[Reader-list] Hindutva terror probe haunts Pune investigation

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear Bipin,

I agree, Praveen Swami is no authority, and I agree, that it is  
unfortunate that religious prefixes (hindu or muslim) are applied to  
terrorism, after all, they are usually not applied to other crimes,  
we do not hear of hindu or muslim bank robberies, for instance.

  I for instance, have always condemned the trial by media of people  
like Sadhvi Pragya, on the same grounds as I have condemned the same  
when it happened to of any of the young men arrested in the wake of  
the so called Batla House encounter. I think that no one should be  
allowed to pronounce any person guilty until they have had access to  
a free and fair trial. I hold this to be true even in the case of  
people I do not agree with politically. I totally oppose Hindutva,  
and I think Sadhvi Pragya's brand of politics is dangerous, but, at  
the same time, I believe she, like everyone else has the right to a  
free and a fair trial, and that she (or anyone else) should not have  
to be subjected to invasive and brutal procedures like 'Narco  
Analysis' without consent.

I expect everyone on this list to share my concern for the fate of  
undertrial prisoners in India, regardless of political sympathies.  
And I hope that the latest episode in Pune does not lead to yet  
another round of the violation of rights of people, regardless of  
whether they are Hindu or Muslim, regardless of whether they are  
affiliated to Abhinav Bharat or SIMI, through instances of preventive  
detention under draconian laws. The only decent way forward is  
through a proper criminal investigation, not through picking up young  
people from their homes in the dead of night, and making them  
'confess' using third degree methods, as is usually done in the wake  
of a terrorist atrocity.

Let me come back to Mr. Swami. Whenever Mr. Swami offers his take and  
his analysis, say on Kashmir, usually, some people on this list,  
whose sympathies lie with the Indian state's position on Kashmir,  
have always offered us the same (Swami's outpourings) as pearls of  
wisdom. To be fair, we should be as open to be sceptical of what  
Praveen Swami writes about when he writes about Kashmir, as we are  
when he writes about the possible Hindutva links to terrorism in Pune.

I agree with you, that one should not succumb to the "fashion of  
blaming 'Hindus'  " for any and every terrorist attack,  and I  
sincerely hope that you too will restrain yourself from being carried  
away by the even more overwhelmingly prevalent fashion of  
identifiying terrorism with Islam or Muslims.

best

Shuddha



On 19-Feb-10, at 11:38 AM, Bipin wrote:

> 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.
>
> -------
> 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
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with  
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with  
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>

Shuddhabrata Sengupta
The Sarai Programme at CSDS
Raqs Media Collective
shuddha at sarai.net
www.sarai.net
www.raqsmediacollective.net