CBI Says, Top RSS Man Gave SIMs For Terror Strikes

M.today

New Delhi, July 13: Delhi tabloid Mail Today published a report on Tuesday saying that CBI investigators probing  terror blasts that rocked Ajmer Sharif in Rajasthan and Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid are untangling a complex web of SIM card transfers, pointing the finger of suspicion to a senior RSS functionary named Ashok Varshney.

Ashok Varshney, former prant pracharak of the RSS in Jharkhand, allegedly sourced and handed over two SIM cards to Devender Gupta, key accused in the October 11, 2007, Ajmer Sharif blast, the report says. 

These SIM cards were also allegedly used to stage the May 18, 2007, Mecca Masjid explosion. As many as 17 people died in the two terror strikes.

Investigators said they were still in the process of gathering evidence on the exact usage of the SIM cards in the two strikes, and added these might have been used to trigger the low-intensity explosions at both places.

These SIMs were procured from Hyderabad and Ajmer and passed on to Gupta, also an RSS worker.

Rajasthan Police arrested Gupta with two others on April 30 this year in connection with the terror strike at the Ajmer Sharif dargah , allegedly masterminded by Hindutva activists. Acting on specific leads, the anti- terrorism squads (ATS) of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, and the Central Bureau of Investigation ( CBI), have questioned Varshney as well as RSS central committee member Ashok Berry several times since June 21 both at Lucknow and Delhi.

Investigators said they had confronted Varshney and Berry on the SIM card purchases, but both stoutly denied the charges and insisted that Gupta had acted on his own. 

Varshney’s defence has all along been that he was never present at either of the blast sites — Ajmer and Hyderabad — and, therefore, could not have sourced the cards.

ATS officials had said Gupta had procured at least one SIM card from Dumka near Jamtara in Jharkhand.

In all, nine SIM cards were procured from various locations in West Bengal and Jharkhand, in addition to Hyderabad and Ajmer. 

However, it is not known which of these were utilised to trigger the blasts. 

Despite Varshney’s dogged denials, the CBI insists that it sees similarities between the mobile phone- detonated explosives used in Ajmer and Hyderabad, and that it was more than likely that the same module was working on putting the bombs together. In fact, CBI director Ashwani Kumar has confirmed this on record.

“There is a definite link between the Ajmer and Mecca Masjid blasts,” he said recently. He had specifically named Sunil Joshi, another RSS activist. 

“He played a key role in orchestrating the Ajmer blast… and a set of mobile SIM cards were used to activate the bombs, first in Ajmer and then again in Hyderabad,” Kumar said. 

Though Varshney denied any involvement in sourcing the SIM cards, both he and Berry acknowledged their association with Gupta.