New Delhi, July 09: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is worried that fresh investigations into ‘Hindu’ terror links to several blasts are leading agencies to interrogate top Sangh functionaries — this time the connection seems to be to the 2007 Makkah Masjid blast in Hyderabad.
Between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning two important meetings were held here, attended by senior RSS and Bharatiya Janata Party leaders. ‘Hindu’ terror was the subject of discussion and what has become of increasing concern is its link to the RSS and its affiliates, disclosed a BJP leader. The meetings discussed ways to handle the situation fraught with grave consequences for the RSS, its leaders and affiliates.
The first meeting was held at BJP president Nitin Gadkari’s residence. The second meeting in the RSS Jhandewalan complex was attended by the former BJP president, Rajnath Singh, and senior leaders Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar and Ram Lal. Mr. Gadkari was apparently consulted over telephone. Madan Das Devi and others from the RSS were present.
This fresh concern sprang from the interrogation of two senior RSS functionaries from Uttar Pradesh — Ashok Beri and Ashok Varshney. Mr. Beri is not only ‘kshetriya pracharak’ in charge of the RSS operations in virtually half of Uttar Pradesh, which is divided into two regions for this purpose, but also a member of the Sangh’s central committee. Mr. Varshney, a senior ‘prant pracharak’ is based in Kanpur, where some time ago a few men were seriously injured when a bomb went off accidentally while they were allegedly engaged in bomb-making.
Central Bureau of Investigation sources confirmed that senior officers from Delhi have gone to Hyderabad in connection with the Makkah Masjid blast investigations.
Some months ago after pracharaks Devendra Gupta and Lokesh Sharma were arrested in Rajasthan in connection with the Ajmer Sharif blast of 2007, the RSS decided not to protect them in any way and to “cooperate with the police.”
As a senior RSS functionary then told The Hindu on condition of anonymity, “If even for a day the RSS were to be directly linked to terrorist activity, we would suffer a fate worse than we did after the murder of the Mahatma when the finger of suspicion pointed to the RSS [which was given the benefit of the doubt in the matter].”
Now what is worrying the organisation is that the ‘Hindu’ terror trail seems to be leading up to some very senior RSS men, making it difficult for the organisation to shrug off responsibility for their activities.
———-Agencies