New Delhi, Oct. 15: The Congress is pressing the Centre to order a probe into the Jamianagar encounter in spite of national security adviser M.K. Narayanan’s refusal because it fears the incident is turning Muslims away from the party.

The advisory board of the party’s minority department, which includes Salman Khurshid, Mohsina Kidwai, Oscar Fernandes and K. Rahman Khan, also the deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, is expected to formalise its stand tomorrow and place it before Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh this week.

Khurshid, a former Uttar Pradesh Congress unit president, said: “This is not about establishing the culpability of any person in terrorism but compliance with the due process in subjecting anyone to legal sanctions… any time if someone puts a question, he cannot be branded as an anti-national. We cannot gag persons.”

A “transparent reappraisal of the facts or a fact-finding mission or an inquiry by the human rights commission” would do, he said.

This comes after certain party leaders, “close” to the “governing establishment”, claimed the Prime Minister was not in favour of a judicial probe because this would “undermine” police’s morale in combating terrorism.

Narayanan, in a TV interview before the National Integration Council meeting, said it was a “travesty” to call the encounter “fake” and added that the Bajrang Dal and the Simi were not two sides of a coin. Better policing was more practical in dealing with the Bajrang Dal than a ban, he said.

Union ministers Lalu Prasad, Ram Vilas Paswan and E. Ahmed, and Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh criticised his statement as “insensitive”.

Government sources said it was “unclear” if Narayanan was “mandated” to make these statements by the Prime Minister.

Manmohan, they said, was “as concerned” as the Congress about the socio-political fallout of the “encounter” and the communal attacks.

Khurshid said since there was no conclusive discussion in the cabinet and Narayanan’s interview was only a “reasonable assertion of a view-point that’s supposed to reflect the government’s thinking, we have the right to say, please re-examine the given view”.