Hindutva terror network targeted Christians in Madhya Pradesh

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From John Dayal

The Hindutva terror groups linked with a series of bomb blasts in
Muslim shrines and other places Rajasthan and Maharashtra terror have
also killed Christian activists and targeted evangelistic work in the
tribal belt of India.

Police investigators have traced the murder of Malwa Christian leader
Pyar Singh Ninama to hit men of the terror gangs responsible for
bombing the world famous Ajmer Sharif shrine.

According to news reports this morning in the New Delhi edition of
Mail Today and Rediff, the Malwa region in western Madhya Pradesh is a
focal point and recruiting ground of this terror group which also has
as its members retired and serving officers of the Indian Army, who
may have sourced the explosives used by the group.

This is the first time official information has come about the network
which so far was presumed to be working against Muslims alone.

The following is the text of the Rediff illuminating report: published
July 12, 2010:

Most names figuring in the investigations of the 2007 bomb blasts in
Ajmer, at Hyderabad's Mecca Masjid, and in Malegaon hail from Madhya
Pradesh's Malwa region. Rediff.com's Krishnakumar Padmanabhan traces
the common thread that could have brought these men together.

What started as minor skirmishes between two groups vying for power
seven years ago in a small Madhya Pradesh cantonment town was the
beginning of the phenomenon that is now spoken about as Hindu
terrorism.

Recently, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Rajasthan Anti-
Terror Squad made a string of arrests from in and around Indore and
established that the 2007 bomb blasts in Ajmer and Hyderabad's Mecca
Masjid were the handiwork of the same group of people.

At least three of the accused in the bomb blast case were charged with
the murder of a tribal leader from the Congress party in 2003.

As like-minded men began coming together and plotting heinous attacks,
the Madhya Pradesh establishment turned a blind eye. Investigators now
say the perpetrators found haven in the Malwa region of Madhya
Pradesh, as they wreaked havoc in other parts of the country.

In 2003, towards the end of Digvijay Singh's tenure as chief minister
in Madhya Pradesh, the Congress party had strengthened its hold in its
traditional areas — the party base, the minorities, and the Adivasis.

In Malwa's tribal belt, Pyar Singh Ninama, a local tribal strongman,
was the party's face among the Adivasi population. Around that time,
accusations began to trickle that Christian missionaries were stepping
up efforts to get more Adivasis into their fold. Around that time a
member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Sunil Joshi, was 'sent' as
the Mhow pracharak from Gujarat, where it was said the heat was on him
following the 2002 riots.

In Mhow -- an acronym for Military Headquarters of War -- the Sangh
Parivar was virtually a family. The most active among them were Lokesh
Sharma, his cousin Jitender Sharma -- from the RSS and Bajrang Dal
respectively -- and Devendra Pandya, who were working to spread
Hinduism in adjoining tribal areas.

On the other hand, Ninama, a converted Christian, was seen as nudging
his fellow tribals towards Christianity. The two groups were soon at
loggerheads and in one of the ensuing clashes, Pandey's choti (tuft)
was allegedly cut off. In apparent revenge, three people including
Ninama and his son, were brutally killed.

Cases were filed against Lokesh Sharma, Sunil Joshi, Ramesh Sharma, a
businessman from neighbouring Pithampur, and 10 others. While most of
them are still in jail and the case is before the court, Lokesh Sharma
and Joshi were never caught. Here is where the seeds of what is now
seen as Hindu terror were sown.

Investigations by the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Anti-Terror
Squads of Rajasthan and Maharashtra have revealed that the lynchpin
was Sunil Joshi, who was murdered in December 2007. Lokesh Sharma is
accused of planting the bomb in Ajmer.

Locals say soon after the Ninama murder case, Joshi's stock rose among
hotheaded youngsters.

In the assembly election that followed a couple of months after
Ninama's murder, the Congress party was voted out, and the Bharatiya
Janata Party [ ] came to power.

Around this time, some local residents claim Joshi and Lokesh Sharma
began to be seen in public quite often.

"Digvijay Singh had often spoken about how the violent activities of
the Hindu groups was fast turning to 'terrorism'. He said he had
evidence that they were gaining bomb-making capabilities. But then he
was voted out at a crucial juncture," says Manohar Limbodia, a veteran
journalist.

With what was seen as a friendly BJP government, Joshi began to
operate quite openly, mobilising support.

"Joshiji was someone who would say one death from our side should be
avenged with five from the other side. The youngsters liked him and
his approach a lot," a Bajrang Dal activist in Mhow recalls, speaking
on condition that he would not be identified for this report.

As it was becoming evident that Joshi was going down an aggressive
path, the RSS publicly distanced itself from him.

"Though the RSS distanced itself from the likes of Joshi, we could see
that he had the support from within the organisation and also local
BJP leaders. Joshi and his group could not have operated without
strong support," a businessman, familiar with the Sangh Parivar in
Dewas, where Joshi was murdered, says, again speaking on condition
that he would not be identified for this report.

Soon after the Ninama murder case, the police defused a bomb at the
venue of a Muslim congregation in Ghansipura, Bhopal, which they now
allege was planted by the same group behind the terror attacks.

It was an improvised device with explosive material stuffed in metal
pipes, connected to a mobile phone. The bomb was set to explode when
the mobile rang, but the police defused it in time.

Had that bomb exploded it would have been the first attack of Hindu
terror in the country.

How did those who came together in Mhow establish contact with foot
soldiers like Ramji Kalasangra (who allegedly made the bombs used in
the Ajmer and Mecca Masjid attacks) and Sandeep Dange (who is alleged
to have 'facilitated' the others in executing the blasts) on the one
hand and alleged masterminds like Colonel Prasad Purohit and sadhvi
Pragya Thakur on the other hand?

"The RSS has many organisations," says Deepak Joshi, son of former
Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kailash Joshi and the BJP legislator
from Hatpipliya, Dewas. "There are also different kinds of people.
First, there are the RSS members. Then there are people who might be
involved in the RSS's activities without being members. Then, there
are people from sister organisations like the ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya
Vidyarthi Parishad), Bajrang Dal, etc. Finally, there are people who
believe in the ideology but are not associated in any way with any
organisation. There are about five or six RSS events in a year where
all the four kinds of people come together. Since they are all from
the region and had extremist leanings, that is how these people must
have met."

Explaining how various people could have gotten to know each other, he
says he had met Pragya Thakur about 10 times. "She has sat in the
exact place where you are sitting. The connection between her and me
is that we are both from the ABVP. She was very aggressive from those
days, and I did not make any efforts to know her better," he adds.

But he shies away from dubbing the phenomenon as Hindu terrorism.

"It is not organised to begin with," he says, "And it does not have
the sanction or approval of an organisation like the RSS."

He accepts that the likes of Sunil Joshi did have support at the local
level.

"When the police said Sunil Joshi was in hiding, I had met him at an
event. He told me he was being framed," says the BJP MLA. "In small
places, it is not difficult to meet and get to know people. In Madhya
Pradesh, a lot of BJP politicians owe their career to the RSS. And
some of them may have shared beliefs with people like Sunil Joshi. In
the end, such politicians end up using these people for their personal
gains."

How did the Malwa region become the hotbed for Hindu terror?

The Malwa region is predominantly tribal. Indore, which is the biggest
city in the region, does not have much of an Adivasi presence. But
Dhar is 75 percent Adivasi, Jhabua is nearly 100 percent Adivasi.
Balwani, Khargon and Khandwa are 50 percent Adivasi.

The Hindus form the second biggest community. They comprise Malis from
Rajasthan, Jats, Thakurs, Baniyas and Brahmins.

"More than the composition, the reason the region has been the hotbed
of radical Hinduism is because of the leaders," says Limbodia. "Nagpur
may be the seat of power for the RSS, but Malwa is the front. RSS
stalwarts like Khushabhau Thakre, Pyarelal Khandelwal and Suresh Soni
hailed from the Malwa region and shaped the RSS philosophy. That way,
this region is the cradle of the RSS."

"It is not just Hindu terror," says Kamil Seher, a hotel owner in
Pithampur, an industrial area. "The Pithampur-Dhar region was the base
for SIMI [ ]. They used to train there. Before that, the Dawood
Ibrahim gang used to be active here. Now the Maoists are also entering
this region. Why, some time ago, even an LTTE (Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam) soldier was arrested from a Pithampur factory, where he
was working as a gunman for the owner."

"If you are working in a factory, and you bring in someone from your
village to stay with you, how would we know if he is a criminal or
not?" asks Seher.

He alleges that though the likes of SIMI leader Safdar Nagori were
arrested, those who were pumping money and were the brains of the
outlawed organisation got away.

"If with an organisation like SIMI, money power and clout could work,
how will anyone be able to get close to the top of the Hindu terror
hierarchy, if it exists?" he asks.

While the official RSS line is that those arrested are not part of the
organisation, it is reported to be helping the accused's families and
has arranged for lawyers to fight their cases.

"The RSS arranged for lawyers in Ajmer and Hyderabad to take up my
brother's case," confirms Jitender Sharma, Lokesh Sharma's cousin. "I
am thankful to the organisation. But at the same time I understand why
they want to distance themselves in public. There is a Congress
government at the Centre, and all the three states where the terror
charges have been filed are also ruled by the Congress, which wants to
link the RSS with terrorism. For the Congress, the RSS is the biggest
enemy, not the BJP. They want to finish off the RSS."

Jitender's version of what happened is different.

"I was with the Bajrang Dal and Lokesh was with the RSS. Under
Digvijay Singh, Hinduism was under attack. So we tried to get a case
filed against him. But it is not easy to get the police to file a
first information report against the state's chief minister. So we
indulged in chakka jams (blockades), and jail bharo protests on a
small scale. The state police had marked us from that time. There were
a lot of small cases (filed) against us. But we are not people who
will get into hardcore criminal activities. At the most we would have
stoned a few shops during bandhs," he says.

Though he does not criticise the RSS, Jitender does not have the same
feelings about the BJP and its local leaders.

"Kailash Vijayvargiya, who is the BJP MLA for Mhow, has done nothing.
He used Lokesh during elections and after that has turned a blind
eye," he alleges.

Jitender is now fighting a lone battle to save his cousin.

"First he was implicated in the Ninama murder case. He lost five years
of his life hiding from the police. Only last year he got married and
his son was born this year. But he hasn't been able to see his son. We
are poor people and now his family is struggling to make ends meet and
also spend on the legal proceedings."

Though others do not buy the witch hunt theory, they agreed that the
Congress party being in power at the Centre and the three states
involved is the prime reason the case is moving at this pace.

"These people first surfaced in 2003," says journalist Manohar
Limbodia. "After a few failed attempts, they executed their first
attack in 2007. Wasn't four years enough for the state police to act?
In fact, had any party but the BJP been in power in Madhya Pradesh,
you might not be talking about a phenomenon called Hindu terror
today."

"Even before the Ajmer blasts, they all met in a temple in Bhopal.
What did the police do? After the blasts too, the Vasundhara Raje
government (in Rajasthan) did not do anything," says Naveen Mali, a
businessman and community leader in Mhow. "Only after (Congress Chief
Minister) Ashok Gehlot [ ] took over did things start moving. True,
it smacks of politics, but then something happened and something had
to be done."

The Dewas-Indore belt was home for those accused in the terror cases.

"They thought they would be safe as long as they could strike in other
states and hide here. They thought they were untouchable. They never
expected the police from other states to come looking for them," says
Limbodia.

Though Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare blew the
lid off the Hindu terror phenomenon when he cracked the Malegaon blast
case, it is the Rajasthan ATS, with its sweeps into border towns and
midnight arrests, that has struck terror in the hearts of those hiding
in the region.

"The Rajasthan ATS comes and picks up people for questioning and drops
them back whenever it wants to. The local police is clueless. They
come to know only when the Rajasthan ATS informs them as a formality
about who they are taking away with them. Sometimes they don't even do
that," says Seher about the arrests that the neighbouring state's
police have made in Pithampur.

"The Shivraj Singh Chauhan government (in Madhya Pradesh) is not very
strong," says Jitender Sharma. "In Gujarat, (Chief Minister) Narendra
Modi ] doesn't allow the ATS to touch anyone. But here, the ATS from
other states walk in freely and pick up whoever they want to whenever
they want."