Author: S.V. Seshagiri Rao
Publication: The Organiser
Date: July 30, 2000
On May 21, 2000, a crude bomb with
a timer exploded near a religious congregation of Christians at Machilipatam
in Andhra Pradesh. No one was injured and no property was damaged. A week
later police recovered two bombs from churches at Medak and Vikarabad on
receiving information from the Church authorities. On June 8, similar devices
exploded in Jewett Church at Ongole and in Mother Vanini Church at Tadepalligudem
at about 8.45 am. Simultaneously two explosions in St Ann's Catholic Church,
Wadi, Karnataka, and one explosion in St Andre Church, Vasco Da Gama, Goa,
occurred. All explosions were of minor intensity. Except at the Jewett
Church, Ongole, in all other places no one was around at the time of explosions.
Two persons had received some minor injuries at Ongole. In the church at
Wadi, the wooden frame, of a window was shattered and some minor cracks
developed.
The Church and Christian organisations
imagined that this was a golden opportunity to malign the Sangh and to
destabilise the Vajpayee Government. They mounted an unprecedented propaganda
blitzkrieg.
When the Chief Minister of Andhra
Pradesh, Shri. Chandrababu Naidu, rushed to Ongole same day to assess the
situation, the Church leaders present demanded withdrawal of his support
to Vajpayee Government. That was their priority demand. Within two hours
of the explosion, by 10 am, the Marxists were seen distributing pamphlets
attributing the crime to 'Hindu communalists'.
On June 10, Christian leaders from
southern States issued a statement at Hyderabad rejecting the view that
external agencies were involved in these attacks and held the Union Government
and the "Sangh directly responsible" for the incidents. They urged the
Chief Minister of AP to reconsider his alliance with the BJP.
Next day a delegation of thirty
called on the Chief Minister of AP and emphasized that the attacks on churches
were the handiwork of the RSS. The Pentecost priest from Ongole said that
he had received a telephone call on June 10, from a person, who spoke in
Hindi threatening him about his religious activities. Citing this as evidence
the dignitaries insisted that the attack took place at the behest of BJP
and RSS. They also proposed that the Christian youth be allowed to form
self-defence committees. But the CM politely rejected the proposal.
Speaking at a press conference on
June 16 at Chennai, the president of All India Christian Council, Shri
Joseph D'Souza, announced that they would launch a campaign against "Parivar
terrorism" from 8th July onwards. "The foreign hand theory is nonsense
and it is the work of an internal hand," D'Souza said. Shri John Dayal
added, "An extra-constitutional authority was having a fee run of State
capitals and indulging in terror tactics."
The AICC has lost no time in deputing
a three-member "fact finding team" headed by none other than Shri Ajit
Jogi to Andhra Pradesh. They accomplished admirably the job expected of
them by Smt Sonia Gandhi. Addressing the Press at Vijayawada on June 22,
Shri Ajit Jogi said that the needle of suspicion pointed towards the communal
and fascist forces (read RSS and VHP), which are out to vitiate the atmosphere
in the country.
On June 25, at 9.45 pm, a bomb of
minor intensity exploded in Markaz Masjid of Guntur located near the busy
APSTC bus station. A body received some minor injuries and windowpanes
shattered. Within minutes a crowd of 200 Muslims collected and went on
a rampage torching State Government buses, private vehicles. About 50 buses
were damaged and 15 shops were attacked. Private and public property worth
rupees two crore was destroyed. The Government had to impose curfew for
our days.
Shri Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, leader
of the Congress Legislative Party, issued a statement repeating the usual
Congress lie that the explosion was the handiwork of RSS, VHP and Bajrang
Dal. He also asserted that it was not an act of ISI. However, the Chief
Minister revealed that among the 50 persons arrested for the arson there
were several functionaries of the Congress-I.
On July 8, the Christian organisations
observed national solidarity day in Hyderabad, Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram
and Chennai. They also held a demonstration near Parliament building in
New Delhi. On July 9, a huge speech-cum-prayer rally was held in the Nizam
college grounds, Hyderabad. Twenty-five Christian organisations participated
in the mobilization for which lakhs of rupees were spent on advertisements
alone.
Within hours of this elaborate political
build-up by the Christian associations in Hyderabad on July 9, the balloon
of lies burst at Bangalore. One Maruti van, racing towards St Mary &
Basilica, exploded at about 9.45 pm near Binny Mills area, killing. Mohamad
Zakir of Hyderabad and Rahman Siddique of Bangalore on the spot. Another
one, S.M. Ibrahim of Vijayawada, suffered serious injuries. Ale bomb planted
by them in St. Peter & Paul Church earlier exploded few minutes later.
Investigations further revealed that they belonged to a little known organisation,
Deendaar Anjuman whose headquarters is located in Hyderabad. This organisation
was responsible for all the explosions in religious places in Andhra Pradesh,
Karnataka and Goa since May 2000.
One Hazrat Moulana Siddiqi of Gulbarga
propounded the cult Deendaar Anjuman in 1929 at Hyderabad. His sons migrated
to Pakistan. One of them, Zia-ul-Hassan now heads the cult with headquarters
at Mardan in Pakistan. It was revealed that Zia-ul-Hassan usually made
an annual trip to India for the urs of his father (Siddique's grave is
in Hyderabad). The Government of India further revealed that Zia-ul-Hassan
set up the Jamaat Hizbollah Mujahideen with offices in Lahore, Mardan,
Karachi, Faizabad, Rawalpindi and Sargodha. The DGP of AP, Shri H.J. Dora
revealed the Deendaar Anjuman was involved in militant activity in Bosnia,
Kosovo and Chechnya through the World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY),
a Saudi Arabiabased fundamentalist outfit. During Shri Bill Clinton's visit
to Hyderabad, Deendaar Anjuman published a pamphlet, in which it advised
Shri Clinton to embrace Islam.
During his visit to Hyderabad last
November, Zia-ul-Hassan and his son Zahid Pasha had conducted closed door
meetings, where they called for jehad and asked the members to "create
hatred among religious groups in India". Zia-ul-Hassan coordinated these
explosions from Pakistan through his followers in Southern States.
Rehman Siddique was in Peoples War
Group of Naxalites for sometime. Along with ten associates he visited Pakistan
to undergo training in subversion. Zakir maintained a low profile as an
auto-rickshaw driver in Hyderabad. A year back he was arrested by the Maharashtra
police for desecrating the statue of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar in Parbhani.
According to senior officials of AP police, members of Deendaar Anjuman
were also responsible for attacks on gurdwaras in Mumbai about three years
back, which led to communal tension.
Ibrahim too was a frequent visitor
to Pakistan. The police have recovered from Ibrahim's houses in Bangalore
and Vijayawada documents, pamphlets and literature in Urdu, English and
Telugu. This literature was printed in Mumbai, Delhi, Afghanistan and Saudi
Arabia. The anti-Christian stickers found in Ibrahim's house tally with
the stickers pasted sometime ago on the walls of Stanley Girls Schools
and Methodist Boys School in Hyderabad. The police also seized a picture
from his house in Vijayawada in which all religions were shown as different
animals while Islam was depicted as the hunter. The hunter aims his guns
at the, "animals" to demonstrate that Islam would triumph ultimately. Police
officials say that Deendaar Anjuman attracted people by stating that all
religions were equal and slowly impressed upon them the deficiencies in
other religions and drove home the point that Islam was superior. The titles
of the documents-The God That Never Was-Jesus, Is This the Bible You Believe
In?-are self-revealing.
Ibrahim visited Wadi, Goa and Hubli
and handed over explosives to local contacts. Syed Muniruddin and Hiramath,
secretary and joint secretary of Hubli branch of Deendaar Anjuman together
with Zakir planted the bomb in Hubli Church. Muniruddin and Hiramath were
arrested by Karnataka police.
The Andhra Pradesh police have arrested
on July 17 Syed Iqbal, secretary of the Deendaar Anjuman of Vijayawada
and his accomplice Neejamuddin. Both had received training in Pakistan.
They were responsible for the explosion at Tadepalligudem. Investigations
revealed that they desecrated the statues of - Dr Ambedkar in Macharam
and Purnandampet of Krishna district in 1996-97. The Deendaar Anjuman of
Vijayawada converted some Hindu students of Siddhartha. Engineering College
to Islam according to a letter dated August 27, 1998, written by Iqbal
to WAMY, Riyadh. He requested for more funds to distribute Islamic literature.
The police have recovered a copy of the letter.
The AP police have also arrested
Shaik Khaja and Md Humayun Khan who planted the bomb in Ongole Church.
The police also identified other culprits-Khaliq-ul-Zaman, responsible
for blast in Guntur mosque, Maqbool and Abdul Khadar Jeelani for Machilipatam
explosion. Maqbool also planted a bomb in Kodandarama Mandir in Vijayawada.
Since the involvement of the agents
of Pakistan in the blasts was established beyond any doubt, the Church
leaders owe an explanation to the country why they made false allegations
against the Sangh without any shred of evidence in their possession. On
the contrary, they are launching their tirade against RSS. Shri John Dayal
of All India Christian Council addressed a press conference in Bangalore
(16 July) along with some Muslim leaders and stressed, "The hate campaign
spearheaded by the Sangh Parivar provides the ambience in which fringe
groups, cults criminal elements are engaged to carry out their agenda of
terror." Obviously some Church leaders and Christian associations are not
interested in finding the truth. They are working for some hidden agenda.
