Indian Express, June 18, 2008
PRASHANT RANGNEKAR & KAVITHA IYER
THANE, MUMBAI, JUNE 17: Maharashtra Police on Tuesday arrested two more members of a little-known radical Hindu group in connection with the crude bomb blasts at theatres screening a controversial Marathi play, close on the heels of Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh saying the arrests in the case had blown a hole in the popular perception that Muslims are to be suspected for all such attacks.
The two men arrested on Tuesday were members of the Sanatan Sanstha while the two held on Monday were members of the Sanstha as well as that of the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS). They have been accused of planting bombs in two auditoriums in Navi Mumbai and Thane two weeks ago and for one which went off during the screening of Bollywood film Jodhaa Akbar, also in Navi Mumbai, in February.
Only two of the three bombs — crude, low-intensity devices —exploded and injured a handful of people. The two organisations have been quick to disown the men, saying they were acting on their own even though the HJS has been vocal about its opposition to the Marathi play, Amhi Pachpute, saying it insults Hindu mythologicals.
But the arrests were enough for Deshmukh to point fingers at the possibility of Hindu groups being involved in subversive activities too. “Normally, when such incidents take place a particular community is suspected,” the Chief Minister said in a statement late on Monday. “But the arrest of two people belonging to a Hindu organisation proves that such suspicions are baseless. Criminals don’t belong to any religion.”
Although the HJS and the Sanatan Sanstha have vociferously proclaimed their innocence, the arrests have brought back memories of April 2006 when two people were killed in a blast in the house of prominent RSS activist in Maharashtra’s Nanded town. Those men were believed to be members of Bajrang Dal according to Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) investigators and the ATS suspects Sanatan Sanstha and HJS may have links with or worked in the past with the Bajrang Dal. This week’s arrests, they say, have thrown the spotlight on what are apparently shadowy organisations that have largely been operating in the hinterlands of Maharashtra and fuelling right wing extremism.
HJS national spokesperson Dr Durgesh Samant was agitated when asked if his group was a “Hindu terror” organisation as investigators suspected. “We are not just a Hindu nationalist organisation. We also take up nationalissues. All these allegations that we are a saffron group are incorrect and have been created by miscreants,” he told The Indian Express from Goa where HJS is registered.
On the other hand, the Sanatan Sanstha, set up in 1999, has an ashram in Sukhapur village near Panvel, about 50 km from Mumbai. Over the past week, the ashram on the banks of the Gadhi river saw several police teams visiting to question the sevaks and the management. “The allegations against us are false,” said Abhay Vartak, the spokesperson for the ashram. “In fact, we condemn such incidents and this is not the way of protesting.”
Those at the ashram recollect Ramesh Gadkari, arrested for planting the bomb that exploded in Thane’s Gadkari auditorium, as a quiet man living in the ashram with his wife for five years. “They did menial jobs. He mostly looked after construction activities. He attended satsang only once a week,” said Vartak.
Through its newspaper Sanatan Prabhat, the ashram has condemned the blast with an editorial that said, “Though we condemn the act, the mindset and the anger of these (arrested) people should be understood and the mocking of Hindu gods should be stopped.”
Hindu Janajagruti Samiti
The organisation which is “uniting Hindus globally” has no headquarters or formal membership, but has a strong online presence. It owes its genesis to an October 2002 meeting where Hindu deities were “blasphemously criticised” and a solitary man who protested was attacked. “With a view to protest against this attack, all Hindu organisations came together and the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti was established on the 13th October 2002 by initiative of seekers of Sanatan Sanstha,” says the outift’s website. At present, the group’s global agenda is to protest the “anti-Hindu” Hollywood movie The Love Guru, “anti-Hindu textbooks” for schoolchildren in Goa and saving the Ram Sethu.
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