By TCN news,
New Delhi: The US-based advocacy group Indian American Muslim Council has called upon Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to act on the request of the Maharashtra State Government to ban right-wing terrorist organization Sanatan Sanstha.
Recently, Maharashtra government has recommended to the Centre to ban these outfits as their names have come up during investigations of Goa and Malegaon bomb blasts.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, IAMC has also urged him to ban terror outfit Abhinav Bharat based on the recommendation of the Maharashtra State Police.
Sanatan Sanstha activists were convicted in the bomb blasts in June 2008 in Thane and thereafter at Vashi, Panvel and Ratnagiri. The organization has also been implicated in the bomb blast in Goa in October 2009 on the eve of Diwali. Abhinav Bharat, a Hindutva terror network similar to Sanatan Sanstha, has been implicated in the bomb blasts at Malegaon in 2006 and 2008, Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid (Hyderabad), Ajmer and Modasa (Gujarat).
“Not only have the terrorist activities of these two organizations resulted in terrible loss of life and property, innocent people that had nothing to do with these crimes, have been falsely implicated and imprisoned, in some cases for several years,” the letter, signed by IAMC President Shaheen Khateeb stated.
“Recently, the National Investigation Agency concluded that the nine men that had spent five years in prison on charges of masterminding the Malegaon blasts of 2006 were innocent. This was over a year after Swami Aseemanand’s confession about Abhinav Bharat’s involvement in the multiple terrorist acts throughout the country. This is just one of many instances, where law enforcement agencies have harassed innocent individuals from the minority communities, while the actual perpetrators have escaped punishment. Such incidents further erode the people’s confidence in the government’s willingness to treat all citizens as equal before the law. They also embolden the votaries of emergent Hindutva terrorism,” the letter stated.
Besides urging the Prime Minister to ban Sanatan Sanstha and Abhinav Bharat with immediate effect, IAMC has demanded that “the Government direct law enforcement agencies to expedite justice for the countless innocent people serving time in jail for crimes they have not committed.”
IAMC has once again reiterated its position that terrorism, regardless of the religious affiliation claimed by its perpetrators, is a heinous and evil act that deserves the most stringent punishment under the law. IAMC has also called upon citizens of all faiths to work towards strengthening civil society and to be vigilant against extremism in all its forms.
Indian American Muslim Council (formerly Indian Muslim Council-USA) is the largest advocacy organization of Indian Muslims in the United States with 10 chapters across the nation.
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