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`Conspiracy to usurp my property'

By Our Special Correspondent

AHMEDABAD JULY 31. There is a "deep conspiracy'' between the Sangh Parivar outfits and the BJP Government in the State to "usurp" his property, says Suresh Thackarey, director of a missionary orphanage and a school at Talala in Junagadh district in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat.

Currently on conditional bail on the charge of disfiguring a Ganesh idol, Rev. Thackarey, a distant relative of the Shiv Sena supremo, Balasaheb Thackarey, alleged that the Talala Sangh Parivar leaders had an eye on the orphanage and the school,as the property owned by the institution at Talala on the outskirts of the Gir forest was valued at over Rs. 35 lakhs.

He said it was clear from a letter written by the local Sangh leaders to the Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, on July 22 in which they had urged the Government to "displace him" from Talala and take over the property to be vested in them or some other Hindu organisation. The letter alleged that he was "forcibly converting'' local Hindus to Christianity and that his presence would be a threat to the peace and tranquillity in the area. Denying that he had ever converted a single Hindu, he told mediapersons here today that there was not a single Christian in the 28-member staff or any Christian student in the school or the orphanage.

On the charge that he damaged a Ganesh idol, he said it was a last-minute addition to strengthen the case against him. The original FIR lodged against him on July 12 had only complained of his "assaulting" Gopal Patel, driver of the school bus. Claiming that Gopal had been made a "scapegoat" by the local Sangh leaders, he said police failed to produce the Ganesh idol he was purported to have damaged.

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