Activists being implicated in terror cases, claims RSS

LUCKNOW - Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat Wednesday denied the organisation has any terror links and said his colleague Indresh Kumar, named in the 2007 Ajmer blast charge sheet, had been implicated.

Bhagwat was here to lead a sit-in as a mark of protest against the United Progressive Alliance government’s alleged anti-RSS tirade.

“Hindus who were found to have been associated with terrorist activities could not be even remotely associated with the RSS,” he said.

“They could be some agitated Hindus, but they were certainly not members of the RSS,” he said.

Attended by about 5,000 volunteers in khaki half-pants, the sit-in did not last more than an hour on the lawns of Bal Sanghralaya, a children’s institution opposite the crowded Lucknow railway station.

This was the first time in the 56-year history of the RSS that its chief was himself leading a protest action.

“It was a symbolic protest,” said a local RSS activist, seated along with leaders of the Uttar Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Bhagwat defended those terror accused against whom investigating agencies had claimed to have collected evidence and said: “I am sure, they were falsely implicated.”

Referring to RSS leader Indresh Kumar, who was among the five accused named in a charge sheet in the Ajmer blast, Bhagwat said: “The fact that the investigating agencies had failed to find any concrete evidence against Indresh proved our point that he was being implicated simply because the UPA government wanted to give us a bad name.”

Training his guns on the Congress, the RSS chief said: “It appears that every time the Congress faces a crisis, it starts training it guns on the RSS.”