Investigate the Hindutva Terror Network!

The recent confessions of the terror Guru Swami Aseemanand before the metropolitan magistrate in Tees Hazari court have officially confirmed the existence of a network of terror affiliated to the RSS and its sister organisations.

Civil rights groups have long argued that the security agencies deliberately ignored leads that pointed to the hand of Hindutva groups in planning and executing acts of terror. The agencies, showing their abject bias, instead chose to pursue the beaten track of investigating Islamic terrorist organizations such as HUJI, Let and IMdespite clear evidence pointing in the opposite direction.

All important leads and clues were ignored or frittered away till the late Hemant Karkares prejudice-free investigations conclusively brought into the public domain the nefarious designs of Abhinav Bharat and its motley group comprising former ABVP activist (Sadhvi) Pragya Singh, serving army officer Col. Purohit, and RSS activists Sunil Joshi, Indresh and Swami Aseemanand. On the one hand the Hindutva trail was covered up; on the other many innocent Muslims were rounded up, illegally detained, arrested, tortured and chargesheeted for crimes they had never committed.

While we welcome finally the Indian governments belated acknowledgement of the heinous terrorist acts of the Hindutva groups we feel that a genuine probe must also perforce encompass a thorough enquiry into the terror nexus straddling Abhinav Bharat, RSS, VHP, BJP and Bajrang Dal leaders together with sections of the Indian intelligence and security agencies who deliberately subverted the probes as well as the due process of law. It must also be investigated whether the network of Hindutva terrorists have been provided not just political but also financial and logistical support by various governments run by the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Karnataka.

We the undersigned demand an immediate White Paper from the Government of India on the phenomenon of Hindutva Terror and the true extent to which it poses an internal security threat to the country. The government should also seriously investigate the openly expressed sympathies towards Hindutva ideology of certain retired policemen and bureaucrats as this is an indication of such sympathy within serving officials of the police, army and bureaucracy.

We further demand the immediate release of and compensation to dozens of Muslim youth who have been falsely implicated in the terror attacks done by the Hindutva groups.

All police officers who have engaged in torture, illegal detentions and forced custodial confessions should be suspended, booked and tried under the law of the land. Any promotions or awards they may have received for their role in these investigations should be taken back.

All those who were accused/ arrested/ tortured must be provided a compensation of at least Rs 20 Lakhs each. The Home Minister and the state governments must issue an apology for the grievous loss of dignity and livelihood that innocents have suffered on account of the false charges foisted upon them.