Batla case pictures brought tears to Sonia's eyes;Khurshid

In an apparent bid to woo the Muslim electorate, Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid has said that pictures of the Batla House encounter case had brought tears to the eyes of Congress President Sonia Gandhi. "I was not a minister at that time but still took the issue of the Batla encounter to Sonia Gandhi and she had tears in her eyes," Khurshid said at an election meeting in Karmaini village under Sagri Vidhan Sabha area yesterday.

She (Sonia) told me to take the matter to the government and the matter reached till the stage of judicial enquiry but since it was the time of Lok Sabha elections the issue went to the court, he said hours before electioneering for the second phase of Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections came to an end. It sometimes so happens that one does not get favourable decision from the court and it calls for patience, the Union Minister said.

There is some problem in this connection because of lack of coordination between cases going on in three states and we want speedy justice, he added. The encounter on September 19, 2008, at Batla House led to the killing of Delhi Police Inspector Mohan Chandra Sharma and two Indian Mujahideen terrorists while two other IM terrorists were arrested and another fled from the scene. Khursheed also attacked the state government on the NRHM scam.