Ishrat case: BJP ignoring "real" issue of fake encounter killing, says P Chidambaram

New Delhi, Apr 18: Senior Congress leader and former Union Home Minister P Chidambaram today hit back at BJP saying the party of ignoring the "real" issue of "fake" encounter in which Ishrat Jehan was killed.

Within hours of a BJP onslaught against Chidambaram and Gandhi family after a media report that he had approved the first affidavit in the case, he said he would not like to comment without "perusing the files and the noting".

But, he said, a second affidavit was filed in the case after thorough consultation with the then Home Secretary and Attorney General.

"My public statements on why the second affidavit was filed after due and full consultation with the Home Secretary and the Attorney General are self-explanatory. I have nothing to add," he said in a statement.

He said the conclusion drawn from the first affidavit which named Ishrat Jehan as a terrorist and the second affidavit showing that she wasn't a terrorist "are not the correct conclusions to be drawn from the two affidavits."

"The IB only provides intelligence inputs. Whether a person is a terrorist or not has to be proved in a court of law on the basis of admissible evidence," he said.

And moreover, Chidambaram said, the real issue is, even if a person is suspected to be a terrorist, can that person be killed--as alleged--in a fake encounter?

"Please focus on the real issue. That issue is sub-judice before a court of law," he advised the BJP.

PTI