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Malegaon Blasts:
Footprints Of Nanded?

By Subhash Gatade

15 September, 2006
Countercurrents.org


Everybody knows that Shab-e-Barat happens to be a day when Muslims visit graveyards of their loved ones, clean and decorate the graves and spend the night there, reading out special prayers for the occasion. But who from Malegaon and adjoining areas would have imagined that the day to remember the departed ones would turn out to be the last day of some of their own lives and would maim many among them for the rest of their lives.

People in Malegaon are still in the mourning. They are still recovering from the two blasts, which occurred at two places in the city killing around 31 people and wounding more than 100 of them. Residents of the city shudder to think the way they could save themselves. The prayer was almost over, people were preparing to leave the grounds of the Bada Kabaristan and there was a bomb blast near the Vazu Khana’ where mostly children were sitting for their prayers. And within fraction of seconds there was a transfer scene. The tranquility, the silence witnessed during the prayers was all gone and one could hear shrieks of the wounded, one could see blood splattered on the ground, people running for cover desperately, children getting crushed under the stampede.

The only feeling of comfort in the otherwise gloomy scenario was that there was no repeat of 2001- the year when the city of 7 lakhs where 75 per cent population is Muslim, witnessed large scale rioting. This time despite provocation there was no communal flare-up.

The ‘Communally sensitive’ town remained calm. Instead one could see new bonds of solidarity getting forged between the two communities who for various reasons have remained in an adversial relationship with each other. Scores of Hindus could be seen at the various hospitals standing in queue to donate blood and doing whatever little they could do to help the victims.

Is it Bajrang or Lashkar?

Looking at the nature of crime, where fanatics planted bombs in crowded areas in the city to see to it that people are killed in large numbers and communal flare-ups ensues, it is clear that meticulous planning went into it. Question naturally arises, who could have benefited from growing communal divide? A general answer could be a fanatic group who believes and propagates a religion-based ideology. It could be Lashkar-e-Toiba or any of those Jihadi terrorist organizations or one of those Hindu Militant groups, which have of late demonstrated similar prowess umpteen times.

A newspaper clipping from a leading national daily rightly underlines

MUMBAI: The police are probing whether the Bajrang Dal or a Lashkar group could have been involved in Friday’s Malegaon blasts. The Bajrang Dal is known to have followed a similar pattern in blasts at Parbhani’s Mohammadi Masjid and mosques at Pona and Jalna earlier this year. "We are probing this angle, though it is too early to hold any group responsible," DGP P S Pasricha said on Friday. (Times of India, 9 th Sep 2006, Updated at 12.3111 hrs IST)

A section of the readers would definitely feel surprised over the inclusion of Bajrang Dal or for that matter any of the Parivar organizations on the list of possible suspects. Perhaps they are unaware of similar terrorist acts committed by these very organizations or their activists. One of the most recent one being the deaths of few activists of Bajrang Dal on 6 th April in Nanded, Maharashtra while making bombs. One could have a look at a news clipping of The Telegraph ( 10 th April 2006) how they got killed.

Mumbai, April 9: Bajrang Dal activists were involved in last week’s bomb blast in Maharashtra in which two people died, police have confirmed.The incident could prove to be an embarrassment for Lal Krishna Advani whose yatra, ironically called Bharat Suraksha, entered the state today since the Bajrang Dal is an associate of the Sangh parivar.

“Bajrang Dal activists were actually making a bomb before one exploded in an activist’s house,” said a senior police officer..… “We have seized another bomb from the same site on Saturday which has now been defused,” said another police official. Interestingly in an interview to ‘Communalism Combat’ Mr. K.P. Raghuvanshi, head of the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Maharashtra had given details of the way in which the ATS was working on this particular case : In the Nanded case, the very fact that the investigation has been handed over to us, the ATS, shows how the administration and government are viewing it. Investigations are on. Two persons making the bombs died on the spot (Himanshu Panse, 27, and Naresh Rajkondwar, 26). The house was the residence of the local Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad activist.

Of the two who survive, one is so seriously ill he cannot speak. He is not expected to survive. The other is the sole surviving accused. We have him and one witness. On both we have already done a brain-mapping and narco-analysis test. This is the same group of terrorists responsible for the bomb blasts at the Parbhani mosque in (April) 2003, an incident in which 25 persons were injured. Until now we do not know for sure if they are linked to the other masjid bomb blasts at Purna and Jalna (August 2004, in which 18 persons were injured). …...We have applied the provisions of the Unlawful Practices Act. It is clear that these bombs were not being manufactured for a puja. They were being manufactured for unlawful ends to wreak violence through terror.

Praveen Swami and Anupama Katakam, in their writeup in ‘The Hindu’ (Malegaon : the road to perdition, 9 th September 2006) rightly underline that ‘ It is possible that no full account of the Malegaon bombings and their perpetrators will emerge for weeks or months. But the contours of the evidence available so far do not portend well.’ Ofcourse, at this stage it is humanly impossible to be anything like certain that a Hindu Fundamentalist group or a Islamist terrorist group carried out the bombing. At this juncture one need not revisit the way Islamist terrorist groups have engaged in large scale attacks against not only shrines and mosques in West Asia, Pakistan and even Jammu and Kashmir but also on cultural troupes or independent intellectuals who have refused to toe their anti-democratic dictats. One also need to bear in mind that it was only May-June this year that police had recovered RDX as well as assault rifles and grenades from a Lashkar-e-Toiba safe house in Malegaon itself.

The most important lesson, which should be remembered, is that the law and order machinery should be even handed in its approach in unearthing the truth. It should not repeat its earlier folly of stigmatizing the whole community, which it is alleged to have engaged in after the Bombay blasts. It should also not be seen going soft on Hindu militant formations for fear of providing political capital to Hindutva organizations.

And as far as civil society is concerned it should bear in mind the advice rendered by Swaminathan S Anklesariya Aiyar, Consulting Editor of The Economic Times wherein he cautions the reader in assuming that ‘terrorism is a Muslim monopoly’: “.In terms of membership and area controlled, secular terrorists are far ahead of Muslim terrorists. In sum, terrorism is certainly not a Muslim monopoly. There are or have been terrorist groups among Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs and even Buddhists. Secular terrorists have been the biggest killers.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1794203.cms):


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