Brinda Karat

Oct. 23: Media reports linking Hindu groups to last month’s Malegaon and Modasa blasts, both near mosques, today rocked the Rajya Sabha while many Muslim organisations said they felt “vindicated”.

A newspaper has quoted Maharashtra anti-terrorist squad (ATS) sources as saying the Hindu Jagran Manch and other outfits were being probed for the September 29 bombings that killed seven people in Gujarat’s Modasa and Maharashtra’s Malegaon.

ATS officers were tight-lipped today. The Indore-based Manch and the BJP student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), have denied the allegation.

Congress Rajya Sabha MPs, led by Jayanti Natarajan, raised the issue after question hour but House deputy chairman K. Rahman Khan told them CPM member Brinda Karat would speak on the subject during zero hour.

Karat alleged that Hindu “extremist” groups like the Bajrang Dal and the Manch were behind the Malegaon and Modasa blasts. “The Maharashtra ATS has said that in the Nanded and other blasts, the Bajrang Dal and other Hindu extremist outfits were involved.”

The blast in Nanded, Maharashtra, occurred in April 2006 at the home of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh activist amid suspicion that Sangh workers were making bombs.

Angry BJP members shouted back at Karat: “Why don’t you mention Simi (the Students’ Islamic Movement of India)?”

Karat accused the Centre of “demonising” the Muslim community and adopting “double standards” in dealing with terror. The BJP members’ protests forced a 10-minute adjournment.

In Mumbai, ATS sources said the police had picked up three men and a woman from Devas in Indore but there was no official confirmation. “Looking at the explosive material and the manner in which it was assembled, there are reasons to believe that Hindu groups could be behind these blasts,” an officer said.

Manch convener Radhye Shayam Yadav said: “It’s a campaign to malign us. The allegation… is aimed at appeasing Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh.”

The Manch had attacked tribal Christians in Gujarat’s Dangs district in 1998 and burnt down their prayer halls. L.K. Advani had then denied any links between the outfit and the Sangh parivar, but the Sangh’s in-house publication named the Manch as one of 27 affiliates.

Gujarat police said they had no evidence of involvement of Hindu groups in the Modasa blast but were “not ruling it out”.

T.A. Rehmani of the Muslim Political Council of India said: “We have been saying this but nobody listened. Everyone was busy accusing Muslims of being terrorists. How many innocents have been arrested in this process?”