The Maharashtra Opposition has come under intense political scrutiny after the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, veteran Congressman Vijay Wadettiwar, claimed that senior IPS officer Hemant Karkare was killed by an \u201cRSS-linked\u201d police officer and not by the bullets of Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab during the 26\/11 Mumbai attacks.<\/p>\n
Wadettiwar\u2019s statement has put the Congress party in an embarrassing situation, as it was in power in Maharashtra and at the Centre at the time of the terror attacks. Karkare, a Special Inspector General of Police, was heading the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the Maharashtra Police when he was killed during the 2008 Mumbai attacks.<\/p>\n
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has accused Wadettiwar of echoing Pakistan\u2019s rhetoric, stating that the Congress leader is \u201cspeaking the language of Pakistan\u201d by claiming that Karkare was not killed by Kasab. Fadnavis also questioned the silence of Shiv Sena (UBT) chief and former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray regarding Wadettiwar\u2019s statements.<\/p>\n
Ujjwal Nikam, the special public prosecutor who appeared in the 26\/11 case, has reacted sharply to Wadettiwar\u2019s allegations, calling them \u201creckless\u201d and \u201cbaseless.\u201d Nikam said that Wadettiwar\u2019s statements are an insult to the 166 people who lost their lives and all those injured in the attacks.<\/p>\n
Shiv Sena secretary and spokesperson Kiran Pawaskar also rebuked Wadettiwar\u2019s claims, stating that the Congress party\u2019s track record suggests the promotion of terrorism rather than its prevention. Pawaskar further attacked Thackeray for his \u201creluctance to address the issue for fear of upsetting certain communities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Vijay Wadettiwar, claimed that senior IPS officer Hemant Karkare was killed by an \u201cRSS-linked\u201d police officer and not by the bullets of Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab during the 26\/11 Mumbai attacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":366,"featured_media":15944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[10059,10060,449,3677,10061],"class_list":["post-15939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india","tag-26-11","tag-devendra-fadnavis","tag-india","tag-mumbai","tag-shiv-sena-ubt"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/366"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}