BJP asks PM to break silence on Batla encounter

Taking exception to Law Minister Salman Khurshid raking up the Batla House encounter in Uttar Pradesh poll campaign, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to "break his silence" and clear the clouds over the "sensitive" issue.

"The prime minister would have to break his silence...The prime minister should make it clear today itself if his home minister is speaking the truth or his law minister," said BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.

Speaking in Lucknow, national vice president of BJP Vinay Katiyar demanded that Khurshid be sacked and asked the prime minister to issue a clarification.

Addressing newspersons, Katiyar said that coming from the law minister of the country, the statement is "so objectionable that the govenrment should resign on moral grounds".

Naqvi said "it was a matter of concern that there was an internal rift within the government on a matter which was so sensitive as that concerning terrorism and national security."

He lamented, "Now, terrorism is being given a communal angle and it is used by all for vote-bank politics," while charging the Congress with raking up the Batla House encounter while trying to woo voters of a particular community.

On Khurshid's claim that the government was on the verge of finalising a judicial probe into the encounter, the BJP leader lamented that "when such sensitive talk on a sensitive matter is made into public talk, it raises questions before the public".

Naqvi also asked the prime minister to clarify on how the discussions held within the Union cabinet are now being discussed publicly by ministers, besides coming out with the actual truth on what transpired at the time of the Batla encounter.

Khurshid while campaigning in Uttar Pradesh had said that pictures of the Batla House encounter case had brought tears to the eyes of Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

"I was not a minister at that time but still took the issue of the Batla encounter to Sonia Gandhi and she had tears in her eyes," Khurshid said at an election meeting in Karmaini village under Sagri Vidhan Sabha area on Thursday.

In the past, Congress General Secretary Digvijay had questioned the authenticity of the enounter that occurred on September 19, 2008, in the capital and left Delhi Police

Inspector Mohan Chandra Sharma and two Indian Mujahideen terrorists dead.