Panaji, October 18: Goa sleuths in collaboration with the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Maharashtra stepped up investigation into the Friday night scooter blast in Margao city, to uncover the suspected role of the Hindu right-wing group of Sanathan Sanstha.
”We are trying to find out any link between Margao and Malegao (Maharashtra) blasts and the complicity of the Saunstha activists in them,” an investigating senior police officer told UNI here today.
The scooter occurred behind the Grace Church on the sidelines of a huge religious congregation on the occasion of annual competitions on burning of mythological demon Narakasura’s effigies late Friday night.
The blast claimed the life of a Sanstha activist, Malgonda Patil, while his colleague, Yogesh Naik, is battling for life in the Goa Medical College Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit. The blast occurred when the duo mishandled the vehicle, police said.
Police claimed to have seized a few unexploded gelatin sticks used for making Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in the scooter that exploded on the fateful night, even as they recovered a bag with timer devices left in a vehicle that carried an effigy of the demon in nearby Sancole area. The police had treated it a case of ”waging a war against the state with explosives” and had registered cases against the two victims even as it had taken into custody several others for questioning after raiding the Sanstha office building in Ponda town of North Goa, where the police claimed to have recovered incriminating material.
The ATS team had already been in Goa to explore the ramifications of the blast and link it had, if any, with another Hindu radical outfit Abhinav Bharat, involved in the 2008 Malegao blast and others.
The ATS had in 2007 arrested six full-time sevaks of the Sanstha for their role in bomb blasts at Thane, Panvel and Vashi to protest Marathi play, ‘Aamhi Pachpute’, which allegedly depicted Hindu gods and goddesses in poor light. The ATS had then said the arrested Sanstha members were taught how to make bombs and had conducted a recce of the blast sites.
Meanwhile, police have intensified patrolling, besides keeping a vigil on suspects. Now, with the beginning of the tourism season, it has sounded red alert. During the tourism season, there is a spurt in the number of tourists, both domestic and foreign, visiting the state. More than 25 lakh tourists visit Goa every year during the season, which is more than its 14 lakh population.
—–Agencies