Holes in ATS story expose plot to implicate RSS man

Lokpal Sethi | Jaipur – Daily Pioneer

Gaping holes in the Ajmer bomb blast case chargesheet have exposed the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) design to somehow implicate senior RSS pracharak Indresh Kumar in the case.

In its 806-page chargesheet filed in an Ajmer court on Friday, the ATS claimed that on October 31, 2005, a meeting of about half a dozen persons was held in room number 26 of the Gujarati Samaj guesthouse in Jaipur. According to the ATS, the room was booked by Sunil Joshi, one of the accused, under the fake name of Manoj Kumar.

It added that the meeting was attended, among others, by Sadhvi Pragaya Thakur of Vande Mataram and Swami Aseemanand of Abhinav Bharat. The chargesheet also claimed that the meeting was addressed by Indresh Kumar, who told the others to use the cover of some religious organisation to avoid police suspicion.

While the ATS has claimed that guesthouse manager Aruna Jain had admitted during the investigation that Sunil Joshi booked the room, she denied on Sunday that anyone from the ATS had ever approach her. There was no question of her providing any such information, she added.

Talking to The Pioneer on Sunday, she said, “Since lots of people come to the guesthouse every day, I cannot remember if anyone of this name had stayed here about two years back.”

Interestingly, some ATS cops landed at the guesthouse on Friday evening after the chargesheet had already been filed in the morning. “We provided the guest register sought by the ATS personnel,” Gujarat Samaj secretary Ramesh said.

Question marks have all along been raised over the credibility of the ATS investigation in the case, in which three persons were killed near the Ajmer dargah on October 11, 2007. Within a week, ATS sleuths claimed they had cracked the case. They claimed that it was the handiwork of HuJI and they had arrested from near the dargah a shopkeeper, who belonged to Hyderabad. They also arrested a teacher-cum-cleric at a madarsa in Khandela and said he was a HuJI activist and frequently visited the dargah. The ATS changed its line of investigation after the Congress came to power in the State in December 2008.

Before his current responsibilities, Indresh Kumar was looking after Rashtravadi Muslim Manch and used to visit Rajasthan frequently. He had addressed several Muslim gatherings in Jaipur and other parts of the State to bring the community close to the RSS.

Those who understand the RSS functioning say some individuals within the Sangh were not happy with its approach of reaching out to Muslims. “Those who have been arrested or whose names figure in the chargesheet are the same elements who were opposed to such an approach and were now blaming Indresh Kumar,” these people say.

Meanwhile, asserting that Indresh was not involved in any anti-national activity, former RSS chief KC Sudarshan has charged the Congress with hatching a conspiracy to defame the Hindu organisation. “It is incorrect that Indresh is somehow linked to the Ajmer blast or involved in any kind of anti-national activity,” he told reporters at the sidelines of a function here. “The truth (that he is not linked to terrorism) will come out soon,” Sudarshan added.

“It is absolutely wrong to say that Indresh was present during a secret meeting at a guesthouse here in 2005, as mentioned in the chargesheet filed by the Rajasthan ATS,” the former RSS sarsanghachalak said. “These allegations are false,” he said, and charged the Congress with hatching a conspiracy to establish a “wrong fact” that Hindu terrorism existed in the country.

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