A Congress lawmaker in Delhi State, Asif Mohammad Khan, disrupted state’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s press conference here on Thursday demanding reinvestigation of Batla House encounter in which two Muslims were gunned down in an encounter with Delhi Police in September 2008.
Calling Kejriwal a ‘cheat and liar,’ Khan accused him of having lied to Muslim community in July last year on the issue.
He threatened to vote against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government if the latter backtracked from its promise of instituting a Special Investigation Team (SIT). Khan’s party supports AAP government from outside.
The Congress lawmaker was referring to an open letter Kejriwal’s party distributed outside mosques in Okhla, a Muslim-dominated colony in South Delhi, in July last year. The letter headlined ‘Politics of Brotherhood’ claimed, “In case of Batla House, several people have a doubt if those youth needed to be killed or could they have been arrested alive? If they were terrorists, it was pertinent to arrest them and reach their handlers. But if they were innocent, shouldn’t the police personnel present on the occasion be punished?”
Khan said Kejriwal had earlier promised an SIT probe, similar to the one the CM now wants into the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Khan heckled the Kejriwal in the press conference after latter denied a probe by a SIT into the 2008 Batla House shooting.
The two youth, killed in the encounter where Delhi Police Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma was fatally injured too, allegedly belonged to Indian Mujahedeen (IM), a terror group operating in India. A Delhi court on July 25 last year had termed the encounter ‘genuine’ and convicted lone suspected IM operative Shahzad Ahmed of killing Sharma.
The Delhi chief minister had called a press conference to announce constitution of a SIT to inquire into 1984 anti-Sikh riots as also to underline his party’s achievements in the one month of its rule.
The Congress, which has launched a blitzkrieg to woo the Muslim community for the forthcoming polls, has eight legislators in the Delhi State Assembly, half whom are Muslims.
A number of Congress leaders have questioned the genuineness of the Batla House encounter. Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh was in the forefront of demanding a judicial inquiry into the incident, a demand shot down by then Union Home Minister P Chidambaram.
Delhi lawmaker seeks SIT for Batla encounter
