New Delhi, Nov. 22: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh today desisted from claiming the Malegaon accused were innocent, appearing to have modified its position after yesterday’s meeting between L.K. Advani and national security adviser M.K. Narayanan.

At a news conference by Sangh joint general secretary Madan Das Devi, the most striking feature was his refusal to defend either sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur or the other suspects arrested by the Maharashtra anti-terrorist squad.

He said the investigations should be held in a professional manner and anybody found guilty should be punished.

This stance contrasted sharply with a front-page editorial in the latest issue of the Sangh mouthpiece, Organiser, which hit the stands this morning. It said “the ATS, a rogue agency, had violated every tenet of civilised crime investigation”.

The blast probe has been dubbed “a state-sponsored assault on law-abiding citizens, religious leaders, army personnel and patriotic activists as part of a sinister ploy”.

The Sangh is known to be prone to doublespeak, but this article would have gone to press before the Advani-Narayanan talks. Since yesterday, the BJP too has dropped its demand for a judicial probe into the ATS investigations and avoided commenting on the merits of the blast case.

Advani today turned the “torture” of Pragya into a poll issue in Madhya Pradesh and again slammed the ATS as “unprofessional”, but the claims by some BJP leaders that “a Hindu cannot be a terrorist” have stopped.

Narayanan placed some vital evidence against the suspects before Advani, sources said. They added that earlier, the Prime Minister had cautioned Advani not to play politics with the issue saying the ATS had a strong case.

Ironically, Advani, initially silent on the issue, is believed to have started speaking out only after prodding from the Sangh. But the Sangh’s mood for confrontation probably evaporated with reports about the range of illegal activities carried on by the blast accused. The arrested monk, Dayanand Pandey, is even alleged to have saved obscene movies on his computer.

Devi, however, dismissed reports that some Sangh leaders were on the hit list of the Malegaon accused. He appealed to the media not to propagate phrases like “Hindu terror”, asked political parties not to link terror with religion and asserted that Hinduism did not permit violence.