By IANS,
Nagpur : The Bhosla Military School has categorically denied imparting terrorist training to the Malegaon bomb blast accused or anyone else in the past, terming media reports to that effect as part of irresponsible and malicious propaganda.
“We heard the names of the Malegaon bomb accused, including Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, for the first time when reports about their arrest appeared in the print and electronic media in the last some days,” the school’s Nagpur branch director Satish Salpekar told IANS Tuesday.
The Bhosla Military School in Nashik and its branch in Godhni near Nagpur prepare students for entrance exam to the National Defence Academy (NDA) and the State Services Board examinations and the training measures up to the ‘B Certificate’ level of the National Cadet Corps (NCC), he added.
Salpekar, however, admitted that the school had allowed the Bajrang Dal to use its premises and apparatus for its ‘personality development camp’ in 2001 free of cost.
He also confirmed media reports that retired army officer Major Prabhakar Kulkarni, presently under the scanner of the Maharashtra police’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) for imparting training in the use of RDX to the Malegaon bomb accused, was associated with the school in Nashik, first as its commandant and then as secretary of the educational institute that runs it till a few years ago.
“But my information is that ATS investigating officers never took him in their custody though they did visit his Nashik residence last week,” Salpekar said.
He clarified that the two other ex-servicemen reportedly under ATS probe, Maj. Ramesh Upadhyay and Maj. Y.D. Sahasrabuddhe, were never associated with the Bhosla Military School.
The ATS has made a number of arrests in the past week following the simultaneous low-intensity blasts in Malegaon in Maharashtra and Modasa in neighbouring Gujarat on the night of Sep 29.