Margao attack: Pune ATS to assist probe Goa forms SIT to crack blast case Margao, Oct 18, DH News Service :
A special investigative team (SIT) of the Goa police has been deputed to track down the two Sanathan Sansthan activists, who, the police suspect, assembled the crude bomb that went off at Margao on Friday night killing a Sanathan man, Malgonda Patil, and injuring another activist, Yogesh Naik. The police said the improvised explosive device (IED) had been put together by technical experts. Patil hailed from Sangli, but had been living in the Goa Sanathan ashram at Ramnathi, Ponda for four years, working in its administration. He and Naik have been listed as accused in the case. “We are looking for a Sangli connection in this case,” Goa Home Minister Ravi Naik told Deccan Herald. The police said the markings on the gelatin stick gave them a fair idea that they had been procured from outside Goa. A team of the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), Pune, also arrived here on Sunday to assist the Goa police in the investigation. Five persons from the Sanathan’s Ramnathi ashram, which has become the national headquarters of the right-wing group, were interrogated by the ATS at the police headquarters in Margao. They include ashram administrator Virendra Marathe and Sanathan Prabhat's group editor Prithviraj Hazare. The state police also searched the office of Sanathan’s Marathi newspaper at Nesar, Margao. The police said the Sanathan men had planned to plant four bombs around Margao during the Deepavali festivities to cause maximum damage during the crowded evening procession. The intention was to cause communal tension, DIG Ravindra Yadav said. In a cruel twist of fate, one of the IEDs went off as Patil and Naik were parking the scooter just a few metres away from Grace church. Two other similar devices were found near the scooter later. Just a lane away, Chief Minister Digambar Kamat and South Goa SP Allen De Sa were on the dais watching the floats. This happened at 9:45 pm. An hour later, an alert driver watching another procession at Sancoale, about 10 km away, found another ticking IED planted in his pick-up cabin. He threw the bag into the field and informed the police. The police managed to get crucial details of the Sanathan connection from Patil’s dying statement. He told the police that he lived in the ashram, was from Sangli and had been to Pune, Thane and Malegao. His mobile number was traced to the ashram. Naik, who is in hospital in a critical condition, is a teacher in a school for deaf and dumb children run by a Hindu organisation. * * * Minister’s wife runs body’s finances Political patronage helped Sansthan’s expansion Ramnathi, Ponda, Oct 18, DH News Service : Sanathan Sansthan, a right-wing Hindu outfit which has been linked by the Anti-Terrorism Squad to the 2006 Malegaon blasts, has grown from strength to strength in Goa riding on the goodwill and financial support of the admirers of the ideology it professes to propagate. >From a small indistinct office in Ponda just three years ago, its ashram in Ramnathi, which is in the religious and cultural heart of Hindu Goa, has blossomed into its national headquarters. This has not come without open political patronage. Goa’s Transport Minister Ramkrishna Dhavlikar says unabashedly that his entire family is involved with the Sanathan’s activities and the good work it has been doing in spreading the ‘dharma prasad’. Dhavlikar told Deccan Herald at his home in Bandora, located near the ashram, that his wife runs the accounts of the Sansthan and every member of his family is involved with the ashram in one way or other. Only he and his brother Deepak, also an MGP MLA, are not directly linked, he said. He wants proof to the Sanathan’s links to Friday’s blast in Margao before action being taken against them. “I don’t see any reason why my wife and other members of the family should stay away from the Sansthan, unless the police have sufficient evidence,” he says. He doesn’t see any reason to resign from the government to let investigations go on unhindered. “I am not interfering, neither have I called to police to find out the course of investigations,” he says. Dhavlikar claims he is in no way involved in financing Sanathan’s activities. The police searched the ashram on Saturday and questioned its administrators on Dhavlikars wife’s links to the organisation’s finances. Police said they had found incriminating material at the ashram like an electrical circuit and timers. Two room-mates of Malgonda Patil the suspected perpetrator who died in the blast, were taken in for questioning. There were 176 people in the ashram, including three French nationals who were staying there without informing the police, the police said. A spokesman for the ashram said the Sanathan’s activists had been victims of a bomb planted by someone else. * * * 'Transport minister should quit' PONDA, DHNS: Goa Home Minister Ravi Naik said Transport Minister Ramkrishna Dhavlikar should consider stepping down from the government if he wanted an impartial probe into the role of the Sanathan Sansthan in Friday's blast. Dhavlikar's wife Jyoti is a high-ranking member of the Goa Sanathan asharam and handles its finance. Naik said he would meet Chief Minister Digambar Kamat on Monday to discuss the matter. Asked if Dhavlikar should resign from the cabinet, Naik said: "He should think about it, if he wants an impartial probe." Apart from his wife, Dhavlikar's three brothers and four sisters-in-law are actively involved with the Sanathan. Meanwhile, Kamat said the police would be looking at every angle of Sanathan activities. (Deccan Herald)
