On Thursday, the Indian Express published a report claiming that the Special Investigation Team probing the Gauri Lankesh murder has found links between Sadhvi Pragya and the murder case. The report had claimed that links had emerged between missing suspects in the Malegaon blast case and a group associated with the murder of Gauri Lankesh, according to an SIT document submitted to a Bengaluru Court. The report also suggested the possibility of Sadhvi Pragya’s links to the Lankesh murder case. But now the SIT had denied the report by Indian Express, saying they did not find any such link.
The report stated, “Four missing members of Hindutva outfit Abhinav Bharat, all wanted for blasts in the Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid, Ajmer Dargah and Malegaon between 2006 and 2008, trained several suspects linked to the Sanatan Sanstha in making bombs at secret training camps across the country between 2011-2016, the investigation by the Karnataka Police into the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh has revealed. This disclosure is part of documents submitted by the SIT to a Bengaluru court.”
It added, “In the 2008 Malegaon blasts case, Pragya Singh Thakur, the BJP’s Bhopal Lok Sabha candidate, is an accused along with 13 others, including two missing Abhinav Bharat members, Ramji Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange, who have been declared “proclaimed offenders”.”
The report claimed further, “As many as five “training camps” – Jalna in 2011, Jalna in January 2015, Mangalore in August 2015, Ahmedabad in November 2015 and Nasik in January 2016 – were held by suspects from Abhinav Bharat, the SIT investigation has revealed.”
The SIT, however, has issued a statement rubbishing the claims made in the Indian Express report. The statement clearly said that at no point did they find Sadhvi Pragya’s involvement in the murder of Gauri Lankesh nor is her name mentioned in the charge sheet.
“SIT has not found in its investigation or mentioned in the charge sheet any link to Sadhvi Pragya, Malegaon blasts, Abhinav Bharat. There is no evidence to suggest the same. No documents purporting the same have been submitted to the Hon’ble Court,” the statement read.
In the face of clear denial by the SIT, whose findings the Indian Express claimed to report, it appears clear that the report was clearly a hitjob against the BJP candidate from Bhopal. It appears the Congress party’s friends in the media are working overtime to help Digvijay Singh against the Sadhvi who was a victim of the Congress party’s ‘Hindu Terror’ initiative.
The report, too, appears to be an atrocious attempt to rake up the issue of ‘Hindu Terror’ and reinvent the bogey as Bhopal goes to polls by trying to link Malegaon and Samjhauta blasts with the murder of Gauri Lankesh. Journalists in the mainstream appeared to have been affected personally by Sadhvi Pragya’s nomination, the report undoubtedly appears to be a mala fide attempt to malign her reputation.
