No conspiracy to eliminate ATS chief: Chidambaram

Vikash Ranjan

New Delhi

Tue, 23 Dec 2008: 

“No conspiracy to eliminate” Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare, said the Union Home Minister P Chidambaram in Lok Sabha on Tuesday ruling out “conspiracy theory” devised by Union Minority Affairs Minister A R Antulay over the circumstances in which Karkare was killed by the terrorists on t fateful night of Nov 26.

Chidambaram said the circumstances in which ATS chief was killed were “tragically fortuitous”, and there is no truth in the different versions that have been circulated about the movement of Karkare to Cama Hospital instead of the Taj and Trident-Oberoi hotels where indiscriminate firing was taking place and lots of people were made hostages.

The Home Minister was making a much-awaited statement stipulated by oppositions after Antulay’s raising question over the circumstances in which Karkare and two other officers were killed when the terrorists struck Mumbai last month.

Unleashing details of sequence of events reconstructed by Mumbai police based on accounts given by three eyewitness and others that led to the killing of the three officers, Home Minister said: “The investigators have reached the conclusion that there is no truth whatsoever in the suspicion that there was a conspiracy to eliminate Karkare or others.”

“Karkare took the most convenient route from his residence at Dadar to the CST railway station and after conferring with the police officers at the railway station decided to proceed to the Cama hospital where at its back gate he was joined by Kamte and Salaskar,” said Chidambaram.

The statement read: ‘Karkare appears to have acted, after conferring with his colleagues, in haste and in accordance with the grave situation demanded. While the circumstances in which the three brave officers and their men boarded Qualis vehicle came under fire and killed were tragically fortuitous, having a doubt on the killing is more regrettable.’

‘Prior to his death, questions were raised about the genuineness of the investigations that were being conducted by Karkare in a bomb blast case, and now questions are being raised about the circumstances in which he was killed, both are wrong and deeply awful,’ the Home Minister said.

During his making out statement, main Opposition Leader L K Advani demanded Antulay’s resignation, as his remarks were unwarranted.

“The House is agitated by the statement made by Antulay and not due to the circumstances leading to the death of Karkare,” he added and later left the House with other associate members of NDA after the Speaker, failed to appease opposition members making uproar, said Chidambaram to continue with his statement.

Antulay, on the other hand, while refused to offer apology backtracked from his earlier remarks, told media that he had never ever raised doubt that who killed Karkare and two officers. He said that he had never even said that ATS chief’s death was a conspiracy.

“My query was why Karkare on that fateful night went the opposite direction to Cama hospital and not to Taj Palace hotel,” he said. And who ordered him, he added.

“My demand has been met with the sequence of events presented by the home minister in the house,” Antulay, who came at the helm of controversy soon after his remarks, said.