Malegaon’s wanted, linked to Pragya, held bomb training camps: Gauri Lankesh probe SIT to court
In the 2008 Malegaon blasts case, Pragya Singh Thakur, the BJP’s Bhopal Lok Sabha candidate, is an accused along with 13 others, including two missing Abhinav Bharat members, Ramji Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange, who have been declared “proclaimed offenders”.
Four
missing members of Hindutva outfit Abhinav Bharat, all wanted for
blasts in the Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid, Ajmer Dargah and Malegaon
between 2006 and 2008, trained several suspects linked to the Sanatan
Sanstha in making bombs at secret training camps across the country
between 2011-2016, the investigation by the Karnataka Police into the
murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh has revealed. This disclosure is part of documents submitted by the SIT to a Bengaluru court.
In the 2008 Malegaon blasts case, Pragya Singh Thakur, the BJP’s
Bhopal Lok Sabha candidate, is an accused along with 13 others,
including two missing Abhinav Bharat members, Ramji Kalsangra and
Sandeep Dange, who have been declared “proclaimed offenders”.
According
to documents submitted in court by the Karnataka SIT probing the
Lankesh case, three men linked to Sanatan Sanstha, and arrested in the
Lankesh murder case, and four witnesses, who attended the training
camps, described the presence of a “Babaji” and four “Gurujis” at the
camps where training was given in making bombs.
The
“Babaji” was identified after his arrest in November 2018 — 11 years
after he went into hiding — in Gujarat as Suresh Nair, an Abhinav Bharat
member accused in the 2007 Ajmer dargah blast case.
Nair’s
arrest has also revealed that the three other bomb experts at
Sanstha-linked camps were Dange, Kalsangara and Ashwini Chauhan — all
“proclaimed offenders” in the Samjhauta Express case and four other
blast cases, said sources.
A
fifth trainer who attended the camps has been identified by those
arrested in the Lankesh case as Prathap Hazra, who is linked to the
Hindutva outfit Bhavani Sena of West Bengal.
Links
between missing suspects from bombings tied to Abhinav Bharat between
2006 and 2008, which killed 117 people, and the members of a group
associated with the Lankesh murder have unravelled in recent months in
the course of the SIT probe.
Based
on descriptions provided by those arrested in the Lankesh case and
witnesses who saw the “bomb experts”, sketches of the “guest trainers”
were prepared by the SIT and their possible locations were identified
through technical analysis.
And
on the information provided by the SIT, Nair, who police believe was
“Babaji” in the training camps was arrested by the Gujarat ATS in
Bharuch in November 2018. When Nair was shown portraits of the other
trainers at camps, he identified them as Dange, Kalsangara and Amit
Hakla alias Ashwini Chauhan, said sources.
Dange,
a former RSS worker who is considered a bomb expert and has an Interpol
red corner notice against him, is on the most wanted list of the NIA
with Kalsangara and Hakla. Dange and Kalsangara carry a Rs 10 lakh
reward on their heads while Hakla carries a Rs 5 lakh reward on his
head.
Following
Nair’s arrest, NIA sources said Dange and Kalsangara were still hiding
in India and that efforts were on to arrest them.
The
descriptions for “Babaji” were provided in the course of the Lankesh
case probe by three arrested men Shrikant Pangarkar, 40, a former Shiv Senacouncillor
from Maharashtra, Sharad Kalaskar, 26, who is also the alleged shooter
in the 2013 Narendra Dabholkar murder case, and Vasudev Suryavanshi, 29,
a mechanic who allegedly stole motorcycles for a series of Sanatan
linked murders of rationalists and free thinkers between 2015 and 2017.
The
SIT has found that 19 training camps were organised by the Sanatan
Sanstha linked group in the usage of firearms, improvised explosive
devices and subterfuge tactics across India between 2011 and 2017 with
the five IED experts attending five of the camps in Maharashtra, Gujarat
and Karnataka as “guest trainers”.
According
to statements provided by suspects and witnesses in the Lankesh case,
some trainers like “Babaji” moved around in the garb of monks. Each
trainer, sources said, had his own area of expertise ranging from petrol
bombs to sophisticated pipe bombs with electrical circuits – on the
lines of mobile phone triggered IEDs used in some of the blasts that
occurred between 2006-08.
Giving
descriptions of four trainers who he saw at IED camps held at Ahmedabad
and Mangalore, an accused in the Lankesh case described them as “Babaji
Sir”, “Circuit Expert Sir”, “Bengali” and “Lambu Sir”.’ Another suspect
describes two trainers at another camp in Jalna as “Babaji” and
“Guruji”.
According
to the case documents the camps provided training to dozens of people
recruited by a covert unit of the Sanatan Sanstha linked to the murders
of the rationalist Dabholkar, leftist thinker Govind Pansare, Kannada
scholar M M Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh.
The
suspects in the Lankesh and other murder cases who attended the IED
training camps are Amit Degwekar, Kalaskar, Pangarkar, Suryavanshi,
Ganesh Miskin, Amit Baddi and Bharat Kurne. Four men who were part of
the group – currently considered witnesses in the Lankesh case – also
attended some of the camps.
As
many as five “training camps” – Jalna in 2011, Jalna in January 2015,
Mangalore in August 2015, Ahmedabad in November 2015 and Nasik in
January 2016 – were held by suspects from Abhinav Bharat, the SIT
investigation has revealed.