MUMBAI: A day after the paint attack on Sudheendra Kulkarni, which triggered an outrage, the Shiv Sena remains defiant.
Sena on Tuesday likened Kulkarni to 26/11 terrorist Ajmal Kasab even as party chief Uddhav Thackeray felicitated the six party workers who were allegedly involved in the attack.
Kulkarni was attacked with paint on Monday morning for refusing to back down from organizing ex-Pakistani minister Khurshid Kasuri’s book launch.
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Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday met six party workers, who were released on bail earlier in the day.
“During his meeting with these activists, Uddhavji patted them for their work,” a source close to the Sena leader said.
Shiv Sena has justified the attack and strongly defended the party workers involved.
“If we give Param Vir chakra , Vir Chakra to warriors who fight with Pakistan , what’s wrong if we felicitated people who did this,” said party leader Sanjay Raut.
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Meanwhile, continuing with its attack on Kulkarni, Shiv Sena said India faced greater threat from people like the Observer Research Foundation chairman than extremists and terrorists.
“The real threat to the sovereignty of our nation is not due to extremists or terrorists, but people like Kulkarni. People like him are out to cut the neck of our nation … When there are people like him present here, Pakistan does not need to send people like Kasab for terrorist activities,” the Sena said in an editorial in party mouthpiece ‘Saamana’.
“An atmosphere has been created where it now seems that Khurshid Kasuri is a messenger of peace or a Mahatma and the Sena has committed a crime by opposing him. However much we are criticised and maligned, we will not change our stand against Pakistan,” it said.
The Sena, a junior partner in the BJP-led governments in Maharashtra and at the Centre, also locked horns with chief minister Devendra Fadnavis for his criticism of the paint attack.
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“The CM has failed to understand Maharashtra and his condemnation of the incident has brought the state ‘a bad name'”, the Sena said.
Meanwhile, having defiantly gone ahead with the launch of Kasuri’s book ‘Neither a Hawk nor a Dove: An Insider’s Account of Pakistan’s Foreign Policy’ despite the paint attack incident, Kulkarni made a pitch for freedom of expression.
(With inputs from agencies)
