Ex-Home Minister rejects Digvijaya’s claim on Batla House shootout

Rejecting Congress leader Digvijaya Singh’s stance on the 2008 Batla House gunfight being a ‘fake encounter’, former Home Minister Shivraj Patil on Wednesday called it genuine. “Have I changed my stand? I have said in past that the encounter wasn’t fake. That means information, which was given to the Home Minister and the ministry by the police, who were actually involved in the encounter was relied upon, and it was said that it was an ‘encounter’,” Patil said.

“And not only that, a policeman (Mohan Chand Sharma) was also killed. The man who had gone to take action against the terrorists was killed. How can one say that it was not an encounter?” Patil added.

Congress leader Digvijaya Singh had on Tuesday stuck to his earlier stance that the 2008 Batla House gunfight was “fake” even as video footage telecast on a TV channel claimed that a suspect Bada Sajid was seen in an IS video.