Inside Mahant146;s room, hate literature on Christians

The room in which Dayanand Pandey, also known as Mahant Amritanand alias Sudhakar Dwivedi...

The room in which Dayanand Pandey, also known as Mahant Amritanand alias Sudhakar Dwivedi, often stayed at in a temple in Faridabad offers a glimpse into his mind. Among the belongings of Pandey, now in the custody of the Maharashtra ATS in connection with the Malegaon blast, lies a slim book8212;Yeeshu mein shaitaan hai. Its cover reads: Sonia ke khuda ka aadesh, surya-chandrama vah devi-devta pujko ko tum Isahi patharon se mar do Sonia8217;s god has ordered Christians to kill the worshippers of the sun-moon and other gods and goddesses.

The book, in Oriya and Hindi, spews hate on Christians, calling attacks in the Northeast and other parts of the country the work of 8220;Christian terrorists8221;. Then there is a newsletter, Sharada San-desh, of the Sharada Sarvogya Peeth, which has among other writings, Pandey8217;s interviews in which he talks of his visits to villages in Doda where 8220;Hindus were being killed by terrorists8221;.

On Saturday, a Haryana police CID team was in the temple, searching his room for clues. The ATS believes the first of the pre-blasts meeting that Pandey called was held at this temple-complex and was attended by Lt Col Prasad Purohit, Pragya Singh Thakur and Sameer Kulkarni.

In the time that Pandey spent at the Mata Chakreshwar Hari Parbat Temple in Anangpur village in Faridabad, villagers say, he usually kept to his room, reading spiritual books, surfing on his two laptops and meeting high-profile bureaucrats and politicians.

They say Pandey would get many visitors at night in 8220;big luxury cars8221; but he always refused to meet local residents. Pandey who travelled in a Mahendra Bolero, always had two disciples with him. 8220;His disciples stayed with him all the time. If anyone came to meet him in the temple guesthouse, they would check with him first before letting them meet him. And he rarely said yes. He only met people he knew who would come at night. He said he was a Swami but he never organised any sabha or pooja here in the temple even though he stayed here for over 20 days,8221; said Meenu Hooda, Director of SOS Social and Medical Centre who also looks after the temple.

Villagers say many Kashmiri Pandits would visit Pandey at the temple-complex 8212; Pandey was the head of the Sharada temple in Jammu. He8217;s been visiting this Faridabad temple-which was built by an NGO, SOS Social and Medical Centre-since 2003.

Says Meenu Hooda: 8220;Villagers complained to us saying that though they had given eight acres for the temple, Pandey never gave them time and met only Kashmiri Pandits. Also, the rule of SOS says that a guest cannot stay in the temple for more than 8 days but he stayed here for more than even 25 days. I asked him not to stay here.8221;

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Records at the temple show that Pandey last stayed here in March-his last entry is on March 16, 2008. 8220;He has not come since then. We don8217;t know what did he do for so many days here but he used to stay in his room and never came out. I have not met him ever,8221; said Ram Kesar, a gardener at the temple.