Two men who are suspected to have trained the key conspirators involved in the murders of writers and activists — Gauri Lankesh, Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, and M.M. Kalburgi — may be among the accused in the 2008 Malegaon blasts, and have been absconding since then. However, as the investigation is still on, there is no confirmation on whether the two were indeed the trainers, sources in the know said.
These “trainers” were not part of the syndicate that executed the four murders, but are suspected to have been involved in religious indoctrination and bomb-making training camps between 2011 and 2015. “They were called prashikshaks and loaned to motivate and train the gang members, but were not involved further. They were not part of the conspiracy or its execution,” a senior official said. Significantly, they presided over the first-ever meeting of the gang in 2011 that decided to kill “durjans” — Hindus opposing the faith, investigators claim.
Following a lead, the investigators are now verifying if the two trainers could be Ramchandra Kalsangra alias Ramji Kalsangra and Sandeep V. Dange, both from Indore, Madhya Pradesh. They are accused in multiple cases, including the Ajmer Dargah blasts of 2007 and the Malegaon bombing, and are on the NIA’s most-wanted list. The duo are co-accused in the Malegaon case along with Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, now BJP candidate in Bhopal.
While security agencies had been probing their identity, they got a lead when a key accused in Dabholkar and Gauri murder cases, Sharad Kalaskar, in a confessional statement referred to the unidentified “trainers” — Babaji, Bade Mahatma, Chote Mahatma — as “Aseemanand’s men”. Kalaskar, referring to a three-day training camp held in Jalna in January 2015, said four “trainers” taught them to make bombs. On the concluding day of the camp, he had asked permission from Dr. Veerendra Tawde, who was then heading the gang and a key accused in the Dabholkar and Pansare murders, to go with the four trainers to learn more. However, he was denied permission and was told that they were from “Aseemanand’s group”, Kalaskar said in his confession.
Swami Aseemanand was a key accused in multiple cases — Ajmer Dargah, Samjhauta Express, and the Mecca Masjid bombings. He was recently acquitted from the Samjhauta Express and Mecca Masjid blasts. “Kalsangra, Dange and Suresh Nair, co-accused with Aseemanand in Ajmer blasts, were absconding and hence the needle of suspicion pointed to them,” an official said.
Training camps
Based on the physical descriptions from those who attended the training camps, sketches of the trainers were prepared and Anti-Terror Squads (ATS) of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat, besides central agencies including NIA, were tipped-off that they were roaming around dressed as monks. Gujarat ATS arrested Suresh Nair from Gujarat in November 2018, but there is no conclusive evidence yet that he was one of the trainers. The two others — Kalsangra and Dange — are still at large.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the murder of Gauri and Kalburgi said, in a statement, that they had no evidence to link the accused in the murder to the Abhinav Bharat, Malegaon blasts, or Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur. “Agencies have been working on a hunch based on a lead. But there is not a shred of evidence linking the two cases. Hence we have not mentioned the same in any documents submitted to the court,” an official said.
Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, now out on bail pending trial and fighting Lok Sabha elections on a BJP ticket, was in prison when these training camps were held between 2011 and 2015.
The explosive-laden bike that went off in Malegaon was registered in her name and hence she was arrested by the Maharashtra ATS. However, she claimed that she had given the bike to Kalsangra two years before that and she was in no way linked to the blasts.
