The Times of India
Saffron terror leader to be booked for Samjhauta blast
by Vishwa Mohan & Dwaipayan Ghosh, TNN, Jan 6, 2011, 12.54am IST
NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency probing the blast on Samjhauta Express in February 2007 looks set to book militant Hindutva leader Aseemanand. It has identified Aseemanand as the key plotter of the attack that killed 68 people, majority of them Pakistani citizens returning home after visiting their kin in India.
Sources in the agency, which was brought in after investigations by Haryana Police reached a dead-end, told TOI that Aseemanand planned the blast to avenge the series of terror attacks by Islamist terror groups.
"The role of Hindu extremists behind the blast has become clear. The probe agency found that Aseemanand was one of the plotters. The group had done it under their 'Bomb-for-Bomb' plan which was hatched in the Dangs district of Gujarat," said sources in the NIA.
Haryana police had found similarities in the explosives used in the Samjhauta blast and the explosion at Hyderabad's Mecca Masjid, another attack suspected to have been carried out by Aseemanand and his comrades under the 'Bomb-for-Bomb' plan.
But the Haryana cops could not connect the dots. The picture was further complicated when the US named a Pakistani terrorist, Asif Kasmani, suspected to be a go-between Lashkar and al-Qaida, as the main suspect in the Samajhauta blast.
NIA's probe into the cases of saffron terror has gathered momentum after the arrest of Aseemanand who is believed to have inspired Abhinav Bharat members to retaliate against Islamist terror.
NIA's investigation into the Samjhauta train attack may give Pakistan a handle to embarrass India. Officials are wary of the possibility of Islamabad asking for Aseemanand's custody once he is charge-sheeted. But the government has decided to press ahead with the probe, said an official.
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The Times of India
From a swami to kingpin of 'Hindutva terror'
Yagnesh Mehta, TNN, Jan 5, 2011, 05.54am IST
Swami Aseemanand is the latest big name in the "Hindutva" terror web blamed for a series of blasts; starting with Samjhauta Express in 2007 to the ones at shrines in Hyderabad, Ajmer and Malegaon.
The 58-year-old, whose real name is Jatin Chatterjee, is best known for reconverting tribals in the remote Dangs area of Gujarat from Christianity to Hinduism.
But as the anti-terrorist squad and then the National Investigation Agency (NIA) dug deeper, they found that Aseemanand was more than just a preacher.
Investigators believe that the "bomb-for-bomb" policy of the extremist Hindu groups was formulated at Shabridham in the Dangs during the Shabri Kumbh held from February 11 to 13, 2006. The Shabri Kumbh, a mela was the brainchild of Aseemanand who came to the Dangs in 1995. In fact, the success of the fair helped BJP win the Dangs assembly seat for the first time in 2007. Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Sunil Joshi, Ramji Kalsangra, Lokesh Sharma and Sandeep Dange were some at the saffron activists who participated in the 2006 Shabri Kumbh.
The investigators are now trying to put together the story of how the conspirators managed to not only create a terror network but also acquired skills to make sophisticated bombs within just a year.
Aseemanand's case cropped up soon after the arrest of Sadhvi Pragya Thakur in the Malegaon blast case. He was using a mobile phone registered in the name of his driver Sunil Dahod. Many calls were made from this phone to Sadhvi Pragya Thakur. The Maharashtra ATS questioned Dahod in November 2008 to track Aseemanand but he escaped. He was finally arrested by the CBI in Haridwar on November 19 last year.
The 80-page chargesheet filed by CBI said Aseemanand held a meeting within 10 days of the bomb explosion at Sankatmochan temple in Varanasi in March 2006 with his supporters.
On Monday, the NIA told the court that the Samjhauta blast was hatched in the Dangs district of Gujarat and at Chittaranjan in West Bengal.
Aseemanand first landed in the Dangs as a member of the Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram, an RSS front organisation. Before that, he was active in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
Born and brought up in West Bengal, Aseemanand completed his masters in physics from West Bengal's Burdwan University and joined the Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram in 1978.
Aseemanand's reconversion drive spread to the neighbouring tribal areas of Valsad, Navsari and Surat of Gujarat and Nandurbar of Maharashtra.
He started reconversion of Christian tribals to Hinduism with a bath at the hot water spring at Unai temple. He gained a fair amount of popularity during this time. After around two years of stay in the Dangs, Aseemanand managed to create strong feelings among Hindu tribals which led to anti-Christian riots in December 1998 in various parts of the backward area.
Then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and leader of opposition Sonia Gandhi had then visited the Dangs. Following the riots, Aseemananad went underground for a year.
Published on Sun, Nov 09, 2008 at 15:50 in 
In the hills of the Dangs district of Gujarat, cut off from the
world by the thick teak forests that cling to their slopes, Hindu
extremists are waging a modern Inquisition, forcibly converting
aboriginal peoples to what they have decreed is India's one true faith.
Since Christmas, hundreds of Adivasis, the remnants of the tribes that
once roamed all of India, have been forced to renounce Christianity and
undergo a shudhi, or purification, ceremony at a hot springs at the town
of Unnai. The conversion drive is the latest terror to be visited on
the tiny Christian community. In the week after Christmas 22
mud-and-thatch prayer halls were attacked by Hindu extremists The
extremists justify the attacks - and the stoning of schools, desecration
of icons and assaults on priests and nuns in 108 recorded acts of
violence against Christians throughout the country last year - as
spontaneous outbursts of anger against the relentless efforts of
Christian missionaries.
But the accounts of villagers who were forced to undergo the ceremony and the saffron-robed sadhu (holy man) who has orchestrated the conversion campaign show that Hindu extremists allied to the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which leads India's coalition government, are pursuing their efforts with a similar zeal.
'They said our Christian gods were demons and that they would burn down our houses,' said Umra Mohan Pawar, an old man in Jamuna Vihir, a village about 10 miles from Ahwa, the main town in the Dangs.
Like virtually all the 144,000 Dangs, Mr Pawar is an Adivasi. Largely confined to forest areas, the Adivasis traditionally worshipped the forces of nature, and were introduced to Christianity by missionaries last century.
Nobody knows how many Christians they produced. Leaders of the Catholic Church and Protestant denominations put the number as low as 12,000. The Hindu extremists claim that 40,000 Adivasis have become Christians, enticed by faith healing and false claims of salvation. Nationally Christians comprise 2.3 per cent of the population.
Mr Pawar said he and two dozen other villagers were bundled into jeeps by militants of the Hindu Jagran Manch (Hindu Awakening Movement).
They were taken to Unnai, where a temple has been built around a natural hot spring. Mr Pawar mimed the splashing of water over his head. 'Then they said: 'you are Hindus now',' he said.
He was also given a locket of the Hindu monkey god. I am not putting it on,' he said. 'I am staying a Christian.'
The struggle for souls is not confined to Gujarat, where Christians make up less than half a per cent of the population of 43 million. The extremists have launched a conversion drive in neighbouring Maharashtra state too.
On a larger scale, they are seeking to mobilise India's Hindus against the Congress leader, the Italian-born Roman Catholic Sonia Gandhi, whose party humiliated the BJP in the state elections in November.
Until violence broke out in the Dangs the authorities largely dismissed the attacks on Christians, arguing that no lives were lost and that the media and foreign powers were seeking to subvert the national interest.
Sensitive to the rising international criticism, however, the prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, visited the Dangs last weekend. Hours after he had left Hindus set fire to a village church at Dhuda
'Before Vajpayee came, there was a little peace, but now all types of incidents have happened,' said the Rev TV Gaikwad, the local convenor of the Church of North India, which groups mainstream Protestant denominations. He fears the violence will continue.
People in other villages tell the same story as Mr Pawar: threats and intimidation, followed by the ceremony at Unnai and a visit to the ashram in the town of Vaghai, presided over by a persuasive Hindu sadhu, Swami Aseem Anand. Then they return to their villages and set fire to the church.
The swami disclaims any connection to the converts - save to serve them a vegetarian lunch and to distribute lockets and pictures of the monkey god.
'It is not I who am doing this. The people of Dangs go on their own. The Hindu brothers keep on coming here and saying that our Christian neighbours want to become Hindu,' he said.
Mr Pawar's adoption of Christianity a few years ago, during the despair that followed the death of two of his four children, was as speedy as his arrival in the Hindu fold.
With a chuckle and an embarrassed shrug he mimed the splashing of water over his body, but this time laid a hand on his head in an imaginary blessing.
That simple action is telling of the tactics of the recent arrivals among the Christian missionaries, who have proved nearly as aggressive in their methods as Swami Aseem Anand.
'We pray to God to intervene in their life and we get their sickness cured,' said Solomon Swamidoss, a Baptist missionary. He estimates that he converted 300 people to Christanity on his six miles of territory between 1985 and 1994.
Mr Swamidoss's opponents appear equally determined. 'It is our duty to protect our religion,' said Gamagbhai Gawli, a leader of the Hindu Jagran Manch. 'We will keep fighting.'
But the accounts of villagers who were forced to undergo the ceremony and the saffron-robed sadhu (holy man) who has orchestrated the conversion campaign show that Hindu extremists allied to the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which leads India's coalition government, are pursuing their efforts with a similar zeal.
'They said our Christian gods were demons and that they would burn down our houses,' said Umra Mohan Pawar, an old man in Jamuna Vihir, a village about 10 miles from Ahwa, the main town in the Dangs.
Like virtually all the 144,000 Dangs, Mr Pawar is an Adivasi. Largely confined to forest areas, the Adivasis traditionally worshipped the forces of nature, and were introduced to Christianity by missionaries last century.
Nobody knows how many Christians they produced. Leaders of the Catholic Church and Protestant denominations put the number as low as 12,000. The Hindu extremists claim that 40,000 Adivasis have become Christians, enticed by faith healing and false claims of salvation. Nationally Christians comprise 2.3 per cent of the population.
Mr Pawar said he and two dozen other villagers were bundled into jeeps by militants of the Hindu Jagran Manch (Hindu Awakening Movement).
They were taken to Unnai, where a temple has been built around a natural hot spring. Mr Pawar mimed the splashing of water over his head. 'Then they said: 'you are Hindus now',' he said.
He was also given a locket of the Hindu monkey god. I am not putting it on,' he said. 'I am staying a Christian.'
The struggle for souls is not confined to Gujarat, where Christians make up less than half a per cent of the population of 43 million. The extremists have launched a conversion drive in neighbouring Maharashtra state too.
On a larger scale, they are seeking to mobilise India's Hindus against the Congress leader, the Italian-born Roman Catholic Sonia Gandhi, whose party humiliated the BJP in the state elections in November.
Until violence broke out in the Dangs the authorities largely dismissed the attacks on Christians, arguing that no lives were lost and that the media and foreign powers were seeking to subvert the national interest.
Sensitive to the rising international criticism, however, the prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, visited the Dangs last weekend. Hours after he had left Hindus set fire to a village church at Dhuda
'Before Vajpayee came, there was a little peace, but now all types of incidents have happened,' said the Rev TV Gaikwad, the local convenor of the Church of North India, which groups mainstream Protestant denominations. He fears the violence will continue.
People in other villages tell the same story as Mr Pawar: threats and intimidation, followed by the ceremony at Unnai and a visit to the ashram in the town of Vaghai, presided over by a persuasive Hindu sadhu, Swami Aseem Anand. Then they return to their villages and set fire to the church.
The swami disclaims any connection to the converts - save to serve them a vegetarian lunch and to distribute lockets and pictures of the monkey god.
'It is not I who am doing this. The people of Dangs go on their own. The Hindu brothers keep on coming here and saying that our Christian neighbours want to become Hindu,' he said.
Mr Pawar's adoption of Christianity a few years ago, during the despair that followed the death of two of his four children, was as speedy as his arrival in the Hindu fold.
With a chuckle and an embarrassed shrug he mimed the splashing of water over his body, but this time laid a hand on his head in an imaginary blessing.
That simple action is telling of the tactics of the recent arrivals among the Christian missionaries, who have proved nearly as aggressive in their methods as Swami Aseem Anand.
'We pray to God to intervene in their life and we get their sickness cured,' said Solomon Swamidoss, a Baptist missionary. He estimates that he converted 300 people to Christanity on his six miles of territory between 1985 and 1994.
Mr Swamidoss's opponents appear equally determined. 'It is our duty to protect our religion,' said Gamagbhai Gawli, a leader of the Hindu Jagran Manch. 'We will keep fighting.'
