[Reader-list] Hindutva terror probe haunts Pune investigation

[Bipin]

Please apologize me for sending bellow content again, but it's my humble duty to send it. Mr. Praveen Swami is no authority. Investigation is going on and all the clue leads to pak based terrorists group with the help of local support. The intention is clear, by this false reporting they want to divert/mislead the investigative agencies. Such a people are also counted as sleeper cell.

It’s a fashion now to blame Hindu on any terrorist attack by such fanatics. Samjauta express attack was pointed on Hindu by similar fanatics but they proved wrong. It's bitter situation that such mindset increasing in India and with such mindset country cannot freed from terrorism unless we act strictly with iron hand. But, congress not showing any such will and do not want to come out from vote-bank politics of the minor appeasement to fight the terrorism.


-----Original Message-----
From: reader-list-bounces at sarai.net [mailto:reader-list-bounces at sarai.net] On Behalf Of Javed
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2010 9:28 AM
To: sarai list
Subject: [Reader-list] Hindutva terror probe haunts Pune investigation

Freinds, my apologies for flooding your mailboxes on this subject
again and again. But if Praveen Swami says something, we better take
it seriously.

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Hindutva terror probe haunts Pune investigation

Praveen Swami

Investigators focus on jihadist groups, but some fear Hindutva group
may have carried out German Bakery bombing

PUNE: Back in November 2008, as Lieutenant-Colonel Prasad Shrikant
Purohit walked into a Nashik court to face trial for his alleged role
in the bombing of a Malegaon mosque, Hindutva activists showered the
rogue military officer with rose petals.

Last week’s bombing of the German Bakery in Pune has brought the ugly
story of Abhinav Bharat — the Hindutva terrorist group Purohit helped
found — back from the obscurity to which it was consigned by the
Mumbai carnage, which took place just days after the trial in Nashik
began.

In private, Hindus sympathetic to the ultra-right have been saying the
bombings demonstrate the moral legitimacy of Purohit and his Hindutva
terror project. Even as the police detained more than two dozen young
Muslim men for questioning, some community leaders have been arguing
that the bakery attack could just have easily been carried out by a
Hindutva group.

Part of the reason for the controversy is that key suspects involved
in Abhinav Bharat’s terror campaign have never been held. Jatin
Chatterjee — better known by his alias Swami Asimanand — is thought to
be hiding out in Gujarat’s Adivasi tracts, where he runs a Hindu
proselytisation organisation. Ramnarayan Kalsangra, Abhinav Bharat’s
key bomb-maker, is also a fugitive.

Founded in the summer of 2006, Abhinav Bharat was set up as an
educational trust with Himani Savarkar — daughter of Gopal Godse,
brother of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin — as its chairperson. But,
documents filed by Maharashtra prosecutors show, members of the group
were soon involved in discussing armed activity. In June 2007, Purohit
allegedly suggested that the time had come to target Muslims through
terrorist attacks — a plea others in Abhinav Bharat rejected.

But, the evidence gathered by the police suggests, many within the
group were determined to press ahead. At a meeting in April 2008, key
suspects including Madhya Pradesh-based Hindutva activist Pragnya
Singh Thakur and Jammu cleric Sudhakar Dwivedi, also known as
Amritananda Dev Tirtha, met Purohit to hammer out the Malegaon plot.
Explosives were later procured by Purohit, and handed over to
Kalsangra in early August 2008.

Abhinav Bharat’s long-term aims, though, went far beyond targeting
Muslims: its members wanted to overthrow the Indian state and replace
it with a totalitarian, theocratic order. A draft constitution
prepared by Abhinav Bharat spoke of a single-party system, presided
over by a leader who “shall be followed at all levels without
questioning the authority.” It called for the creation of an “academy
of indoctrinization [sic.].” The concluding comment was stark: “People
whose ideas are detrimental to Hindu Rashtra should be killed.”

Purohit’s plans to bring about a Hindutva state were often
fantastical. He claimed, the prosecutors say, to have secured an
appointment with Nepal’s King Gyanendra in 2006 and 2007 to press for
his support for the planned Hindutva revolution. Nepal, he went on,
was willing to train Abhinav Bharat’s cadre, and supply it with
assault rifles. Israel’s government, he said, had agreed to grant
members of the group military support and, if needed, political
asylum.

Many believe that Abhinav Bharat carried out many attacks earlier
attributed to jihadist groups — notable among them, the bombing of the
Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad in May 2007, and a subsequent attack on the
famous shrine at Ajmer. Despite persistent questioning of Abhinav
Bharat cadre, though, the investigators have not been able to link the
group to the attacks.

Matters are complicated by the fact that some of the operations
attributed to Abhinav Bharat may not have had much to do with the
group — even though its leading luminaries claimed responsibility for
the attacks.

For example, Purohit allegedly claimed to confidants that the attack
was carried out by the Dewas-based Hindutva terrorist Sunil Joshi, who
was murdered in December 2007. But the United States Treasury
Department later imposed sanctions on Lashkar-e-Taiba activist Arif
Kasmani — a Karachi-based jihadist with close links to the Taliban and
al-Qaeda — for financing the attack.

In January this year, Pakistan’s Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik
went further, admitting that “there were some Pakistan-based Islamists
who had been hired to carry out the Samjhauta Express attack.”

Judging by recent Hindutva terror attacks, like last year’s bombings
in Goa, it is unclear if they still have the capabilities to mount a
sophisticated attack of the kind seen in Pune. Few investigators
believe that the organisations — or other Hindutva cells — mounted the
operation. “Still”, says one Maharashtra police official involved in
investigating both Hindutva and jihadist attacks, “you can’t help
wondering — what if?”

Signs are the investigation into the bombing of the German Bakery will
take time. All that investigators have by way of suspects are three
men recorded holding brief meetings before the blast by a poor-quality
closed-circuit television camera. From the videotape, it is unclear if
the men had anything to do with the attack.

The longer the investigation takes, the more time conspiracy theories
and speculation will have to proliferate — likely deepening the
communal fissures the bombing is already opening up.

http://www.hindu.com/2010/02/19/stories/2010021961571000.htm
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