Don’t underplay top RSS leader's role in Samjhauta blast

Mail Today, 22 June 2011

Don’t underplay Indresh’s role in Samjhauta blast

IT would appear that the National Investigation Agency ( NIA), which on Monday filed a chargesheet against Asimanand and four other Hindutva terrorists in the 2007 Samjhauta Express blast case, has developed cold feet in charging senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader Indresh Kumar.

It is possible that the NIA will include Mr Kumar’s name later, yet there is something strange about the agency’s approach.

According to the NIA’s own chargesheet, one of the accused, Sunil Joshi — who has since been murdered — had fixed a meeting between Asimanand and Mr Kumar in Surat in October 2005 and Joshi along with Bharat Bhai — an accused in the 2007 Ajmer blast case — met Mr Kumar in Nagpur where the RSS leader gave them Rs 50,000 in cash for the procurement of explosives and other materials.

Moreover, four of those chargesheeted — Sandeep Dange, Ramji Kalsangra, Lokesh Sharma and the slain Sunil Joshi — are all RSS activists, so it would not be wrong to infer that in a regimented and hierarchal organisation like the RSS, they would have had the support of a senior functionary like Mr Kumar.

Even though Mr Kumar was not part of what the NIA calls the ‘ main conspiracy meeting’ that is said to have been held in June 2006, the fact that he provided financial support for the attack and was in close contact with some of the accused — Sunil Joshi in particular — is more than sufficient basis for his name to be included in the Samjhauta blast chargesheet.

It would appear that the agency is balking at the prospect of charging an RSS leader as senior as Mr Kumar and invoke the ire of the entire Sangh Parivar.