Thaindian News

Panvel (Maharashtra), Oct 19 (IANS) The Sanatan Sanstha, a Hindu right-wing group, Monday categorically denied any involvement in last Friday’s Goa blast in which two people were killed and claimed it was being treated on par with terror outfits like the Laskhar-e-Taiba by the government and investigators.
“We are not a terror organization. There is some kind of a conspiracy to implicate us in the Goa terror case,” said a Sanatan Sanstha office-bearer and spokesman, Abhay Vartak at a media gathering in Panvel (Raigad district), around 100 km from Mumbai.

Emphasising that the Sanatan Sanstha was a socio-cultural organization, he said that it was being targeted for protesting the desecration of an idol in Goa.

“We were not involved in any manner with the Goa blast and none of our members have been arrested so far in connection with the incident,” Vartak said.

However, Vartak admitted that the scooter on which the blast took place belonged to the group. “The scooter was ours but the bomb must have been planted there by somebody else,” he claimed.

He said the organization is huge with members spread everywhere, and hence “we cannot be responsible for the acts of any individual members”.

Vartak expressed regret that the manner in which the group was being targeted in sections of the media and by the investigators conveyed the impression that it was a terror group like the Lashkar-e-Taiba.

He said that in police raids on the Sanstha’s ashram in Sangli, the police did not find any incriminating documents as claimed in the media.

The investigating agencies which include the Goa Police and Mumbai’s elite Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) have turned the heat on the Sanatan Sanstha since the past four days following the blast in Goa.

One of the two deceased, Malgunda Patil, was a member of the Sanatan Sanstha and had been employed in the Sanatan Prabhat, the organization’s mouthpiece, in Sangli.

Two years ago, Patil had moved to and settled in Goa where the Sanstha’s headquarter is located.