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Page 1 of 2  Worshippers enter a temple in Madhya Pradesh
A year before
his death in 1964, Jawaharlal Nehru remarked that "The danger
to India, mark you, is not Communism. It is Hindu right-wing
communalism." Today a wave of Hindu terrorism is raising fears
that the country's first prime minister could be right.
Recently, for
instance, a young 'sadhvi,' or Hindu woman monk, Pragya Singh Thakur,
who rechristened herself as Sadhvi Purnachetnagiri, was arrested by
Maharashtra anti-terrorism police in connection with the killing of
six and injuring of six at a mosque on September 29 at Malegaon, 280
miles from Mumbai. She was alleged to be a frontline leader of
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of India's
opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and, according to the
anti-terrorism chief, owned the motorcycle used in the blasts, which
took place at Bhikku Chowk in central Malegaon, just outside the
sealed office of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India.
There are also
disturbing signs that the Hindu militants have connections to India's
military. Anti-terrorism interrogators rounded up half a dozen army
officers including Lt. Col. Shrikant Prasat Purohit, who is believed
to have confessed that he was aware of logistics and explosives to be
used for the attack at Malegaon. Purohit was apparently posted at the
Army Education Corps Training College and Center of Pachmarhi in
Madhya Pradesh, an adjacent central Indian state, although he was
actually assigned to military intelligence along India’s
borders.
Purohit is said
to have been one of the founders of the radical Hindu group Abhinav
Bharat at Malegaon and his cellphone memory allegedly contained
several conversations with Ramesh Upadhyay, a retired Army major also
suspected of being involved in the blast. In one of the conversation,
Purohit asked Upadhyay to change his mobile number, presumably to
confuse interrogators. Anti-terrorist interrogators have sought
permission to question an Army major general and two colonels, and
three more commissioned officers below Purohit have been identified
with linkages to militants in Kashmir in connection with procurement
of RDX explosives.
According to
police, the sadhvi was a member of Jai Vande Mataram Jan Kalyan
Samiti, another openly anti-Muslim and anti-Christian Hindu terrorist
group based in Surat in the adjacent state of Gujarat, which has yet
to recover from one of the bloodiest communal riots ever, in 2002.
She allegedly also had links with the radical Hindu Jagran Manch in
Madhya Pradesh. Both states are under BJP rule and have been accused
of torturing non-Hindus.
Although the two
organizations issued denials that she was working with them, security
forces intercepted 400 minutes of phone calls between them. Two
others were arrested and accused of helping to plant the bomb. Two
more who were detained are believed to have divulged the names of
collaborators.
What is being
dubbed “reverse terrorism” by Hindus seeking to get even
with earlier blasts perpetrated by Islamists is a worrisome
escalation in the cycle of revenge that began with the Gujarat riots,
a spasm of communal violence in which as many as 2000 people died and
150,000 were displaced from their homes. But the increasing use of
more sophisticated mechanical and electronics devices in detonations
against Muslims and Christians is a recent phenomenon.
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The grim truth of war remains: hearts and minds are lost in the campaign to get the enemy by the balls
Liability bill stalls on fears over nuclear disaster
GOD will never give peace to all kind of people.