Why should I lie,says Digvijaya,have asked for phone records

Singh used this number until some time ago and had handed it over to his personal staff.

Singh had told The Indian Express last week that Karkare had called him up — before the attacks that evening —and said he was disturbed by threats from people opposed to his Malegaon bomb blast probe in which Hindu extremists were accused. Singh had said he had “absolutely no doubt” that Pakistani terrorists had killed the Maharashtra ATS chief.

The party distanced itself from Singh’s remarks and the Opposition accused him of playing into the hands of those behind terrorism,including Pakistan. Karkare’s widow Kavita,too,criticised what she called were attempts to play politics with her husband’s death and added that he (her husband) had not told her of any such threat.

Singh’s re-assertion today came on a day when Congress president Sonia Gandhi chose to skip any mention of the 26/11 attacks in her address to the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) even as she stated that the recent blast in Varanasi is “a reminder that the forces of terrorism are very much there and active and that our vigil must remain constant.”

Meanwhile,coming out in defence of Digvijaya Singh,Congress MP from Bareilly Praveen Singh Aron today demanded an investigation. “Digvijaya Singh never said that Hindu extremists were behind the killing of Karkare. He was speaking about a different issue — the extent which communal forces could go to threaten Karkare. There should be an investigation into these threats,” Aron said.