Click to play videoNashik: The Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad (ATS), which is investigating the Malegaon blasts, has dropped a bombshell on the Indian Army.
In a dubious first, a serving officer of the Army is being questioned for terror links.
Lt Col Prasad Purohit, of the Army Education Corps, has been allowed to be taken by the ATS by Army headquarters to Mumbai from Panchmarhi where he was posted.
The ATS is believed to have already questioned Purohit in the presence of a legal representative of the Army and a magistrate.
The ATS alleges that Purohit was in constant touch with another Malegaon blasts accused, retired Major Ramesh Upadhye. Investigators claim they have decoded SMSes exchanged between the two.
After the ATS made several arrests that linked hardline Hindu organisation with the blasts, sources also said that the Lt Col had attended a meeting between Upadhye, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, who has been arrested, and Ramnarayan Singh, who is absconding and is believed to have planted the bombs in Malegaon.
The meeting, the ATS says, took place on the campus of the Bhonsala Military School.
All this evidence coupled with a quick background check of Purohit and it will be clear that he was against the basic secular principle of the Army.
Meanwhile, the ATS is spreading its net well. It has raided the Jabalpur home of vice-president of the Abhinav Bharat, Mayaram, who is currently absconding.
But even as the investigations widen to expose the saffron face of terror, political parties are stepping up the rhetoric.
BJP President Rajnath Singh, in a clear departure from his party's stand so far, spoke out in support of the arrested Sadhvi.
“Till the time she is not legally charged, I do not want to believe that she is a terrorist,” Rajnath Singh said.
Meanwhile, Uma Bharti's BJS went so far as to offer the Sadhvi an election ticket. BJS National Secretary Inder Prajapat said, “She can contest elections with our party ticket.”
Both the parties clearly have an eye on the Hindu votebank ahead of elections in four major states in the next month.
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