New Delhi, January 13: As many as 15 terrorists affiliated to Hindutva outfits are on the run. What’s more, the untimely leak of Swami Asimanand’s judicial confession will seriously hamper the NIA and CBI probe into blasts with a saffron imprint.
Making these revelations, government sources said the NIA will soon take over investigations into the murder of RSS pracharak Sunil Joshi — the kingpin of the Hindutva terror network. Joshi is believed to be behind the Malegaon, Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid and Ajmer Sharif bombings.
The need for handing over the murder probe to the NIA was felt after the BJP-ruled government in Madhya Pradesh maintained a studied silence on letting the CBI handle the case. Last week, MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said he would not hand over the case to the NIA either.
“The murder case of Joshi is linked to the terror conspiracy in the Samjhauta blasts. He was murdered in MP after he masterminded the Malegaon, Samjhauta, Mecca Masjid and Ajmer bombings in 2006 and 2007,” a source said. “Under the NIA Act, the ministry of home affairs (MHA) can and will suo moto transfer the case to the agency without waiting for the state government’s consent,” the source added.
Just last week, Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh had made the demand that the NIA should probe the Joshi murder case. “ The MP Police had earlier closed the file of the Joshi killing case… Last month, they arrested three persons for the murder after pressure from the NIA, which was probing the Samjhauta blast conspiracy in Madhya Pradesh,” Singh had said on January 4.
“ Those persons arrested by the MP Police in the case are only foot- soldiers. The orders for eliminating Joshi came from the top in the RSS. The MP Police will never probe that aspect,” Singh had remarked.
On December 18, 2010, nearly three years after the murder, the MP Police arrested three persons — Harshad Solanki, Vasudev Parmar and Anand Raj Kataria — claiming that the trio took the step after being “ mistreated” by Joshi. In fact, Solanki had already been arrested by the Rajasthan Police earlier and was handed over to the MP Police.
The Union home ministry was also unhappy with the media leak of Asimanand’s confession. It has zeroed in on the officer in the investigating agencies who let out the details and he has been suitably warned, a source said.
“ The leak of the confession has only alerted the 10- 15 absconding Hindutva terrorists as well as their masters in the RSS, making the job of our probe agencies much tougher. Besides Sandeep Dange, Ramji Kalsangra and Amit, on whom the NIA declared rewards on Tuesday, there are a dozen more absconders who formed the terror module,” an NIA source disclosed. A bounty of ` 10 lakh each was announced on Dange and Kalsangra, and of ` 2 lakh on Amit.
With the probe agencies now having a hunch that Joshi was killed as he knew too much — Asimanand confessed that he had warned Joshi of a threat to his life from RSS leader Indresh Kumar — they feared that the rest of the absconders may meet the same fate. The MHA has also decided to call a coordination meeting of the CBI, NIA, Rajasthan ATS and Maharashtra ATS every month for a focused crackdown on Hindutva terror.
–Courtesy: Mailtoday