Sanatan Sanstha Washes Its Hands of Accused in Gauri Lankesh, Dabholkar murders
At
a press conference, the national spokesperson claimed that the
organisation is being targeted. He also said that those arrested may
have attended meetings, but were never members of the Sanstha.
National
spokesperson of Sanathan Sanstha Chetan Rajhans (centre) and Sunil
Ghanvat (right) of the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti at a press conference in
Mumbai on August 27. Credit: Wire Staff
Mumbai: Controversial organisation Sanatan Sanstha has denied that any of the persons arrested in connection with the murders of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar and journalist Gauri Lankesh have anything to do with them.
“None of them have ever been a part of
our organisation. They must have attended our meetings and must have
been staunch supporters of Hindutva, but that does not mean they have
been a part of Sanathan Sanstha,” said Chetan Rajhans, the national
spokesperson of the organisation at a press conference in Mumbai on
Monday.
The arrests were made by the Maharashtra
and Karnataka Anti- Terrorism Squad (ATS) and the Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI).
Rajhans and Sunil Ghanwat of the Hindu
Janjagruti Samiti (HJS), an off- shoot of Sanathan Santha, claimed that
the police have not directly implicated any of its ‘sadhaks (followers)’ in any case. “It’s a witch hunt that began soon after Panvel and Thane bomb blast incidents in 2008. But the police has not named us in a single FIR or chargesheet. There have been demands made to ban our organisation. But these demands are baseless and made with malicious intentions,” Ghanwat announced.
Sanathan Sanstha, an organisation floated
19 years ago, has been actively propagating the formation of a “Hindu
Rashtra”. The organisation, with its headquarters in Ponda, Goa, has
spread its reach across Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa. The Sanstha was
established by Jayant Athavale, a hypnotherapist, to promote Hinduism.
HJS, which operates on an identical ideology, was formed a little later
in 2002. The Sanstha claims as many as 320 Hindu outfits are connected
with it, which have all been collectively working for the “Hindu cause”.
The Sanstha and HJS were first named for their role in the Thane blast case of 2008 and since then they have been accused of playing a direct role in Madgaon blast, murders of Dabholkar, Lankesh, and CPI leader Govind Pansare and scholar, teacher and rationalist M.M. Kalburgi.
These investigations have been carried out by different state and
central agencies and common names have emerged, all pointing towards
Sanathan Sanstha, according to investigators.
Narendra Dabholkar, Gauri Lankesh and Govind Pansare. Credit: PTI/Twitter/PTI
The demands to ban the organisation were
first made in 2013 by the Maharashtra government. The demand has been
revived once again and the state ATS has started to put together a fresh dossier on the organisation.
Rajhans called the proposal to ban the
organisation unfair and said that such demands are politically
motivated. He blamed the “Left-leaning intellectuals and the Congress
for instigating the police establishment” against the organisation.
“Left intellectuals have been furthering their political dreams by
pushing for banning of Hindu outfits in the State. We are being
targeted,” Rajhans claimed.
The arrests
On August 10, the ATS arrested three
members of this module – Vaibhav Raut, 40, an alleged member of the
Hindu Govansh Raksha Samiti and an alleged sympathiser of the Sanstha;
39-year old Sudhanva Gondhalekar from Satara and a member of the Shri
Shivpratishthan Hindustan – an organisation run by Hindutva
leader Manohar alias Sambhaji Bhide; and 25- year old Sharad Kalaskar, a
follower of HJS.
The ATS also went on to arrest former
Shiv Sena corporator Shrikant Pangarkar and another alleged member of
Shri Shivpratishthan Hindustan, Avinash Pawar. Kalaskar’s interrogation
led the ATS sleuths to Sachin Andure, a resident of Aurangabad in
Maharashtra and the ATS claims the two were involved in Dabholkar’s shoot out. Andure is allegedly a member of the HJS.
Sambhaji Bhide. Credit: PTI
The ATS claims to have seized a vast quantity of explosives from Raut’s residence in Nallasopara
outside Mumbai on August 10. While Raut has not been directly named in
the murder case so far, he was a regular face at the conference
organised by the Sanstha and is believed to have provided logistic
support to the organisation. He, the ATS claims, was a part of the
larger terror network that the HJS and the Sanstha has allegedly been a
part of.
The CBI, which is
investigating Dabholkar’s murder, on Sunday told the special CBI court
in Pune that the arms used in Dabholkar and Lankesh’s murder were the
same. This was the first time that the central agency said there was a direct link in the two murders. This claim was made at the time of seeking Andhure’s custody.
The Karnataka ATS also claims that
Gondhalekar has been long associated with HJS and his role have been
probed in Lankesh’s murder case and that that Pangarkar too is
associated with HJS.
The Sanstha spokespersons have maintained
that the organisation is only involved in “religious activities” and
has no role to play in any murder or terror activities. Towards the end
of the press conference, as the reporters began to bombard Rajhans and
Ghanvat with facts and the inflammatory content published in the
organisation’s mouthpiece Sanathan Prabhat, the two dodged most questions.
