Indian SC rejects probe into Karkare’s murder

KARACHI: A petition for a probe into the killing of Hemant Karkare, head of Maharashtra Police’s anti-terrorist squad (ATS), during the 2008 Mumbai terror attack was dismissed by the Supreme Court on Wednesday, reported Times of India (TOI).

The petition requested an independent fact-finding committee, headed by a sitting or a retired judge of the apex court, to investigate the events before Karkare’s killing. Justice B Sudershan Reddy and Justice Surinder Singh Nijjar rejected petitioner Radhakant Yadav’s public interest litigation (PIL) but gave him the liberty to move the high court.

According to TOI, the petition “submitted that there was an abject failure of the state of unparalleled magnitude in protecting the citizens of the country from terrorists, including the death of officers like ATS chief Karkare”. The petitioner stated that the government explanation given for the ATS chief’s death was not logical and not believable as mentioed in the book “Who Killed Hemant Karkare”, authored by former Maharashtra Police chief S M Mushrif.

Yadav said that Karkare investigated and exposed the plot of “right wing terror groups” who were responsible for several blasts between 2003 and 2008. He claimed that Karkare came to know about the involvement of political and religious leaders and was “only inches away from arresting some of them” before his killing.

Published in the Express Tribune, May 13th, 2010.