Maharashtra govt snubs Antulay

ON THE TERROR TRAIL

Union Minority Affairs Minister A R Antulay was today snubbed by the top brass of the coalition government in Maharashtra over his remarks about the death of Mumbai ATS chief Hemant Karkare.

Chief Minister Ashok Chavan and Home Minister Jayant Patil emphatically ruled out the demand for probe into the killing of Karkare and two other senior police officers.

Meanwhile, in Delhi, the BJP raised the issue again in Parliament today, seeking Antulay’s removal and a clarification from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. A defiant Antulay still maintained that he had been wrongly quoted but the government has decided to come out with an explanation on the issue.

The issue also rocked the Maharashtra Assembly today as the BJP and Shiv Sena created a furore demanding clarification from the state government on the issue. Leader of the Opposition Ramdas Kadam and BJP’s leader in the Assembly Eknath Khadse demanded: “We would like to know who is speaking the truth — the state government, which said yesterday that the three officers were killed by terrorists, or Antulay?”Both Chavan and Patil said the state government stood by what it had said in the House and it did not see any necessity of ordering probe into the circumstances that led to Karkare’s death.

“What we had told the House was based on confession of the arrested terrorist, Ajmal Kasab, and it was corroborated by several other pieces of circumstantial evidence,” said Patil.