A Work Of Fiction. Facts Can Be Discussed Separately

Can a story ¡°inspired by true events¡± be so untrue? This was the first thought while watching the movie ¡®Batla House¡¯. If anyone asks you whether a dead person can raise the slogan ¡®Murdabad¡¯, your answer would be a big No, but this movie makes this impossible quite possible.

Released on August 15, 2008, the Independence Day of India, this film claims to bring to the forth certain facts about the events that led to the martyrdom of Delhi Police's special cell officer Mohan Chand Sharma besides two 'terrorists' in southeast Delhi, on September 19, 2008.

However, there remain several debatable things that are made to be the part of the film on very flimsy grounds.

Stereotyping of Muslims

It appears that the research team of this film never took the pain of visiting the Batla House area where the encounter took place. This film goes a step ahead in stereotyping Muslims by not only showing the green flags with stars and moons in the area to depict the set up of Batla House but also inserts a scene where an announcement is made from the loudspeaker that there is an iftar party at 6.40 pm and all are invited. If you have any single Muslim friend, you would no that people are never invited for Iftar on loudspeakers while they are fasting.

Since the film is entirely based on the police file, as told to the court, it moves in exactly the same direction. It somehow ignores to portray what police went through during the real event.

Too much 'directorial liberty'

In the real encounter, Inspector Mohanchand Sharma, with the help of two policemen, walked to some distance and then reached the car. But the film gives him much convenience that the car is called for K K Verma (Ravi Kishan) right up to L-18, the building where the encounter took place .

Media is shown questioning the encounter, whereas, when the encounter took place, most of the Indian media trusted and published the version shared by the security agencies and Delhi police.

The film constantly shows that loudspeakers were being used to mobilise the crowd, but in reality, nothing like this happened. In fact, it was the police officers along with some responsible locals who used the loud speakers to tell people to move away from the site of the encounter.

It is interesting to note that the film talks about the post-mortem report of both the 'terrorists' killed during the debate in the court, but there is no discussion on the post-mortem report of martyred inspector K.K. Varma in the movie.

The film revolves more around Sanjay Kumar (John Abraham playing police officer Sanjeev Yadav).

While the film director claimed in the court that the film showed the same facts which are present in the public domain, it is important to note that the post-mortem report of Inspector Sharma is also present in the public domain.

In one scene, the film talks about the judicial probe of the Batla House encounter, while the truth is that it never happened.

The film claims Dilshad to be a terrorist right from the beginning. The names of both the absconders are also known. While this is not the case in the real story.

Inaccurate reference of political parties

Interestingly, the film tries to show that on the first anniversary of Batla House, Dilshad organized some programs as well. Suddenly Sanjay Kumar reaches there, catches him, manages to put him in the car but the people of Ekta Party take him away.

The trap is then laid to catch him. Dilshad goes to Nepal from Pilibhit, and the Government of Nepal hands over Dilshad to the Delhi Police. Then there is a whole movement against Dilshad¡¯s arrest. The whole story is far away from reality.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has also been dragged to show the politics on the encounter. While the truth is that Arvind Kejriwal was neither a leader nor his party was formed at that time, nor was any statement in the public domain before the first anniversary of the encounter.

It is interesting that the film is giving much attention to Ekta Dal, a political party which is very influential in Nizampur. A scene in the movie shows that the then government of UP was supporting Muslims for vote bank.

This Nizampur of the film is nothing but Azamgarh. And the film promotes the stereotype that it is impossible to catch a criminal from a ¡®Muslim¡¯ area as the public gherao him when his heroism catches Dilshad.

The film speaks only of the slain Adil Amin, Shariq and Tufail caught from the spot, as well as the boy arrested and absconded from the studio of a News channel and Dilshad, while there is no mention about the arrests of his father Ziaur Rahman, Abdur Rahman, Atif, Shakeel, Saqib Nisar and many more.

The disclaimer flashes at the beginning of the film following the order of the court that 'this film is inspired by Delhi Police and the events that are reported or otherwise available in the public domain. It is not a documentary and is not intended to accurately reflect those incidents that may have occurred. Certain characters, institutions, and events are fictional and have been used for cinematic reasons¡­ ¡¯

But the truth is that people have been associating this film since the beginning with the real incident of Batla House encounter. Since the time of the release of the trailer of this film, it has been claiming that the film is based on the true incident. Some characters in the film are named after their real names. Some original photographs of Protest have also been used.

Film Directors have freedom of creativity. For presenting the story in an effective way, they can make changes but since the film Batla House is based on a highly sensitive issue, the tampering with facts with loaded biases cannot be ignored.

The writer is a New Delhi-based freelance contributor. He was recently awarded Karamveer Global Fellowship and Sahapedia UNESCO fellowship to conduct research on Indian culture. The views expressed here do not reflect the editorial policy of Indiatimes.