New Delhi: Scores of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers and volunteers on Monday staged a protest outside Congress president Sonia Gandhi's New Delhi residence over the party's statement on Batla House encounter case.
Last week, Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh had stoked a controversy after he dubbed the 2008 Batla House encounter as 'fake' and asked the government in Centre to order a judicial probe into the 2008 encounter in which two suspected terrorists and a police officer were killed.
"Batla House encounter was fake. I dare the BJP to go for a judicial probe. I still stand by my remarks on the encounter. I don't know who is Bada Sajid or Chhota Sajid," Singh had said.
However, a day later, Shivraj Patil, the then Union Minister under UPA government, rejected Digvijay's claim and asserted that the 2008 Batla shoot-out was genuine and not 'fake'. "I have said in past, that encounter wasn't fake. If someone says something otherwise, then it's his responsibility to prove it,” Patil told media.
The encounter, which had taken place during the former UPA regime, recently came into news amid a claim by an alleged ISIS operative that he had fled Batla House right before the police raided it.
Batla House encounter, officially known as Operation Batla House, took place on September 19, 2008, against Indian Mujahideen (IM) terrorists in Batla House locality in Jamia Nagar, Delhi, in which two suspected terrorists were killed while two other suspects were arrested.
Encounter specialist and Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, who led the police action, was also martyred during the incident.
According to the reports, Mohammed Sajid alias Bada Sajid is one of the six persons who feature in the 22-minute video allegedly posted by the Islamic State recently, however he was one of the terrorist who was claimed killed in the encounter.
A Delhi court had in 2013 sentenced to life the lone convict and suspected Indian Mujahideen operative Shahzad Ahmad in the case for killing decorated police officer Sharma and injuring two other policemen.
