Dayanand Pandey. File picture

Lucknow/Srinagar, Nov. 13: Years before he became a self-styled shankaracharya, Dayanand Pandey was Sudhakar Dwivedi, a 20-something trainee at the elite National Defence Academy (NDA) in Khadakvasla, police said today.

He dropped out of the military school near Pune in 1989 to become Hindu seer Dayanand Pandey and plunged himself into the aggressive politics of the Bajrang Dal in Varanasi.

“Pandey was an NDA trainee in the air force wing. But he dropped out. He was in NDA Khadakvasla for six months in 1989 and then quit,” said an Uttar Pradesh police officer of the rank of inspector-general.

NDA spokesperson Major Pratap Singh was unavailable for comment.

Pandey was formally arrested today by the Maharashtra anti-terrorist squad (ATS) for his alleged connivance in September’s Malegaon blast. A Lucknow court today granted a three-day transit remand to the ATS, which will produce him before a Nashik court on Sunday.

Police sources said Pandey again underwent an identity change in 2003. He started calling himself “His Holiness Swami Amritanand Dev Tirth of Sharda Sarvagyapeeth”, which claims control over the Sharda temple in occupied Kashmir.

Combining politics with spiritualism, Pandey, now 40, took on the mantle of a Hindu crusader highlighting the “pitiable” condition of temples in Muzaffarabad and Kashmir and spearheaded the Amarnath agitation this year, police in Lucknow and Jammu said.

Official sources in Srinagar said Pandey was a frequent visitor to both Kashmir and Jammu and was often seen in the company of senior Sangh parivar leaders and migrant Kashmiri Pandits.

“He would often visit the Pandit migrant camps in Jammu and also meet refugees from West Pakistan. He would identify himself as Jagatguru Shankaracharya,” a Kashmiri Pandit leader said.

Police in Jammu suspect the seer developed links with arrested lieutenant colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit during the officer’s stint in Kashmir in 2003-04.

A source in the Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti, a Jammu-based outfit that led the campaign for restoration of land to the cave shrine’s board, said Pandey played a key role in the agitation. “He would visit the samiti’s office at Geeta Bhavan in Jammu. On one occasion, he donated Rs 25,000,” the source said.

Samiti convener L.K. Sharma said several people had extended support to the struggle and Pandey was one of them. “He introduced himself as the Shankaracharya of Sharda Peeth and also addressed a news conference with me,” Sharma said.

In Jammu, Pandey ran the Vedic Vishwa Kalyan Trust, which was managed by his chartered accountant V.K. Kapoor. The trust functions from Kapoor’s office-cum-residence at Trikuta Nagar.

Kapoor was detained along with his son yesterday but was let off after questioning. “He was my client and, during the registration of his trust, he had shown my home as his office because he had no place in Jammu. I was managing his accounts and filed the income-tax returns and nothing else,” Kapoor said.

Pandey also has a Kashmir connection. He used to visit Srinagar and stay at Zeethyar temple on the banks of the Dal Lake.

A member of Pandey’s trust, sources said, was at the forefront of setting up the proposed Sharda Peeth University in Kashmir.

The proposal was the brainchild of former Jammu and Kashmir governor S.K. Sinha.

The Kashmiri Pandit leader described Pandey as a seer with extremely conservative beliefs. “He would not eat or drink from any plate or glass. Wherever he would go, he would take a chair, a cup and a glass and would use only these objects,” he said.