PUNE: The city that is home to the killer of the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, is in the news again for all the wrong reasons. The Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of the Maharashtra police have found that the art of bomb making and terrorism was taught in Pune.
The bombs that were set off by Hindu terrorists recently in Malegaon in Maharashtra and Modasa in Gujarat were designed in Pune, the city that was home to Nathuram Godse, the murderer of Gandhi. The ATS apart from making nine arrests have indicated that the people booked have revealed startling facts.
They have also brought out the linkage between two retired army officers and those being trained to make bombs in Pune. Nine Hindu terrorists, including a sadhvi (woman monk) Pragya Singh Thakur from the adjoining state of Madhya Pradesh, have been arrested by the ATS so far. All the alleged terrorists are said to have links with militant Hindu outfits.
The sadhvi was shown on the television channels in the company of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bigwigs that included Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and BJP President Rajnath Singh.
Despite this, Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has reacted in a lukewarm manner to the involvement of Hindu groups to the Malegoan and Modasa blasts. The Muslims have reasons to be annoyed with the Congress party, as Deshmukh said that it was too early to come to a definite conclusion on their role in the blasts since investigation was not yet complete.
The ATS, meanwhile, has said that the accused arrested so far have revealed facts that could tarnish the image of the BJP, which has been gunning for the Muslims and targeting them as terrorists.
The accused are alleged to have played a key role in the 2003 and 2004 blasts in the Marathwada region and had been trained in the use of explosives in Pune.
The alleged involvement of two former army officers, both major generals from Pune, in the Malegaon blasts and their reported links with right-wing Hindu groups is not the first time that Pune has been on the “Hindu terror” radar. Documents indicate that the militants of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal were trained in Pune’s outskirts at Sinhagad in bomb-making. They executed blasts at Jalna and Parbhani in the year 2003 and Purna in Marathwada in 2004.
The narco analysis test reports, dated July 19, 2006, conducted by Forensic Science Laboratory in Bangalore on Sanjay alias Bhaurao Vithalrao Choudhary, an accused in the Parbhani blast case, reveal that Sanjay had said that four VHP activists Himanshu Panse, Maruti Wagh, Rahul Manohar Pande and Yogesh Ravindra Widulkar had received training in handling explosives near Sinhagad in 2003.
They were trained for two to three days in making three types of bombs. Sanjay told the police that they were trained in improvised explosive devices by one Mithun Chakraborthy based in Pune.
They were trained in making pipe bombs. The other types they were trained in were to make a thread bomb and timer bomb. These names had figured when a bomb accidentally went off in the house of an RSS member, Laxman Rajkondawar, in Nanded district on April 6, 2006. The blast killed his son Naresh Laxman Rajkondawar and Panse and injured Wagh, Pande and Widulkar.
Sanjay also said that Pande’s acts were a revenge for the terror attacks allegedly sponsored by Abu Salem and Dawood Ibrahim in Mumbai by executing bomb blasts in Muslim-dominated areas of Jalna, Parbhani and Purna in the Marathwada region. Sanjay further revealed to the police that they were trained in Pune by Chakraborthy.
Brain mapping report of a Nanded blast survivor and a suspect, Rahul Pande, described Chakraborthy as a bearded, tall and well-built man. He said Chakraborthy had given them a bag containing explosives at the Pune railway station after the training.
