New Delhi [India], May 5 : Amid controversy over Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar's statement about the killing of former Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare during the 26/11 attack, political analyst Tehseen Poonawalla on Sunday urged all opposition parties in the INDIA bloc to put pressure on Wadettiwar to take back his statement.
Poonawalla also asserted that the INDIA bloc parties should ensure that Pakistan does not get any advantage out of Wadettiwar's statement.
"The statements made by the senior leader and Maharashtra LoP Vijay Wadettiwar are unbecoming of somebody who holds that position and should be condemned. I request all opposition parties to put pressure on him to take back that statement. It is unacceptable that Pakistan is given a clean chit in the debt of Hemant Karkare. 26/11 was a terror attack, planned and executed by the terror state of Pakistan," Tehseen Poonawalla said.
"Hemant Karkare laid down his life for the tricolour and was killed by terrorists like Ajmal Kasab, not by anyone from India. Therefore, it is important that all opposition parties in the INDIA alliance, not just come aggressively against the statement of LoP but also ensure that Pakistan does not get any advantage of such statements," he added.
However, issuing his clarification, Vijay Wadettiwar claimed that those were not his words, but he said what was written in the book by SM Mushrif, a former Inspector General of Police, in Maharashtra and the brother of NCP party leader Hasan Mushrif.
"Those are not my words, I just said what was written in the book by SM Mushrif. Every information was there about the bullet by which Hemant Karkare was shot, it was not the bullet of terrorists," he claimed.
Ajmal Kasab was the only one of the 10 Pakistani terrorists to be caught alive.
He was placed in a Mumbai jail for nearly four years and was hanged in Pune in 2012.
Wadettiwar purportedly had called BJP candidate Ujjwal Nijam, an "anti-national" and also accused him of hiding the information that Hemant Karkare was not killed by Ajmal Kasab's bullet, but fell to a bullet of policemen, affiliated to RSS.
Congress was in power in Maharashtra and at the Centre during the 26/11 attacks and party leader Wadettiwar's controversial statement has put the Congress in an embarrassing situation.
Earlier, Shiv Sena leader Milind Deora said that such remarks made by the Leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly are shameful and the opposition party is busy giving "clean chit to the Pakistan".
"It is a very shameful statement. During the 26/11 attack. I saw the pain, suffering and terror that the people of South Mumbai, Maharashtra and India had to witness. Why are they trying to appease Pakistan and blame one community? As an Indian, a responsible leader from an Opposition party is making this statement for the second time from the same party and giving a clean chit to Pakistan," Milind Deora told ANI.
Hemant Karkare was the chief of the Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad. He was killed in action during the 2008 Mumbai attacks. In 2009, he was posthumously given the Ashoka Chakra.