Mumbai: The BJP has approached the Election Commission, seeking action against the Congress and its Maharashtra leader Vijay Wadettiwar for his comment that police officer Hemant Karkare was not killed by Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab and Ujjwal Nikam had suppressed facts about it. His statement, the BJP alleged, undermines national security by playing the communal card. In a second letter sent late in the evening, the BJP called it "dangerously anti-national".
Hemant Karkare and another senior police officer, Ashok Kamte, were killed outside south Mumbai's Cama Hospital when Ajmal Kasab and his partner Abu Ismail opened fire at their police van.
Kasab was the only terrorist out of 10 who sailed in from Pakistan and attacked Mumbai in November 2008, leaving 166 people dead. After a trial that continued for nearly four years, he was hanged in Pune in November 2012. The government lawyer in the case was Mr Nikam.
"Nikam is not a lawyer, but a traitor," Mr Wadettiwar said today. "Karkare was not killed by bullets of terrorists like Ajmal Kasab, but by the bullet of a cop close to the Sangh. Nikam suppressed this evidence before the special court to save the officer," Mr Wadettiwar had claimed in an interview with a television channel.
The BJP called Mr Wadettiwar's statement "highly obnoxious, derogatory, false, and malicious". The 26/11 terror attacks have been "shamelessly trivialized and ridiculed," the party said.
"In sheer contempt of the Indian judiciary also, (Mr Wadettiwar ) has leveled highly objectionable insinuations against the RSS, without a shred of evidence to support his preposterous claim. Ramifications of these statements are not only confined to domestic politics, but it has potential to be exploited by countries who are infamous for sponsoring cross border terrorism from their soil," the party added.
The BJP's Maharashtra unit said the statement "not only contradicts the established facts adjudicated by the Judiciary but also undermines national security by conflating it with communal issues, clearly intended to incite communal tension".
"This act of spreading false narratives is particularly egregious, given the sensitive nature of the events discussed and the positions Mr Wadettiwar has held," the BJP alleged, pointing out that he had never made such claims during his tenure as a state minister.
The Congress, the party added, has not distanced itself from these remarks and appears to "tacitly support this narrative". The Commission, it added, should investigate both Congress and its leader for supporting and propagating this "harmful narrative".
"Ujjwal Nikam is a nationalist person. The Congress has always had a soft stance towards terrorists," said Union minister Kiren Rijiju. "I was in the government for five years, I know how the Congress works. The Congress has always supported terrorists. They want to divert the issue, they also support urban Naxals," he added.