Ajmer,Malegaon,Mecca Masjid… Swami set off the wave,says ATS

Senior ATS officials said Aseemanand not only funded these attacks,but was also instrumental in bringing together a motley group of extremists who were involved in these attacks — from the trio of Devendra Gupta,Lokesh Sharma and Chandreshekhar who allegedly carried out blasts in Ajmer and at Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad to Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Prasad Srikanth Purohit,prime suspects in the Malegaon blasts case.

According to the ATS,it was Aseemanand who suggested that the two extremist organisations,Prasad Srikanth Purohit’s Abhinav Bharat and Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur’s Jai Vande Mataram,join forces since their objectives were similar.

The ATS chargesheet states that Aseemanand chaired meetings in Ujjain,Indore,Sabridham in the Dangs and Mihijam in Jharkhand to rally support for his cause.

The ATS also believes that Sunil Joshi,a key suspect in Malegaon,Ajmer and Mecca Masjid blast cases who was killed in Madhya Pradesh on December 29,2007,plotted these attacks under Aseemanand’s guidance and even lived in his ashram in the Dangs prior to the Ajmer blast and hid there after the attack in October 2007.

The ATS also stated that four of Joshi’s associates also stayed in the Dangs but disappeared after his murder. According to the chargesheet,Aseemanand spoke to Purohit on the phone just after Joshi’s murder. “Joshi has been murdered. He was the one responsible for carrying out the Ajmer Dargah blasts and we have to find out the circumstances of his murder and who did it. He was a very important and useful person to me,” the chargesheet quoted Aseemanand as saying.