Patna blasts justifiy our concern about growing jehadi activities: RSS

Also targets communal violence bill, calls it votebank politics

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has strongly condemned the serial bomb blasts in Patna, saying that Sunday's blasts, which killed six and injured 83 people, justified its grave concern about  growing jehadi activities in the country.

The Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal (ABKM), the high power committee of the RSS, which is currently meeting in Kochi, passed a resolution in this regard.

“The Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal is shocked to hear about the series of bomb blasts that took place in Patna today. We see it as a blatant attempt to terrorise and scare nationalist forces. The ABKM strongly condemns this heinous attempt and expresses the confidence that the spirit and resolve of nationalist forces will remain undented despite such cowardly terrorising acts,” said RSS Akhil Bharatiya Prachar Pramukh Manmohan Vaidya.

The RSS reiterated that the radicalisation of jehadi forces was a matter of concern and said the emergence of ‘Popular Front of India’ (PFI) and its front organisations in Kerala consequent to the ban on SIMI should be seen in this context.

“Its formation as a coordinated effort between organisations like ‘Karnataka for Dignity’, ‘Manitha Neethi Pasarai’ in Tamil Nadu and ‘Natioanal Development Front’ in Kerala, under the purported aim of ‘promotion of democracy and social justice’, is nothing but a camouflage to perpetuate hard-line ideologies. Their attempts to develop a political face with a pan-Indian presence should be nipped in the bud,” the ABKM said.

According to ABKM, the union and the concerned state governments need to undertake extensive investigation by central agencies about the nature of clandestine activities of these radical groups, their links and source of funding, both within and outside the country, and take firm measures, including a ban on an organisation like PFI, to put an end to these forces.

On a related issue, the Communal and Targeted Violence Bill, the ABKM said it was highly biased, unlawful and dangerously anti-Hindu and sought to divide society on minority-majority lines, which was unconstitutional.

RSS Sarkaryavah (general secretary) Suresh “Bhayyaji” Joshi in a statement said: “Such a Bill, if enacted, will destroy the communal harmony and cause immense damage to the social fabric of the country. Instead of preventing communal violence, it will only lead to further division on communal lines, thus creating more disharmony.We wish to warn the government that this anti-Hindu and anti-harmony legislation will be opposed by the countrymen strongly.”

Further, the ABKM claimed that the Centre's objective in retrieving the draft legislation from cold storage and resurrecting it seemed to be usual votebank politics. “We call upon all countrymen to expose the sinister appeasement politics of the ruling party with an eye on the forthcoming elections,” Joshi said.