Digvijay Singh sticks to Hemant Karkare stand despite RR Patil’s rebuttal

Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh, in the eye of a political storm over allegations that slain anti-terrorism squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare called him on the night of 26/11, is desperate to prove his claim.

Since claiming that Karkare told him that he faced a threat from right-wing fundamentalists, Singh has been isolated by the Congress and has faced the ire of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Singh had promised to give evidence of his conversation with Karkare, but later said he could not find the records. Maharashtra home minister RR Patil on Wednesday told DNA that the state has no record of a conversation between Singh and Karkare. The Congress general secretary, however, refuses to admit that Patil’s remarks have dented his credibility further.

“I have no problem if Maharashtra’s home minister says that they have no records of my conversation with the late Karkare. I don’t see any Congress-NCP politics in it. The fact is that I spoke to him on my cell number 9425XXXXXX; it is a Bhopal BSNL number,” Singh said at the party headquarters on Thursday.

“I had asked the telecom authorities to get me the details, but they said they don’t keep records that are more than 12 months old,” Singh said.

Singh maintains that he has no reasons to make a false claim. “If I point out that Karkare was under threat from Hindu fundamentalist organisations, I am accused of being anti-national and pro-Pakistan. However, if a former Union home minister and the shadow prime minister doubts the integrity of a police officer like Karkare, and demands a judicial probe into the ATS action against Pragya Thakur, he is a nationalist,” Singh said.

The Congress general secretary said he failed to understand why there was such a hullabaloo over his conversation with Karkare this time since he had made the claim earlier too. He showed newspaper clippings of December 2008 to prove his point.

“But nobody raised a hue and cry over it. For that matter, even former Mumbai police commissioner Julio Ribeiro referred to Karkare’s fears and anguish when he paid tributes his to him. But there was no storm over it,” Singh explained. “If some newspaper decides to blow it up this time, how can I be accused of timing it with an eye on some political motive?”

Singh also lashed out at the BJP and the RSS, saying the party and the outfit did not have a problem with Karkare as long as he had not arrested Hindus in connection with the 2008 Malegaon blast. “I have never said that Karkare was killed by Hindu fundamentalists. There is no doubt that the Pakistani terrorists killed him,” Singh said.