Mumbai: Sixteen years after a bomb exploded at a residence of a Nanded-based Rashtriya Swayansevak Sangh (RSS) worker, a former senior functionary of the organisation has moved an application before a special CBI court claiming that several senior right-wing leaders were directly involved in the incident.
The applicant, Yashwant Shinde, was an RSS worker for close to 25 years and also had associations with other ultra-right-wing groups like the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal. He has claimed that over three years before the blast, a senior VHP worker had informed him about a terror training camp that was underway to “carry out blasts across the country”.
The Nanded bomb explosion that occurred on the intervening night of April 4 and 5, 2006, was one of the three explosions that occurred in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra in the span of a few years. In the other two blasts – in Parbhani (2003) and Purna (2004) – the courts have already acquitted all the persons, who were accused of hurlings bombs at mosques.
The CBI, which took over the case from the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, has claimed that the blast occurred accidentally at the residence of one Laxman Rajkondwar, allegedly an RSS worker. Rajkondwar’s son Naresh and Himanshu Panse, a VHP activist, were killed while assembling the bomb. The investigating agencies believe that the bomb would have been used to target a mosque in Aurangabad.
Shinde claims to have known Panse since 1999, when the latter was working as a full-time VHP worker in Goa. At a meeting in 1999, Shinde claimed that Panse and seven of his friends had agreed to undergo weapons training in Jammu. This training, Shinde alleges, was imparted by “Indian Army jawans”.
This story was originally published in thewire.in . Read the full story here