Cong steers clear from Digvijay's statement on Batla encounter

Congress today virtually disassociated itself from senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh's statement at Azamgarh in which he expressed doubts about the Batla House encounter and the inquiry into it by the Human Rights Commission.

Congress today virtually disassociated itself from senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh's statement at Azamgarh in which he expressed doubts about the Batla House encounter and the inquiry into it by the Human Rights Commission.

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"Digvijay Singh said he went there (Azamgarh) to find the facts of the issue. He is a senior Congress leader and the General Secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh. You have to ask him the meaning and scope of that statement," party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi told reporters here.

Expressing doubts that the Human Rights Commission heard the aggrieved parties seriously, Singh had said yesterday, "After suspicions were raised over the encounter, its inquiry was handed over to the Human Rights Commission, but perhaps, it did not hear the kin of the youths killed in the incident seriously."

Condemning Singh's statement, the youth wing of the BJP protested at the AICC headquarters here, raising slogans against the Congress and alleged that it was deliberately raising the issue to polarise the issue and insulting the martyrs of the Batla House encounter.

Questioning its timing, Congress sources said nothing had happened to warrant such a statement, neither had the issue been discussed at the party level.

"It (statement) looks odd. Particularly when a person has been arrested and investigations are on," said a senior leader.