Main accused in Goa blast stayed in Sanatan saint's quarter

National Investigation Agency (NIA) has said that the prime accused in Margao blast, Malgonda Patil stayed in the saints quarter, 'Sant Kakshay,' at Sanatan Sanstha's Ramnathi Ashram in Goa. 

Patil, who died in the blast, stayed next to the room of the Sanstha founder Jayant Balaji Athwale, the NIA said.

"Malgonda Patil was an active member of Sanatan Sanstha involved in the publicity of Sanstha and used to hold satsang (meetings) at various places and stayed in Abhyasika/Sant Kakshay of Sanatan Sanstha Ashram building in Ponda," the NIA said in its charge sheet.

The right wing Hindu organisation, Sanatan Sanstha, had initially distanced itself from all the accused in the Margao blast. NIA filed the chargesheet on May 17 in south Goa district court, a copy of which is with PTI.

Malgonda Patil, who died while ferrying the explosives in Margao, was managing trustee of Dharma Prachar Sabha, a trust of Sanatan Sanstha.

NIA has also found that Malgonda Patil and another accused Dhananjay Ashtekar hatched the blast conspiracy at former's room close to the room of Jayant Balaji Athawle on the first floor of the Ashram, during June 2009, four months before the blast.

Investigators have found that Margao blast was just a loop in the serial blast planned at five different places across Goa on October 16, 2009.

The accused were seekers (sadhakas) of Sanatan Sanstha and opposed Narakasur (mythological demon) competition, which is held in Goa on Diwali eve. They termed the practice of glorifying Narkasur as being  'against Hindu religion.'

NIA took over the probe from Goa police's special investigation team on December 24, 2009. The investigators have chargesheeted eleven people, including two who died in
the bomb explosion, four arrested and five who are absconding.

"Custodial interrogation of the absconding accused is needed to unearth the larger conspiracy of this case," the 3,000-page charge sheet reads. It has sketched how the entire conspiracy took shape and the required devices to assemble Improvised Explosives Device (IED) were procured from different places including Ichalkaranji and Mumbai.

A Google search was used to download the circuit required to assemble IEDs. While first test blast was conducted in August 2009 on a hillock at Talaulim village in Goa, the probe has revealed that second test blast was conducted at Jath, Sangli in Maharashtra during last week of September 2009. Malgonda Patil was a native of Jath.

On the D-day the accused divided into two groups armed with the explosives. While Malgonda Patil and Yogesh Naik, both accused, were assigned the job to plant a bomb at Margao, another group, Vinayak Patil and Vinay Talekar had planted the bomb at Sancoale, 20 kms away from Margao.

NIA has managed to recover unexploded devices, which were thrown from a bridge at Borim village by the accused when
they realised that Margao plant went haywire and police had
diffused two IEDs at Sancoale.