Author: IANS
Publication: The Times of India
Date: January 12, 2012
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Batla-House-encounter-Chidambaram-overrules-Digvijaya-says-shootout-genuine/articleshow/11463558.cms

Home minister P Chidambaram on Thursday said the September 2008 Batla House gun battle with suspected terrorists was genuine and there was "no scope for re-opening the matter".

 "The Batla House encounter was genuine; there is no scope for reopening the matter," Chidambaram said during a briefing of the group of ministers (GOM) on media here.

Chidambaram's statement comes a day after Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh repeated his view that the shootout may be fake.

 "The prime minister and home minister were of the view that the encounter was true. That's why I did not not press it (the demand for a new probe into the gunfight) further," Singh had told mediapersons before an election rally addressed by Rahul Gandhi at Azamgarh.

 Two suspected militants, hailing from Azamgarh, were killed in the shootout with police at Batla House in Okhla locality of Delhi Sep 19, 2008. A Delhi Police inspector MK Sharma was also killed in the incident.