The Congress today doubted the veracity of a ‘WikiLeaks’ cable which said that a section of the party leadership was seen playing religious politics after one of its leaders, A R Antulay, raised suspicion on the truth behind top cop Hemant Karkare’s killing during 26/11 attacks.

While Law Minister M Veerappa Moily said “It is baseless”, party media department chief Janardan Dwivedi said, “nobody has authenticated that (the leaked cable)”.

Party spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed was more categorical, saying, “We do not agree with the observations. We will have to find out whether these leaks are genuine or not.”

He said a number of fabricated and false leaks have been published in media in the name of WikiLeaks and added, “We will have to ascertain whether leaks are genuine or not.”

“The High Commissioner or Ambassador of a country sends a secret report to its government. It’s between him and his government. Somebody claims to have found it out. Nobody has authenticated that. For any party to say something on this will not be responsible,” Mr. Dwivedi said.

The party leaders’ response came on questions on the report, which according to WiliLeaks is from a confidential memo by the then U.S. Ambassador to India, David Mulford.

“The Congress Party, after first distancing itself from the comments (of Antulay, the then minority affairs minister), two days later issued a contradictory statement which implicitly endorsed the conspiracy. During this time, Mr Antulay’s completely unsubstantiated claims gained support in ... Indian-Muslim community,” Mr Mulford had written in his secret cable to the State Department on December 23, 2008.

“Hoping to foster that support for upcoming national elections, the Congress Party cynically pulled back from its original dismissal and lent credence to the conspiracy,” Mr Mulford wrote, according to the WikiLeaks release.