Herald, Editorial, 19 Oct 2009 Disingenuous defence Lightning doesn’t strike twice. But, in the case of the Sanatan Sanstha, apparently it does. For, it says it has ‘nothing’ to do with the bomb blast, just as it had ‘nothing’ to do with the blast last year in Thane. When activists of the Sanstha planted a bomb at the Gadkari Rangayatan auditorium in Thane, Maharashtra, exploded injuring seven persons, six activists of the Sanstha, who were also members of the Hindu Janajagriti Samiti (HJS), were arrested by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad. The bomb was planted because a Marathi play, ‘Aamhi Paachpute’, was to be performed at the auditorium. The Sanatan Sanstha had denounced the play, saying it ‘denigrated’ Hindu gods and goddesses, and demanded that it be stopped. The play’s producers refused to stop showing it. The response? Not one bomb but two. The other bomb, planted at the Vishnudas Bhave Auditorium at Vashi, Navi Mumbai, where the play was also to be performed, was found before it exploded and defused. A third bomb - planted outside a cinema theatre in Panvel that was showing the Bollywood film ‘Jodhaa-Akbar’, which the Sanatan Sanstha had also denounced as ‘denigrating’ Hindus, exploded but thankfully did not hurt anyone. In Goa, the Sanatan Sanstha has been campaigning against the Goan tradition of building and burning Narkasurs at the time of Diwali for years now. They say making such huge effigies of the demon king is nothing but the glorification of evil. Goans are proud of their traditions, and have mostly ignored the Sanstha’s protests. In this lies the genesis of the bomb that exploded, killing as if in divine retribution the two terrorist Narkasurs that wanted to massacre innocent Goans, spread panic and trigger a communal riot in Margao. Thankfully, alert youth discovered a similar bomb planted on a truck that was headed for the Vasco Narkasur competition, threw it on the road and alerted the police, who defused it. The terrorists who were carrying the bomb were members of both the Sanatan Sanstha and the Hindu Janajagriti Samiti. So was the owner of the scooter in which the bomb was being carried. Yet, yesterday’s ‘Sanatan Prabhat’, the newspaper that represents the views of the Sanatan Sanstha, says that its activist Malgonda Patil (28) died in an bomb explosion engineered by ‘unknown elements’. That is exactly what the Sanstha said after the Thane blasts. That is why we ask: Does lightning strike twice? Similar bombs. Similar circumstances. Similar tactics. Similar situation. Is it a matter of sheer coincidence that while those blasts occurred in the areas around the Sanstha’s Panvel Ashram, and the perpetrators of the blasts were living in the ashram, these blasts occurred in Goa, and one of the perpetrators was living in the Sanstha’s Ramnathi Ashram? This time, the evidence is not merely circumstantial. The police have recovered some circuits and timing devices from the ashram that are similar to those found in a bag on the scooter that contained dynamite sticks, detonators, circuit boxes, batteries, remote control, stones and chemicals, which were defused by the bomb disposal squad before the police took them away. Hopefully, with the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT), the Sanstha’s disingenuous defence will be put to the test. Even more amusing is the angry statement of the Hindu Janajagriti Samiti (HJS) that it is in no way involved in these blasts. The fact is that the Sanatan Sanstha is the main constituent unit of the HJS. Both the terrorists who died in the blast have actively participated in the HJS’s programmes. It is best that the HJS reviews its ties with the Sanatan Sanstha if it wants to be free of this taint. The Goa Police have been under intense pressure this last week, with 10 bodies being discovered, of which eight were murders. But it has acquitted itself admirably, solving most of the cases within days. We wish it keeps up the good work.
-- Whatever it is, I'm against it -- Groucho Marx