From obscurity to heart of conspiracy
The little known Sanatan Sanstha is popular with young people, mainly in Western Maharashtra and says it is a spiritual organisation although the investigators assert its alleged members are behind the killings of rationalists
MUMBAI: Malgonda Patil, 27, was riding his scooter in Madgaon, Goa when a bomb he was carrying went off. He was killed instantly. As was his friend Yogesh Naik His cousin, Rudra Patil, was accused in the blast, although nothing much came of it; he went on the run. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) launched a hunt for him but the trail went cold
That was in 2009.
In September 2015, a special investigation team (SIT) of the Maharashtra police started looking for Patil again after it arrested Sameer Gaikwad for the killing of communist leader Govind Pansare in Mumbai in February that year. The police claimed at the time that Gaikwad and Patil were friends and had started a mobile phone shop together in 2009, in Sangli, Maharashtra.
Around the same time, the Karnataka police and the NIA were also looking for Patil – for his involvement in the killing of academic MM Kalburgi in Dharwad, Karnataka, in August that year. In October, the police found a body in the Belgavi region, between Karnataka and Maharashtra, that they initially suspected was Patil’s. That was proved wrong.
Patil remains at large and not much has been heard of him since; it’s almost as if he dropped off the map.
Patil is from a small village 80 kilometers from Sangli. The last time the extended Patil family saw their sons Malgonda and Rudra was in 2009. Malgonda’s father Shivgonda, a 62-year-old farmer claims his son was a member of the Sanatan Sanstha.
“The last time I saw him was before he went to Sanatan Sanstha’s Goa Ashram, a few months before his death. I sent him to Sangli at the age of 16 to study, and I recall that he joined the Sanatan Sanstha. We did not anticipate this would happen.”
Gaikwad and Patil are also members of the Sanatan Sanstha according to the police. Even Naik, the other person killed in the scooter blast in 2009 was a member of the Sanstha, they have claimed.
The Sanstha itself has denied that any of these people are or were its full-time members although it says they may have participated in some of its religious programmes.
“All the allegations against Sanatan Sanstha and Hindu Janajagruti Samiti are baseless ... Sana tan Sanstha has no connection with these killings. Due to propaganda by the communist party, the misunderstanding about us has been created,” said Chetan Rajhans, national spokesperson of the organisation.
That’s echoed by Gaikwad, who has been out on bail since 2017, and now lives at his home in Sangli. “I have continued my association with the Sanatan Sanstha. I regularly visit the Sanstha’s ashram in Sangli to meditate, like I used to before I was arrested.”
Still, after Gaikwad’s arrest, the Sanatan Sanstha itself appealed to lawyers to take up his case in court, and as many as 31 lawyers came forward to fight the case, according to the Sanstha’s website.
Sameer Patwardhan, who is the defence lawyer for Gaikwad, said he was confident the charges will be dropped.
“I am a follower of the Sanstha as well, even though I am not a full time Sadhak (as initiates are termed). I like the ideology, and believe in it.”
Little is known of the Sanatan Sanstha, a Hindu spiritual organisation founded in 1999 by Jayant Athavale, although its name has been toted out by investigators over the past few years in cases involving the killing of people perceived to be against the Hindutva philosophy. It’s a list that includes Kalburgi and Pansare, but also rationalist Narendra Dabholkar in 2013 and journalist Gauri Lankesh in 2017. All the killings have happened in Karnataka and Maharashtra. Much of the coverage of the Sanstha has been based in informal police briefings and case files. There is little that has been proved in a court of law.
Earlier this week, the Karnataka police’s special investigation team looking into the murder of Lankesh said it has forensic evidence to show that Parashuram Waghmare, who has already been arrested, was the person who shot and killed the journalist. Waghmare was arrested in June. The Karnataka SIT has said Waghmare was in touch with Amol Kale, whom it has sought to present as one of the masterminds behind the killing. Kale, it has said, is a member of the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS) and is also associated with the Sanatan Sanstha.
Indeed, it would seem as if Lankesh’s killing, and the investigation into it provided vital clues that, if police and federal investigative teams are to be believed, have helped crack all four killings.
Soon after Lankesh’s killing, the Karnataka SIT claimed the weapon used was the same used to kill Kalburgi. Subsequent investigations by the SIT pointed to a group of people in Maharashtra. There are reports that this information came from Kale’s interrogation. The information was passed on to the Maharashtra police’s Anti Terrorism Squad, which, on August 9, arrested Vaibhav Raut, Sharad Kalaskar and Sudhanva Gondalekar. It also seized weapons and bombs from them.
A Maharashtra police officer who asked not to be identified said: “Karnataka SIT shared information with Maharashtra ATS on 10 persons closely linked to Kale.”
While interrogating the people it arrested, the Maharashtra ATS came across the name of Sachin Andure, who was also subsequently arrested.
The ATS claims Kalaskar and Andure are Dabholkar’s killers. It also claims both belong to the Sanatan Sanstha, a claim the organisation has denied, saying that while they may have participated in its activities, they are not its members. Andure is also represented by Patwardhan.
As are Bharat Kurne, Rajesh Bangera, and Amit Degwekar (arrested in connection with the murder of Gauri Lankesh), and Virendra Tawde (arrested in connection with the murder of Dabholkar),
There could be some substance to the organisation’s claims. The Karnataka SIT has previously said that its investigations have pointed to the presence of a shadowy organisation that draws its membership from people who have been associated with the Sanatan Sanstha and the HJS. It has arrested or detained eight such individuals, from areas around Sangli, Kolhapur, and Belgavi.
A senior Maharashtra police officer who asked not to be identified seconded this. “Some arrested accused have links to multiple Hindutva organisations at the same time, while those co-accused with him are part of other organisations. It has led us to believe there is an intersection where these groups overlap.”
FERTILE GROUND
From Sangli in Western Maharashtra to Belgavi (earlier Belgaum) in Karnataka, the land is lush and fertile. The average farmer here is better off that his counterpart in most other areas of Maharashtra.
According to the Maharashtra and Karnataka police there are at least 20 to 25 prominent Hindu right wing groups in the belt between Sangli and Belgavi, with a large following of devoted Hindus. To be sure, many of these organisations say they are purely spiritual ones, and most of their followers are simply religious people.
Omkar Shukla, a Miraj based-activist, whose community hall is frequently rented for such programmes said, “There are 15 to 18 big groups in this region, and many small ones, which follow the Hindutva ideology. While the Sanatan Sanstha and Hindu Janajagruti Samiti are prominent in Sangli and Miraj, the Sriram Sena is prominent in Belgavi.”
Members of these groups overlap, and are borrowed by other groups to organise large religious programmes and festivals.
Kiran Pol, 37, a seeker or sadhak -- the Sanatan Sanstha given name for its followers -- started off by being a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
“I then joined Shivpratisthan Hindustan, and later became a sadhak,” he says.
Pol lives in a Tasgaon, about 25 kilometers from Sangli. He is a well-to-do farmer, and owns a business exporting grapes from his farm in Tasgaon.
Pol said, “We are well to do farmers, but I was unhappy and worried about my life. The Sanatan Sanstha’s teachings taught me to lead a happy life. These are basic teachings of Hinduism, that we miss out on.”
But there’s another reason, more activist side to these organisations, sometimes led by the belief that Hindus are being persecuted. For instance, on September 1, the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, planned a protest in Belgavi following the arrest of Bharat Kurne in the Lankesh killing case. It was denied police permission, after a prominent Muslim group applied for permission to protest in the same area at the same time. Kurne too is represented by Patwardhan.
Hrishikesh Gurjar, Belgavi district coordinator of HJS, who planned to lead the protest said, “There is a strong wave against Hindus. All arrests made by the police recently are Hindus. We need to unite and fight this oppression of Hindus. There have been over 60 communal riots in Belgavi over the past two decades, which is proof of our oppression.”
As for the Sanatan Sanstha, it says it follows the rule of the law. “The entire mission of the Sanatan Sanstha is being carried out on the constitutional path. No agitation is held without prior permission of competent authorities, no vandalism is practised, no stone pelting, ‘bandhs’ are not observed ... violence was never, is never, will never find any place in the mission of the Sanstha,” Rajhans said.