The Admiral's hour-long address on `Challenges before the National Security of Secularist India', organised by AKG Centre for Study and Research here on Saturday evening, was replete with sweeping allegations not only against certain Sangh Parivar leaders but also against the country's Intelligence agencies and the Army.

He said arms merchants and foreign Intelligence agencies were working in tandem in the country. There is none in power now who is not under obligation to foreign agencies. A political-bureaucratic-military nexus is building up in Delhi, posing grave threat to the country's security.

Affirming that he was speaking `on facts', the Admiral said that Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray has a `very special relationship' with Dawood Ibrahim. Itis significant that none of the properties belonging to Shiv Sena was destroyed during the Bombay riots, but only the Government properties were the target of attack.

He said the reports of Intelligence agencies were highly biased and one of the priorities of the new Government should be the `restructuring and remanning' of Intelligence agencies. Bhagwat said he had sufficient evidence suggesting that constabulary and officers have struck deals with anti-national elements.

He charged that the Intelligence Bureau and Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) have been penetrated by foreign agencies. The RAW functioned as a silent partner to the United States and Pakistan during the Afghan war while publicly claiming to be pro-USSR. Claiming that narcotic trade and extremism had close links as seen in Punjab and North East, the Admiral, without naming anyone, said the leader of a communal organisation has been patronising narcotic trade. "I don't care who refutes this statement," he said. He said the Parivar hasinfiltrated into ranks of the all India services and is now bent on communalising the Defence Forces, which is the `only instrumentality of the State not affected by communalism'. The `kind of games being played with appointments in the Army calls for thorough probe by the future Government.