National

Dead man’s tale holds key to Hindutva terror secrets

NEW DELHI: For the past fortnight, the Maharashtra Police have been poised on the edge of unravelling what could prove to be among the most significant counter-terrorism investigations since the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

Forensic evidence and leads from informants, investigators say, suggest that the Hindutva terrorist group Abhinav Bharat was responsible for a series of unsolved bombings so far blamed on Islamists: the February 2007, firebombing of the Samjhauta Express; the attack on the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad that May; and the October 2007, attack on the shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer.

But the investigation is now running into a brick wall: its principal suspect is dead. Dewas-based Hindutva activist Sunil Joshi, who police believe could have organised the 2007 bombings, was murdered just before New Year’s eve. Joshi’s supporters claim he was assassinated by the Students Islamic Movement of India; police suspect other Abhinav Bharat members killed their commander in a dispute over funds.

Maharashtra Police officials say the testimony of a witness — whose identity has been withheld for his protection —links Joshi to the Samjhauta Express attack.

According to the witness, Lieutenant-Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit — the Army officer held earlier this month for his role in training and directing the Malegaon bombers — claimed Abhinav Bharat was responsible for the Samjhauta Express bombing.

Lt. Col. Purohit, the witness claimed, made the claim after a December 29, 2007, phone call, when he was informed of Joshi’s death. “After the phone call,” a senior Maharashtra Police official told The Hindu, “our witness says Lieutenant-Colonel Purohit credited Joshi with having executed the Samjhauta Express attack, and hailed him as a martyr.”

Maharashtra Police sources said that, according to the witness, the call was made by Gujarat-based Hindu-nationalist leader Jatin Chatterjee. Mr. Chatterjee — widely known in southern Gujarat by his clerical alias, Swami Asimanand — runs the controversial Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, which operates a Hindu-proselytisation programme targeting adivasis in southern Gujarat.

Joshi’s connections to Abhinav Bharat are corroborated by separate findings. Gujarat-based Hindutva activist Pragnya Singh Thakur had first loaned her motorcycle, which was used in the Malegaon attack, to Joshi. After his death, the vehicle had been passed on to still-missing bombing suspect Ramnarayan Kalsangram, who is alleged to be hiding out with Hindutva supporters in Gujarat.

So far, the Maharashtra Police have been unable to secure the arrest of either Mr. Chatterjee or Kalsangram. Barring the sole witnesses’ testimony, therefore, investigators have little to go on.

Investigators also discounted media reports which suggested that “several Students Islamic Movement of India operatives were also held in Indore,” one official noted, “so what”?

As things stand, the available forensic evidence on the Samjhauta Express bombing does not bear out claims — first made and then withdrawn by Maharashtra special prosecutor Ajay Misar — that part of an RDX consignment allegedly sourced by Lt. Col. Purohit from Jammu and Kashmir was used in the bombing.

While a State government forensics facility in Haryana reported that it had found traces of RDX in the device used on the Samjhauta Express, that proposition was debunked on further testing. National Security Guard experts later determined that the incendiary device — essentially, a sophisticated Molotov cocktail — was made up of two-stroke engine oil, stored in one-litre plastic bottles, which was set off by a simple clock-timed bomb made with sulphur and potassium chlorate.

Forensic experts note, though, that there is one significant structural similarity between the Samjhauta Express bomb, and those used in the Mecca Masjid and Ajmer Sharif attacks: a length of grooved metal piping, of the kind used in tube-wells, as a case for the explosives.

Police have also known, for long, that the Mecca Masjid and Ajmer Sharif attacks were linked. The SIM cards of the mobile phones used to activate the bombs used in both attacks were among a set of seven purchased by the perpetrators from West Bengal and Jharkhand in April 2007. In both the Mecca Masjid and Ajmer terror strikes, the bomb-maker who fabricated the explosive devices had the phone’s speaker connected to a detonator.

Should investigators find the perpetrators of one attack, therefore, they more likely than note will be able to solve all three. So far, though, they have been unable to locate either the explosives or devices used in the attacks — or the actual perpetrators.

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