By Md. Ali, TwoCircles.net,
Exactly ten years after Babri Masjid demolition, on 6th December 2002, a powerful blast rips apart a BEST bus in Ghatkopar in northern Mumbai. Two persons died on the spot. Maharashtra police picked up several Muslim youths including Khwaja Yunus, a Gulf-based NRI software professional. Years later, the POTA court acquits Yunus and all other accused. But something tragic occurs before the court acquittal.
Violating all the norms of basic humanity and human rights, the police brutally torture Yunus and he is murdered in the police custody.
That Khwaja Yunus was innocent has been confirmed by the court. Then the question conveniently forgotten by the state and central investigative agencies that had passionately arrested the so called Muslim terrorists remains. If it was not Khwaja Yunus, who was behind the Ghatkopar bomb blast and a number of other unsolved blasts? The recent arrest of some Hindu extremists in connection with the Thane auditorium bombing case may provide some clues.
Hindutva groups
The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Maharashtra arrested four persons: Mangesh Dinkar Nikam, Ramesh Hanumant Gadkari, Santosh Angre, and Vikram Bhave for planting the bombs at the Bhave auditorium in Vashi and Thane’s Gadkari Rangayatan last month. Seven persons were injured in the Thane blast on June 4th.
These people are associated with Hindutva groups Janjagruti Samiti and Sanatan Sanstha.
Gadkari, is an engineering diploma holder. Angre, a school dropout, was in the business of preparing and selling ayurvedic medicines.
According to the accused, they had manufactured at least five bombs. While three of them were planted in Panvel, Vashi and Thane, one was planted in a dustbin at Pen but it did not go off.
These Hindutva extremists confessed to ATS on Tuesday that they had planted a bomb outside a mosque/dargah on the Pen highway last Diwali. They claimed that they wanted to check the intensity of the bomb, but it did not explode.
“Gadkari and Bhave said that they had planted a bomb outside a mosque or dargah, on the Pen highway. Our teams are verifying the claim,” said investigating officer B B Rathor.
With this revelation, the ATS is now going through the records of those arrested for the Jalana, Porna and Parbhani mosque blasts to find if there is any connection between the two groups.
This official revelation from ATS is important in many respects.
It is the first time that the ATS has come up in the public with the possibility of any kind of involvement of Hindutva terrorist groups in bomb blasts in India.
This is the recent proof in the series of incidents which point towards the possibility of Hindutva terrorist organizations in the terrorist incidents in India.
This confession by the members of the Hindu organizations has caused varied reactions in the social and political spectrum across India.
The secular organizations have re-emphasized the need for the central and state investigative agencies to look for the real culprits behind terror attacks in India. They point towards the fact that not even a single case of bomb blast except the Bombay bomb blast of 1993 has been finally investigated, nor the agencies could be able to arrest the real culprits.
Speaking to TwoCircles.net, Saeed Khan of Muslim Youth of India (MY India) demanded that there should be independent inquiry of all the bomb blasts in India, for which the central government should constitute an independent national tribunal consisting of retired judges, retired police officers, civil and human right activists and journalists.
He points out that till now the investigative agencies have dealt with the bomb blasts in a completely prejudicial manner exhibiting their deep rooted biases against the Muslims in India. Notwithstanding, not even a single case of bomb blast except the 1993 Bombay bomb blast, has reached to natural conclusion.
Khan, who works with Muslim youth educating them about dangers of extremism, explains that whenever a blast occurs, there would be a breaking news which would claim the involvement of SIMI, HUJI, and others; the sketches would be released and many Muslim youths would be arrested without proper proof, and after endless torture, if the human rights people raise their voice they would be released or they will endlessly tortured.
Then no one would remember the blast case and the case would be silently closed, even when the falsely implicated Muslim youths will remain arrested in jails. He cites the example of Ghatkopar bomb blast. And there are other cases like this.
For instance, the Nanded incident in which the RSS activists died whilst making bombs has been swept under the carpet by the government of Maharashtra as well as the media.
Politics of terror
Even the fake attack on the RSS HQ in Nagpur has been dealt with in a similar manner as the fact finding reports have shown. Recently the attack on the RSS HQ at Tenkasi, Tamil Nadu is also a case in point. The Tamil Nadu police arrested at least seven RSS activists for engineering the blasts that was designed to create communal tension.
A BJP banner publicising Hindu Janjagruti Samiti event
The investigative fraternity of India has sufficient evidence to prove that the Hindu fundamentalist organisations are involved in terrorist activities. Even the Home Minister Shiv Raj Patil has accepted in the Parliament in the last budget session that there are some Hindu terrorist organizations who are involved in terror activities in India, as did the Maharashtra Chief Minister Mr. Vilsasrao Desmukh a couple of days back.
Apart from that, the analysts and political commentators pointed towards the benefit that the BJP reaped because of the Jaipur bomb blast occurred immediately before the Karnataka elections. It helped the party to create panic and polarise the votes on religious lines, claims Saeed Khan.
Referring to this he points out that it has been very easy for the Hindu terrorist organisation to replace the politics of riot by the politics of bomb blasts, particularly when the investigative agencies are not able to see, deliberately or whatever, this very simple strategic point.
There is another very important development to this case now.
According to the media reports, the police has said that these accused can’t be arrested under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) because these acts of terror were not done by “an organised terrorist group.”
It is this double standard that the secular organisations are completely against.
“How can one differentiate between the Hindutva terrorism and the so called Islamic terrorism? And more importantly, does terrorism has any religion?”
Feroze Mithiborwala of Awami Bharat echoes Saeed Khan and urged the media not to label terrorism with ‘Hindu’ or ‘Muslim’ label as it pains the entire community as guilty.
Feroze blames the security agencies for failure in the terror investigations of the last three years. He points that all these investigations lead us nowhere which means that security agencies have been pursuing a preconceived path and have been looking at only one possibility. This has to lead to the demonization of the Muslim community and the rise of Islamophobia in India.
Feroze who is a political activist points out that the government, security establishments and the major media ignored the possibility that there were other terror networks in India besides often blamed SIMI-ISI.
These networks are operational and lethal is now proven beyond doubt by the arrests of Hindutva-vadis in number of bomb blasts.
If there was any doubt that these are rogue elements within the Hindutva organizations it was removed by the recent editorial of “Saamna” in which Bal Thackeray urges Hindu suicide squads. This terror thinking comes from the top.
ShivSeva MLA Divakar Raote participating in Hindu Janjagruti Samiti event
A Maharashtra Navnirman Sena banner publicising a Hindu Janjagruti Samiti event
[Photos by Hindu Janjagruti Samiti]