CPI(M) demands action against saffron outfits

NEW DELHI: Condemning the use of terror as an "instrument of political mobilisation", the CPI(M) on Thursday demanded action against "Bajrang Dal and other RSS outfits" under the Unlawful Activities Act for their alleged involvement in "nurturing and promoting violent activities".
    
Referring to the recent arrest of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, it said BJP leader L K Advani had sought to compare the Sadhvi and Nathuram Godse as he attempted "to desperately distance" the RSS-BJP from the recent arrests and claim that both were not members of RSS when they committed the crimes.     

"The point here is not the technicality of being a current member. The point has to do with the venomous ideological indoctrination that the RSS and its affiliates undertake which nurtures and promotes such violent activity," party Politburo member Sitaram Yechury said.
    
In an editorial in the forthcoming issue of CPI(M) organ 'People's Democracy', he said the CPI(M), at the October 13 meeting of the National Integration Council, had referred to the alleged involvement of "Bajrang Dal or other RSS organisations in various bomb blasts across the country."
    
In this context, he referred to the 2003 blasts in Parbani, Jalna and Jalgaon in Maharashtra, the 2005 explosions in Mau district of Uttar Pradesh and the August 2008 blasts in Kanpur. "Internal security of our country can be strengthened only when all such cases are also probed impartially and with the same degree of intensity."
    
"Given this, action against the Bajrang Dal under the Unlawful Activities Act must be initiated," Yechury said.

The CPI(M) leader said the RSS, at a recent meeting of its Karyakarini Mandal, adopted a resolution titled 'Curb Islamic terrorism with an iron hand' in which it showered praises on the Maharashtra police.
    
"This is now turning out to be very embarrassing for the RSS" as the same Anti-Terror Squad of Maharashtra Police conducted the arrests and detentions of the Sadhvi and others in connection with the Malegaon blasts, he said.
    
Delving into the history of imparting military training to Hindus, Yechury said B S Moonje, mentor of RSS founder Hedgewar, had travelled to Italy and met fascist dictator Mussolini on March 19, 1931.
    
Moonje wrote in his diary about "his fascination and admiration of the manner in which Italian fascism was training its youth (read storm troopers) militarily."
    
On his return to India, Moonje set up "the Central Hindu Military Education Society at Nasik in 1935, the precursor to the Bhonsale Military School established in 1937", he said, adding that former RSS chief Golwalkar also exulted Hitler's purging of Jews under Nazi fascism in 1939.
    
Demanding that investigations into the Malegaon blasts and other cases be impartially and expeditiously concluded, Yechury said "terror whipped up through communal polarisation or regional chauvinism to garner larger electoral support is the surest recipe to tear asunder India's complex social fabric. It is such politics that need to be defeated."
    
Maintaining that terrorism had no religion, the CPI(M) leader said "it is simply anti-national and, hence, non-negotiable and not acceptable.
    
"Secondly, terrorism of all hues only feed and strengthen each other. In the process, they destroy the very unity and integrity of our country," Yechury said.