Describing BJP candidate Sadhvi Pragya Thakur's comments against Hemant Karkare as "despicable and regrettable", eight former Directors General of Police on Sunday urged Lok Sabha candidates to seek out and honour martyrs' families and work for improving policing in the country.
Acknowledging that Thakur has retracted her statement, the officers said Karkare fell to terrorist bullets on 26/11 in the line of duty while defending his country. She had claimed that Karkare was killed during the Mumbai terror attack due to her curse after he arrested her in a Hindutva terror case.
"He 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," they said in a joint statement.
The statement was signed by former Directors General Julio Ribeiro (Punjab), Prakash Singh (UP, Assam and BSP), P K Hormis Tharakan (Kerala, RAW chief), Kamal Kumar (National Police Academy), Jacob Punnose (Kerala), Sanjeev Dayal (Maharashtra), Jayanto N Choudhury (Assam, NSG) and N Ramachandran (Meghalaya).
"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 24x7 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," they said.
They wanted the candidates to seek out and honour the families of these martyrs who live in their constituencies. The candidates should engage with every effort to improve the delivery of policing services to their constituents, they added.
"One way of doing this would be to adopt one Police Station each year and take up schemes under MPLAD that would make this a model police station, while ensuring required facilities for the thana staff and their families. That would be a real and meaningful tribute to the supreme sacrifices made by Hemant Karkare and thousands of other valiant police personnel," they said.