'Laws of sedition need to be revised'

Digvijay Singh, who stoked controversy on December 11 with his comments regarding slain ATS chief Hemant Karkare, was in town yesterday to release a book.

Though the Congress leader did not agree with the book completely, he found time to come all the way from Delhi because he had something to add.


Digvijay Singh releases the book RSS ki saazish by Aziz Burney

The book, RSS Ki Saazish 26/11?, by the editor of an Urdu daily was released at Islam Gymkhana in Marine Lines.

Singh felt that it provided him with the right opportunity to clarify his stand on the 26/11 attack and make a few other comments, importantly upon the lifer given to activist Dr Binayak Sen.

Sedition laws old

Singh is of the opinion that the court judgment on Dr Binayak Sen, the human rights activist and vice-president of People*s Union for Civil Liberties, needs a judicial review.

"I have known Sen for a short period. I don*t know about the judgment, but the laws of sedition are old and need to be revised. The sentence needs a judicial review," he said.



Sen, who has long beenu00a0 persecuted by the state as a Maoist sympathiser, was convicted for sedition last Friday, and awarded life imprisonment by the Raipur Sessions Court.
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The conviction has raised the hackles of activists and Sen*s supporters who condemn the state for its stand against Sen.

Pak behind 26/11

Regarding his 26/11 comments, Singh reiterated that he believed that the terror plot was Pakistan-sponsored. He followed it up by immediately adding, "Karkare was being targeted by Hindu groups.
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He was under pressure from all sides for the arrests he had made in the Malegaon blasts."

Singh had riled the BJP earlier with his utterance that Karkare had called him hours before the attack in 2008 to say that his life was under threat from Hindu extremists after his probe in Malegaon blasts.

Many assumed that he was insinuating the hand of Hindu fundamentalists behind the attack.

Singh further claimed that his guru, Shankaracharya of Dwarka, Swaroopanand Maharaj, received a death threat in October.
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"The letter from Jabalpur read stop blabbering against the other (right wing) or suffer the consequences. An FIR has been registered," said Singh.

Singh also said that RSS ideology represents only a segment of the Hindus and not everyone endorses their extremist ideology.

"The ideology that killed Gandhiji can*t be good. There needs to be a change. Banning isn*t a solution. The best way to fight an ideology is to target it with another," he said.