After a series of attacks on the RSS in the recent past, the police have started seeing a definite pattern which might have been designed by the Sikh hardliners abroad and executed by their henchmen in the State
Ajay Bhardwaj
While the killing of Punjab RSS Prant Sah Sanchalak Brig (Retd) Jagdish Gagneja in Jalandhar last year has remained an unresolved mystery inspite of the CBI’s investigations, close on the heels comes the killing of a senior RSS “shikshak” Ravinder Gosain in Ludhiana.
Even during the dark days of militancy, the RSS was not targetted so selectively and so effectively as it has been done in Punjab in the recent past. In all five attempts have been made on the RSS workers in the last three years killing three senior members. Intriguingly, the assailants have so far escaped the police dragnet in all the cases leaving the investigating agencies baffled and frustrated.
The killing of Gosain in front of his house after he had returned from the morning “shakha” was yet another chilling message from the assailants. The head teacher of Mohan “shakha” of RSS in Amantran colony of Jodhewal area, Gosain (60) was shot dead by motorcycle-borne two assailants outside his home in the Gagandeep Colony. After returning from the “shakha”, he was standing outside his house with his two grandchildren when the assailants pumped two bullets with two different weapons killing him on the spot.
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Sensing the gravity of the matter the state government has entrusted the investigation in the case to the NIA. Meanwhile, Ludhiana police commissioner RN Dhoke said the police investigation so far indicated involvement of the Sikh radicals in the incident. He said Gosain had no personal enmity with anybody to have invited his killing, nor had he received any threat. He said a special investigation team had been constituted to investigate the matter from all angles.The CCTV footage recovered by the police could be of vital use for the police.
Senior police officials in Chandigarh reaffirm that there was a pattern in the recent attacks on the RSS workers. Similar weapons have been used in all the
incidents, and in all cases, the assailants came on a motorcycle with their faces covered before executing the violence. They feel that sleeping cells of militants based abroad have been erratically striking and going scot free.
Incidentally, the day Gosain was shot dead Union home minister Rajnath Singh was on a visit to Punjab for a function near Ferozepur. The union home minister took up the matter with chief minister Amarinder Singh and sought expeditious action against culprits.
While motorcycle used by the assailants has been recovered from a roadside abandoned place near Ludhiana, there is no clue to the identity of the culprits.
Whether they were hired killers or self-motivated assassins is not yet clear to the police, while the Punjab government, at the instance of the senior RSS workers, has decided to hand over the investigation to the NIA.
A delegation of senior RSS workers called on chief minister Amarinder Singh to express their concern at the incident.Sharing the delegation’s
concern over the brazen killing the chief minister strongly condemned the act, saying there was no place for such violence in the state. Asserting that his government would not tolerate such lawlessness, the chief minister said it was taking all measures to
prevent these kinds of targeted killings.
Amarinder assured the delegation the state police was working hard to solve all the previous cases of such murders and he had personally issued directions for expediting the investigations. No effort would be spared to nab the culprits and bring them to book in any of the cases of targeted killings, which were clearly aimed at destabilizing the state and destroying its peace, said the chief minister.
Senior RSS workers feel that the Sikh radicals have been sounding disturbed with the activities of the RSS in the state and there seemed to be a motivated attempt to incite a particular community.
“Some people hiding in foreign countries are responsible for the killing, that is why the investigation has been handed over to the NIA” said DGP Suresh Arora after he visited the family members of the deceased RSS worker in Ludhiana. He said the people behind the killing wanted to create law and order problem in Punjab and the state police were determined and prepared enough to defeat their designs. Punjab Governor VP Singh Badnore also visited the deceased”s family and assured the family members that the case would be cracked soon.
Appeal For Peace
Brij Bhushan Singh Bedi, prant sanghchalak, appealed the RSS workers not to get provoked by the killing. In January last year RSS worker Naresh Kumar was shot at in Ludhiana, and within a month in February, two youths on a motorcycle shot at the RSS “shakha” in Kidwai Nagar in Ludhiana. In another gruesome attack RSS Prant Sah-Sanghchalak Brig. (retd) Jagdish Gagneja, was killed by motorcycle-borne assailants in Jalandhar last year. He was returning home along with his wife after shopping when the assailants pumped bullets in him. He became an RSS pracharak before joining the army, which he served for 40 years, and returned to Jalandhar in 2003.
The RSS has been a soft target of the Sikh radicals in the state for long. Besides, a number of attacks on the RSS “shakhas” during the militancy days, a few years ago head of Rashtriya Sikh Sangat Rulda Singh, an affiliate of the RSS, was killed in Patiala. The state police have decided to provide security at all the “shakhas” in Punjab.
In the case of the murder of Rulda Singh in 2009, the Khalistani outfit, Babbar Khalsa International, had claimed the responsibility. n
