Bharat Rakshak

Violation of human rights, dignity & reputation of Sadhvi Pragya & others

A delegation of 81 eminent citizens comprising retired army officers, retired police officers, lawyers, media persons and social workers today marched to the office of the National Human Rights Commission and presented a petition seeking enquiry into the violation of human rights of Sadhvi Pragya and others accused in the Malegaon blast case.

Led by former Punjab Director General of Police, Mr. K.P.S. Gill, the delegation met Justice G.P. Mathur, Member, NHRC and presented a memorandum.

Mr. Gill told the Commission that prima facie a gross violation of human rights has taken place as Sadhvi Pragya was illegally detained for nearly 13 days; physically assaulted and mentally tortured in police custody with no female police officers present; robbed of her dignity by officers who questioned her chastity; interrogated and transferred from one place to another without the presence of female police officers; and worst of all, denied access to her family and lawyers.

The delegation expressed astonishment that despite the affidavit of Sadhvi Pragya being widely covered in the media, and even published in its entirety in one newspaper, the Commission had taken no notice of the case. Justice Mathur assured that the Commission would study the memorandum and follow the due process in the matter.

Other members of the delegation included Mr Balbir Punj, MP Rajya Sabha; Mrs. Nancy Kaul; Brig R.B. Sharma; Mr. Praful Goradia, former MP; Prof. J.S. Rajput; Prof. Makkhan Lal; Mr. K.N. Govindacharya; Mr. Kanchan Gupta, Mr. Jay Bhattacharjee; Mrs. Meenakshi Lekhi, Mr. Rajesh Gogna, Mr. Tarun Vijay, Mr. R. Balashankar; Mr Deepak Rath; Mrs. Jaya Jaitly; Mr. K.R. Phanda and Ms. Sandhya Jain.

Later, a smaller group visited the National Commission for Women and presented a similar petition demanding intervention in the violation of human rights and illegal detention of Sadhvi Pragya, on the basis of her sworn affidavit in a Nashik court.

What i personally feel is that even if the links of arrested Sadhavi in the
blast is true, it is just a retaliatory action by the subdued Hindu community.

narayanan wrote:Retaliation for Vijayanagaram.

{Sorry, but I don't want to post another OT post - need to keep focus. Retaliation for only one perceived historical wrong per incident, pls. - narayanan}

Are Hindus losing faith in the Indian State?
A Surya Prakash
The lack of faith in the Indian State among sections of the Hindu majority can be traced to a series of diabolical initiatives taken by the UPA in cynical pursuit of Muslim votes.


Whatever be the outcome of the investigations launched by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) into the Malegaon blast and the fate of the case in a court of law, there can be no denying that the arrest of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt Col Srikant Prasad Purohit and their alleged involvement in this act of terror is indicative of a much deeper malaise that could have grave implications for the survival of our democracy, the secular order and core Constitutional values.

Pragya was picked up for questioning in this case on Oct 7 and formally arrested on Oct 23. Initially the investigators made her out to be the “sinister master mind” in this case but later assigned that role to Purohit. Thus far the ATS has arrested 11 persons in connection with this blast and inspired a series of media leaks hoping that loads of innuendo will somehow offset the lack of hard evidence.

One such accusation was that Purohit had pilfered 60 kg of RDX from the army and used it for bomb blasts across the country including the blasts on the Samjauta Express. But when the media cited forensic lab reports which said that RDX was not used in the Samjauta Express bombs, the ATS pretended as if it had never linked the officer to the Samjauta Case. In short, a full month after the first arrests were made, it appears as if the ATS is on a wild goose chase.

The ATS is handling an extremely sensitive case because of the persons who have thus far been implicated. Since the main accused happen to be a Hindu sanyasin and a serving officer in the Indian Army, the ATS will have to ensure due diligence and professionalism of the highest order in its work. Should the investigators falter on any of these counts, they will expose themselves to the charge of succumbing to political pressure from the Congress and the UPA and resorting to a witch hunt.

But the current investigations into the Malegaon blast have far greater implications than the mere loss of image of a police squad in a state. If we do not wish to skirt the truth, we must acknowledge that even if the police’s theory vis-à-vis the Malegaon blast and a few other amateurish bomb-making enterprises detected in Maharastra earlier is partially true, it shows that among the Hindus there are people who have begun to lose faith in the ability of the Indian State to ensure rule of law. This, as history tells us, has consequences that are far more dreadful than a few bombs going off here and there.

The State, as constitutionalists define it, comprises the parliament, the judiciary and the executive. Add to this political parties and the electoral system and you have the entire gamut of institutions and processes that broadly define a democratic state. Such institutions work like well-oiled machines in democracies so long as the majority (eg: the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant in America and the Hindu in India) reposes faith in them. They wither away when the majority feels betrayed.

While the BJP has to take its share of the blame for the lack of bipartisanship while dealing with issues like terrorism, the Manmohan Singh’s government must take the rap for disturbing the Hindu psyche. The lack of faith in the Indian State among sections of the Hindu majority can be traced to a series of diabolical initiatives taken by the UPA in cynical pursuit of Muslim votes.

The first of these was the decision to appoint the Sachar Committee to examine the status of the Muslim community in the country. On the face of it, there is nothing objectionable in a government setting up such a panel, but the government’s acquiescence to some reckless initiatives taken by the committee, smacked of irresponsibility of the first order. The most glaring example of this was the move to conduct a religious head count in the armed forces.

Those in uniform were aghast to find that the committee was asking for a report on the number of Hindus, Muslims, Christians etc in a force that never saw itself in such divisive tones. Strangely, there were persons in government who were insensitive to the opinion in the armed forces and even lending covert support to the communal head count idea. Fortunately, a few sane voices still left in government scuttled the committee’s absurd plan.

This was followed by the prime minister’s indefensible statement that Muslims have the first right on the country’s resources. Can any citizen wedded to the ideals of democracy and secularism defend such an utterance by one who heads the Union government? Since then, one has been witness to some utterly reckless conduct on the part of Union ministers and UPA fellow-travellers like Ram Vilas Paswan, Lalu Prasad and Mulayam Singh Yadav, who have been competing with each other in order to commiserate with the family of Abu Bashar, the alleged master mind of the Ahmedabad and Jaipur terrorist strikes.

In short, no Union government since Independence has done so much to disturb the confidence of the majority in our democratic state. The question is, can we put the genie back in the bottle. We must take a leaf from the Obama campaign and say “Yes, We Can!” and, like the Americans, do the right thing in a national election. If that happens, Malegaon will only be an aberration and hopefully, the faith of the majority in the Indian State and the democratic process will stand redeemed.

The menace of saffron politics
By Praful Bidwai
If the Rajnath Singh line prevails, and if the BJP does well in the Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Delhi elections, it will feel vindicated in its defence of terrorism and mount an ultra-communal campaign in the Lok Sabha election, with terrible consequences...


The BJP is indeed a “party with a difference.” It’s India’s only national-level formation which wants to reorder this society along anti-secular lines to assert the social-cultural-political primacy of one religious community. It’s also the only party controlled by an extra-parliamentary organisation, the RSS, which isn’t publicly accountable.
{Yes, just like Madame Sonia is the extra-parliamentery head of govt}
Worse, the BJP believes it’s free to practise double standards. For years, it said the “trident” issues - Ram temple, Article 370 and Uniform Civil Code - are its core-identity. But it expediently dropped them in 1998 to please its allies.

Now, the BJP – which boasts it alone has the will to fight terrorism, and has put it at its manifesto’s centre – is brazenly defending Hindutva-inspired terrorism. From falsely denying the sangh parivar’s links with the network involved in planting bombs at Malegaon in September, including ‘Sadhvi’ Pragya Thakur, Lt-Col Purohit, and Sameer Kulkarni, it has moved to branding the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad’s investigation a “conspiracy.”
{When did this get proven?}

The BJP attacked Jamia Millia’s offer of legal assistance to two Muslim students accused of terrorism. But it has no compunctions about supporting Thakur and Purohit, not just legally, but politically. {Errr,isnt there a difference in a educational institution providing help and ordinary citizens doing so? Did the BHU ever jump into the fray?}The ATS investigation is undoubtedly a breakthrough although the threads to different bomb blasts targeting Muslims since 2003 have to be tied up. As the parivar feels the heat, the BJP has turned hysterical. It’s venomously branding its opponents “ISI agents.”

Party spokesperson Prakash Javadekar is outdoing normally abusive sadhus by claiming the Congress ‘encourages terrorism’ and has no right to level charges at sadhus ‘and the Army.’

This illegitimately confuses one stray officer with the entire force. It’s ludicrous to hold that the law shouldn’t apply to ‘spiritual leaders,’ and detention of a handful of ‘shady’ sadhus like Amritanand is a conspiracy against an entire community!

BJP president Rajnath Singh’s position is even more irrational. From expressing embarrassment at being photographed with Thakur, he now stridently insists that votaries of ‘cultural nationalism’ (Hindutva) can never be terrorists by definition.

Even prime ministerial-hopeful LK Advani has fallen in line with this. His statement attacking the ATS as “politically motivated” is a major departure from his earlier attempt to appear “moderate” by saying “terrorism has no religion” and the law must take its course.

Advani took his cue from the sangh parivar’s Nov 16 Panipat conclave, at which Rajnath Singh and Uttarakhand Chief Minister BC Khanduri joined viciously anti-secular sadhus and resolved to launch an outrageously communal mass campaign. Nothing can condone the presence of these leaders, one an elected public official with Constitutional responsibilities, and the other the topmost office-bearer of a big party, at the conclave.

There’s a real danger that the Panipat meeting will go down as a rabid version of the BJP’s 1989 Palanpur conclave which resolved to build a temple at Ayodhya by razing the Babri mosque.

There are several links between today’s saffron network and those who scripted Hindutva 80 years ago and founded toxic institutions like the Bhonsala Military School (created by BS Moonje, political guru of RSS founder Hedgewar), Abhinav Bharat (established by VD Savarkar, inventor-author of ‘Hindutva’) and of course, the RSS.

Abhinav Bharat seeks to establish an ‘armed’ India and bury Hindu sahishnuvad (tolerance).

Some of these people are so extreme, that there were reports suggesting that they were plotting to kill RSS leaders including general secretary Mohan Bhagwat for not doing enough for Hindutva!{Guess now we understand who believes the cock anfd bull stories being put out}

The parivar is defending terrorism in the belief that the public thinks it’s patriotic. In reality, the parivar seeks to destroy India’s essence as a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-religious society through an anti-secular counter-revolution. It’s driven by prejudice, hatred, and blind revenge. The people know that Hindutva has a history of assassinations, bloody riots and anti-minority pogroms.

Hindutva terrorism cannot be seen in isolation from the culture of divisiveness and hatred that the BJP has promoted in its cynical pursuit of power. Violence is integral to this and to the party’s political mobilisation strategy.

This culture has percolated into police forces. Thus, the Maharashtra police recently told a Dhule court: “It’s an established fact that Muslims are the masterminds behind all terrorist activities across India.”{This was from the police force of a Kangress govt.So, start reading the tea leaves}

If the Rajnath Singh line prevails, and if the BJP does well in the Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Delhi elections, it will feel vindicated in its defence of terrorism and mount an ultra-communal campaign in the Lok Sabha election, with terrible consequences.

Already, Modi has emerged as Advani’s undisputed successor, with legitimacy through Tata Motors’ decision to shift the Nano to Gujarat. The RSS has tightened its grip on the BJP. As its shakha attendance plummets, it’ll become hyperactive in parivar outfits, including the BJP. The BJP has entered its most communal phase. It’s playing with fire. It must be stopped.

Dayanand Pandey's explosive revelations
November 22, 2008
In a stunning revelation, self-styled godman Dayanand Pandey, who was arrested in connection with the Malegaon blast case, has revealed during his narco-analysis test that the entire operation was undertaken to avenge the death of Sunil Joshi, the man to whom sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, another accused in the case, sold her motorcycle to.(That motorcycle was used in the blast, while Joshi was allegedly killed by Students Islamic Movement of India activists)

Pandey was brought down to Bengaluru and subjected to a narco analysis test at the Bowring Hospital on Friday. The test was conducted by the Forensic Sciences Laboratory officials in Bengaluru and the Mumbai Anti Terrorist Squad.After being administered the truth serum, Pandey revealed that the Malegaon operation was masterminded by sadhvi Pragya Singh. Pandey termed Joshi as the sadhvi's closest friend and added that she was very upset with his death. Pragya, according to Pandey, was furious with members of the SIMI, who she suspected were behind the 'killing' of Sunil Joshi in Indore.

The sadhvi was arrested after the ATS found that the two-wheeler used in the Malegaon blast belonged to her.The sadhvi denied any link in the blast and added that she had sold her vehicle in 2004. She said in an affidavit that she had sold the vehicle to Joshi as she hardly used it. However, Joshi failed to transfer the vehicle into his name and hence it was not her fault if the vehicle was used in the blasts.

Pandey further states in his narco-test that Pragya, also known as sadhvi Purnachetnagiri, had approached him and sought his help to strike against SIMI members. He said according to Pragya, SIMI had allegedly killed her 'boyfriend' Joshi in Indore.He said Pragya was extremely furious and wanted to eliminate members of the SIMI somehow. It was following this that the Malegaon blast was executed in September 2008 in which six persons were killed.

Pandey stated in his narco-analysis test that he had introduced Pragya to Lieutenant Colonel Srikant Purohit, another accused in the case, who was then working with the Indian Army's military intelligence.Purohit, during his stint as a military intelligence officer, had gathered a lot of information about terrorists in Maharashtra, he said, adding that Pragya was also very upset with an RSS leader who, according to her, was in touch with some SIMI members.

Details on the links between this RSS leader and the SIMI members are not clear as yet.

Pandey said she was very angry with this RSS leader and had also hatched a plan to murder him. However, before the plan was executed, she was picked up the police, Pandey revealed during the test.The ATS will now corroborate the statements given by Pandey and Purohit.

Purohit had revealed during his narco-analysis test that Pragya had been keen on terror attacks and had actively participated in chalking out details of the attack.He had also explained as to how he had procured the explosives and planted them.

Following these startling revelations, the investigating agencies are not ruling out carrying out another scientific test on Pragya. The brain electrical oscillation signature test conducted on Pragya at the Forensic Science Laboratory in Mumbai had come back negative. It was on the basis of this test that several leaders had announced their support to Pragya.

PM sleeps well as sadhvi is tortured

Kanchan Gupta

The so-called ‘investigation’ by the Anti-Terrorism Squad of Maharashtra into the September 29 explosion at Malegaon, in which six Muslims were killed, continues to take strange twists and turns. Each morning we get to read increasingly bizarre stories about Sadhvi Pragya, Lt Col Shrikant Prasad Purohit, Swami Dayanand Pande and the others who have been arrested for what the ATS now claims to be more than one conspiracy and are being held under Section 3 of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act which provides for the death penalty. The latest allegation that has been levelled against them is that they were plotting the assassination of senior RSS leaders, including general secretary Mohanrao Bhagwat. As with all the other startling allegations that have been levelled against the accused, no evidence has been offered by the ATS to even remotely substantiate this claim. All that we have been told is that they have ‘information’ to this effect. Just as the ATS had ‘information’ about Lt Col Purohit surreptitiously acquiring 60 kg of RDX from an Army ammunitions store and using part of it to bomb Samjhauta Express on February 18, 2007, and kill 68 people. Confronted with the results of forensic tests that had shown the use of incendiary material, and not RDX, in the Samjhauta Express bombing, the ATS shamelessly shifted gears and came up with something more fanciful so that public attention would not focus on its obvious fabrication of an outrageous charge.

The ATS, through anonymous ‘sources’, now says the Army has ‘tampered’ with Lt Col Purohit’s laptop and wiped its hard disk clean of incriminating material. But there’s no reason to lose heart: The ATS has found ‘evidence’ which shows that Lt Col Purohit would visit, horror of horrors, anti-Islamist and anti-jihadi Websites! Even if we were to accept this as a verity, let us not forget that as a military intelligence official, it was Lt Col Purohit’s job to scan the Internet for information. In any case, since when has the Government of India outlawed logging into anti-Islamist, anti-jihadi or, for that matter, anti-Muslim Websites? And so the traducement continues as the ATS works at feverish pitch to concoct stories and paint the accused in the bleakest of colours.

Newspapers have been prominently publishing these stories and 24x7 news channels have been dedicating bulk of their prime time bulletins on them, although both reporters and editors know that by doing so, they have elected to become complicit partners in what is fast emerging as an elaborate con job. The last time newspaper columns were converted into fertile fields for planting stories of a similar nature was in the dying days of the Rajiv Gandhi Government when Mr VP Singh was sought to be maligned by ‘exposing’ the ‘St Kitts scandal’. There was no off-shore account in which Mr Ajeya Singh, son of Mr VP Singh, had salted away ill-gotten wealth. But the ‘information’ that was planted in the media was replete with ‘details’ that were later proved to be no more than pulp fiction. I also recall how the Congress tried to malign Mr Sanjay Singh after Syed Modi’s murder, using the CBI to leak the salacious contents, page by page, of Amita Modi’s ‘diary’. Nothing came of the case; Mr Sanjay Singh’s alleged involvement in the murder was never proved; and, it is no small irony that he should now be back in the Congress. It would also be instructive to recall the days when industrialists who had fallen foul of the Congress would be raided by Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and Income Tax officials and the next day’s news reports would invariably mention that ‘incriminating documents’ were seized from their premises. That would be the last time we would hear of those ‘incriminating documents’.

As then, so now plants and motivated leaks are being packaged and presented as ‘exclusive’ stories, as if they have been unearthed by intrepid reporters for the benefit of unsuspecting readers and viewers. The fact is that there is little to distinguish those who have been planting ATS handouts and off-the-record briefings as stories corroborated by evidence — one of them, writing on the front page of a so-called national daily, pompously declared that he had accessed the ‘information’ with the ATS, but did not cite any evidence — from those engaged in the world’s oldest profession. In fact, the harimtu were not entirely devoid of integrity, honour and dignity — values which are treated with contempt by peddlers of fiction as fact who have ensured that every unubstantiated allegation of the Maharashtra ATS has been immortalised through the columns of their newspapers and broadcast on prime time news shows. On Friday evening, a 24x7 channel claimed it had got hold of ‘exclusive’ footage, courtesy the ATS, which amounted to ‘clinching evidence’, the much-awaited ‘breakthrough’, to prove the allegations against the accused. And what did the ‘exclusive’ footage show? That three of the accused were present at a public event where nationalist slogans (for instance, “Bharat Mata ki jai!”) were raised. Is acquaintance a punishable offence? Is everybody who has spoken to somebody whom the Maharashtra ATS is intent on framing to be arrested and subjected to narco-analysis and brain-mapping tests? Are we living in a democracy or a banana republic where the police have over-riding authority to torture civilians, defame decorated Army officers, and defile reputations built over years?

The Prime Minister, we are told, is hugely upset that Mr LK Advani should have raised the issue of Sadhvi Pragya being detained illegally, of being physically abused and mentally tortured, of her chastity being questioned by policemen who have long sold their souls to venal politicians and gangsters, of her being interrogated without ensuring the presence of female constables, and of her being disallowed the right to contact her lawyer. When asked whether he had read Sadhvi Pragya’s sworn affidavit, the Prime Minister said he had not. Nor would the Prime Minister have read Lt Col Purohit’s sworn affidavit, in which he has said the ATS threatened to kill him in a staged ‘encounter’ unless he owned up to each and every crime his tormentors could think of. Contrast the Prime Minister’s callous indifference with the sleepless nights he spent when the Australian Police were interrogating Dr Mohammed Haneef for his links with the Glasgow bombers.

If the ATS were really serious about its job and under “zero political pressure”, it would have steered clear of media publicity, put together the evidence, presented it in a court of law and secured convictions. What it has instead achieved in doing is holding India up to ridicule and making a mockery of the law of the land. After the Malegaon episode, let’s not pretend disquiet over Abu Ghraib or lecture the world about how the rule of law prevails in this wretched land of ours.

What a bunch of fools !

Chandan Mitra

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh: Perpetrator or victim? Will the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad please make up its mind? Till some days back, we were informed by "sources" in the ATS, colourfully played up in sections of the media that the alleged Malegaon bombers' links led right up to the top of the Sangh Parivar hierarchy. In other words, senior RSS functionaries were suspected of hatching the so-called Hindu terror plot, but chose obscure organisations (read Abhinav Bharat) and little known religious personalities to execute their plan. So much so, that the name of a front-ranking RSS leader, namely Indreesh who was active in the Amarnath Shrine agitation in Jammu, was being volubly whispered in various circles as the ATS' next target.

If media gossip is to be believed, a full-proof plot had been hatched by the ATS in collusion with other investigative agencies to systematically implicate the RSS in the entire supposed conspiracy. Since the ATS' vivid imagination has been running riot from October 11 when Sadhvi Pragya was illegally detained, the RSS angle seemed a logical enough part of what most Hindu-minded people all along believed was a totally fabricated, politically directed investigation. But if the alleged Malegaon bombers' links could be traced to the RSS, it would have served the Congress well. Apart from putting the BJP on the back foot in the ongoing State and forthcoming general elections, it could have tarnished the Sangh's image forever.

But since the entire frame-up was a figment of the ATS's imagination anyway, the facts failed to quite add up. Unable to find any substantive evidence against the alleged bombers, the investigators began to lose the plot somewhere. The crude attempt to nail Lt. Col. Shrikant Purohit for the Samjhauta Express blasts evaporated sooner than methylated spirit poured on a saucer. The absurdity of a man first pilfering a whopping 60 kg of lethal RDX from army depots, then lifting it alone to throw the heavy bag into the Jhelum from a railway bridge for his cohorts to pick it up from the river downstream, set the country giggling in sheer disbelief. The Army, though, was not amused. Not only did it indignantly rebut the charge of pilferage, but also pointed out that the security forces neither stock nor casually throw around vast quantities of lethal explosives. Further, assuming that the RDX had indeed been pilfered wouldn't the Army itself raise a hue and cry and track down the thief?

Red-faced, the ATS quietly dropped the Samjhauta Express charge, penitently arguing that it was merely "exploring" such a possibility. By the time this retraction came, the Pakistani media went to town shouting from roof tops, "We told you so!" The Pakistanis were entitled to this jubilation for an Indian agency had ended up absolving them of the accusation of promoting terror in India. South Block was in jitters because the Government had cited the Samjhauta Express bombing as a definite instance of Pakistani hand in terror operations in this country. ATS had thus successfully made a laughing stock of India before the entire world, which now found Islamabad's insistence that jehadi terror in India is purely home grown more credible than New Delhi's claims in the past.

Even as the ATS was grappling with this self-goal came Sadhvi Pragya's affidavit in a Nashik court. Her account makes chilling reading and every Indian must hang his head in shame at those revelations. Although widely publicised in the Marathi media, the affidavit was predictably blacked out by the sneering, secularist national media. The Pioneer was the only English newspaper to reproduce it in full. The document outraged not only our regular subscribers but millions world over. Our website in fact crashed that day because of the relentless downloading of the affidavit not just in India but also by the Indian diaspora.

Her credible narrative pointed to unbelievable violations of human rights -- physical and psychological violence, disregard for the frailty of her medical condition, illegal detention for a fortnight before her formal arrest (which is when most of the excesses were committed) and denial of her right to legal aid as well as flouting of the Supreme Court's directive requiring a woman constable's mandatory presence during a woman suspect's interrogation. Human rights groups and bleeding-heart NGOs who feign so much outrage over Gujarat, allege Batla House was a fake encounter, and breast-beat over other so-called atrocities on minorities, did not even whimper. Had LK Advani not raised the issue last Tuesday and followed it up by referring to it in every public forum he attended, the unspeakable brutalities perpetrated on Sadhvi Pragya may never have come into the public domain.

Steadily cornered by a succession of boo-boos, the ATS has finally hit upon a new theory. Its latest leak suggests that the alleged Malegaon bombers actually intended to liquidate senior RSS leaders. The list includes the very same pracharak, Indreesh, who till a week ago was the supposed ideological fountainhead of the Hindu terror conspiracy! According to the new yarn, the "Hindu terrorists" decided to eliminate Indreesh and Mohan Bhagwat, RSS sarkaryavah (General Secretary) and No 2 in the organisation, apparently because of their "soft line" towards Muslims. This leads us squarely back to the question posed at the outset: Was the RSS masterminding this so-called terror plot, or was it the plotters' intended target? Surely, it couldn't be both. But then official investigative agencies are skilled at the art of concocting the most extraordinary tales. For example, the UC Banerjee Committee on the Godhra train attack happily concluded that the kar sevaks had become so possessed with the idea of committing mass suicide that they themselves set two bogies of Sabarmati Express on fire!

Although there seems not an iota of truth in the daily litany of (shifting) charges levelled by ATS "sources", it is possible that some hotheads are upset that the RSS has not called for a retributive counter-jihad against Islamists. The fact is that the RSS does not do such things and usually engages only in social service, specialising in education and disaster management. Are we supposed to believe that some people, part of the extended saffron parivar, had no understanding of the RSS' character and got agitated because the Sangh did not want to raise a standing army of Hindu vigilantes? The day may not be far off when demands for brain mapping of some officials of various investigative agencies and their political masters will start to be raised.

The ATS' objective, howsoever misplaced, is clear. Now that the BJP has decided to unmask the Government's conspiracy and the case of Sadhvi's torture has outraged public sentiment, it wants the BJP to back off. ATS thinks the BJP will be horrified that the ultra-Hindus wanted to kill RSS leaders and drop the issue like a hot potato. One is reminded of screen villain Ajit's inimitable dialogue in Yaadon ki Baraat: "What a bunch of fools!"

The Rise Of The Hindu Right
Upcoming elections in India could help usher an even more nationalist BJP back into power.

Jason Overdorf
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Dec 1, 2008
It's election season in India, and that's bad news for the hapless Congress party. Six states go to the polls in the coming month, in what some experts are calling a bellwether for next year's general election. And though the races are too close to call, some pundits say Congress is likely to fare poorly. But that's not the worst of it. The slack in four of the contests may be taken up by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—a Hindu nationalist organization that's surging in strength in a new, more aggressive form. In an especially worrisome twist, police say they recently uncovered possible links between BJP-associated Hindu nationalist organizations and suspected Hindu terrorists—a first for a mainstream Indian party.

The BJP's renewed appeal can be explained, at least in part, by timing. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is not known for his political acumen, Congress has lost the last eight state elections in a row. Now the worldwide financial crisis has sent inflation spiraling and slowed growth, further damaging the government's chances. The BJP hopes to capitalize on the bad economic conditions when voters head to the polls in Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram and Rajasthan this month. While nothing's guaranteed, many observers expect Congress to get trounced. "Their machine is in tatters," says Mahesh Rangarajan, a Delhi University political analyst.

While that's bad for Congress, it wouldn't necessarily be a problem for India—but for two things. First, the state elections could well forecast the fate of the Congress-led ruling coalition, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), in next nationwide poll, which must take place before May 2009. (The UPA's own rural-development minister recently said the state votes represented a "mini general election.") And second, the BJP has taken a nastier turn since it last led the country in 2004.

To get a sense of the shift, consider the BJP's candidate for prime minister this time around. Lal Krishna Advani is an aging rabble-rouser who in the mid-1990s helped gather a huge Hindu mob that tore down the 16th-century Babri Mosque, leading to riots that killed more than 2,000 people (Advani was later cleared of criminal charges). He is far more radical than his predecessor, Atal Behari Vajpayee, who served as prime minister from 1998 to 2004. And Advani's heir apparent is Gujarat's chief minister, Narendra Modi—who has been denied entry to the United States for his alleged role in the 2002 riots in Gujarat that killed more than 1,000. Not long after the riots, Modi warned a crowd that Muslims were trying to erode India's Hindu majority by having many children. "We have to teach a lesson to those who are increasing the population at an alarming rate," he said.

Then there's the alleged terror link. Since Oct. 24, the state of Maharashtra's Anti-Terrorism Squad has arrested 10 Hindu nationalists—including a lieutenant colonel in Army intelligence, a prominent Hindu spiritual leader and a former party worker from the BJP's student wing—for suspected involvement in a 2006 attack previously blamed on Muslim extremists. The case has yet to come to trial and the suspects maintain they are innocent. But the news, if true, would mark the first known terrorist bombing in India's history involving Hindu extremists—rather than Muslim radicals, separatists or Maoist revolutionaries—and the story has shocked the country. Rather than disown the suspects, however, BJP grandees have leapt to their defense. On Nov. 10, party president Rajnath Singh said that "whosoever believes in nationalism cannot be a terrorist," and on Nov. 12 he complained that "this government is targeting Hindu spiritual leaders without evidence … We find this investigation very suspicious."

The explanation for the BJP's rightward tilt lies with its increased reliance on its parent organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). During the Vajpayee years and in the run-up to the 2004 national elections, the BJP generally tried to divorce itself from anti-Muslim vitriol and the RSS. But the debacle of that campaign—in which Congress won a stunning victory {so, now Newsweek is resorting to plain lies} despite the consensus that the BJP had presided over an economic boom—gave nationalists the upper hand. The BJP's defeat reminded its leadership that it remains a cadre-based party united by its ideology, not a charismatic leader. And the bulk of those cadres come from the 4.5 million-member RSS. The RSS advocates a philosophy known as Hindutva and favors turning India into a Hindu state (the country's population is 80 percent Hindu) and designating religious minorities as second-class citizens. Without its nationalist ideology it wouldn't be clear what the BJP stood for. On most issues, the party's positions are actually very similar to Congress's (both parties advocate further economic reform and increased ties to the United States, for example).

The RSS is now suspected of connections to terrorism. Some of the current suspects belong to a heretofore-unknown group called the Abhinav Bharat, which is not officially linked to the RSS but espouses an identical Hindutva ideology. And the Anti-Terrorism Squad claims to have established links between the suspects and official RSS outfits. "You actually have for the first time evidence linking all kinds of front organizations of the [RSS family]," says political analyst Praful Bidwai. Since the '90s there have been several incidents of "accidental explosions at bomb-making operations run by [Hindu] fanatics," Bidwai says. "But this is the first time … the RSS has been linked to a conspiracy."

You might assume that such ties, unless repudiated, would hurt the RSS's popularity and the BJP's electoral chances in India, which is the world's largest democracy and a secular one at that. Unfortunately, that's not how things have transpired in the past. In fact, some of the BJP's prior electoral victories followed bouts of incendiary anti-Muslim hatred and actual violence. Vajpayee was first elected prime minister following the Babri Mosque riots, for example, and the mayhem in Gujarat in 2002 helped Modi win a thumping victory in that state, even though—or because—he was blamed for delaying police action to protect Muslims. Now, by casting the government's terror investigation as an anti-Hindu conspiracy, the BJP hopes to repeat this formula today and unite the faithful. "The various wings of the [RSS]—and it's a vast organization—will rally together," says Rangarajan.

If the electorate follows suit, it could lead to another big victory for the BJP—but a big step backward for India as a whole.

In a judgment the Supreme Court of India ruled that "no precise meaning can be ascribed to the terms 'Hindu', 'Hindutva' and 'Hinduism'; and no meaning in the abstract can confine it to the narrow limits of religion alone, excluding the content of Indian culture and heritage." The Court also ruled that "Ordinarily, Hindutva is understood as a way of life or a state of mind and is not to be equated with or understood as religious Hindu fundamentalism. A Hindu may embrace a non-Hindu religion without ceasing to be a Hindu and since the Hindu is disposed to think synthetically and to regard other forms of worship, strange gods and divergent doctrines as inadequate rather than wrong or objectionable, he tends to believe that the highest divine powers complement each other for the well-being of the world and mankind."

India shocked by discovery of first Hindu terror cell

At least 10 people, including monk and army officer, held over bombings initially blamed on Islamists

By Andrew Buncombe in Delhi
Sunday, 23 November 2008
India is in something of a state of shock after learning from official sources that its first Hindu terror cell may have carried out a series of deadly bombings that were initially blamed on militant Muslims. The revelation is forcing the country to consider some difficult questions.

At least 10 people have been arrested in connection with several bomb blasts in the Muslim-dominated town of Malegaon in the western state of Maharashtra in September, which left six people dead. But reports suggest that police believe the cell may also have carried out a number of previous attacks, including last year's notorious bombing of a cross-border train en route to Pakistan, which killed 68 people. Among the alleged members of the cell are a serving army officer and a Hindu monk.

Bomb attacks are not uncommon in India – there has been a flurry in recent months – but police usually blame them on Muslim extremists, often said to have links to militant groups based in either Pakistan or Bangladesh. As a result, the recent cracking of the alleged Hindu cell has forced India to face some difficult issues. A country that prides itself on purported religious and cultural toleration – an ambition that in reality often falls short – has been made to ask itself how this cell could operate for so long. India's military, which prides itself on its professionalism, has been forced to order an embarrassing inquiry.

The near-daily drip of revelations from police has also caused red faces for India's main political opposition, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), ahead of state polls and a general election scheduled for early next year. The BJP and its prime ministerial candidate, Lal Krishna Advani, have long accused the Congress Party-led government of being soft on terrorism that involved Muslims. However, the BJP has refused to call for a clampdown on Hindu groups, and last week Mr Advani even criticised the police over the way they questioned one of the alleged cell members, a woman called Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur.

The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, phoned his rival to ask him not to politicise the issue or the investigation. "There is a strong case so let the police do their job," he told Mr Advani. While some commentators have expressed surprise about the discovery of the alleged cell, others have pointed out that there has been growing concern about the possible threat from Hindu extremists. In the summer, two members of a right-wing Hindu group were killed while putting together a bomb, and two other suspected members of the same group died in similar circumstances in 2006.

Meanwhile, senior right-wing leaders have made no secret of their wish that Hindus should form suicide squads to protect themselves against Muslim extremists. Bal Thackeray, leader of a group called the Shiv Sena, which has been responsible for communal and regional violence in Mumbai, wrote recently in the party's magazine: "The threat of Islamic terror in India is rising. It is time to counter the same with Hindu terror. Hindu suicide squads should be readied to ensure the existence of Hindu society and to protect the nation."
Observers say the fact that the police have arrested the alleged cell members amid considerable political pressure suggests the growing professionalism of its security forces. "It's the first Hindu cell and it's the first time Hindus have been shackled and taken to jail," said Professor Dipankar Gupta, a sociologist at Delhi's Jawarlahal Nehru University. "I'm quite pleased with the way the police have done their jobs."

Publication: The Indian Express
Date: July 8, 2000

The state Congress yesterday demanded an apology from Prime Minster Atal Behari Vajpayee and Union Home Minster L K Advani for their “conflicting statements on the attacks on the Christian community”.

Addressing a press conference at Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee office in South Mumbai, party spokesman B A Desai said Vajpayee’s recent statement during his foreign trip on the attacks on Christian being isolated incident and Advani’s remarks on anti-national elements being behind the incidents amounted to interference in the fair trial and investigations in the attacks.

Advani’s statement was a clear indication of absolving the communal forces of the charges against them, he alleged.

By making such statements, both Vajpayee and Advani were depriving the sufferers of the minority community, of free and fair justice, he said and demanded that the two leaders should apologise for their statements.

Church blasts: 23 Deendar men convicted
Bangalore: A special court, hearing cases related to serial bomb blasts in churches in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Goa in 2000, has convicted 23 people belonging to the Deendar Channabasaveshwara Anjuman group.

Of the 27 accused who were tried, four were acquitted.

Special Court Judge S M Shivana Gowdar is yet to pronounce the quantum of punishment in the case, which has been adjourned till December 3.

Special Public Prosecutor H L Nilogal argued for the state.

In 2000, six blasts were carried out by the group in Andhra Pradesh, four in Karnataka and one each in Maharashtra and Goa.

A three-member Corps of Detectives team headed by Deputy Superintendent of Police V S D'Souza investigated the church blasts at Wadi (Gulbarga District), Hubli, Bangalore and another blast in the state and filed a chargesheet before the special court.

The blasts were carried out by the Deendar Channabasaveshwara Anjuman outfit founded in 1920s and the 'conspiracy' was hatched at Hyderabad on October 1999, the COD said.

The officers said that even in selecting the Deendar members for the terrorist acts, utmost care had been taken.

Majority of those who were handpicked for the purpose were closely related to each other and some of them were even trained in insurgency and use of explosives by the ISI in Pakistan. Khaliq-ul-Zama of Nuzvid in Krishna district in Andhra Pradesh was named the chief of the sabotage operations. All the four Zama brothers, Khaliq, then an auditor at the Krishna District Cooperative Central Bank; Shamsad, a conductor with the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation; Zeelani, a mechanic; and Syed Hassan-ul Zama, an Indian Air Force officer, were involved in the conspiracy.

Three of them have been convicted; Khaliq died during the trial.

Similarly, S.M. Ibrahim, the first to be arrested in Bangalore, and who too has been convicted, and his four brothers who were based in Vijayawada and Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh, also had played a key role in the explosions, the officers explained.

Syed Hassan-ul Zama, an Indian Air Force officer, were involved in the conspiracy.

Manu wrote:One can only watch silently as the Country's name is drgged into the Mud. Shock and Awe, indeed.
Independent of UK Link

India shocked by discovery of first Hindu terror cell

Manu wrote:One can only watch silently as the Country's name is drgged into the Mud. Shock and Awe, indeed.
Independent of UK Link

India shocked by discovery of first Hindu terror cell

CRamS wrote:"Sang parivar terrorism" is equivalent to "Al Quaeda" terrorism according to this worthy Jyotirma Sharma from Hyderabad. In his/her mind, there is no such evil as LeT, SIMI, ISI etc terrorizing Indians and who have slaughetered 1000s. The only evil doers are Sang Parivar and Al Quaeda. For sure, an all-piad scholarship to Brookings Institution or some 'South asian' studies programme in the US awaits Jyotirma Sharma.

The predicament of the Sangh parivar is akin to having a tub bath, where one only floats in one’s own dirt and filth

ramana wrote:

But does anyone think blasts will suddenly stop occurring?

RamaY wrote:Nowadays I do not see much difference between TSP thread and this thread w.r.t media quotes and references. They both sound same...

Yindian media is trying to emulate their Pakistani brethren it looks like on this "yindu terrorism" topic...

The media reports had said arrested army officer Lt. Col. Prasad Purohit, one of the accused in the blast case, has reportedly told the CBI that Togadia was involved in the formation and funding of the organisation (Abhinav Bharat).

After Malegaon leads, CBI to reopen Nanded blast probe

PTI
Mumbai, November 23, 2008

With fresh leads emerging out of Malegaon blast case, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) may soon reopen investigations into the 2006 Nanded blast, which is being seen as a main indicator of saffron group emerging as a major terror network.

While officially the CBI had adopted a taciturn policy on the issue, sources in the agency said it would reopen the case as some leads had emerged during the investigations into the September 29 Malegaon blast in which 11 people, including Lt Col Shrikant Purohit, have been arrested.

CBI's role had come into question from the probe conducted by central security agencies and Maharashtra's ATS, the agency appeared to have not taken due cognisance of deposition of one of the accused arrested in the case.

The accused, whose voice had to be restored after operating his vocal chord which was damaged in the blast, had told investigators that Naresh Rajkondwar, a Bajrang Dal activist, had allegedly planned three blasts outside mosques that shook Jalna and Parbani in Maharashtra in 2003 and 2004.

Several rounds of meetings took place between the CBI officials and central security agencies where sleuths probing the Malegaon blasts pointed out some of the alleged loopholes in the investigations carried out by the CBI.

The Nanded bomb blast took place in the intervening night of April 4 and 5, 2006 at the residence of Laxman Rajkondwar, allegedly a RSS worker. Rajkondwar's son Naresh and Himanshu Panse, who was VHP activist, were killed while assembling the bomb.

Dayanand Pandey's explosive revelations

In a stunning revelation, self-styled godman {as against Saint recognized by Vatican?} Dayanand Pandey, who was arrested in connection with the Malegaon blast case, has revealed during his narco-analysis test that the entire operation was undertaken to avenge the death of Sunil Joshi {yet another fascinating angle - what is that 4,5 motives already?}, the man to whom sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, another accused in the case, sold her motorcycle to.(That motorcycle was used in the blast, while Joshi was allegedly killed by Students Islamic Movement of India activists)

Pandey was brought down to Bengaluru and subjected to a narco analysis test at the Bowring Hospital on Friday. The test was conducted by the Forensic Sciences Laboratory officials in Bengaluru and the Mumbai Anti Terrorist Squad.

After being administered the truth serum, Pandey revealed that the Malegaon operation was masterminded by sadhvi Pragya Singh. Pandey termed Joshi as the sadhvi's closest friend and added that she was very upset with his death. Pragya, according to Pandey, was furious with members of the SIMI, who she suspected were behind the 'killing' of Sunil Joshi in Indore.

The sadhvi was arrested after the ATS found that the two-wheeler used in the Malegaon blast belonged to her.
The sadhvi denied any link in the blast and added that she had sold her vehicle in 2004. She said in an affidavit that she had sold the vehicle to Joshi as she hardly used it. However, Joshi failed to transfer the vehicle into his name and hence it was not her fault if the vehicle was used in the blasts.

Pandey further states in his narco-test that Pragya, also known as sadhvi Purnachetnagiri, had approached him and sought his help to strike against SIMI members. He said according to Pragya, SIMI had allegedly killed her 'boyfriend' Joshi in Indore. {So the Sadhvi is not really Chaste either}

He said Pragya was extremely furious and wanted to eliminate members of the SIMI somehow. It was following this that the Malegaon blast was executed in September 2008 in which six persons were killed.

Pandey stated in his narco-analysis test that he had introduced Pragya to Lieutenant Colonel Srikant Purohit, another accused in the case, who was then working with the Indian Army's military intelligence. Purohit, during his stint as a military intelligence officer, had gathered a lot of information about terrorists in Maharashtra, he said, adding that Pragya was also very upset with an RSS leader who, according to her, was in touch with some SIMI members.

Details on the links between this RSS leader and the SIMI members are not clear as yet. {Fantastic!}

Pandey said she was very angry with this RSS leader and had also hatched a plan to murder him. However, before the plan was executed, she was picked up the police, Pandey revealed during the test.

The road ahead for the ATS

The ATS will now corroborate the statements given by Pandey and Purohit.
Purohit had revealed during his narco-analysis test that Pragya had been keen on terror attacks and had actively participated in chalking out details of the attack.

He had also explained as to how he had procured the explosives and planted them.

Following these startling revelations, the investigating agencies are not ruling out carrying out another scientific test on Pragya. The brain electrical oscillation signature test conducted on Pragya at the Forensic Science Laboratory in Mumbai had come back negative. It was on the basis of this test that several leaders had announced their support to Pragya.

The case against the sadhvi

The ATS, which has booked Pragya and others under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, said they have managed to collect documentary evidence against the sadhvi. The ATS is now equipped with statements of both Pandey and Purohit.

Besides this they also are in possession of telephonic conversation of Pragya in which she is alleged to have asked as to why only so few people had died in the Malegaon blast.

Drama at Pandey's narco-test

The narco-analysis test on Pandey at Bengaluru was not short of any drama. He was mobbed by reporters when he went in.
After the test, Pandey requested the ATS not to take him outside immediately as he did not want to be photographed by the media. He then had his dinner at the hospital.

However, this was misconstrued by a section of the media, which was quick to report that Pandey had not woken up after his narco-analysis due to an over-dosage.

As the media continued to flash the news, the ATS managed to slip Pandey out of the hospital and take him back to Mumbai for further investigation.

• How long will it take to save/reform the Ministry of Home, IB, CBI, and ATS of Mumbai after this?
  Who, on the inside, is providing these sensational and selective leaks {and "motives" for the Blasts, which change daily, like the "Mastermind"?}

Purohit claims Togadia funded Abhinav Bharat

New Delhi: In a sensational development in the Malegaon blast case Lieutenant Colonel Srikant Prasad Purohit has claimed that Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Praveen Togadia was involved in funding Abhinav Bharat.
Abhinav Bharat is being investigated in connection with blast of September 29 in Malegaon in which at least six people were killed.
Lt Col Purohit, who has been arrested for masterminding the blast, reportedly claimed that Togadia provided the organisation with some funds to start out.
The claims were reportedly made while the Lt Col was being interrogated by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
He revealed that he received a call from a man who called himself the VHP's Maharashtra chief to say that Togadia wanted to know who was investigating the Nanded blasts case.

However, Togadia has denied his involvement with Abhinav Bharat. He said the allegations are unfounded, criminally defamatory, malafide and politically motivated.

(With inputs from Sumon K Chakrabarti)

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/purohit-clai ... 867-3.html

CBI denies VHP's Togadia funded Abhinav Bharat

New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has denied reports of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Praveen Togadia was involved in funding Abhinav Bharat, which is being investigated for its role in the Malegaon bomb blast case.

Manu wrote:How long will it take to save/reform the Ministry of Home, IB, CBI, and ATS of Mumbai after this?