Caravan News
BHOPAL – In yet another disrespect to the martyr, RSS leader Indresh Kumar on Wednesday said that one can pay tribute to former Mumbai Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare but he cannot be respected.
“One can pay tributes to Hemant Karkare who died in a terrorist attack, but he cannot be respected (Aatanki hamle me maare gaye Hemant Karkare ko shraddhanjali di ja sakti hai, par unka aadar nahin kiya ja sakta),” Kumar was quoted by the news agency ANI as saying.
Kumar himself was named by the Rajasthan ATS in their chargesheet of the 2007 Ajmer blast case as an associate of a key accused RSS man Sunil Joshi. The chargesheet said Indresh presided over a secret meeting held in Jaipur in which all the key conspirators behind the blast had participated.
Karkare was killed along with two other senior police officers while fighting terrorists during the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai in November 2008.
The RSS leader alleged that Karkare acted wrongly by torturing others while bomb blast accused and BJP MP Pragya Thakur exhibited humanity by amending her statement on Karkare after there was an uproar over her remarks.
An National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) investigation found that the allegation of the torture is baseless.
Claiming that Congress had tortured Malegaon blast accused Thakur during its rule, he said: “Karkare died of terrorist’s bullets, so he is a martyr and deserves respect. However, the Congress government misused agencies and tortured a woman (Thakur) under the conspiracy of ‘bhagwa aatankwad’.”
After receiving severe backlash from all quarters for her controversial comments on Karkare, Thakur had taken back her statement and apologised saying she “felt that the enemies of the country were being benefited from it”. “I felt that the enemies of the country were being benefited from it, therefore I take back my statement and apologise for it,” Thakur had told reporters.
She had added that what she said was her “personal pain”. “There is no doubt that he (Karkare) is a martyr as he died after being hit by the bullet of a terrorist from our enemy country,” she had said.
