New Delhi, Sept. 18: If the government bans the Bajrang Dal for the communal violence in Orissa and Karnataka, it can count on the support of several religious leaders — some of them Hindus.
Several Hindu religious leaders have condemned the attacks on Christians and churches by Hindu mobs as “beastly behaviour” and say they should be stopped.
One of the loudest voices came from Ayodhya, the epicentre of the temple movement.
“The way they are indulging in bloodshed, this is not the work of sanatana-dharmees (true believers),” said Mahant Gyandas of the Pancharamanandi Nirvani Akhara at Hanuman Garhi temple.
“It is beastly behaviour and should be stopped just as an animal’s action is,” the mahant toldThe Telegraph over the phone from the heartland temple town.
The Bajrang Dal and the violence in Orissa, where thousands of Christians have been forced to flee their homes since a Hindu leader was killed last month, figured at a cabinet meeting yesterday hours after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke about home-grown terror.
Information and broadcasting minister Priya Ranjan Das Munshi today hinted that if action could be taken against fundamentalist Islamic groups, Hindu outfits involved in violence should not be spared.
“We cannot keep quiet on one part and be open on another,” the Congress leader told reporters.
Activities of the Bajrang Dal, a Sangh parivar outfit, he added, were under watch and action would be taken at an “appropriate time”.
Over two dozen people have died in Orissa since Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Swami Laxmananda was murdered on August 23. Hindu mobs have also damaged churches in BJP-ruled Karnataka.
But VHP spokesperson in Delhi Vinod Bansal said: “Has any Bajrang Dal or VHP member been found with RDX or doing anything anti-national?”
The people who indulged in violence in Karnataka, he argued, were not from the VHP or the Bajrang Dal.
Any move to ban the Bajrang Dal, he said, would only unite Sangh parivar outfits.
But government sources said while the country was battling groups like the Indian Mujahideen, outfits like the VHP and the Bajrang Dal were seen as adding fuel to the communal fire.
Voices in Ayodhya agreed with this view.
The town is witnessing a movement against the Bajrang Dal, though protests by the Samajwadi Sant Sabha, a wing of the Samajwadi Party, can be attributed to politics.
Mahant Jugalkishore Shastri, a leader of the Sabha, an outfit of “socialist saints”, said he had 1,500 signatures of intellectuals, lawyers and writers who were all for a ban on the Bajrang Dal.
Sabha sources said the group would next month organise a major offensive against activities of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal.
Mahant Gyandas didn’t have words of appreciation for Shastri but they appeared to agree on banning the Bajrang Dal and the VHP.
“No one cares for the country, they are all fighting for power and fooling people,” Gyandas said.
The mahant said these outfits were “separating legs, hands and the head, tearing each part from a whole body.
article retrieved from http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080919/jsp/nation/story_9856601.jsp
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