BLAST AFTER BLAST
Who is responsible?
The news in April 2006 that a bomb had accidentally ex- pect but the charges are rarely, if ever, proved in court. There is ploded in the house of an RSS man in Nanded in Maharashtra, consequently a widespread feeling that terrorist acts by uniden- killing two persons and injuring four others – all Bajrang Dal tified individuals are being used to demonise the entire Muslim activists – created a national sensation. Initially, the first infor- community. mation report (FIR) on the incident registered by a local police It is against this backdrop that the Nanded incident attracted officer unquestioningly recorded the injured activists’ claim that considerable attention from secular activists and Muslim organi- the unfortunate incident was the result of an accidental ignition sations. A close watch was kept on the investigating agencies to of firecrackers stored at the site. But within days the police inves- ensure that in a case where Hindu extremists had clearly been tigation itself revealed that the incident was in fact the result of caught red-handed there would be proper investigation and pros- an unintended explosion of bombs that were being assembled by ecution. As a result of this sustained public vigilance the case Hindu extremists with the clear intention of targeting mosques was handed over from the police to the Anti-Terrorism Squad and terrorising Muslims. (ATS) and then from the ATS to the Central Bureau of Investi- There have been past instances elsewhere in the country also gation (CBI). linking Hindu extremists to bombs. But in the numerous blasts Communalism Combat has been closely monitoring the Nanded that have rocked city after city in India with frightening regularity case from the start. CC’s sustained investigation unravels a story in recent years the intelligence agencies and the police have in- of police bias, half measures by the ATS and, worst of all, an all variably pointed their fingers at Muslim extremist outfits, either too apparent bid, ‘Operation Cover-up’, by the CBI. Much was indigenous or from across the border. expected from the CBI by way of a thorough and non-partisan Indian Muslims have repeatedly complained that almost im- investigation but its conduct has been the most shocking. This mediately after every blast only Muslim names crop up among raises the obvious question: is the apex investigation agency in the accused and only Muslim organisations are named as sus- the country communally tainted?
COMMUNALISM COMBAT 4 JULY– AUGUST 2008 15 YEARS MAHARASHTRA
BY TEESTA SETALVAD Muslim places of worship, camouflaging Deshpande. One of the accused men, their entire operation to resemble a ter- Rahul Manohar Pande, had sustained N THE night of April 5-6, 2006 ror operation run by Muslims. Laxman serious injuries in the blast but had a bomb exploded in the house Gundayya Rajkondwar, in whose house escaped from the scene and sought sur- of Laxman Gundayya the bombs were being manufactured and reptitious medical attention. Advocate Rajkondwar, a retired execu- whose son Naresh died in the explosion, Ektate was among those who helped tive engineer at the PWD, is an RSS man. Diaries, important docu- Pande go into hiding while Dr Deshpande ONanded. Two persons – Naresh ments, suspicious maps and mobile tel- provided medical care without notify- Rajkondwar and Himanshu Panse – died ephone numbers that were unearthed ing the police. Curiously, neither of the on the spot while four of their accom- from the houses of the accused incrimi- two men had any difficulty in obtain- plices – Maroti Keshav Wagh, Yogesh nated them further. In a manner of ing anticipatory bail from the district Deshpande (alias Vidulkar), Gururaj speaking, members of the sangh parivar court. Ektate applied for and was granted Jairam Tuptewar and Rahul Manohar were literally caught red-handed with anticipatory bail through an ad interim Pande – were seriously injured. bombs in their basement. bail application on April 10 while Dr On hearing of the incident, an as- A frantic effort was made to some- Umesh Dinkarrao Deshpande made a sistant police inspector (API) from the how divert attention from the facts. A similar application on April 13. He was local Bhagyanagar police station, large quantity of firecrackers, valued at also granted ad interim bail the same Ravindra Purushottam Dahedkar, who Rs 1,20,000, was later found on the site day following an oral “no objection” from was on patrol duty, registered the first of the explosion. These had obviously the assistant public prosecutor, AJ complaint. On the say-so of the surviv- been brought in after the event; de- Kurtadikar. ing injured, he registered an FIR. The spite the occurrence of a high inten- As of today, all the accused, apart FIR said Naresh Rajkondwar was running sity blast the firecrackers remained in- from the absconding Rahul Manohar a firecracker business from his home. tact! Where did this large stock of fire- Pande, are out on bail. The blast occurred because Rajkondwar and Wagh were smoking too close to Further investigations revealed that the deceased where the firecrackers were stored. In and wounded persons were all active workers of short, it was an unfortunate accident. Was Dahedkar just lazy, naïve, or were the Bajrang Dal who had been assembling bombs his actions influenced by the popular to target Muslim places of worship, camouflaging assumption that only people of a cer- their entire operation to resemble a terror tain community engaged in the crea- operation run by Muslims tion of bombs and bomb blasts? It must have been a matter of some crackers come from? Why was it stored Heinous deeds by Hindu extremists embarrassment, in retrospect, for the in a home illegally, without licence? The On May 4, 2006 the case was trans- then district superintendent of police, victims were now the accused. ferred to the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) Fatehsingh Patil, and the district col- In the first few days following the of the Maharashtra police. By the time lector of Nanded, Radheshyam Mopalwar. blasts the police arrested 16 persons the ATS filed its first charge sheet on Relying presumably on Dahedkar’s FIR, who were then remanded to police cus- August 24, 2006, it had already amassed both of them repeated the firecrackers- tody. The remand application high- a mountain of damning evidence against did-it story to the media. lighted two points. One, the accused a whole network of Bajrang Dal and other Within days however the inspector persons knowingly provided the po- sangh parivar workers engaged in ter- general of police, Nanded range, Dr lice false information on the day of rorist activities. Reproduced below are Suryaprakash Gupta, set the record the crime, saying the blast was caused some highlights and excerpts from the straight, telling the media that the in- by firecrackers when in fact it was a ATS charge sheet: cident involved a bomb blast. During bomb blast. Two, investigations had examination the police (Dahedkar him- revealed that the accused persons Highlights self) found “splinters” on the bodies of possessed diagrams, maps and other The accused persons involved in the deceased and the injured. A live pipe documentary material related to the assembling the bomb(s) at Nanded were bomb was also found at the explosion manufacture and storage of bombs also responsible for three earlier bomb site. It was thus obvious that the fire- and the identification of target ar- blasts in neighbouring districts: at the cracker story was a deliberate fabrica- eas for the purpose of creating terror Mohammadiya Masjid in Parbhani (No- tion in order to mislead the police. in the country. vember 2003), at the Quadriya Masjid Further investigations revealed that Named among the accused were a in Jalna (August 2004) and at the Meraj- the deceased and wounded persons were practising advocate at the Nanded dis- ul-Uloom Madrassa/Masjid in Purna in all active workers of the Bajrang Dal who trict court, Milind Arvind Ektate, and a Parbhani district (August 2004). (So far had been assembling bombs to target medical practitioner, Dr Umesh Dinkarrao state police efforts to track down the
COMMUNALISM COMBAT 5 JULY– AUGUST 2008 15 YEARS BLAST AFTER BLAST perpetrators of these blasts had drawn Ten live 7.65 mm cartridges were bombs (IEDs). After demonstrating (to) a blank.) found at the site during investigations them how to explode these bombs, the Four of the six prime accused in and seized by the police. Laxman explosives were handed over to Panse the case under investigation – Sanjay Rajkondwar kept the live cartridges in by Chakraborty. Panse (also) underwent Choudhary, Himanshu Panse, Maroti his home illegally. This was one reason training by the VHP and Bajrang Dal at Keshav Wagh and Yogesh Ravindra why the ATS included Laxman Goa for two years.” Deshpande – had planted bombs at Rajkondwar among the prime accused “Panse and Wagh underwent 40 the Parbhani mosque on November in the crime. days’ training at Bhonsala Military 21, 2003. School at Nagpur… After returning Two of the six accused – Sanjay Excerpts from Pune in the year 2003 (they) Choudhary and Gururaj Jairam Tuptewar “Propaganda by these organisa- exploded bombs at the Gousiya – admitted to planting bombs at the tions made them propagate that inno- Masjid, Parbhani, for which crime No. Purna mosque on August 27, 2004. cent Hindus were being attacked by the 61/03 has been registered at the One of the six accused – Maroti extremist Muslim organisations day in Nanal Peth police station.” Keshav Wagh – was charged with plant- and day out and hence the accused “The accused Laxman Rajkondwar ing bombs at the Quadriya Masjid, Jalna, Himanshu Panse, Rahul Manohar Pande, allowed his house to be used for the also on August 27, 2004. started a gymnasium to mobilise youth.” making of bombs even though he was Five of the main accused in the “The gymnasium, named Power aware of the consequences of the bomb Nanded blasts were involved in throw- Zone, was set up in order to unite blasts and possibility of damage to life ing acid on a Muslim teacher, Shaikh youths and draw them towards their and property. Yousuf Shaikh Gafoor Sahab, in Nanded version of Hinduism. Panse and Wagh “The said bombs were to be used on April 8, 2001. started a branch of Sangh at Nanded, at some place for terrorist and anti-na- The target of the bombs which blew up in their faces on April 5-6, 2006 was ‘Panse and Wagh underwent 40 days’ training at a mosque in Aurangabad. Both Bhonsala Military School at Nagpur. After returning Himanshu Panse and Maroti Wagh had visited and taken a close look at the from Pune in the year 2003 (they) exploded bombs Aurangabad mosque and its surround- at the Gousiya Masjid, Parbhani’ ings in May 2004. Police raids on the houses and Bajrang Nagar, opposite MGM College. tional activities and they were well other establishments of the accused Accused Yogesh Vidulkar has also aware that these bombs could kill many persons and subsequent search opera- started (a) hostel for orphans at his persons and they themselves could lose tions uncovered materials in the pos- residential house.” their life while handling the said session of the accused which establish “They have created an anti-Mus- bombs. They (father and son) had pur- that they were all active members of lim atmosphere by organising seminars posefully kept (a) huge quantity of outfits like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak and giving speeches aimed at empha- firecrackers at their house with inten- Sangh (RSS), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad sising how the Muslims commit injus- tions to make people believe that it (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal. tice to Hindus and motivating the Hin- was an accident involving firecrack- Evidence against Maroti Wagh in- dus for doing something for Hinduism; ers and not bomb blasts if any such they have organised religious ceremo- untoward incident took place. It has cludes a register and an identity card nies on the occasions of Hindu New been informed, in writing, by the hon- that clearly links him to the RSS. Papers Year Day, the birth anniversary of Ram, ourable collector, Nanded, that there linking him to the RSS were confiscated Vijayadashmi, Ganesh festival, Durga was no legal permission for such accu- by the ATS. festival and various other Hindu fes- mulation of firecrackers.” A house search of the accused, tivals through the organisations RSS “From the ‘Ramdas Raznishi’ and Gururaj Jairam Tuptewar, revealed that and Bajrang Dal in Nanded city and pocket diary confiscated during the Himanshu Venkatesh Panse, Naresh Nanded district.” house search of Wagh, and the map Laxman Rajkondwar, Maroti Keshav “In order that the aim of revenge found in the pocket diary, it is revealed Wagh, Yogesh Ravindra Vidulkar is effectively fulfilled, accused Wagh, that while he was staying at Aurangabad (Deshpande), Gururaj Jairam Tuptewar, Panse, Choudhary and Vidulkar (injured) for (a) BPEd diploma along with his Rahul Manohar Pande, Sanjay went to ‘Akanksha Resort’ at the foot of friend in the year 2004 Panse visited Choudhary, Ramdas Ananda Mulange (an the Fort Sinhgad near Pune in 2003 and the place in May 2004 and at that time employee of one of the accused) and got training (in) making pipe bombs witness Shrikar Shivsamb Sonawale and Laxman Gundayya Rajkondwar were/are from a man named Mithun Chakraborty. three others went round Aurangabad hardcore activists of the RSS and the They got themselves trained for making city and Panse inspected the masjid Bajrang Dal. three types of bombs, such as timer carefully.”
COMMUNALISM COMBAT 6 JULY– AUGUST 2008 15 YEARS MAHARASHTRA