Ex-RSS goon admits to getting terrorist training

Former worker says Hindu organisations like RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal are engaged in terrorist activities

ISLAMABAD:

A worker of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Rashtriya Swayansevak Sangh (RSS) and Bajrang Dal has confessed to getting terrorist training and exposed certain party members of being behind terror activities across India.

In his confessional statement for becoming a party in the case before Extra Jt. District and Sessions Judge Nanded, Yashwant Sahdev Shinde admitted to receiving a preliminary training class of RSS in 1994 and then completing the second level training at Chandigarh.

He said since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) captured power at the Centre in 2014, a sudden activation of all underground destructive forces belonging to VHP and RSS has occurred.

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The former RSS (BJP) worker stated that the same people were behind terrorist activities in West Bengal, Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), Uttar Pradesh, etc, and were deliberately trying to create a distrustful and fearful atmosphere throughout the country.

Shinde said that senior leaders of the RSS and VHP tacitly supported terrorist activities and after the BJP came to power they have been assiduously engaged in such activities.

The applicant furthered that Hindus, in general, do not have terrorist tendencies but some Hindu organisations like the RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal are involved in terrorist activities for the political gain of the BJP.

He said that in the past, he had visited IIOJK in 1994 where he met with Himgiri Prant Pracharak of RSS Indresh Kumar and was appointed ‘Vistarak” in the areas near the Pakistan border.

In 1995, Shinde struck former chief minister of IIOJK Dr Farooq Abdullah after feeling annoyed with his statement and was subsequently, arrested. But was soon released after 12 days.

Later, he was rearrested under the Public Safety Act, leading to a trial and his acquittal in 1998.

Narrating his accounts, he further said that in 2003, he met members of the RSS in South Mumbai who informed him that they were conducting a bomb-making camp in Sinhgad in Pune to execute blasts in India and was asked to carry out such activities.

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According to Shinde, a three-day training was given to about 20 youths from Aurangabad, Jalgaon and Nanded among other localities, and Milind Paranade was the mastermind behind it.

He also informed that the training was given by Ravi Dev alias Mithun Chakravarty, who worked as an activist for Bajrang Dal.

The applicant also named Himanshu Panse, who he said was behind three bomb blasts in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra and had plans to attack Aurangabad's main mosque. However, Panse had lost his life before the execution of the blast while making a bomb in Nanded in 2006.

The ex-BJP worker confessed that he had contacts with 'Garjana' in Maharashtra, ‘Hindu Yuva Chhatra Parishad’ in IIOJK, Punjab, Haryana, Assam and UP, and with ‘Shri Ram Sena’ in Karnataka as well as with senior leaders like Tapan Ghosh in West Bengal.

Shinde maintained that had he wanted, he could have carried out 500-600 bomb blasts but instead he sabotaged the destructive plan of the RSS and BJP and saved many innocent Hindus, Muslims and Christians.