Madhya Pradesh blast probe was put on ice
By Pervez Bari, TwoCircles.net,
Bhopal: The members of a Hindu organization namely Abhinav Bharat (not the charitable trust by the same name) — the Hindutva terror group allegedly responsible for a string of recent bombings – had targetted “Jamaats” (group of Muslims) attending the International “Tablighi Ijtama” (a religious annual congregation of Muslims) in Bhopal, the capital of central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, as early as 2002 when they were preparing for a nationwide bombing campaign.
This has been revealed in a news story entitled “Politics helped Hindutva terrorists” published in “The Hindu”, a leading Indian English language daily, dated November 20, 2008, bylined Praveen Swami.
According to the news report authorities in Madhya Pradesh had evidence to this effect about Abhinav Bharat activities. However, government sources told the newspaper, political pressures allowed members of the terror cell, including two suspects now being investigated by the Maharashtra Police’s Anti-Terrorism Squad, to walk free.
In December 2002, police in Madhya Pradesh discovered an improvised explosive device, (IED), at Bhopal’s railway station. A second IED was found exactly a year later on Bhopal’s outskirts in Lambakhera neighbourhood on the last day of the congregation when Muslims drawn from all over the world were retuning on the conclusion of “Dua” (Munajaat). Both devices were made with commercial TNT cased in a four-inch tube-well pipe, linked to a detonator controlled both by a cell phone and a quartz alarm clock.
Investigators determined that both bombs were intended to attack delegates arriving in the city for the annual convention of the Tablighi Jamaat — an event that attracts about half a million people.
Madhya Pradesh police, the sources said, soon developed information linking the attempted bombings to local Hindutva activists, Ramnarayan Kalsangram and Sunil Joshi. Both men — now alleged by the Maharashtra Police ATS to have occupied command positions in Abhinav Bharat — were questioned, along with several other suspects linked to the Bajrang Dal’s activities.
Later, the then ruling Congress Chief Minister Digvijay Singh had announced that he had evidence of the involvement of Hindu nationalist groups such as the Bajrang Dal, an affiliate of Hindu fundamentalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, (RSS), in terrorism, the report stated.
It may be mentioned here that Singh had proposed to the Bharatiya Janata Party ruled National Democratic Alliance, (NDA) Union Government to put a ban on Bajrang Dal along with Student Islamic Movement of India, (SIMI), which was alleged to be involved in acts of terrorism. However, NDA Government imposed a ban on SIMI alone and let Bajrang Dal to go scot free. ([email protected])