Batla House: an Encounter That Shook the Nation

September 2008: A series of ghastly bomb blasts shakes Delhi. Following investigations, a special cell of Delhi Police raids Flat no. 108 in Batla House. The instructions for the team were clear: Raid the flat and catch the suspected terrorists alive. What followed, however, was an encounter that stirred a political storm, instigated a witch-hunt, divided public opinion and remains a raging controversial topic in the media even today. Karnal Singh, the officer who spearheaded the operations in Batla House, narrates a mesmerizing minute-by-minute account of the chain of eventseading up to the encounter that shook the nation. Weaving together inputs by the Intelligence Bureau (IB), multiple strands of events in various Indian cities, theabyrinth of information byocal intelligence and informers, Singh creates an intriguing tale of an encounter that marked the beginning of the end of the obscure and dreaded Indian Mujahideen (IM).