Lucknow: Accusing the Congress of double
speak, Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday demanded that the party either sack general secretary Digvijay
Singh or take action against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and
Home Minister P Chidambaram on the Batla House encounter case.
"Congress is not serious on the issues pertaining to
Muslims and treat them only as a vote bank. That is why when
Assembly polls are underway, the issue of Batla House
encounter has been raised by party leader Digvijay Singh, who
termed it as fake.
"Why has this issue been raised by him now ? Congress
should either sack him or take action against PM and Home
minister, who feel that the encounter was not fake", Yadav
said in an interview.
Alleging that Congress is misleading Muslims, Yadav said
that SP's stand had been that the encounter was "fake" and it
had been demanding judicial inquiry into the matter but no
action has been taken yet in the matter by Congress-led UPA.
"Congress leaders are making contradictory statements in
a planned manner. It's a conspiracy, which will only help
communal forces... One the one hand, they are becoming
sympathisers of the Muslim community by terming the encounter
as fake, and on the other, toeing the party line that it was a
fair encounter... This is just a political gimmick to befool
Muslims, who are being treated as a vote bank," he said.
Claiming that the UPA was shying away from ordering a
judicial probe, Yadav pointed out that it was "SP, which had
sent its leaders Amar Singh (not in SP now) and Ram Gopal
Yadav after the encounter in 2008 and they had arrived at the
conclusion that encounter was fake".
During an operation against suspected Indian Mujahideen
(IM) terrorists in Batala House in Delhi in September 2008,
two suspected terrorists, Atif Amin and Mohamed Sajid were
killed while two other suspects Mohd Saif and Zeeshan were
arrested while one accused Ariz Khan managed to escape.
Delhi police inspector MC Sharma, who led the police
action, was also killed during the incident.
PTI
First Published: Monday, January 16, 2012, 11:47