core sector communique

BREAKTHROUGH DEVELOPMENT IN HINDUTVA TERROR NETWORK INVESTIGATION

Tehelka scoops Hindutva zealot Swami Aseemanand’s 42-page chilling confession before the magistrate

Evidence of a sinister Hindutva terror network has been growing with every new arrest over the last few months. But on Decemeber 18, 2010, in a breakthrough development, Swami Aseemanand, a key figure in the terror module, made a stunning confession before magistrate Deepak Dabas of the Tis Hazari court. Recorded under 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code, this is the first legally admissible evidence that not Muslims but a range of RSS pracharaks  were involved in a series of heinous terror blasts ranging from Malegaon 2006 to the Mecca Masjid, Ajmer Sharif and Samjhauta Express blasts.

 

Ashish Khetan, Editor, Investigations, Tehelka has scooped this 42-page confession (written in Hindi) as reported in Tehelka’s latest cover story , which is now out on the stands and on the tehelka website, www.tehelka.com

 

In his statement, Aseemanand admits to having planned terror attacks on Ajmer Sharif, Mecca Masjid, Malegaon and the Samjhauta Express.

 

He names senior RSS leader Indresh Kumar, the murdered RSS pracharak Sunil Joshi, Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and senior RSS pracharaks Sandeep Dange and Ramji Kalsangra, Swami Aseemanand himself, among others, as being key conspirators in the terror blasts.

 

According to him, Indresh Kumar financed several of the blasts, while Sunil Joshi and his team executed many of them.

 

Aseemanand says the terror conspiracy was hatched over several meetings at which he was present along with these Hindutva leaders. According to him the trigger for their conspiracy was the Islamist terror strikes on Sankatmochan mandir and Akshardham temple. Aseemanad says, “I told everybody
that bomb ka jawab bomb se dena chahiye”.

Their reasons for picking their targets are chilling. Aseemanand says, “I told everyone since 80 percent of Malegaon are Muslims we should explode the bomb in Malegaon”.

He also says, “Since Hindus throng to the Ajmer Sharif dargah, we thought a bomb blast in Ajmer would deter Hindus from going there.”

Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad was chosen because the Nizam of Hyderbad had wanted to opt for Pakistan during Partition!

And Samjhauta Express was chosen because it was mostly used by Pakistanis.

This confession will have wide-ranging political ramifications. The RSS will have to confront extremely uncomfortable and explosive questions about members of its organisation.

 

This confession also exposes the cynical assumption that had crept into the Indian criminal justice system. There was a deep-seated prejudice that if there is a terror blast, there will be a Muslim behind it. This confession exposes the shockingly shoddy approach of sections of investigative agencies where they rounded up and wrongly arrested scores of innocent Muslim boys and men for blasts they had not committed. Just to claim they had “cracked the case” and caught the “masterminds”. Many of these innocent Muslims were tortured and kept in jail for years. It is a measure of the extent of this cynicism that even when the targets were Muslim neighbourhoods or mosques, Muslims were still blamed for it. In the meantime, the real culprits of terror blasts across the country – both Islamist and ultra-Hindutva men – were allowed to go scot-free.

Thirty two innocent Muslim men were, in fact, also arrested for this series of blasts which Aseemanand has now admitted were perpetrated by him and his comrades. These men have also been featured in Tehelka’s story. This leaves many questions and much reparation to be made to the Muslims who were wrongly arrested.