Dismissing allegations that he had equated the word “Hindu” to a “thief” in a speech made in 2002 as politically motivated, DMK chief M Karunanidhi has submitted that he used the term which implied that a Hindu was one who stole hearts.
In a counter affidavit filed in a case where the petitioner had approached the Madras High Court to direct the police to investigate the FIR on the controversial speech and file a charge sheet as soon as possible, Karunanidhi said that the allegations made against him was an “afterthought” and was made at the instigation of his “political opponents.”
While the petitioner filed the original complaint in 2002, he failed to follow it up for over three years and approached the High Court in 2005. Karunanidhi issued a press statement clarifying that he had not spoken ill of any religious faith.
In the reported speech, he had said that the word “Hindu” had been defined as a thief by a supporter of the religion itself.
But he does not support such a definition. He had explained that he preferred to take the meaning not as “thief” in the ordinary sense of the word but as the “thief” who stole the hearts of the people. However, the complainant had mischievously linked it to a “truncated version” of the speech in certain newspapers and had suppressed the full text.
