By IANS,
Panaji : Sanatan Sanstha, a right wing Hindu organization whose members police allege carried out a blast which killed two people in Goa Friday night, claims to “spread the science of spirituality and guide seekers in their spiritual practice”, the group’s website says.
Two activists of the group were killed in Margao town when explosives being ferried in their scooter went off in a traffic jam, police said.
Both men riding the scooter, Malgondi Patil and Yogesh Naik, were badly injured and collapsed. Patil died in a hospital at midnight and Naik succumbed to his injuries at 9.30 a.m. Saturday.
Sanatan Sanstha’s website – www.sanatan.org – claims that the organization was founded in 1990 by Jayant Balaji Athavale, a Britain-educated hypnotherapist.
The founder’s profile on the website said that “His Highness Athavale” spent eight years in Britain studying hypnotherapy and returned to India in 1978 to start his own practice.
“After practicing as a hypnotherapist for 20 years in India, he (Athavale) realized that nearly 30 percent of his patients did not recover with the usual treatment regimens and that some of these patients recovered after having gone on a pilgrimage or having followed the advice of a saint,” the website says, adding that the “main aim of the organization is to present spirituality in a scientific language for the curious and to guide seekers”.
According to the website, Sanatan Sanstha has branches all over the world including countries like Australia, Canada, United Arab Emirates, Britain and the US.
Last year, Sanatan Sanstha members were arrested in Mumbai for planting improvised explosives in cinema halls in Thane, Vashi and Panvel.
The group also runs a multi-lingual newspaper named Sanatan Prabhat, whose motto reads “for the annihilation of evildoers”.