Hindutva assault on Investigating agencies looking into Malegaon blasts

Times of India
18 Nov 2008

EDITORIAL COMMENT | The Law Is Secular

The Panipat conclave organised by the sangh parivar on Sunday to protest arrests made by the anti-terror squad of Maharashtra police in Malegaon blasts has ominous implications. The conclave, which was attended by sadhus of various Hindu sects, decided to organise a mass mobilisation campaign against the government for "vilifying Hindu monks and army officers in the name of Hindu terrorism". The presence of two senior BJP leaders party president Rajnath Singh and Uttarakhand chief minister B C Khanduri at the meet confirms its overt political character.

The sadhus have viewed the arrest of a Hindu monk, who according to the police is linked to Lt Col Shrikant Prasad Purohit, the prime accused in the Malegaon blasts, as a political conspiracy against Hindus. Rajnath Singh had expressed similar views when Pragya Thakur, an ABVP activist turned sanyasin, was arrested. This view is out and out wrong. One, the arrest of a couple of monks is by no means a conspiracy against a particular community. Two, the police made the arrest because the monks were allegedly involved in a bomb blast. No person can claim immunity from the law because she happens to wear the robes of a monk. The law of this secular country treats all its citizens equally; there are no special provisions for the supposedly holy. This applies to army officers as well. The police have the right to arrest a person if they have evidence and the arrest can be challenged only in a court of law. Public mobilisation against the arrest by working up religious sentiments is malicious and uncalled for.

The BJP, a party in the running to form the government after the next general elections, must not associate with such mobilisation. Clearly, the sadhus are communalising a case of terrorism. The country's largest opposition group should not be a party to the use of extra-constitutional means to defame terror probes. The presence of Khanduri, like Rajnath Singh, at the conclave is disturbing. It is grossly improper for an elected public official to be part of a meeting that discredited security agencies in blatantly communal terms.

Terrorism, as the BJP used to argue, has no religion. Don't cripple security agencies by now accusing them of communal intent. Similarly, the army is an apolitical institution that functions under the executive and army personnel have an exemplary record of not exceeding their brief. Allow the law to deal with the black sheep. Don't politicise the institution by claiming to speak on its behalf.