Batla House encounter was not fake: Shivraj Patil

Digvijaya Singh has asked the central government to order a judicial probe into the "fake" encounter.

New Delhi: Rejecting Digvijaya Singh's claim that the 2008 encounter at Batla House in Delhi was fake, then union home minister Shivraj Patil, Wednesday, reasserted that the shoot-out was genuine.

“I have said in past, that encounter wasn't fake,” Patil said.

“If someone says something otherwise, then it's his responsibility to prove it,” Patil added.

Patil's comments came a day after Digvijaya Singh asked the central government to order a judicial probe into the "fake" 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 said.

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, though NIA is still identifying them.

The issue of the encounter, which had taken place when the Congress-led UPA government was in power, cropped up again recently amid a claim by an alleged ISIS operative that he had fled Batla House right before the police raided it.

When asked if he should apologise as the claim of the ISIS operative insinuates that the shootout was genuine, Singh shot back saying, "Why should I apologise?".

When Singh had claimed first time that the encounter was fake it caused a sharp political divide with BJP, which was then in opposition, accused the Congress of playing vote bank politics.

Interestingly, P Chidambaram, under whom the probe into the encounter was conducted, had insisted that the gunfight between security forces and terrorists was "genuine".

Latching on the ISIS video, BJP had on Monday alluded to Singh as a "pseudo secularist" and stated the saffron party's stand that the gunbattle was "genuine" has been vindicated.