KP Raghuvanshi, special inspector general of police/
joint commissioner of police and head of the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS),
Maharashtra, in an interview with Communalism Combat.
There have been two recent incidents
of alleged terrorism, one in April when youth manufacturing bombs at
Nanded died as a bomb exploded unexpectedly and the attempt on the RSS
headquarters at Nagpur in May. How do you view these incidents?
Unfortunately, one is a terrorist act (making of bombs) by
Hindus and the other (the attempt on the RSS headquarters at Nagpur), by
Muslims trained in Pakistan.
The administration is perceived to
be tight-lipped about the Nanded incident while speaking repeatedly of
Nagpur, Malegaon and Aurangabad (the arms haul). Is there any policy
decision behind this selective treatment?
Both incidents are being handled with the same vigour. Both are
serious. In the Nanded case, the very fact that the investigation has been
handed over to us, the ATS, shows how the administration and government
are viewing it. Investigations are on. Two persons making the bombs died
on the spot (Himanshu Panse, 27, and Naresh Rajkondwar, 26). The house was
the residence of the local Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad activist.
Of the two who survive, one is so seriously ill he cannot
speak. He is not expected to survive. The other is the sole surviving
accused. We have him and one witness. On both we have already done a
brain-mapping and narco-analysis test. This is the same group of
terrorists responsible for the bomb blasts at the Parbhani mosque in
(April) 2003, an incident in which 25 persons were injured. Until now we
do not know for sure if they are linked to the other masjid bomb blasts at
Purna and Jalna (August 2004, in which 18 persons were injured). Now we
are awaiting the go-ahead from the doctor so that we can show them printed
questions and actually interrogate them to get further leads. We have
applied the provisions of the Unlawful Practices Act. It is clear that
these bombs were not being manufactured for a puja. They were being
manufactured for unlawful ends to wreak violence through terror. There is
no question of going slow on the investigation.
As far as the other recent incidents, the attempt on the
RSS headquarters and the arms haul at Malegaon and Aurangabad, look here,
as far back as February-March 2006, we had clear intelligence that certain
religious and political institutions were under threat. The Siddhi Vinayak
temple in Mumbai and the RSS headquarters in Nagpur. The former is now
barricaded like a fortress while special bandobast was put in place
outside the RSS headquarters by the Nagpur police.
Is there a specially worked out
drill that is followed by the police for such ‘terrorist operations’? Some
serious questions about the Nagpur incident were raised by the citizens’
fact-finding committee. One general criticism is that the ‘terrorists’ are
often killed and diaries with a long list of convenient details found?
I accept that there is this general criticism that terrorists
captured in such operations are killed, diaries found, etc. I can only
state that for such operations, the police are trained so that if there is
firing, they must shoot to kill. It would be improper on my part to
comment on any more operational details about Nagpur as the investigation
is under the commissioner of police, SPS Yadav. (CC sought an
interview with the commissioner, Nagpur, who was busy with arrangements
for the prime minister’s visit to Maharashtra and requested that the
interview be held later, after our press deadline. His interview will be
pasted on our website www.sabrang.com.)
May I ask you a question? Why are no questions being
raised by fact-finding teams about the arms hauls in Malegaon and
Aurangabad and the identity of the accused who have been arrested? The
haul is there for all to see. The accused are alive, not dead. No parents
or relatives have cried foul saying that they are victims of a ‘false
arrest’. Do you have any idea of the amount of ammunition hauled? Huge
caches of AK-47s – no one can say that they had been falsely placed there
by us! RDX in quantities several times’ larger than what was found and
used in the multiple bomb blasts in Mumbai in 1993.
Nanded is a serious development and has frightening
repercussions if we find, through investigations, that this was not an
isolated incident but also part of an organised pattern. But the incident
that was foiled in Nagpur and the arms hauls in Malegaon and Aurangabad –
which we see as distinct and separate transactions – cannot simply be
underplayed or overlooked either.
Would it not help if the
administration were seen to be even-handed in giving out information on
all the incidents? Today the ‘national’ mainstream media is simply not
following Nanded while the Urdu press, in Maharashtra at least, is full of
it. Does this not bode ill?
It does. As far as we are concerned there is no question of
underplaying one or the other. We are investigating Nanded thoroughly and
also view it as a very serious incident.
