Goa Chief Minister laxmikant Parsekar ruled out banning Hindu radical organisation Sanatan Sanstha which the Opposition Congress has called a terror outfit.
The Chief Minister was speaking in response to a demand from a BJP legislator that the outfit, which has been linked to terror attacks be banned.
The Sanstha, which is headquartered in Ponda in Goa around 30 kms from here, is currently in the eye of a storm after one of its members was arrested for the killing of Govind Pansare a leftist leader in Kolhapur earlier this year.
“There have been allegations against them in Maharashtra, but as far as their functioning in Goa is concerned, there is nothing which we have found objectionable. They have not created any controversy,” Parsekar told reporters at the State Secretariat when asked to comment on the demand for a ban. The Chief Minister also defended the organisation saying that “the case against eight members of the Hindu rightwing organisation in connection with a 2009 improvised explosive device blast case in South Goa’s Margao town, had fallen through, because concrete proof could not come out”.
Six Sanstha members were acquitted in the earlier case but two other accused including Rudra Patil, who is wanted in the leftist Govind Pansare murder, are still absconding.
The Opposition has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanded that Sanatan Sanstha be branded a “terror outfit”, on account of the violent means they use to silence dissent.
“We demand declaring Sanatan Sanstha as a terrorist organisation and shutting down their terrorist camp at Ramnathi Ponda immediately and freezing all their arrests including bank accounts and probing their source of funding,” Congress spokesperson Sunil Kawthankar said. The Congress demand came on the heels of Bharatiya Janata Party MlA from St Andre legislative constituency Vishnu Wagh demanding a ban on the Sanstha.
“In democracy, there is no scope for violence. All those who try to use bullets to threaten the voice of opposition are terrorists, because they try to frighten the opposition. It is evident in the Pansare and the Kalburgi cases (Kannada scholar MM Kalburgi was shot dead by unidentified men on August 30) that the Sanatan Sanstha members doing just that. Their hand is evident in these cases,” alleged Wagh, known to be close to the Chief Minister. Wagh likened the Sanstha to notorious Sri Rama Sene known for its attacks on ‘western culture’ in Mangalore and is one of the key supporters of the Sanstha. The State Government has imposed a ban on the entry of Pramod Muthalik and his associates which has been upheld by the Supreme Court. “Two Ministers in the Government are protecting them… The Chief Minister should take a view of the matter,” Wagh told The Pioneer.