May 18, 2001: A pipe bomb explodes near the Nageshwarwadi Ganesh temple in Aurangabad (Lokmat, Aurangabad, May 24, 2006).
November 17, 2002: Pipe bombs explode near the Khadkeshwar Mahadev temple and near the VHP office in Niral Bag, Aurangabad (Lokmat, Aurangabad, November 17, 2002).
September 2, 2006: The police seize 195 kg of explosives (RDX-TNT) from the home of a scrap-dealer, Shankar Shelke, in Kharekarzune village in Ahmednagar district. Shelke, who absconds, dies under mysterious circumstances a few days later (Hindustan Times, September 21, 2006).
September 10, 2006: The Nashik police seize 29 boxes containing 50 detonators each, 11 25-kg boxes of gelatine and five 50-kg bags of ammonium nitrate from a vehicle at Tembha village in the Khardi locality of Thane district, off the Mumbai-Nashik highway. The occupants of the vehicle flee when the police arrive (DNA, September 10, 2006).
October 15, 2006: The police seize 430 kg of ammonium nitrate, 183 gelatine sticks and 566 electronic detonators from the house of the sarpanch of Adgaon village in the Chikalthana area of Aurangabad (IBNLive.com, October 14, 2006).
July 29, 2007: The police recover a large quantity of explosives from four youth in Kinwat taluka of Nanded district (Deccan Herald, December 6, 2008, reporting on complaints made by Muslim organisations in this regard).
September 2007: Three youth who claimed to belong to an organisation called the Jihad-i-Islami and extorted money from people by sending them threatening letters are arrested by the Rampur (UP) police. All three are non-Muslims. The youth are identified as Rajpal Sharma, Dori Lal and Dharam Pal (The Milli Gazette, October 1-15, 2007).
September 26, 2007: Six bombs are found in Mumbai ahead of the victorious Indian cricket team’s arrival in the city from South Africa. The Mumbai police arrest two persons, Rajeev Govind Singh and Sumitra Badal Ray, with six low intensity bombs powerful enough to kill at least half a dozen people (The Times of India, Pune, September 27, 2007).
October 2007: The Latur district police seize ammonium nitrate and gelatine sticks worth Rs 14,72,000 from seven youth: Vikas Mawad, Kailas, Vinod, Dhananjay, Nitish, Mahesh and Ganesh (The Milli Gazette, November 16-30, 2007).
October 11, 2007: An individual named Dr Bafna is killed in a powerful blast in a village in Yeotmal district in Maharashtra. The deceased is said to have belonged to the RSS (The Milli Gazette, November 16-30, 2007).
October 15, 2007: Bombs are sent as Diwali gifts to some persons in Wardha. The police arrest four persons in this connection: Chintu alias Mahesh Thadwani, Jitesh Pradhan, Prakash Balve and Ajay Jivtode. However, the "mastermind" of this plan, Bandu Telgote alias "Laden", absconds (Dainik Bhaskar, November 3, 2007).
January 24, 2008: A bomb blast occurs at the RSS office at Tenkasi in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu. Following a thorny investigation, the Tamil Nadu police arrest eight persons belonging to various sangh parivar outfits. The police say that 14 pipe bombs were assembled and the operation commenced in July 2007. The arrested persons later confess that their objective was to create a communal divide (The Milli Gazette, February 16-29, 2008).
April 2008: During investigations into a minor riot involving two communities the police find that in Amerti village in Chopda taluka of Jalgaon district, deadly weapons such as pistols, swords, choppers, etc are being manufactured on a large scale. The investigation also reveals that a person named Shetty Phitewala, a resident of Samata Nagar and an active member of a communal party, trains youth in the use of weapons and shows them communally provocative films and CDs (The Milli Gazette, May 16-31, 2008).
April 17, 2008: The Malegaon police raid a pathological laboratory situated in the basement of a private hospital and recover five live RDX explosives, three used RDX explosives, one pistol, a laptop, a scanner, two mobile phones, four fake currency notes and some money. They arrest three persons, Nitish Ashire, Sahebrao Dhurve and Jitendra Khema, all belonging to an unknown organisation (The Milli Gazette, May 1-15, 2008).
July-August 2008: Pramod Mutalik of the Rashtriya Hindu Sena (RHS), an offshoot of the RSS, forms an anti-terrorist squad, Rashtra Raksha Sena, in Karnataka, consisting of 700 persons from all over the state and 150 persons from Bangalore alone. Mutalik claims he has set up the team to weed out terrorism from the state (Pune Mirror, August 23, 2008).
October 2, 2008: In Talegaon Dabhade, Pune district, the VHP and Bajrang Dal organise a "Durga Mata Daud" (rally) during the 10-day Dussehra festival. Youngsters carrying swords, lathis and flags participate (Lokmat, Pune, October 4, 2008).
Several such rallies were also organised elsewhere in Maharashtra, in which swords, torches, trishuls and lathis were carried and provocative slogans against Muslims were shouted. The largest such rally was held in Sangli where about 5,000 people participated.
November 9, 2008: The police recover seven live crude bombs from Manjargaon village in Badlapur taluka in Maharashtra’s Jalna district. One person is arrested (The Indian Express, Pune, November 11, 2008).
November 10, 2008: In Kerala’s Kannur district, two RSS activists are killed in a blast that occurred while they were assembling a bomb. The following day the police recover 18 crude bombs from the house of BJP leader, Prakashan, not far from the spot where the two persons were killed (The Indian Express, Pune, November 11, 2008 and The Times of India, November 13, 2008).
November 11, 2008: ULFA chairman, Arbinda Rajkhowa alleges that the RSS was behind the deadly blasts in Assam on October 30 as well as the ethnic violence in the Bodoland Territorial Areas Districts (BTAD) which claimed 140 lives (85 in the blasts and 55 in ethnic violence). He claims that ULFA has enough evidence to prove the RSS’s involvement in the blasts. A few months earlier, in its mouthpiece, Freedom, ULFA had also referred to secret directives allegedly sent by the RSS to carry out blasts in different parts of the country (DNA online, November 11, 2008).
Archived from Communalism Combat, February 2009 Year 15 No.137, Cover Story 3