SPOT THE DIFFERENCE !
BAJRANG DAL & LASHKAR-E-TOIBA
by Subhash Gatade (June 2, 2006)
(Much has been written about the Jihadi terrorism unleashed by groups like the Jaish-e-Mohammad or Lashkar-e-Toiba and others. It was only last month that there was a large haul of arms from some of their cells in Maharashtra. The attack on RSS headquarters allegedly by activists belonging to this organisation has also been widely reported.
It is surprising that while terrorism of the Jihadi variety which rather tends to stigmatise the whole community gets tremendous coverage, with print and electronic media vying with each other to present the latest 'scoops' similar actions by the Hindu extremist groups are not even found worthy of mention.
The Nanded Bomb blasts which found clear involvement of the activists of the Sangh Parivar where a centre for manufacturing bombs was unearthed at a RSS activists house is a case in point. The accidental bomb blast killed two of its activists also.
While a deeper communal conspiracy could be averted, the ongoing investigations are pointing finger at the involvement of these very hindu extremists in earlier cases of bomb blasts in the same region.)
Why the RSS has decided to play down the incident about the attack on its headquarters in Nagpur allegedly by terrorists belonging to the Lashkar-e-Toiba. If the newsperson's version is to be believed the former spokesperson Ram Madhav merely condemned the attack and praised the police for quick action. Sudarshan the present Supremo of the organisation, appealed to RSS volunteers not to get provoked.
No appeal for bandh ! No appeal for any agitation. Remember the contrast when terrorist had attacked Ayodhya or for that matter Varanasi, and how the whole gang of firespitters were out on the streets.
And this despite the fact that the Jihadi terrorists, as they are known in the common parlance, have upped their ante in this part of Maharashtra.It was only last month that Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had nabbed three militants belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) on the Manmad-Aurangabad road with a large cache of arms and had also recovered arms and RDX from Malegaon.
Is it because the Parivar felt that whatever might be their wishes, the plan may turn out to be damp squib, making it evident to its adversaries that the countdown has already started for this eighty year old organisation. Or is it because the Parivar felt that any demand to look deeper into the particular case, may accelerate a process which is already underway whose ramifications may add to the discomfort of the 'cultural organisation' itself. Perhaps the statement by Mr R.R. Patil, the deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, when he was sharing with the media that the police had information about the terrorist plan to attack RSS headquarters more than seven months ago and duly informed the Sangh people in advance had an inkling of what lies in store before the RSS :
...The Deputy Chief Minister also said police have collected vital clues that link the Nanded blast held some months ago, with the Parbhani blast earlier this year. Patil said the possibility of Hindu extremist being responsible for the two blasts cannot be ruled out. (DNA, PTI Thursday, June 01, 2006 17:35 IST)
It was evident from a newspaper report in Lokmat (24 th May 2006) datelined Aurangabad that the minister meant what he said :
The police commissioner Uddhav Kamble informed the media that the police is investigating the interconnections between the Nanded Pipe Bomb blasts done by Bajrang Dal activists and the bomb blasts in Aurangabad in 2001 and 2002.
There was a bomb blast near Ganesh temple in Nageshwarwadi in Aurangabad on 18 th May 2001. When the case was still being investigated there was another bomb blast near VHP office in Nirala market on 17 th November 2002 followed by a bomb blast near Mahadev temple in Khadkeshwar. Pipe bombs had been used in Nirala market and Khadkeshwar bomb blasts. It is worth noting that the month old bomb blast in Nanded was also triggered by a pipe bomb. It was revealed that activists of the Bajrang Dal were making pipe bombs in the house.
Looking at the similarities between the Nanded bomb blast and the two bomb blasts in Aurangabad, the interconnections between the two are being investigated.. ( translated from original Marathi- author)
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Afterall what is so significant about this Nanded Bomb blasts which has rather compelled the Sangh Parivar which calls itself a 'character building organisation' to run for cover. Perhaps a recap of the Nanded bomb blasts is in order to put the matter straight.
It has been more than two months that Nanded, Maharashtra, a town described as being communally sensitive witnessed bomb explosion ( 6 th April 2006) in a house belonging to an old activist of RSS. To be precise, it was the time when L.K.Advani’s (now abandoned)Bharat Suraksh Yatra was to enter the state of Maharashtra. The initial investigations done by the police made it very clear that the deceased and the injured belonged to Bajrang Dal, an anushangik ( affiliated) organisation of the RSS . Looking at the minute details one can infer that serious plans were afoot to foment communal tension in the area taking advantage of the simmering tensions between the Sikhs and the Muslims. A raid on one of the deceased's house had recovered dresses and caps normally worn by Muslims in the area and also some maps of mosques in nearby districts. One of the accused Rahul confessed to having made bombs earlier.
The idea was to attack mosques and Gurudwaras wearing those dresses and instigate a riot. The expectation was that the community under attack would retaliate and a full scale riot would ensue. The only thing left was explosives in one form or other which could cause maximum damage to the places hit. The making of bombs in a house owned by a old RSS hack who dealt in fircrackers also seemed rather perfect..
Nanded, happens to be a place of pilgrimage for the Sikhs due to it being the place of Samadhi of Guru Govind Singh. It inhabits around a million people ( 5 Lakh Hindus), 2 Lakh Muslims or one lakh Sikhs and which was already reeling under communal tension then when the blast occured. The alleged elopement of a Sikh girl with a Muslim boy had put both the communities at loggerheads. Retrospectively one can say that the accidental bomb explosion rather saved a broad section of the population from a riot or riotlike situation at least for the time being. It alerted the administration and which took extra precautions so that any volatile situation does not turn ugly.
It need be noted that the Marathwada region of Maharashtra has had a history of such mysterious attacks on religious minorites. It was only two and half years ago that miscreants on motorcycles had fired at a crowd offering Friday prayers in nearby Parbhani. The whole of Marathwada went up in flames by the evening. Till date police have not apprehended the criminals who fired at a religious congregation.
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A report (available on 'www.pucl.org')brought out by a fact finding team of PUCL, Nagpur and Secular Citizen’s Forum, Nagpur comprising of Dr Suresh Khairnar, Convener (Secular Citizen’s Forum ( DharamDNNM,Nagpur & PUCL, Nagpur), Ahmad Kadar & Arvind Ghosh which visited the city on 22 nd April and met with many ordinary citizens as well as representatives of the administration, made clear few pertinent points which need special mention. To quote,
- Bomb blasts at the house of the RSS activist at Nanded were not reported in any newspaper outside Nanded. Even the administration of Nanded prevailed upon the city media not to write about the incident anymore.
-The immediate story that was published in the next morning newspapers was that the blast occurred due to sudden bursting of crackers stored in the house as part of the family business. But the doubts persisted, since if crackers catch fire there would normally be a series of bursts & not a single powerful blast as had happened in this case. Moreover the house did not catch fire as is expected in an accident involving crackers. The cracker theory was blasted on 7th April at 4pm when post mortem report was released. The report revealed that bomb parts were found and extracted from the bodies of the dead. The doubt that it must have been a bomb blast was further confirmed on the night of 7th April.
- Suryapratap Gupta IG, Nanded has confirmed that a live pipe bomb was found at the house of Laxman Rajkondwar, which was a center for manufacturing bombs and that all the accused are connected with Bajrangdal.However the police has maintained silence on the motive for the manufacturing of bombs at Rajkondwar’s house, wherefrom they acquired the material for making the bombs & if the perpetrators of the crime had nationwide connections.
-The most worrying fact that has been revealed is that the live bomb discovered under the sofa is an I.E.D type sophisticated bomb with timer & operated through remote control. A supplier of chemical material to colleges has been questioned in this regard. It is also reported the accused had been arrested during the Ayodhya Ram Mandir episode.
-The report although remains inconclusive due to lack of availability of authentic information from the official sources, does point out the strong indications that deep communal conspiracies were being hatched by the Hindutwavadi forces in the city of Nanded.And implementation of these conspiracies was temporarily aborted due to the accidental blast of a bomb while in the process of making, at the house of a prominent RSS activist of the city.
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Looking at the hierarchial nature of the Sangh Parivar where even the topmost leader of its mass political formation has to pay obesiance before the Supremo or the power coterie surrounding him, it would be incorrect to say that the local leaders of the Bajrang Dal or for that matter RSS envisaged and implemented the plan themselves. To put it straight the centre for manufacturing bombs being run at a RSS activists house would not have seen the light of the day if the top bosses of the Parivar had not given a green signal to this 'patriotic' work. The larger gameplan which the ringleaders of this group had in mind need to be unearthed at the earliest.
As things stand today the administration is keeping its mouth shut, but looking at the raids on houses of RSS as well as Bajrang Dal activists and the feeling of panicky among them one can hope that the administration comes out with concrete proof of ‘conspiracy’ and the real kingpins of this operation. Looking at the nature of crime, which could be averted by sheer chance, the administration should not shy away from naming the real conspirators. It was not for nothing that the local leaders of BJP and Shiv Sena became overactive in the aftermath of the explosion to ‘warn’ the administration that it does not adopt a vindictive attitude towards its workers.
It is for everyone to see that it is not for the first time that RSS or its plethora of frontal organisations have come under cloud for their not so glorious role in precipitating a riot. The different judicial commissions of enquiry costituted in post-independence times have time and again indicted the RSS for its complicity in communal riots. A writeup detaling ‘A Half Century’s Gory Record’ ( A.G.Noorani, The Statesman, January 15, 2000) rightly summarises how the role of the RSS was viewed by different such commissions : “If the Jaganmohan Reddy Commission on the Ahmedabad riots ( 1970) exposed the Unified Front tactics of the RSS and its political wing, the Jan Sangh, Justice Vidyarthi’s report on Tellichery riots ( 1971) censured the RSS for “rousing up” communal feeling and for “preparing the background for the disturbances.” Justice Jitendra Narain’s Report on the Jamshedpur riots (1979) censured the RSS supremo Deoras personally for the communal propaganda that had caused the riots.”
Ofcourse the Nanded operation rather had lot of similarities with the way it had gone ahead during post partition riots. There are enough documentary proofs to show its ignoble role during that period. It would be opportune to look at the memoirs of a senior civil servant who was posted as Chief Secretary of UP in those tumultous times to get to know one such instance.
Rajeshwar Dayal, the then Chief Secretary reveals in his memoirs, A Life Of Our Times ( 1998, Orient Longmann) notes that soon after the partition the deputy IGP of the western range, BBL Jaitely produced before him two steel trunks. They “revealed incontrovertible evidence of a dastardly conspiracy to create a communal holocaust throughout the western districts.”There were accurate maps “marking out the Muslim localities and habitations...Timely raid conducted on the premises of the RSS had brought the massive conspiracy to light.The whole plot had been concerted under the direction and supervision of the Supremo of the Organisation himself - both Jaitley and I pressed for the immediate arrest of the prime accused M.S. Golwalkar “ Incidentally the then Chief Minister of UP, Mr G.B.Pant refused to order the arrest. He was arrested only after Gandhi’s assasination.
It is easy to comprehend why Sardar Patel, had in a letter to Shyamaprasad Mukherjee on 1 July 1948 wrote, “ The activities of the RSS constituted a clear threat to the existence of the Government and the State”.
This happens to be the birth centenary year of the Golwalkar. And his followers have made elaborate plans to celebrate it.Can it then be said that the activists of the Hindutva brigade at Nanded just wanted to do ‘Golwalkar’ in their hometown as mark of ‘tribute’ towards him ? Only time will be able to divulge the crucial details.
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