Ravi Shankar Prasad slams Congress, says Batla House incident designed to weaken morale of Delhi Police

Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday slammed Congress and said the Batla House incident was designed to weaken the morale of Delhi Police.

"You might have listened to Congress leader Salman Khurshid saying that Congress party president Sonia Gandhi had tears in her eyes when she got to know that two terrorists have been killed. There was a conscious, deliberate and consistent attempt to cast serious doubt over the authenticity of the Batla House incident designed to weaken the morale of Delhi Police and give clear support to terrorist and their design for pure vote bank politics," said Prasad while addressing a press conference.

A Delhi court on Monday convicted Ariz Khan, who was arrested in February 2018 in connection with the 2008 Batla House encounter case.

The court said Khan and others had intentionally murdered Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, an encounter expert, and caused hurt to Head Constable Balwant Singh and Rajbir Singh.

Khan is allegedly associated with the terror outfit Indian Mujahideen. He was arrested by the Special Cell of Delhi Police after a decade of allegedly being on the run.

According to Delhi Police, Khan was at the spot during the Batla House encounter but managed to escape during the encounter on September 19, 2008, in Delhi's Jamia Nagar, in which two Indian Mujahideen terrorists were killed and as many arrested.

The Batla House encounter took place on September 19, 2008, against Indian Mujahideen terrorists in the Batla House locality in Delhi's Jamia Nagar.

Two suspected terrorists, Atif Ameen and Mohammad Sajid were killed while two other suspects -- Mohammad Saif and Zeeshan were arrested.

In February 2012, Congress leader Salman Khurshid had spoken on the Batla House encounter issue and had said the demand for a judicial probe into the Batla House encounter by a retired judge was discussed with the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi. The minister added that when Sonia Gandhi was shown encounter images, she had got teary-eyed.

( With inputs from ANI )