BJP slams Congress for creating communal divide

New Delhi, Feb 10 (ANI): Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday slammed the Congress party for creating communal divide by raking up controversial Batla House encounter during election campaigning in Uttar Pradesh.

While speaking to reporters, BJP spokesperson Balbir Punj said that Khurshid's remark might lead to religious disparity and condemned it.

"Salman Khurshid's statement that Sonia Gandhi cried when she saw the Batla House photographs, it is infact resort to rank communalism by the Congress party in order to garner Muslim votes and they are trying to polarize the society on criminal lines and this is highly condemnable," said Punj.

Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid on Thursday raked up the controversial Batla House encounter, while on the campaign trail in Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, where he had said that Sonia Gandhi was in tears when she saw photographs of the incident.

Reacting to Punj's statement, Congress Leader Rajiv Shukla said that the BJP is playing communal games to garner utmost votes in the ongoing elections.

"I think BJP has been constantly playing a communal chord in the UP elections. They want to take advantage of everything including, you know, they are trying to propagate castism amongst the voters and on Babu Singh Kushwaha issue they are trying to take political mileage out of it. So all these things they themselves are doing and unnecessarily blaming the Congress," said Shukla.

Batla House encounter officially known as Operation Batla House, took place on September 19, 2008, against suspected Indian Mujahideen (IM) terrorists in Batla House locality in Jamia Nagar in Delhi.

Two suspected terrorists, Atif Amin and Mohamed Sajid, two other suspects Mohd Saif and Zeeshan were arrested, while one accused Ariz Khan managed to escape.

Encounter specialist and Delhi Police inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, who led the police action was also killed during the incident. (ANI)