New Delhi, Nov 26 (IANS) The Viswa Hindu Parishad (VHP) Tuesday linked Congress president Sonia Gandhi with the Catholic organisation Opus Dei (God’s Work) and urged the government to conduct a probe to uncover the mastermind behind “the unusual deaths” of her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi, husband Rajiv Gandhi and brother-in-law Sanjay Gandhi.
Describing Sonia Gandhi as the “daughter of Vatican” and Opus Dei, the “global Catholic outfit” that has an anti-India agenda, VHP president Ashok Singhal said: “Investigations must be made into the relationship between Sonia Gandhi and the Opus Dei and in this light, investigations must also be made to find the mastermind behind the unusual death of Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.”
He also alleged that Opus Dei was behind the arrest of Sadhvi Prgnya Singh Thakur, and the apparent move by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and the CBI to implicate VHP leader Pravin Togadia and other Hindu leaders in the Sept 29 Malegaon blast that killed six people and injured many more.
“For this conspiracy, a foreign woman has been planted and the Opus Dei, with which the woman is associated with, has been appointed three years ago to materialise the anti-India agenda. A foreign woman had revealed this secret to a prominent person three years ago,” Singhal maintained.
Singhal accused the ATS of “disrobing the innocent Sadhvi, tried to show her blue (obscene) CDs and questioned her chastity, thereby outraging the dignity of a chaste woman.”
“The subject of humiliation of Hindu sants (seers) and organisations would certainly be an election issue,” he added.
Gujarat wanted to question Malegaon blast accused: Modi
New Delhi, Nov 26 (IANS) Accusing the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government of being “soft” on terror, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday said his police department was denied permission to interrogate the Malegaon blast accused, including an in-service army officer.
“When we arrested terror accused in Gujarat, we allowed interrogation by other states. But when we sought to interrogate the Malegaon terror accused, we were denied the permission,” Modi said, addressing an election rally here.
Speaking about the alleged torture of Sadhvi Pragnya Singh Thakur, a blast accused, by Mumbai Anti Terrorism Squad, Modi said: “Sonia Gandhi herself is a woman but she allowed it to happen. This shows there is something wrong here.”
Continuing his tirade against the Congress and its “soft stand on terror”, Modi, campaigning for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), also spoke about the Batla House shootout between the police and alleged terrorists.
“A Delhi Police officer was martyred during the encounter but this government is defending terrorists arrested from the Batla House. Some politicians are even demanding judicial probe,” he said sarcastically at the BJP rally in Kalkaji, south Delhi.
Modi said the Delhi government had failed to provide security to women, children and senior citizens.
Electricity charges have been hiked “four times in the last few years but in Gujarat, it has not gone up even once”, he told a gathering of nearly 1,500 people who waited for over 90 minutes to listen to Modi.
Earlier in the day, Modi was disallowed to hold a rally in Balmiki Basti in the New Delhi constituency where BJP’s Vijay Jolly is contesting against Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.
“Sonia Gandhi can hold rallies, Mayawati can hold rallies but there is problem in Modi holding rallies,” he said.
The Gujarat chief minister said he had met Dikshit a few days back. Though Dikshit talked to him nicely, “she had told me not come to her constituency… I thought she was joking. But today I realised it was not a joke”.
Malegaon blast inquiry should be impartial: Advani
New Delhi, Nov 26 (IANS) Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani Tuesday said he had no objection to the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) investigating the Malegaon blast but the inquiry should be impartial and professional.
Addressing an election rally in Delhi’s Rithala constituency Tuesday evening, Advani said: “The affidavit by Sadhvi Pragnya Singh (arrested for the bombings that she was tortured in custody by the ATS is alarming. Anyone who reads the affidavit will be shocked.”
The BJP leader said the ATS had not found any substantial evidence in the case so far. “I have no problem in the case being investigated, but it should be impartial,” he said. He addressed two other rallies in the city late Tuesday evening.
The public meeting was attended by about 6,000 people in the constituency’s Buddh Vihar phase-2 locality. The BJP’s sitting legislator Kulwant Rana is contesting for this seat. Delhi goes to polls Nov 29 to elect 70 legislators.
Advani said that the central government was disallowing the hanging of Afzal Guru in the parliament terror attack case while the same Congress party’s govenment did not object to capital punishment to the assailants of the late prime minister Indira Gandhi.
He said the Congress-led government was incapable of combating terrorism and only the BJP could tackle it.
Advani took a dig at the Congress also for spiralling prices of essential commodities and said that when the BJP was leading the central government under prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee it effectively checked inflation.
“Prices of everything, from vegetables, essential commodities, to cement and iron, had increased and the government was unable to do anything about it,” he said.
Maharashtra top cop gets notice on Pragnya’s torture claim
New Delhi, Nov 26 (IANS) The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued notice to Maharashtra’s director general of police and the chief secretary over the alleged torture of Malegaon bomb blast accused Sadhvi Pragnya Thakur, an official said Tuesday.
The NHRC’s move has come after a complaint was filed alleging that Thakur was being harassed by the state’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS).
Thakur filed an affidavit in a Nashik court Nov 17, claiming the ATS was torturing her and violating her human rights.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani sought a judicial inquiry in the case.
Six people were killed and 20 injured in the bomb blast in Malegaon Sept 29.
Malegaon accused gets further custody in Purna blast case
Purna (Maharashtra), Nov 26 (IANS) A local court Tuesday extended the police custody of Malegaon blast accused Rakesh Dhawde by three days to facilitate further investigation of his role in a blast that took place here in 2004.
Dhawde, a dealer in illicit arms in Pune, was already in custody of the local crime branch police since Nov 21 but Judge Sajid Arif of the junior magistrate first class court granted the police request for extended custody till Nov 28.
While 18 persons were injured in the Purna blast that took place outside a mosque, six people were hurt in a similar blast that occurred the same day in adjoining Jalna town and one person died in a bomb explosion in Parbhani town in 2003.
Dhawde is suspected to have some connection with these blasts, as also in the accidental explosion in Nanded in 2006 in which two Bajrang Dal workers, Himanshu Panse and Naresh Rajkondawar, were killed while trying to make a bomb at Rajkondawar’s residence.
The accused is learnt to have admitted to the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the Maharashtra Police that he arranged transport for participants of the Abhinav Bharat-Bajrang Dal training camp in Simhagad, on the outskirts of Pune in July 2003, from four towns in Marathwada.
Both Panse and Rajkondawar had attended the Simhagad camp, in which Malegaon blast accused Lt. Col. Prasad Purohit, Major (retd) Ramesh Upadhyay, Sadhvi Pragnya Thakur and Dayanand Pandey are said to have played a major role.
Dhawde has also reportedly admitted helping the organisers of the camp with arms and explosives for use in the training.
In fact, the Central Bureau of Investigation officers, who have recently reopened the Nanded blast probe in the light of leads emerging from the Malegaon blast investigations, were all set to move a Nanded court Tuesday for Dhawde’s custody.
The ATS probe in all the four blasts has been taken over by the CBI, which had dropped the chargesheets prepared by the Maharashtra investigating agency.
The extended police custody remand of Dhawde in the Purna blast case is likely to help the police draw a connection between the four Marathwada blasts and the Sept 29 terror strike in Malegaon.
Dhawde is learnt to have attended the Sept 16 Abhinav Bharat meeting in Nashik’s Bhonsala Military School premises along with the other key accused, where the Malegaon blast plan was supposedly finalised.
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