AHMEDABAD, May 27: Even as fundamendalist organisations deny any hand in the burning of Pepsi and Coke trucks, the fire seems to have spread. In the biggest incident of its kind so far, a Baskin Robbins ice-cream parlour in Navrangpura was completely burned down by some unidentified youths shouting anti-MNC slogans.Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) general-secretary Pravin Togadia has dissociated his organisation from this incident, as he did from the burning of the Pepsi trucks. But he refused to denounce the crime.
``A lot of these actions are a result of one's own convictions. I don't condone it but I don't condemn it either,'' he said.
The Baskin Robbins parlour just off the busy C.G. Road was attacked at around 12.30 p.m. late on Tuesday night. Some youths accosted the proprietor Baldev Nagjibhai Desai, questioning his patriotism and asking him why he was selling foreign ice-cream. Before he could fathom the seriousness of the act, five others entered the shop and poured a chemical all over the shop and later set it ablaze.
By the time fire tenders arrived the shop was totally gutted causing a loss of Rs 15 lakh. Police commissioner Hiralal says: ``It is very difficult to pin point organisations behind such incidents but we are trying to ascertain if it is part of a planned series of acts.''
He said that 11 miscreants involved in the previous such incidents have been arrested. In three separate incidents cold drinks worth Rs two lakh had been looted from Coke and Pepsi trucks in Kalupur, Naroda and Astodia localities of the city. Later at least two of these trucks had been burnt.
In Vadodara and Surat, city Vishwa Hindu Parishad presidents had taken a tough stand against multi-national companies, particularly cola giants, announcing that they would be targeted. But since then they have toned down the rhetoric.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad leadership now maintains that it would start an agitation only if there is a signal from the top and it will not be of the `hit and run' type. Togadia says that they would do so only after a formal announcement in the press.
Meanwhile the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has continued to maintain an ambiguous stand on the issue. Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel told reporters in Gandhinagar that his government will treat these incidents as a law and order problem but that his party also stood by its professed stand on swadeshi. A set of questions faxed to Gandhinagar MP , and the Home Minister, L.K. Advani soliciting his answers on the spate of incidents in his constituency went unanswered. Ahmedabad MP Harin Pathak also remained out of reach.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
