Civil rights groups demand probe in 'Hindu' terror funds

Civil rights groups have demanded a proper investigation into foreign funds, which have been used to sponsor terror attacks carried out by alleged Hindu radicals.  

A joint statement issued by several civil rights groups including the People's Union for Civil Liberties, Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association and several others stated, “Although the Indian government has belatedly acknowledged the heinous terrorist acts of the Sangh groups we feel that a genuine probe must also perforce encompass a thorough inquiry into the terror nexus straddling Abhinav Bharat, RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad), BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) and Bajrang Dal leaders together with sections of the Indian intelligence and security agencies, who deliberately subverted the probes as well as the due process of law.”

The network of Hindutva terrorists has been provided not just political but also financial and logistical support by various governments. There must be a thorough investigation into the foreign sources of funding, according to the civil rights groups.

“We hope that the acknowledgement of Hindutva terror will not remain a statement and that the investigations will be seriously and sincerely pursued,” the statement added.  

Civil rights groups have been arguing for long that the investigations into bomb blasts and terror attacks have degenerated into communal witch-hunts.

Bomb blasts are followed predictably by mass arrests of Muslim youth, raids in Muslim-dominated

localities, detentions, arrests and torture, media trials, chargesheets and prosecution based on custodial confessions and little real evidence.

It has been assumed, and accepted widely, that no further proof of guilt needs be offered than the fact that the accused belonged to a particular community.

Leads, which pointed to groups affiliated to Sangh organisations and their complicity in planning and executing acts of terror were never seriously pursued. Probe agencies, showing their abject bias, instead chose to pursue the beaten track of investigating Islamic terrorist organisations despite clear evidence pointing in the opposite direction. This was true of the Nanded blasts in 2006, as well as of Mecca Masjid and Ajmer Sharif bombings, said civil rights groups.

The only exception was Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare, who had, as far back as 2008 conclusively brought into the public domain the nefarious designs of Abhinav Bharat and its foot soldiers of hate -- Sadhvi Pragya Singh of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, serving army officer Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit, former RSS man Sunil Joshi, senior RSS leader Indresh Kumar and Swami Aseemanand.

Karkare had communicated to the Hyderabad police the sensational claim by Col Purohit that he had procured RDX from an army inventory when he was posted in Jammu and Kashmir in 2006. The Hyderabad police, however, ignored his messages, having already detained close to 70 youth belonging to the Muslim community.