[Reader-list] Sarvagyapeeth and terror

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The website displays Sudhakar as a crusader
13 Nov 2008, 0200 hrs IST, Pervez Iqbal Siddiqui, TNN

LUCKNOW: "To restore the age-old glory of Sharda Mandir in PoK. To
make aware our countrymen about the dangers in Kashmir spreading in
the whole
country. To contribute to the struggle of displaced Hindus in their
rehabilitation.

Publication of rare manuscripts of Kashmir. To organise "Dharma
Bachao- Desh Bachao Yatra aur Rashtra Raksha Yagya" .... reads the
welcome message on the home page of the website
(www.sarvagyapeeth.com) of Sharda Sarvagyapeeth of Swami Amritanand
Dev Tirth Shankaracharya alias Sudhakar Dwivedi alias Dayanand Pandey
— the Malegaon blast connection of Uttar Pradesh who was detained by
the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of the Mumbai Police.

Investigators say that Amritanand is a self-proclaimed Shankaracharya
and has no association with other establish peeths in India.

The website was traced after Sudhakar himself provided the address to
the interrogators after he was picked up from Kanpur and brought to
Lucknow. Created supposedly with a copyright registration of 2007 the
website has an impressive homepage but most of the Sarvagyapeeth
literarature is photocopies of January 2007 edition of the opening
pages of Sharda Sandesh — a quaterly bilingual newsletter from the
Sarvagyapeeth.

Sources associated with the probe said that Sudhakar had met all the
Malegaon blast accused arrested so far by the ATS and was in regular
touch with them. "His name figured in the interrogation of almost all
the accused — be it the senior army officers or Sadhvi Pragya
herself," admitted a senior officer of the ATS here on Wednesday
night. Investigators were now trying to retract all the e-mails sent
from and received by the two e-mail IDs of Sudhakar and transaction
details of his account with a nationalised bank that was discovered
during the initial stages of his interrogation.

Sources said that after his initial stay at Kanpur, Sudhakar shifted
to Varanasi from where he reached Jammu in 2005-06 where he floated
the Sarvagyapeeth. Investigators believe that the genuine Peeth
actually existed in Pak occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Sudhakar opened a
Peeth in Kashmir on his own. "We are yet to establish any link between
the PoK Peeth and the one launched by Sudhakar," said a senior officer
associated with the probe.

As per the website, the Sarvagyapeeth has its registered office at
248, Sector 1-A, Trikuta Nagar, Jammu Tavi 180012, J&K with phone
numbers 9419190809 and 0191-2471031.

While the mobile number was unapproachable, the landline number was
attended by a male. When asked by TOI if it was the telelphone number
of Sarvagyapeeth, a sleepy voice on the other side retorted: " Sonay
do bhai ... yeh koi peeth veeth ka number nahin hai " (Please let me
sleep. This number doesn;t belong to any peeth) before he hung up. The
cellphone number (9419194506) provided against the camp office of the
Peeth was also not contactable. The camp office address read at Maa
Sharika Mandir, Village Anangpur, Faridabad (Harayana) with
emailaddressesshardapeeth at gmail.com and
sarvagyapeethkashmir at sancharnet.in.

The most impressive part of the website is the picture gallery showing
Swami Amritanand Dev Tirth Shankaracharya alias Sudhakar Dwivedi in
conversation with some important personalities of the country
including a former president of India, a film star and a bureaucrat
apart from a stream of political personalities from across the
country.

Out of the six patrons of the Sarvagyapeeth, as mentioned in the
website, at least four are Padamshri and one hails from Lucknow. The
Sanatan Yatra page of the website also contains 21 pictures showing
Sudhakar addressing students at a school and his followers.

A separate page attributed to donations announces that all amounts
given as donation are exempted from income tax under section 80G of
the Income Tax Act 1961.

The Sarvagyapeeth offers three categories of memberships including
founder / life member at Rs 21,000, honourable/special life member for
Rs 5,100 and life member for Rs 2,100.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Website_displays_Sudhakar_as_a_crusader/articleshow/3706373.cms