Unlike other top police officers, A A Khan spoke boldly --- be it while defending 'encounters' in many of which he was involved, or in tracing the cause of the ghastly Radhabai Chawl incident, recalls Jyoti Punwani. Encounters were useful, he said, because hardened criminals who were targeted were beyond reform and no good for society.
The hearing relates to a 1993 raid on a Mumbai bakery, which left 8 unarmed Muslims dead, none of whom had a criminal record. Justice Srikrishna had described the incident as 'not becoming of the police force of any civilised, democratic State.'
'The Babri Masjid wasn't just a mosque, it was a test of our secularism,' says Jyoti Punwani.