Hindutva terror probe haunts Pune investigation, War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror

Hindutva terror probe haunts Pune investigation

Praveen Swami

Investigators focus on jihadist groups, but some fear Hindutva group may have carried out German Bakery bombing

Key suspects in Abhinav Bharat’s terror campaign have never been held, hence controversy

Signs are investigation into German Bakery blast will take time

PUNE: Back in November 2008, as Lieutenant-Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit walked into a Nashik court to face trial for his alleged role in the bombing of a Malegaon mosque, Hindutva activists showered the rogue military officer with rose petals.

Last week’s bombing of the German Bakery in Pune has brought the ugly story of Abhinav Bharat — the Hindutva terrorist group Purohit helped found — back from the obscurity to which it was consigned by the Mumbai carnage, which took place just days after the trial in Nashik began.

In private, Hindus sympathetic to the ultra-right have been saying the bombings demonstrate the moral legitimacy of Purohit and his Hindutva terror project. Even as the police detained more than two dozen young Muslim men for questioning, some community leaders have been arguing that the bakery attack could just have easily been carried out by a Hindutva group.

Part of the reason for the controversy is that key suspects involved in Abhinav Bharat’s terror campaign have never been held. Jatin Chatterjee — better known by his alias Swami Asimanand — is thought to be hiding out in Gujarat’s Adivasi tracts, where he runs a Hindu proselytisation organisation. Ramnarayan Kalsangra, Abhinav Bharat’s key bomb-maker, is also a fugitive.

http://newageislam.com/hindutva-terror-probe-haunts-pune-investigation/war-on-terror/d/2482