Skip to main content

Sadhvi Pragya's statement on Karkare unfortunate, despicable: Ex-DGPs

By A Representative
Seven ex-DGPs -- Julio Ribeiro,Prakash Singh, PKH Tharakan, Kamal Kumar, Jacob Punoose, Sanjeev Dayal, Jayanto N. Choudhury, and N Ramachandran -- have in a statement said that the remarks of Sadhvi Pragya, a contestant from the Bhopal constituency, on late Hemant Karkare, Indian Police Service, Chief of ATS, Mumbai Police, are "unfortunate", and though she has retracted, the fact is "Karkare fell to terrorist bullets on 26/11 in the line of duty while defending his country."
Ex-DGPs say, Karkare "would probably be alive today had he not volunteered to return to the Maharashtra cadre from a plum posting at the Centre with the specific intention of working with the Anti-Terror Squad to prevent and investigate the activities of terrorists so that the rest of us could sleep safe in our beds. The country owes him a huge debt of gratitude. Anything that detracts from this is worthy of strong condemnation."
The statement continues, "This despicable and regrettable statement of Pragya Thakur only serves to highlight the need to publicly recognise the supreme sacrifice made by the 35,000 police personnel from all corners of India who since Independence have laid down their lives in the line of duty. Under-resourced and often working 24×7 in the most challenging conditions, these brave men and women have unflinchingly answered the call of duty, even when it called for the ultimate sacrifice."
Urging "all candidates in these Lok Sabha elections to seek out and honour the families of these martyrs who live in their constituencies" and also "commit to engaging with every effort to improve the delivery of policing services to their constituents", ex-DGPs say, this could be done by adopting one Police Station each year and take up schemes under MPLAD that would make this a model police station."

Comments

TRENDING

The Nazia Elahi Khan controversy and the normalisation of hate

By Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan   The registration of two FIRs in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region against BJP Minority Morcha leader and social media influencer Nazia Elahi Khan for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Prophet Muhammad is not merely another isolated controversy. It is a disturbing reminder of how hate speech and communal provocation have become increasingly normalised in contemporary India.

Congress leader Gohil "misinformed" about the OBC caste status of Modi, contend senior Gujarat academics

Shaktisinh Gohil By A Representative Did senior Gujarat Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil display his poor understanding of the caste system in Gujarat when he declared that Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi does not belong to the other backward class (OBC) but to an upper caste? At least two top senior experts, known for their proficiency in sociology and history of Gujarat, have wondered “how could Gohil go so wrong” on Modi’s caste status. Gohil, who all-India Congress spokesperson, has created a ripple by “disclosing” that Modi included his caste, modh ghanchi, into the OBC list three months after he came to power through a government resolution dated January 1, 2002.

RTI at 21: Study flags data gaps, rising backlogs, appeal pendency across Union government

  By Jag Jivan   As the Right to Information (RTI) Act completed 21 years since its enactment on June 21, 2005, a detailed analysis of the Central Information Commission's (CIC) Annual Report for 2024-25 has raised questions about reporting accuracy, transparency practices and the overall implementation of the law across Union government institutions.