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."
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