The Congress general secretary had stoked a controversy with his claim that Karkare had called him on the day of the Mumbai terror strikes, saying that he feared for his safety from Hindu extremists.
In what could aggravate already-strained relations between Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh has sought an apology from state home minister RR Patil for having denied the existence of any call records of Singh’s conversation with the martyred ATS chief Hemant Karkare.
Producing what he claimed to be the record of his telephonic conversations with the slain police official, he said that all those who had called him a “liar” should apologise but evaded the query on whether the Congress would move a privilege motion against its ally in the state.
He came armed with documents that allegedly showed him having made a call on the ATS’s landline number, 022- 23087336, at 5.42pm on November 26, 2008, hours before the terror attack in Mumbai.
During the conversation, Karkare had, according to Digvijay, expressed his dismay on being targeted by certain political groups for finding a Hindu terror angle in the Malegaon blast case. The Congress leader has demanded that all cases of terror attacks that took place after the blast be handed over to the central investigating agencies.
According to call records provided by the BSNL, Digvijay had made a call on the ATS number from his cell phone 9425015461 on 26/11. The call began at 5.44 pm and lasted for about six minutes. “People called me a liar... I was dubbed a traitor and a Pakistani agent. It pained me that Mumbai police made selective leaks saying that there were no records of the talks between me and Karkare. It was all the more painful for me when the Maharashtra home minister told the state assembly that no such call was made,” he said.
Digvijay reiterated that he had never denied Pakistan’s hand in the 26/11 attack. But Karkare’s case, where his professional integrity was being questioned by parties such as the BJP, Shiv Sena and other RSS outfits, has to be viewed separately, he said.
Coming down heavily on saffron outfits for questioning Karkare’s integrity, Digvijay denied having ever said that the RSS and its dispensations were behind the Mumbai terror attacks. Pointing to strong Madhya Pradesh connections behind the terror attacks, he said that RSS pracharak Sanjay Joshi’s murder had raised doubts about the involvement of top functionaries of these outfits in these terror attacks. “All those who have been arrested are the runners. Thorough investigations should be held to find out the top people behind such attacks,” he demanded.
His broadside against the saffron outfits did not go well with the BJP as the party rejected his allegations and reiterated that Digvijay’s moves were aimed at weakening the 26/11 terror case investigations. “First of all, he should ask the Congress leadership to move a privilege motion against RR Patil. Then we will talk on the issue,” BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
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