Malegaon
Blasts: Footprints of Nanded ?
by
Subhah Gatade
Everybody knows that Shab-e-Barat happens to be a day when Muslims
visit graveyards of their loved ones, clean and decorate the graves and
spend the night there, reading out special prayers for the occasion.
But who from Malegaon and adjoining areas would have imagined that the
day to remember the departed ones would turn out to be the last day of
some of their own lives and would maim many among them for the rest of
their lives.
People in Malegaon are still in the mourning. They are still recovering
from the two blasts, which occurred at two places in the city killing
around 31 people and wounding more than 100 of them.
Residents of the city shudder to think the way they could save
themselves. The prayer was almost over, people were preparing to leave
the grounds of the Bada Kabaristan and there was a bomb blast near the
Vazu Khana‚ where mostly children were sitting for their
prayers. And within fraction of seconds there was a transfer scene. The
tranquility, the silence witnessed during the prayers was all gone and
one could hear shrieks of the wounded, one could see blood splattered
on the ground, people running for cover desperately, children getting
crushed under the stampede.
The only feeling of comfort in the otherwise gloomy scenario was that
there was no repeat of 2001- the year when the city of 7 lakhs where 75
per cent population is Muslim, witnessed large scale rioting. This time
despite provocation there was no communal flare-up.
The 'Communally sensitive' town remained calm. Instead one could see
new bonds of solidarity getting forged between the two communities who
for various reasons have remained in an adversial relationship with
each other. Scores of Hindus could be seen at the various hospitals
standing in queue to donate blood and doing whatever little they could
do to help the victims.
Is it Bajrang or Lashkar?
Looking at the nature of crime, where fanatics planted bombs in crowded
areas in the city to see to it that people are killed in large numbers
and communal flare-ups ensues, it is clear that meticulous planning
went into it. Question naturally arises, who could have benefited from
growing communal divide? A general answer could be a fanatic group who
believes and propagates a religion-based ideology. It could be
Lashkar-e-Toiba or any of those Jihadi terrorist organizations or one
of those Hindu Militant groups, which have of late demonstrated similar
prowess umpteen times.
A newspaper clipping from a leading national daily rightly underlines
MUMBAI: The police are probing whether the Bajrang Dal or a Lashkar
group could have been involved in Friday's Malegaon blasts. The Bajrang
Dal is known to have followed a similar pattern in blasts at Parbhani's
Mohammadi Masjid and mosques at Pona and Jalna earlier this year. "We
are probing this angle, though it is too early to hold any group
responsible," DGP P S Pasricha said on Friday. (Times of India, 9 th
Sep 2006, Updated at 12.3111 hrs IST)
A section of the readers would definitely feel surprised over the
inclusion of Bajrang Dal or for that matter any of the Parivar
organizations on the list of possible suspects. Perhaps they are
unaware of similar terrorist acts committed by these very organizations
or their activists. One of the most recent one being the deaths of few
activists of Bajrang Dal on 6 th April in Nanded, Maharashtra while
making bombs. One could have a look at a news clipping of The Telegraph
( 10 th April 2006) how they got killed.
Mumbai, April 9: Bajrang Dal activists were involved in last week's
bomb blast in Maharashtra in which two people died, police have
confirmed.The incident could prove to be an embarrassment for Lal
Krishna Advani whose yatra, ironically called Bharat Suraksha, entered
the state today since the Bajrang Dal is an associate of the Sangh
parivar.
"Bajrang Dal activists were actually making a bomb before one exploded
in an activist's house," said a senior police officer.. -- "We have
seized another bomb from the same site on Saturday which has
now been defused," said another police official.
Interestingly in an interview to 'Communalism Combat' Mr. K.P.
Raghuvanshi, head of the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Maharashtra had
given details of the way in which the ATS was working on this
particular case :
In the Nanded case, the very fact that the investigation has been
handed over to us, the ATS, shows how the administration and government
are viewing it. Investigations are on. Two persons making the bombs
died on the spot (Himanshu Panse, 27, and Naresh Rajkondwar, 26). The
house was the residence of the local Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu
Parishad activist.
Of the two who survive, one is so seriously ill he cannot speak. He is
not expected to survive. The other is the sole surviving accused. We
have him and one witness. On both we have already done a brain-mapping
and narco-analysis test. This is the same group of terrorists
responsible for the bomb blasts at the Parbhani mosque in (April) 2003,
an incident in which 25 persons were injured. Until now we do not know
for sure if they are linked to the other masjid bomb blasts at Purna
and Jalna (August 2004, in which 18 persons were injured). -- . . .We
have applied the provisions of the Unlawful Practices Act. It is clear
that these bombs were not being manufactured for a puja. They were
being manufactured for unlawful ends to wreak violence through terror.
Praveen Swami and Anupama Katakam, in their writeup in 'The Hindu'
(Malegaon : the road to perdition, 9 th September 2006) rightly
underline that "It is possible that no full account of the Malegaon
bombings and their perpetrators will emerge for weeks or months. But
the contours of the evidence available so far do not portend well."
Ofcourse, at this stage it is humanly impossible to be anything like
certain that a Hindu Fundamentalist group or a Islamist terrorist group
carried out the bombing. At this juncture one need not revisit the way
Islamist terrorist groups have engaged in large scale attacks against
not only shrines and mosques in West Asia, Pakistan and even Jammu and
Kashmir but also on cultural troupes or independent intellectuals who
have refused to toe their anti-democratic dictats. One also need to
bear in mind that it was only May-June this year that police had
recovered RDX as well as assault rifles and grenades from a
Lashkar-e-Toiba safe house in Malegaon itself.
The most important lesson, which should be remembered, is that the law
and order machinery should be even handed in its approach in unearthing
the truth. It should not repeat its earlier folly of stigmatizing the
whole community, which it is alleged to have engaged in after the
Bombay blasts. It should also not be seen going soft on Hindu militant
formations for fear of providing political capital to Hindutva
organizations.
And as far as civil society is concerned it should bear in mind the
advice rendered by Swaminathan S Anklesariya Aiyar, Consulting Editor
of The Economic Times wherein he cautions the reader in assuming that
'terrorism is a Muslim monopoly': "In terms of membership and area
controlled, secular terrorists are far ahead of Muslim terrorists. In
sum, terrorism is certainly not a Muslim monopoly. There are or have
been terrorist groups among Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs and even
Buddhists. Secular terrorists have been the biggest killers."
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1794203.cms):
South
Asia Citizens Web > Communalism
Repository