Despite Proof Against RSS involvment in Terror, BJP ruled MP govt. Turns a Blind Eye

Mail Today, 25 October 2010

Glaring proof but MP’s eyes wide shut

By Anup Dutta in Bhopal

THE RAJASTHAN government has begun to tighten the noose on Hindutva terror, not sparing even right- wing bigwigs. Most of the names that have cropped up again and again in these cases are from the Malwa region of neighbouring Madhya Pradesh. Yet the BJP- ruled state has chosen to look the other way.

The saffron government just doesn’t appear to be interested in finding out how the accused in the blasts at the Ajmer Dargah, Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid and at Malegaon in Maharashtra are linked to Madhya Pradesh.

While many of the accused belong to the Malwa belt in the western part of the state, others have been nabbed here. The entire region is a traditional RSS ( Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) stronghold.

While it has turned a blind eye in many incidents, the state has inexplicably decided to shut the Sunil Joshi murder case file. The RSS pracharak — thought to have been shot dead in Madhya Pradesh’s Dewas district by his own people in December 2007 — was the main accused in the three terror acts.

“ For us, it’s a closed file though the court has not accepted it. We are keeping our eyes open and will try to explore further whenever there is some new development,” inspectorgeneral of police, Ujjain range, Pawan Jain, said.

Interestingly, no one has ever dared to ask what made the government stop investigations into the murder case. In fact, the officers who decided to touch the file were not spared, an officer in Dewas said. Recently, the CBI has included the name of Joshi in the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast case. Nine people died in the terror attack in Hyderabad.

Nobody in the state is really interested in explaining why it has failed to piece together the terror jigsaw, despite several key characters hailing from it. And when a team comprising the NIA ( National Investigation Agency), CBI, and Maharashtra and Rajasthan ATS officials crept into Madhya Pradesh in connection with the 2007 blasts, the state was a mute spectator. The message was clear: Madhya Pradesh would have nothing to do with the ongoing investigations.

In October 2008, the Maharashtra Police entered the state and detained four youths — Shyam Sahu ( of Tukoganj, Indore), Dilip Nahar and Shivnarayan Singh ( of Bangli Chowk, Indore) and Dharmendra Bairagi ( of Dewas) — in connection with the Malegaon and Modasa blasts.

The action followed the arrest of Pragya Singh Thakur, who is originally from Bhind district of Madhya Pradesh and is incarcerated as an accused in the Malegaon blast case. The daughter of an ayurvedic doctor, Thakur holds a masters degree. She became an activist of the Durga Vahini ( VHP’s women’s wing) and was a member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad ( ABVP) from 1993- 2002. Thakur came into the limelight following her alleged involvement in the murder of Joshi.

Then there was the case of alleged chief strategist Sameer Kulkarni, a former member of the ABVP who got affiliated to another Hindutva organisation called Abhinav Bharat. He, too, was arrested by the Maharashtra ATS from Bhopal in October 2008. The same force detained Lt Col Srikant Prasad Purohit, who was serving at the Army Education Corps Training College and Centre in Pachmarhi — a hill station in Madhya Pradesh — in October 2008.

Two other conspirators who are natives of Madhya Pradesh are Shamlal Sahu and Ramji Kalsangra.

Kalsangra, believed to be the brain behind the September 29 Malegaon blast, is absconding.

Almost two years later, when fresh arrests took place in the state, its government kept mum again. This time, the Rajasthan ATS nabbed Chandra Shekhar Leve, a resident of Shajapur district, in April this year. He belongs to a landlord family of the district.

Leve, an active RSS member for years, has been involved with several other Hindutva groups as well.

A month after this incident, the Rajasthan ATS reached Mhow district and arrested Lokesh Sharma, who runs an engineering unit in the Pithampur industrial area of Dhar district. Now, with the name of Leve and Sharma figuring prominently in the chargesheet in the 2007 Ajmer blast case, the Madhya Pradesh government seems to be tongue- tied yet again.

“ I have read about the news in today’s newspaper. I’m not in Madhya Pradesh, so I won’t be able to comment on how we are going to act,” state home minister Uma Shankar Gupta said. “ I’ll go through all the details upon coming back and will then decide the future course of action,” he added.