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Advani leads RSS-BJP support for terror suspects
WSN Bureau
 Mumbai:
The shrill RSS-BJP-VHP-Bajrang Dal support for ultra Hindu radical
sadhus and sadhvis and those army officers and others who helped
plant bombs and kill innocent civilians in
India's bazars,
streets and crowded areas continues unabated.
Leader of the
Opposition L K Advani who is the prime ministerial candidate for the
Hindu nationalist BJP party and was in the forefront of the Ram
Janambhoomi movement that resulted in the demolition of the Babri
Mosque, a permanent blot on India's secular claims, met Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh in order to express solidarity with Sadhvi
Pragya Thakur Singh, suspected of being the brain behind Malegaon
blasts.
Meanwhile, a
MCOCA court rejected a plea by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad
(ATS) for further custody of Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur, Abhinav
Bharat treasurer Ajay Rahirkar and Lt. Col. Prasad Purohit. All of
them accused the ATS of torturing them and their lawyers argued
there were no new grounds to seek their custody.
They were sent
to judicial custody until December 3. Of the 11 arrested so far,
only Mahant Dayanand Pandey and Sudhakar Chaturvedi are in ATS
custody, the rest in judicial custody.
Sleuths have
claimed that they need to probe “sinister design of Abhinav Bharat,
which appears to be instrumental in promoting, advocating and
inciting unlawful and terrorist activities.”
The ATS also
needed to know the source of the explosives used in the blast and if
it was funded through hawala channels, she added.
The sadhvi
alleged in court that ATS officials had physically and mentally
tortured her and also forced her to listen to a vulgar CD.
Many in
Punjab
wondered whether leaders like Parkash Singh Badal or Sukhbir Badal
would ever go meet anyone at the Center for release of Sikh detenues.
Instead, Punjab Police itself often embroils Sikh youth in false
cases.
Interestingly,
Purohit’s family had filed an application in the Nashik magistrate’s
court earlier this month saying the serving army officer had been
tortured by the ATS but the court dismissed the petition on November
15 after Purohit himself told the court that he had not been
tortured.
Perturbed over
losing Hindu votes, Congress is trying to walk it bothways. So it
got the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to depute National Security
Adviser M.K. Narayanan and Intelligence Bureau chief P.S. Haldar to
brief Advani about the “facts” of the probe. Taken aback by Advani’s
statement, the PM wanted to know why he had made the demand.
A senior
Bharatiya Janata Party leader said Advani explained he had to speak
out after seeing Thakur’s affidavit filed in a Nashik court. The PM
reportedly told Advani he would look into the matter.
On Monday,
Advani dropped another bombshell by suggesting that the “political
leadership” had a role behind the arrests and revelations in
connection with the
Malegaon
blast. However, he refused to comment on arrested Army officer Lt
Col Prasad Purohit’s reported revelations to the CBI about VHP
international general secretary Praveen Togadia’s involvement in the
formation and funding of Abhinav Bharat, a radical group under
investigation for the September 29 blast.
He said that to
the entire world, terrorism was linked with jehad and al Qaeda. But
by talking about Hindu terror, “our Government has tarnished the
name of the country”. Incidentally, the BJP has traditionally linked
terrorism to Muslims while Congress was guilty of stereotyping Sikhs
as terrorists in Punjab.
26 November
2008
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