ISLAMABAD, Jan 21: India’s Minority Affairs Minister A.R. Antulay, who has been criticised by the right-wing Hindu leaders for seeking an inquiry into the murder of Anti-Terrorist Squad chief Hemant Karkare, has won endorsement for his stance, says a report.

The New Delhi-based Radiance weekly said in its editorial “Antulay is right: Investigate Karkare’s murder” that “most of the TV channels played on sentiments and are not concerned with truth.”

Pointing out gaps in media reports on the Mumbai attacks, the magazine expresses doubts about official claims and leads “readers to the toned-down or ignored facts supporting the minister that the whole tragic drama was nothing more than a planned political stunt to kill two birds with one stone.”

The editorial says that though the coverage of the deadly strikes by the Indian media kept people glued to their TVs, the end result is that they feel “rather more confused and more bewildered”.

However, it says, the Indian media after prolonged frenzy behaviour reverted back to normalcy and started questioning the gaps in the official story that attempts to implicate Pakistan in the Mumbai mayhem.

The editorial took up the call for a probe by retired judges of India’s supreme or high courts that Mr Antulay made in Lok Sabha questioning the presence of Mr Karkare at the place of his murder during the Mumbai attacks. Mr Antulay apprehended that it might have been the work of “some insiders”.

The magazines also asked why bomb blasts increased in ferocity and frequency before elections in the country. “It is not clear why foreign-inspired terrorists are interested in determining the direction of our elections. Or, are they interested in favouring a particular political party?”

The magazine says: “Mr Karkare, for the first time, unmasked the faces of Hindutva terrorists behind Malegaon blasts. His investigations were providing leads to unravel mysteries behind other blasts in Nanded, Parbhani, Kanpur and even in Samjhauta Express. Just one day before Mumbai attack, the name of VHP rabble rouser, Pravin Togadia, appeared on the radar of Karkare.”

The magazine underlined the fact that he was receiving threats from unknown sources.

“It is strange that Karkare was killed the very next day during the Mumbai attack. It is quite possible that in the confusion of attack some insider did the work of eliminating Karkare who had become eyesore of certain elements. People will have a genuine doubt that people who were against Karkare and his investigation might have played a role in eliminating him during that confusion.”

The editorial read: “Now Sangh Parivar says it is anti-national to doubt the death of Karkare at the hands of terrorists.”

According to them, the magazine says, raising doubts is equal to playing in the hands of foreign terrorists. But the truth is that they were themselves raising doubts about the integrity of the ATS chief when he was unmasking Hindutva terror in the personalities of a militant Sadhvi, a self-styled godman and a serving military officer.—APP