Headlines
Congress says Sanatan Sanstha 'terror outfit', Goa CM rejects ban
Panaji, Sep 23
The Congress has appealed to
Prime Minister Narendra Modi to list Goa-headquartered Hindu right wing
organisation Sanatan Sanstha as a "terror outfit", even as Chief
Minister Laxmikant Parsekar on Wednesday rejected a demand from his own
party legislator to ban the group.
The Sanstha, whose members are
being accused by police in Maharashtra and Karnataka of killing Leftist
leader Govind Pansare in Kolhapur in February this year, has scoffed at
the demands for a ban.
Interacting with reporters at the state
secretariat on Wednesday, Parsekar said that as of now, only individuals
working for the Sanstha were being probed for the killing of Pansare
and not the organisation, while justifying his rejection of the demand
for a ban on the organisation.
"There have been allegations
against them in Maharashtra, but as far as their functioning in Goa is
concerned, there is nothing which we have found objectionable. They have
not created any controversy," Parsekar said.
He said a case
against eight members of the organisation in connection with a 2009
blast in south Goa's Margao town, had fallen through, because "concrete
proof could not come out".
While six Sanstha members were
acquitted, two other accused including Rudra Patil, who is wanted in the
Pansare murder, are still absconding.
The Congress in Goa, in a
letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanded that the Sanstha be
branded a "terror outfit", because of the means allegedly used by its
members to silence exponents of opposing ideologies.
"We demand
declaring the Sanatan Sanstha as a terrorist organisation and shutting
down their terrorist camp at Ramnathi Ponda immediately and freezing all
their assets including bank accounts and probing their source of
funding," Congress spokesperson Sunil Kawthankar said.
On
Tuesday, ruling Bharatiya Janata Party legislator from St. Andre
constituency Vishnu Wagh demanded a ban on the Sanstha, headquartered in
Ramnathi village, 35 km from Panaji, for allegedly spreading terror.
"In
a democracy, there is no scope for violence. All those who try to use
bullets to threaten the voice of opposition are terrorists, because they
try to frighten the opposition. It is evident in the Pansare and the
Kalburgi cases that the Sanatan Sanstha are doing just that. Their hand
is evident in these cases," alleged Wagh, known to be close to the chief
minister.
Kannada scholar M.M. Kalburgi was shot dead by unidentified men on August 30.
Wagh
said that if the Goa government banned Sri Rama Sene chief Pramod
Muthalik from entering the state, based on the arson at a pub in
Mangaluru in 2009, then a ban on the Sanatan Sanstha was also warranted.
"Two
ministers in the government are protecting them. The chief minister
should take a view of the matter," Wagh said, without taking names.
Virendra
Marathe, the managing trustee of the Sanstha, in a statement issued
here called the demand for a ban by Wagh "ridiculous", but backed
Parsekar's defence of the organisation.
"Wagh is not towing the
line of the party, whose chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar rightly said
that it is not right to ban an organisation because of mistakes
committed by one of its members," Marathe said.
Founded by
clinical hypnotherapist Jayant Athavale, the Sanatan Sanstha has several
thousand members primarily from Goa, Maharashtra and Karnataka.
Many
top politicians, including two ministers in the BJP-led coalition in
Goa have backed the organisation in public fora, a fact acknowledged by
Wagh.