Serving Army officer being questioned Malegaon case for Hindutva links

Times of India, 30 October 2008

ATS to question serving Lt-Col in Malegaon case

NEW DELHI: After the arrest of retired army men for allegedly training Hindu radicals, Maharashtra's anti-terrorist squad is set to question a
serving Lieutenant-Colonel on links with those held for the Malegaon blasts.

Sources said cops have approached the Army authorities for permission to question the young officer from Maharashtra, currently posted in Madhya Pradesh.

This would be the first instance where a serving defence personnel is being suspected of links with a terror plot, that too one with Hindu conspirators.

The officer, sources said, was close to Ramesh Upadhyaya, the retired army major who has been detained in connection with the Malegaon blasts. The contact predates the officer's joining the army.

Upadhyaya, who along with one Chaturvedi from Nashik specialized in scouting for youth who could be motivated to take up cudgels for the 'Hindu cause', was associated with Bhonsala Military School, a right-wing institution in Nashik which claims to have its alumni at high positions in the military.

Whether the Lt Col also attended the Nashik school, founded by B S Moonje, an admirer of Lokmanya Tilak who joined the Hindu Mahasabha after getting disillusioned with Congress, could not be confirmed.

But questioning of Upadhyaya and his co-suspects, Sadhvi Pragya and Sameer Kulkarni, in the Malegaon blast case, point to the retired major and Chaturvedi tapping into the feeling of grievance against the killings of Hindus in terror attacks. Both Sadhvi Pragya and Kulkarni, a front-ranking figure with Abhinav Bharat — another right-wing institution Upadhyaya is associated with — are learnt to have spoken with anger against serial blasts and attacks on prominent Hindu places of worship like Varanasi and Ayodhya.

Though yet to confess, they have also said parties like Congress and Samajwadi Party were engaged in politics of appeasement instead of taking a tough stand against terrorism. While this is an echo of of the language that BJP uses to castigate its ''secular'' opponents, the disillusionment of the suspects with the entire political class came off clearly during their questioning, sources said.

While Upadhyaya's role may lead authorities to run a check on some of the defence personnel with the Bhonsala Military School, sleuths are examining the possibility of Hindu radicals scouting for recruits for their cause among NCC cadets and members of civil defence. They are looking for any pattern where an effort was made to detect and recruit fellow travellers from Maharashtra which provided the first 'Hindu' militants.