Elections in mind, Sheila Dixit put Batla House encounter inquiry on hold: Salman Khurshid

New Delhi, July 04: Sheila Dixit the former chief minister of Delhi did not want a probe into the Batla House encounter as she felt it could hijack the assembly elections, senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid said.

Khurshid in his new book, Visible Muslim, Invisible Citizen: Understanding Islam in Indian Democracy also said that even the then prime minister, Manmohan Singh did not want a probe.

He further says in the book that questioning the circumstance of the encounter has nothing to do with pronouncing the culpability of the persons involved. He said that he had taken the initiative to intervene soon after the encounter and raised questions.

Meanwhile Sheila Dixit, anxious that her election was barely a few weeks away asked us to shelve the inquiry, till after the elections.So we did, She won her elections, he also wrote.

He said that before they could get back to it, Inspector M C Sharma, a much decorated police officer was posthumously awarded India's highest peace time military decoration, the Ashoka Chakra and the inquiry was permanently buried, he further writes.