Author: Express News Service, Mumbai
Publication: The Indian Express
Dated: November 21, 2008
Introduction: Complains Govt has not taken
due notice of Himani Savarkar's statement, 'If we can have bullet for bullet,
why not blast for blast?'
[Note from the Hindu Vivek Kendra: The NCP
team will tell RR Patil to release all the Muslims that have been arrested
on charges of corruption. In fact one of their members had given a cheque
to the family of a person who had been killed by the ATS-equivalent squad
of Gujarat.]
A delegation of ruling Nationalist Congress
Party (NCP) leaders met Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister R R Patil
today and demanded the arrest of office-bearers of the Pune-based Abhinav
Bharat (AB), some of whose members have been nabbed for alleged involvement
in the Malegaon bomb blasts. Demanding an enquiry into the activities of the
AB office-bearers, the NCP leaders Pointed out that the State Government had
not taken suo moto cognisance of the highly provocative statements
made by Abhinav Bharat president Himani Savarkar, the niece of Mahatma Gandhi's
assassin Nathuram Godse, in an interview to a magazine.
Speaking to reporters later on, Mumbai NCP
unit president and Sewri MIA Sachin Ahir referred to Savarkar's statement,
"If we can have bullet for bullet, why not blast for blast?"
"The state government should have taken
suo moto cognisance of this issue," he added. "But this has not
been done it seems." Ahir informed that the NCP team had asked Patil
"to arrest" the Abhinav Bharat office-bearers and conduct an enquiry.
"These people are trying to take Mumbai and Maharashtra in a different
direction," he remarked.
Ahir also alleged that Abhinav Bharat had
been indirectly - if not directly - involved in bomb blasts since its
inception in 2006 and urged the Home department to probe the matter,
with the Home minister's personal initiative.
Ahir said that the NCP had called on the deputy
chief minister to carry out necessary action and explained to him that
"in case the party entered in (the fray) politically, then it would
create a law and order situation".
NCP Thane city President Jitendra Awhad, who
was in the delegation that met Pati!, attacked Leader of the Opposition L
K Advani for his attempts to "pressurise" the ATS when the investigations
were "at a crucial juncture" by making allegations about the ATS
enquiry. He further alleged that Advani was trying to pressurise the investigating
agencies as he was fearful that "something else" might come forth
during the investigations. The "agency must be· given a free hand
to investigate" without anypolitica1 pressure, Awhad noted.
He also called for an enquiry into Vishwa
Hindu Parishad (VHP) Leader Praveen Togadia's activities and said it was necessary
to speed up the investigations into the Nanded blasts. He also referred to
the chargesheet filed against one of the Malegaon blasts accused, Mahendra
Dhawade, in the blasts case at Jalna.
Awhad criticised attempts to project Dayanand
Pandey, one of the arrested accused in the Malegaon blasts case, as a
saint and a "Shankaracharya", saying that according to information
available with him, Pandey had told the ATS that he was ''willing to
be hung rather than have his laptop opened".
Awhad also raised questions about the contents
of the laptop. Claiming that the activities of Abhinav Bharat amounted to
"waging war against the nation" and "an attempt to create a
lawless society," he said it was necessary to stop it.
He also ridiculed the statements made by Shiv
Sena Executive President Uddhav Thackeray about Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur's
narco-analysis test.
Awhad pointed to statements made by retired
army officer from Pune, Lt Col Jayant Chitale, in which he had reportedly
claimed that some youth brainwashed by him had beenrecruited to the Army.
"This is a prominent example of who is defaming the army,"
remarked Awhad, referring to comments by the BJP and Sangh Parivar that
the Maharashtra ATS's decision to arrest a serving army officer (Lt Col Srikant
Purohit) had defamed the Army.
