No record of Karkare's call to Digvijay: RR Patil

In an embarrassment to Digvijay Singh, Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil on Thursday said there was existence of any record of the purported telephonic conversation between the Congress general secretary and slain Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare.

"It is Digvijay's personal opinion. The state police machinery does not have any record of his conversation with Karkare on that fateful day," Patil said while making a suo moto statement under Rule 48 in the Lower House.

Karkare was perturbed over allegations of framing of charges against sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and others in the Malegaon blast case and had expressed it before him and the then Director General of Police A N Roy, he said.

"But Karkare was a victim of terror attack in Mumbai and died of bullets of terrorists," he said.

Digvijay had last week created a flutter by claiming that that Karkare had spoken about threats from right-wing groups during a telephonic conversation with him hours before he was killed. He, however, subsequently clarified that he never doubted the role of Pakistani elements in the Mumbai attacks.

Congress has distanced itself from Digvijay's statement, saying the matter was "a conversation between two individuals".