Times of India
24 January 2009
Purohit and Pandey planned 'Bharat Mata' temple
by Mateen Hafeez, TNN
MUMBAI: Self-proclaimed Shankaracharya, Sudhakar Dwuvedi alias Dayanand Pandey, during a conspiracy meeting for making India a Hindu Rashtra, had
suggested construction of a `Bharat Mata' temple with names of Hindus killed from 5th century to the time of British viceroy Lord Mountbatten inscribed on its walls.
According to him, those killed were "icons for today's Hindu youths''. A person identified as Sharmaji in the meeting stated that the Israelis have written their history on walls and the Bharat Mata temple would be based on the same concept.
TOI had first reported about the Malegaon blast accused's bigger plans of making India a Hindu Rashtra with the help of Israel and taking India's control in their hand. Police have arrested serving Army officer, Lt. Col. S P Purohit and 10 others for the September 29, 2008 Malegaon terror strike. The suspects were members of a social organisation, called Abhinav Bharat.
In the meeting, Purohit said Bharat Mata temples would be constructed across India to propagate their agenda of a Hindu Rashtra. "The Bharat Mata Temple will grant sanctity to the idea of the nationhood,'' Purohit said in the meeting. Initially, the conspirators decided to select a temple in Kashi but rejected that idea since it does not mention the names of those killed or sacrificed their lives during that period.
"From AD 712 to the period of Lord Mountbatten (1947), those who sacrificed their lives or were killed during the foreign invasions, their names should be mentioned in the temple,'' Pandey suggested in the meeting. The first foreign invasion on Indian soil was in AD 712 by Arab warrier Mohammed Bin Qasim who attacked the pirates for looting Arabian traders and had also plundered the kingdom of Raja Dahir in Sind. Qasim, who was 16 when led his army from Arab to India, is known as the "conqueror of Sind'' in books.
Purohit also said to have suggested resurrection of national icons who have been motivating generations of people over the century. "This is because we feel that there are no national icons to look up to for the youth today. Cast system is our biggest enemy and our aim is the unity of all Hindus. Bharat Mata is our only god and Chhatrapati Shivaji is our ideal. We aim to bring all the nation under the saffron and anyone in this nation must be known only as a Hindu. Destiny has chosen us to fulfill this noble cause,'' Purohit is reported to have said.
In the meeting, Purohit also suggested maintaining the forts of Shivaji in Maharashtra and the other forts in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. "The youths can also be narrated the stories of the icons in those regions. For this, we will give more emphasis on the icons from the past in different regions,'' Purohit had said.
mateen.hafeez@timesgroup.com