India: The Hindu Jagran Manch said its ‘beti bachao, bahu lao’ campaign

RSS affiliate plans to marry 2,100 Muslim women to Hindu men from next week https://scroll.in/latest/859907/rss-affiliate-plans-to-marry-2100-muslim-women-to-hindu-men-from-next-week

India: Hindu fundamentalists involved in attack on Jabalpur Church (Report in Mail Today)

http://epaper.mailtoday.in/464049/mt/Mail-Today-March-23-2015#page/16/2

How th Hindutva Nuts work on `ghar wapsi' re-conversions, Identifying `Targets', Generating Funds

Dec 14 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)
A lot of homework goes into `ghar wapsi'
Eram Agha

Includes Identifying `Targets', Generating Funds
Much planning goes into the “ghar wapsi” programmes conducted by the Dharam Jagran Samiti (DJS). The work is distributed between different Hindu outfits, called “sahyogi sangathan”. While the DJS takes on the task of identifying “targets” who could be brought back into the Hindu fold, other organizations pitch in with calls for donations.

Many of those “targeted” are people whose ancestors were Hindus and who are now Muslims or Christians. There are also those called “ardhvaraya” — people neither here nor there, who celebrate both Eid and Diwali and bear names like Mohan Khan.

Once a target group is identified, the work of generating funds and convincing people to convert begins. The Hindu Jagran Samaj, Bajrang Dal, and Vishwa Hindu Parishad all contribute to the arrangements, says Hathrasbased Bajrang Dal leader Abhishek Ranjan Arya, also the regional security head of his organization, as he gets ready for the December 25 event in Aligarh where the Samiti has announced it will hold a mass conversion in a local college.

“Once the Aligarh ghar wapsi is confirmed, workers will unite for the Bada Din (Christmas Day) conversion.

Our targets are Muslims, Christians and ardhvaryas,” added Anup Varshney of the Hindu Jagran Manch.

But what is the real need for all this expense and effort? “If there is no ghar wapsi, Hindus will go extinct. Hamara ‘the end’ ho jayega, madam,” said Arya, justifying the frequent conversion rituals in the Braj region. Arya says he is now waiting for “higher authorities” to decide on the big December 25 event in Aligarh. Nearly 6,000 people, it is claimed, will be “brought back into the Hindu fold”.

Viri Singh of Kumhari in Hathras was earlier known Viru Khan. Now 38, he says he converted while only 18. He was called an ardhvaraya. “I was brought back to the Hindu fold by an outfit that performed the ritual “shuddhi karan” and made me sign an affidavit of conversion,” he said.

Arya said it is necessary for those converting to sign an affidavit, as the outfits encouraging the conversion are often accused of using force.

Those inducing people to convert make several promises like matrimonial alliances or opening of schools.

These, however, are often just baits, rarely fulfilled.

SEE: http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31808&articlexml=A-lot-of-homework-goes-into-ghar-wapsi-14122014013018

Saffron terror might well be a much bigger phenomenon

Deccan Herald, September 20, 2011

'Saffron terror' role being probed

The "saffron terror" might well be a much bigger phenomenon than previously envisaged, with the investigating agencies suspecting involvement of Hindutva activists in as many as 16 explosions across the country. A special director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) is understood to have recently told the state police chiefs that the Hindutva activists have either been suspected or are under investigation in 16 incidents of bomb blasts in the country. The right wing activists' role in four incidents of bomb blasts so far has come into public domain, but the top intelligence official's remark during the annual conference of the Director Generals and Inspector Generals of Police from the states last week revealed that the saffron terror had assumed a much larger proportion.

Sources said that the IB official had not specified the 12 other cases in which the investigating agencies suspected or probed the role of Hindu extremists. The phenomenon of 'saffron terror' first came to light with the arrest of Sangh Parivar activist Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Army officer Prasad Shrikant Purohit in connection with the September 29, 2008 blast at Malegaon near Nashik in Maharashtra. The explosion killed seven people and left many other injured. The Maharashtra Police on January 19, 2009 filed a charge sheet, accusing Purohit of being the prime conspirator, who arranged explosives for the blast. It also accused Thakur of arranging the men who planted the bombs in Malegaon.

Making a presentation during the state top cops' conference in New Delhi, the senior IB official is understood to have referred to the right wing Hindu organisations, who espoused emotive issues, leading to radicalisation of a section of majority community and thus contributing to spread of what is being called saffron terror. Thakur, who hails from Madhya Pradesh, has since long been actively involved with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, Durga Vahini, Hindu Jagran Manch and other affiliates of the Sangh Parivar. Purohit, a lieutenant colonel in the army's intelligence wing, was also allegedly involved with Abhibav Bharat - another offshoot of the saffron brigade.

Hindutva extremists' roles in connection with the blasts on Samjhauta Express on February 18, in Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad on May 18, 2007 and in Dargah of Sufi saint Mainuddin Chisti in Ajmer on October 11, 2007 came to light during subsequent investigations, particularly in the wake of the confession of Swami Aseemanand. Aseemanand, who was arrested from Haridwar in November 2010, confessed in January this year that he and other right wing Hindutva activists had been involved with the Hindutva activists' conspiracies to trigger blasts at Muslim shrines in Hyderabad and Ajmer, killing 10 and three people, respectively. The National Investigation Agency on June 20 charged Aseemanand and four others - Lokesh Sharma, Sandeep Dange, Ramchandra Kalasangra and Sunil Joshi - with triggering explosions on the India-Pakistan Samjhauta Express, killing 68 people. Joshi was later found dead and Thakur was being probed for her alleged role in the murder.

Dange and Kalasangra had been declared proclaimed offenders in the case and are currently on the run. Aseemanand, however, later claimed that the investigating agency had obtained the confession from him under duress. Home Minister P Chidambaram's remark on 'saffron terror' during the conference of the DGPs and the IGPs last year triggered widespread criticism from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. The Congress, which leads the ruling United Progressive Alliance, too disapproved the remark, stating that terrorism had no colour. Chidambaram refrained from using the term 'saffron terror' in his inaugural address in this year's top cops' meet. However, while referring to Islamic extremists organizations like Students' Islamic Movement of India and Indian Mujahideen, he did refer to "other Indian modules that espouse the cause of right wing religious fundamentalism or separatism".

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/192456/saffron-terror-role-being-probed.html

Bomb blasts investigation leads to Abhinav Bharat ideologue from Bengal

The Telegraph, November 20 , 2010

Mosque bomb trail leads to Bengal Swami

OUR BUREAU & PTI

Nov. 19: A suspected Abhinav Bharat ideologue from Hooghly who floated a front to reverse alleged conversion by Christian missionaries in Gujarat and had Narendra Modi at one of his events has been arrested over the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast in Hyderabad.

Jatin Chatterjee, a native of Kamarpukur in the Bengal district with a Master’s degree in science from Burdwan University, is known as Swami Asimanand among his followers.

The name of the 59-year-old, who is believed to change his appearance frequently, also cropped up in the Ajmer blast case of the same year. Rajasthan’s anti-terror squad (ATS) is probing that attack.

Chatterjee was picked up by the CBI this morning from Uttarakhand’s Hardwar, where he had been living allegedly under a fake identity. A passport issued by the regional passport office in Calcutta, a ration card and a voter card issued by the local authorities in Hardwar were recovered from him.

Although his name had surfaced during the investigation of the Mecca Masjid blast, the investigating agency was hamstrung because of the lack of information on his appearance, sources said.

A clear trail began to emerge after the CBI questioned two Ajmer blast accused — Sandeep Darge and Ram Chadra Kalsangra alias Ramji — in connection with the Hyderabad attack of May 2007 in which 16 worshippers died.

Chatterjee’s name had also surfaced during the investigations into the 2008 Malegaon blasts — blamed on Abhinav Bharat — after the Maharashtra ATS recovered the phone number of Chatterjee’s driver from Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, a key member of the hardline outfit already arrested in the case.

Chatterjee has been either underground or posing as another person since the Malegaon probe started. But back in 1998, as a firebrand reconversion campaigner in Gujarat’s tribal-dominated Dangs district, he was a household name.

Hindu Jagran Manch, an outfit he floated, was fighting what Chatterjee and his followers claimed were conversions by Christian missionaries.

A number of Christian prayer halls were burnt down, allegedly by his outfit, at the height of the reconversion campaign. The violence had prompted then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to visit the area.

One of the high points of the Manch’s activities was a fair that it organised along with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad in 2006. Chief minister Narendra Modi was among the prominent political figures who had attended the event. Chatterjee, who had an ashram there, even built a temple to Sabri Mata, the local deity.

Before going to Gujarat, Chatterjee was said to have worked with tribals — through the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram — in Bengal’s Purulia, Bastar (now in Chhattisgarh but then in Madhya Pradesh) and even in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Chatterjee was brought later today to Delhi, where a city court allowed the CBI his transit remand and asked the agency to produce him in a Hyderabad court within 48 hours.

Colour of Terror

The Times of India, 25 October 2008, Editorial

The Maharashtra police believe that they’ve cracked the blast cases in Malegaon and Modasa in end-September where six people were killed. The
police have arrested six people, all of whom belong to an extremist outfit called the Hindu Jagran Manch and have links with Hindu nationalist groups. This is an indication that terror knows no religious boundaries. Just as Islamic terrorists are believed to have been behind the string of blasts that scarred several metros this year, the Malegaon and Modasa incidents show that Hindu radical groups too are turning to terrorism.

This is a worrying trend. Unless these groups are stopped in their tracks, we could face an intensifying period of violence. While the methods employed by Hindu radical outfits are similar to groups like the Indian Mujahideen, there is a vital difference in their functioning. Groups such as the Indian Mujahideen are shadowy in nature and have no identifiable leadership. Indeed, they are opposed to mainstream Muslim political parties. In contrast, those arrested for the Malegaon and Modasa blasts were earlier associated with outfits belonging to the sangh parivar, of which a mainstream party — the BJP — is a member.

The first reaction of the BJP has been to criticise those who have dragged the “name of nationalist organisations in the terror attack”. The BJP must carefully reassess its stand. As a mainstream party, it’s the BJP’s responsibility to condemn terrorists, even when they belong to Hindu outfits. It is equally important for the BJP to use its good offices to rein in or at least dissociate itself clearly from radical Hindu organisations. The BJP must not allow groups like the Bajrang Dal — another sangh parivar outfit — to run amok as they have in Orissa and Karna-taka. If such groups are allowed a free run, the BJP’s image as a democratic mainstream party would be damaged heavily.

The political reaction to the Malegaon blast arrests has been disappointing. In Parliament, the CPM has called for a ban on Hindu outfits such as the Bajrang Dal and the Hindu Jagran Manch. The BJP countered by asking for a ban on SIMI. We’ve written earlier that bans don’t work. Banned outfits usually respond by going underground and metamorphosing into even more radical organisations. Our political parties need to wake up to the fact that there are myriad terror outfits — religious as well as political — operating in the country. They all operate outside our constitutional perimeter and, hence, must be jointly resisted.

Sadhvi, 5 Hindutva activists involved in for Malegaon, Modasa blasts

Indian Express - 24 October 2008

Sadhvi, 5 Hindu activists in net for Malegaon, Modasa

by Smita Nair, Vikram Rautela, Milind Ghatwai

Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bhopal October 23 : The Maharashtra Police have picked up six Hindu activists, including Pragya Singh Thakur, an “extremely radical” sadhvi from Gujarat, in connection with the September 29 Ramzan blasts in Malegaon and Modasa but say they are still looking for the mastermind as well as the source of their explosives.

As first reported in The Indian Express today, the state police claim to have cracked the case and blame the bombings on the Hindu Jagran Manch (HJM), an Indore-based extremist group, and say that the suspects had links to the RSS student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

The ABVP said Pragya was a member of its national executive in 1996-97 but added “she has had no contact with the organisation for the last one decade or so.”

Five Muslims were killed in a powerful blast in the communally sensitive textile town of Malegaon and one Muslim boy was killed in the explosion in Modasa in Sabarkantha district.

Sources said that the Pragya was picked up from near Surat, along with four men from Indore and one from Dewas in Madhya Pradesh. While Madhya Pradesh police confirmed that the men had been picked up by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), Gujarat police sources claimed all five had been picked up from near Surat. The men have been identified as Dilip Nagar, Mehul Rawal, Shyamlal Sahu, Dharmendra Bairagi and Shivnarayan Singh. The motorcycle used in the Malegaon blast was traced to one of these men and yielded the first breakthrough.

The HJM was formed in 2002 and hit headlines during the Bhojshala dispute in Dhar in Madhya Pradesh. Hindus and Muslims had both claimed the 11th century monument as their own and the HJM demanded that Hindus be allowed to worship Goddess Saraswati there at any time and not just once a year. The outfit operates out of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s office, ‘Archana’, in Indore’s Rambaug locality.

For, the record, an ATS spokesman said: “We are investigating the matter currently and will share the details of investigations at the appropriate time.” But highly placed police sources in Gujarat told The Indian Express that about a fortnight ago, the sadhvi was picked up from Puna village near Surat and the men were taken away from the same village a day later.

Puna is near the Ahmedabad-Mumbai National Highway, off the Kadodara cross-road which leads to Surat city. Sources said Pragya was a little-known name in BJP/VHP...circles in South Gujarat where the two outfits have a strong network. She is believed to be based in Madhya Pradesh but frequently visited Surat.

“The ABVP condemns the bomb blasts in Malegaon and Modasa in the strongest possible terms and demands that the law take its course. While the ABVP has had no connection whatsoever with Pragya for the last one decade or so, it’s true that she was a member of the Parishad’s national executive in 1996-97. The present controversy is due to a politically motivated campaign launched by our ideological adversaries, the Congress and the Left,” said ABVP Zonal Organising Secretary (Delhi and Rajasthan region), Sunil Bansal.

The Madhya Bharat Convenor of HJM, Radheshyam Yadav, said the organisation had nothing to do with the blasts or the suspects. “They should have got in touch with us before naming us,” he said, accusing the Congress of using the ATS for political gain. (With inputs from Suman K Jha, New Delhi)....

BJP and the Malegaon Bombers

Indian Express, October 24, 2008

The Malegaon test

Editorial

The Maharashtra police may just have taken a crucial step to reassure citizens after the pathology of Terror seemed to have stumped the Union government. These columns have repeatedly pointed out that the Centre’s response to terror was grossly inadequate and that it couldn’t go on blaming faulty Centre-state coordination. Centre and states have shown signs of working together since, albeit problematically, especially in cracking the Delhi blasts. Now, the Maharashtra police appear to have a lead on those responsible for the September 29 blasts in Malegaon and Modasa. That the culprits in this case are reportedly Hindu extremists is of little technical import as far as nabbing them is concerned. The sleuths must zero in on those responsible and bring them to book. The courts can handle the rest.

However, there is a larger and yet more immediate, and localised, political battle to be fought. And here the identity of the terrorists cannot be ignored. Police investigations suggest that the suspects in the Malegaon and Modasa blasts belong to the Indore-based Hindu Jagran Manch, which in turn is reportedly linked to the ABVP, the BJP’s student wing. This newspaper has argued all along that the state of denial that moderate Indian politicians have on the local roots of terrorist incidents and networks is extremely dangerous. The unfolding investigations into the Malegaon and Modasa blasts show, once again, that the range of terror cannot be explained by the identification of any single community. The BJP has been strident on the need for tough counter-terror mechanisms. The Malegaon-Modasa investigations will test the party. Can it create distance from its lunatic fringe and shed the anti-minority overtones of its emphasis on security? On the ground, both the Congress and the BJP, as well as other major players on the national and local political scenes, must reassure citizens and preclude any communal fallout of the “sensitive” police claims. India cannot afford terror, far less tit-for-tat terror.

For the moment, the amorphous and obfuscated picture has cleared a bit. We seem finally to be getting leads on terror cells. It’s also clear that investigators are capable of doing a good job, as the Maharashtra police have done in this case. There must now be full political backing for their efforts and strong and rational oarsmanship through the troubled waters ahead. Politicians must keep talking to us, and they must talk sense.

Hindu Jagran Manch manch behind Malegaon, Modsa Blasts

Indian Express, October 23, 2008

Hindu group behind Malegaon blast: Police

Smita Nair Posted: Oct 23, 2008 at 1307 hrs IST


Mumbai, October 22 : The Maharashtra police are said to have cracked the September 29 bomb blasts in Malegaon and Modasa town in neighbouring Gujarat saying these were allegedly carried out by the Hindu Jagran Manch, an Indore-based Hindu extremist group known to have links to the BJP's student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). The key suspects are being questioned, top Maharashtra Police sources have told The Indian Express.

Five Muslims were killed in a powerful blast in the communally sensitive textile town of Malegaon in Maharashtra and one Muslim boy was killed in the explosion in Modasa in Sabarkantha district.

Both bombs were placed on motorcycles parked in crowded areas days before Eid and set off after Muslims had broken their Ramzan fast on a Monday evening.

The BJP had condemned both the blasts. Investigators initially suspected Islamist groups such as SIMI or the Indian Mujahideen to be behind the near-simultaneous attacks — the first blast was at Modasa at 9.26 pm, the second minutes later in Malegaon — as they came in the aftermath of blasts in Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi.

Gujarat: Extremist Hindus oust Christianity

• By Suzanne Goldenberg in Dangs district, Gujarat
• The Guardian, Friday 15 January 1999 

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.'