New Delhi: fter splattering black paint on former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and columnist Sudheendra Kulkarni, Hindu fundamentalist party Shiv Sena has compared him to 26/11 terrorist Ajmal Kasab, who was hanged in 2012.

“If there are people like Kulkarni here, there is no need for Pakistan to send the likes of Kasab. Kulkarni can do the damage of 100 Kasabs,” Shiv Sena said in an editorial in its mouthpiece Saamna Tuesday.

Sena activists Monday threw black paint on Kulkarni, who had rejected the party’s demand that former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmoud Kasuri’s book launch be called off. The launch of Kasuri’s book Neither a Hawk nor a Dove: An Insider’s Account of Pakistan’s Foreign Policy went ahead with Shiv Sena defiant but subdued by widespread public anger at the paint attack.

‘Bad name’

Meanwhile, six Shiv Sena workers were arrested Tuesday in connection with the paint attack, only to be released on bail.

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 criticising it, saying he had “failed to understand Maharashtra” and that his condemnation of the incident brought the state “a bad name”.

Continuing with its shrill anti-Pakistan stance, a day after the paint attack on Kulkarni triggered outrage, 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 editorial said.

“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.

Kulkarni yesterday made a pitch for freedom of expression.

— With inputs from PTI