Forum Pakistan

By Farzana Shah
Thursday, 27 November 2008.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan—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 Muslimdominated town of Malegaon this year. So far, ten people, including a selfproclaimed 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.



The suspects have also been questioned for May 2007 blast at Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad and the April 2006 twin blasts at New Delhi's Jama Masjid. In the Mecca Masjid blasts as many as 14 people were killed and over 50 injured. The case was investigated by the city police special wing and was later handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation which could not come to any conclusion. Investigations into the Samjhauta Express explosion and the Jama Masjid blast also failed to make headway and police could not across on any tangible leads.



Police have already established a strong link between Pandey and some of the suspects in the Kanpur blast case through surveillance. On Aug 24, two members of the right-wing Bajrang Dal were killed there while assembling bombs. After the arrest of Panday police is expecting to get some breaking clues in the 2006 Nanded blasts in Maharashtra as well. The arrests have reinforced growing suspicions over the last few years of a potential threat from Hindu extremists.



Infiltration of Hindu Taliban in Army?

Interrogation of Major (retd.) Ramesh Upadhyay unearthed that the Bhonsla Military School in Nashik was used as a training ground by the conspirators. The school has denied its involvement in the blast but it is under the scanner for allowing Bajrang Dal activists to hold training sessions in the use of arms and martial arts. The school’s links to the RSS is an open secret as it was founded by B.S. Moonje, who was Savarkar’s close friend and who assisted in creating the RSS. The arrest of the serving army officers and former officers’ link to the recent terror activities points towards a worrisome notion; of the deep infiltration of fundamentalist ideas into Indian army. The critics believe that the constant indoctrination of Hindutva ideology over decades by the VHP, the RSS, the Bajrang Dal and the BJP has resulted in this kind of violence, which has found its way into crucial state institutions like police force, army and the education departments.

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