NIA links Hakla to modules in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra

NEW DELHI: Samjhauta Express blast accused Amit Chauhan alias Hakla, whose real identity was recently revealed by National Investigation Agency (NIA) in its supplementary chargesheet in the case as Ramesh Venkat Mahalkar, may emerge as the link between the Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra modules of Hindutva terror.
While the MP module executed Malegaon, Ajmer Dargah and Samjhauta blasts 2006 onwards, the Maharashtra module engineered the Parbhani, Purna, Jalna and Nanded blasts between 2003 and 2006. It is now suspected that both modules functioned under the same leadership connected to some Hindu right wing organizations. Post the revelation of Hakla’s real identity, NIA has found that he hails from the same locality in Nanded as Himanshu Panse, the mastermind of a series of blasts at mosques in Maharashtra between 2006 and 2008.
Panse died in April 2006 while preparing a bomb in Nanded which was supposed to be exploded at a mosque in Aurangabad. Hakla is still absconding.
According to sources, Hakla’s family has been associated with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Hakla was a member of the outfit. Son of a middle-class government employee, Hakla was radicalized early in his life and left home at the age of 20 in 2003, the year India recorded its first Hindutva terror blast in Parbhani district of Maharashtra.
It is not known whether he was connected to the blast executed by Panse and his associates. He, however, resurfaced in 2005 in Jammu where former RSS pracharak Sunil Joshi was hiding in a facility managed by the organization. Joshi brought him to Dewas in Madhya Pradesh the same year and got him trained for executing attacks on the Samjhauta Express. It is also being investigated whether Hakla was part of a terror training camp organized at Sinhagadh in Pune in 2000. Panse is known to have attended the camp and learnt to operate firearms and assemble bombs here. A man suspected to be from the armed forces apparently provided the training.
Investigations, however, reveal that Panse went beyond his brief and executed certain blasts that were not palatable to his bosses. “Panse’s was a sleeper module which started executing blasts on its own. He was even reprimanded by his bosses for conducting small blasts of no consequence,” said an NIA official. The Maharashtra blasts have been investigated by the CBI and their trial too has started.