Reciever of the Chisti Harmony Award, and 16^th witness in the Babri Masjid Demolition case, Yugal Kishore Shastri who has just returned from the "Citizen Harmony Walk", a walk from Ayodhya to Kanyakumari condemned and expressed rage over the communal attacks on the three-day Awaam Ka Cinema Ayodhya Film Festival commemorating freedom martyrs Ashfaqullah Khan and Pandit Ram Prasad Bismal.

Awaam ka Cinema has successfully organised such fests all over India and has played an important role in strengthening the idea of Common Heritage among the locals. The last six years that it has been active in Ayodhya, it has seen overwhelming participation by young Indians and social and cultural activists. The communal forces have tried to attack the fabric of our common heritage but have failed to destroy it.

He said it was a direct attack on an important part of our secular Constitution. He added the conspirators won’t be successful as the public sentiments doesn’t play into their hands anymore and has vowed to strengthen the legacy of secularism and common heritage in Ayodhya. He gave the credit for India’s vastness to its secular ways and commented that if its secularism is lost, its unity and integrity will be compromised. Shastri said that vigilante groups were keeping an eye on such forces and would not let them succeed.

HE added that such forces did not contribute to India’s freedom struggle and have only used Nationalism as an agenda for furthering their anti-national propaganda and it’s only because of their anti-national sentiments they felt compelled to attack and disrupt an event honoring Kakori heroes. He clarified that Awaam Cinema focusses of concerns of the people and does not have communal/religious flavor.

- Yugal Kisore Shastri

Recent developments in the National Investigation Agency (NIA)’s probe of the 2007 Samjhauta Attari Blast case has resulted in arrests of three persons, namely Rajendar alais Samandar Singh, arrested from Nagda in Ujjain, Dhan Singh, arrested from UP-Madhya Pradesh border region Chitrakoot And Tej Ram from Ujjain accused in the Mecca Masjid blast case could play a potential role in unravelling the mysteries behind the Samjhauta-Mecca Masjid-Malegaon-Ajmer-Jammu blast cases.

Samandar is also alleged to have attacked the Delhi University professor SAR Geelani in 2005 and played a key role in the murder of Sunil Joshi, an RSS pracharak who proclaimed leadership and success in planting bombs in the above mentioned cases, which made the co-conspirators insecure, as well knowing ‘too-much’ about the right-wing organisation’s activities and the Hindu terror conspiracy. The NIA also claims he eliminated other blast witnesses in their organization.

Surprisingly, the 2004 Jammu bombing of an Ehle Hadees Mosque, which the J&K Police alleged was carried out by Tehreekul Muajahideen has been claimed by these arrested persons.

The Samjhauta blast of claimed 68 lives and its probe was handed over to the NIA in 2010. Before arresting Samandar based on informer tip-offs, it had secured custody of Kamal Chouhan, Swami Aseemanand and Lokesh Sharma.

A 2011 chargesheet in the case frames UAPA against Aseemanand, Sandeep Dange and Ram Kalasangra in addition to the deceased pracharak Sunil Joshi.

The NIA sources said there were similarities in the explosives and techniques used and revealed suspicion of the involvement of the same set of people from Hindu right-wing terror organisations in the Mecca Masjid blast and the Samjhauta blast, which has been corroborated by some of the accuseds during investigation.

The absconding Sandeep Dange and Ram Kalasangra carry rewards on their heads an according to Congressman Digvijaya Singh, they are on the run with full cooperation of the state police.

The Malegaon blasts had been blamed on nine Muslim men by the state’s ATS, who were freed on bail by court in 2011 and during the same year Swami Aseemanand admitted involvement of radical Hindu groups in the case.

Mecca Masjid blast was earlier blamed on SIMI and the LeT but according to the NIA it could also join the list of operations carried out with Samandar Singh’s involvement.

Instead of releasing innocents, the government is protecting the communal IB-ATS – S. R. Darapuri

Public Prosecutor has revealed the true intentions of the SP government – Rihai Manch

Lucknow, Janurary 4, Welcoming the Allahabad High Court’s decision to dismiss the petition against the release of the innocents kidnapped in the name of terrorism, Rihai Manch representatives said that SP government no longer faced any legal obstacles to fulfil the promises it made during its assembly election campaign.

Commenting on the HC verdict, former IPS S.R. Darapuri said that if the government fails to release the falsely implicated youths, it would present itself as a collaborator of ATS-AFS and IB activities, shielding them from the consequences of their criminal and communal ill-doings which the RD Nimesh report has unearthed and the government has been desperately trying to hide from the public eye from the last four months.

The Indian National League National President Mohamed Sulaiman and Rihai Manch President, advocate Mohamed Shoeb said that the even as the judge rejected the Petition, the public prosecutor said that the government was in no mood to release the imprisoned youth.

It is clear from the SP government’s inaction that they do not intend to keep the promises its Chief Akhilesh Yadav made during his Azamgarh rallies and senior SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav’s assurance that he will raise the issue in Parliament is an old trick and Muslims know better of SP’s actions from the eight months of its staying in power.

Magsaysay award winning social worker Sandeep Pandey who had sat on an indefinite fast demanding the release of falsely implicated youth had been reassured by the government that the matter will be expediently taken care of but the public prosecutor representing the government’s case argued in a manner that proved that the government was making empty promises.