Indian Terror: Saffron Sarkar Raj

Mosque in Parbhani, Maharashtra, where a bomb explosion left many injured, in December 2003. Naresh Kondwar and Himanshu Phanse of Bajrang Dal, who were killed while making bombs in Nanded in April 2006, were allegedly responsible for bombing the mosque.

Backdrop:

‘Samjhauta, Hindi for friendship, Express’ is only one of many CBM’s that have been undertaken by the two countries to improve relations, was initiated to increase people to people to contact between the two arch rivals. On February 17,2007, the train that travels from Delhi to Lahore was hit by a bomb, killing as many as 68 people. Most of the casualties consisted of Pakistani nationals. Many conspiracy theories were hatched in an attempt to explain what had really gone by.

Indian authorities and the media were quick to assert that the evidence overwhelmingly pointed towards Pakistan and ISI. With the immediate release of sketches of the suspects, it seemed that Indians had it all figured out. For Pakistan it was nothing more than a feeling of déjà vu; India is known to have a history of blaming Pakistan and ISI for the smallest of occurrences in India, hardly ever backing it up with any credible evidence. And so when in 2006 Malegaon, a town in the Nashik district of the Indian state of Maharashtra, located at some 290 km to the northeast of state capital Mumbai, was rattled by a series of bombings, the blame was put on groups having links with Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Maharashtra Police blamed the Student Islamic Movement of India, further linking them to Lashkar-e-Taiba and in turn the ISI.

The unlikely twist surfaced recently in India with the arrests of 10 people, including a serving Lieutenant Colonel Prashad Srikant Purohit, a Hindu monk and nun for their alleged involvement in bomb explosions that killed six people in the Muslim dominated town of Malegaon this year. So far, ten people, including a self proclaimed Hindu seer and a serving lieutenant colonel, have been arrested for their involvement in the Sep 29 bombing. Besides Purohit, of the accused also include Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Shivnarayan Singh Kalsangram, Shyam Bhawarlal Sahu, Major Ramesh Shivji Upadhyay (retd), Sameer Kulkarni, Rakesh Dattaram Dhavde and Ajay Rahirkar. The suspicion is now directed at the extremist Hindu movement Sangh Parivar, a network linked to a former Major, and now in custody, Ramesh Upadhyay who represents the terrorist organization, Abhinav Bharat.

The chilling part of the entire episode is the involvement of accused Lt Col Purohit in bomb attack on the Samjhauta Express to which he confessed. During investigation Col Purohit has also confessed to training Hindu terrorists for attacking Muslims, besides training them for attacking Samjhauta Express for which he had also supplied them RDX. He further confessed that it was intended to cause armed conflict between Pakistan and India so that anti-Muslim passions could be nurtured in India, leading to violence.

The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) claimed that Purohit supplied RDX to one “Bhagwan” for Samjhauta Express blast. Public prosecutor Ajay Misar said Abhinav Bharat’s treasurer Ajay Rahirkar had handed Rs2.5 lakh to Lt Col P S Purohit. Mahant Amritanand Dev alias Dayanand Pandey, the self-styled pontiff who was arrested from Kanpur has revealed that it was under his instructions that Lt. Colonel Shrikant Purohit procured RDX from an army depot that was used in the Malegaon blast. According to reports Pandey was present in all the pre-blast meetings in Bhopal, Jabalpur and Faridabad, monitored operations meticulously and was also responsible for arranging the finances that came in through illegal channels. It is believed that Pandey, a dropout from the National Defence Academy, collaborated with two other accused who are presently on the run - Ramji Kalsangara, who allegedly planted the motorcycle owned by the Hindu ascetic Pragya Singh Thakur in Malegaon, and Sameer Dange.

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