Sanstha man killed in Goa blast knew Thane bomb plotter: Cops

Malgounda Patil was in touch with Vikram Bhave before the latter was arrested in the blast cases in Maharashtra, Ravindra Yadav,Goa DIG,told The Indian Express. Both knew each other while working for the organisation. The ammunition used and the modus operandi was very much similar to that in Thane,Vashi and Panvel.

Goa police sources said that the origin of the gelatin sticks used last week had been traced to Suraj Explosives Ltd,a Nagpur-based company,and a team was in Nagpur to investigate who had bought them.

The Maharashtra ATS had arrested Sanstha members Ramesh Hanumant Gadkari,50,and Mangesh Dinkar Nikam,34,in June last year in connection with crude bombs planted at auditoria in Thane and Vashi which were hosting a Marathi play the Sanstha had criticised. They were also suspected to be behind a small blast in February 2008 in a Panvel theatre screening Jodhaa Akbar.

Subsequently,four more Sanstha members,including 26-year-old Bhave,were arrested and raids at their properties in Warsai village of Pen in Raigad district yielded two revolvers,a large quantity of ammonium nitrate powder,20 detonators,19 gelatin sticks,timers,voltage meters,two radio circuits and remote controls.

Yadav said Patil was a senior Sanstha member and worked as an administrator at its Ponda ashram in south Goa. Patil was an active member of the organisation in Goa and Sangli. We have also got information that Patil was present in Miraj during the Miraj riots, he said. Besides,a Goa police Special Branch team had contacted Patil for information about the activities and funding of the ashram as part of a larger exercise to gather information about religious groups but he is said to have evaded the queries,Yadav said. But at that time,we had no clue of any activities related to the blast, he added.

Separately,Goa Home Minister Ravi Naik told PTI that police were probing the foreign links of the Sanstha because its Goa office was frequented by foreigners who were also found during the raid after the blast. There were many foreigners often visiting the ashram at Ramnathi in Goa. I have checked with police and have been told that they were not even submitting C forms to local police station. We need to know what they were doing here, Naik said. Referring to reports that Jyoti Dhavalikar,wife of state Transport Minister Ramkrishna Dhavalikar,was an office bearer of Sanatan Sanstha,Naik said the police would interrogate her.

A Sanstha spokesman,however,sought to distance the group from the blasts and charged investigators with unfairly linking the organisation to the crime without adequate evidence. Despite belonging to a spiritual organisation,we are being treated like Lashkar-e-Toiba militants or Naxalites, Abhay Vartak told a news conference at the Sanstha ashram in Panvel.

It is unjust to defame the entire organisation in this manner. We are not denying that Patil is a Sanatan saadhak but that does not mean that the Sanstha is behind the blast. It is possible that Patil and (Yogesh) Naik were just passing by near the site or that someone else put the explosives in the scooter, Vartak said.

Naik,who was with Patil when the blast took place in Margao on Friday night and is fighting for his life in hospital,delivered milk to the Sanstha ashram and that was his only link with the outfit,Vartak added.

Meanwhile,Maharashtra ATS chief K P Raghuvanshi said that the ATS had sought a ban on the Sanstha after its members were arrested and charged with planting bombs outside Mumbai and the Centre was yet to take a decision on it. Our team has visited Goa to collect information on the blast and see whether there are any similarities with earlier blasts in Maharashtra. If the Goa police ask for any assistance,we will definitely provide it, Raghuvanshi told The Indian Express. (With inputs from STUTI SHUKLA in Panvel and SAGNIK CHOWDHURY in Mumbai)