Thackeray calls for Hindu bombs to target Muslims

http://arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=111048&d=20&m=6&y=2008

Thackeray calls for Hindu bombs to target Muslims
Shahid Burney | Arab News

MUMBAI: Taking strong exceptions to the editorial written by Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray in the party’s mouthpiece Saamana on Wednesday in which Thackeray has called for raising “Hindu suicide squads” to counter the growing “Islamic terrorism” in India, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister R.R. Patil yesterday said the home department would examine the contents of the editorial and if any derogatory matter was found in the editorial, strong necessary action would be taken.

The state Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, also criticized Thackeray for the editorial and said that it was not just Muslims behind terrorism, but Hindus too were involved in it and cited the arrests of four Hindu militants involved in the recent twin blasts at auditoriums in Navi Mumbai and the adjoining Thane district. “The arrest in the case had blown a hole in the popular perception that Muslims are to be suspected for all such acts,” he said.

In a statement released to the media on Wednesday, Deshmukh said the arrests of the Hindu militants for the blasts in Navi Mumbai and Thane were enough to point fingers at the possibility of Hindu groups being involved in subversive activities. “Normally, when such incidents take place, the Muslim community is suspected. But the arrests of the four people belonging to a militant Hindu organization prove that such suspicions are baseless. Criminals do not belong to any religion,” Deshmukh said.

Thackeray’s remarks in the editorial immediately drew a nationwide condemnation even as the Maharashtra government assured to probe the matter. The Sena ally, Bharatiya Janata Party, also rapped Thackeray for the remark with party leader M. Venkiah Naidu asking Thackeray to keep restraint. In the editorial Thackeray pooh-poohed the Hindu militants arrested for planting bombs in Navi Mumbai and Thane auditoriums and said “At a time when Islamic terrorism is increasing in India, there is a need to form Hindu suicide squads to save the country and Hindus.”

Thackeray urged the Hindus to make “powerful and strong bombs,” that are superior to those made by “Islamic terrorists” and explode them in Muslim populated areas in Thane, Navi Mumbai, Aurangabad and other cities in Maharashtra, to what he called as “mini-Pakistans” in India.

Two die in Nepal mosque bombing

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7321186.stm

 

Two die in Nepal mosque bombing

By Charles Haviland
BBC News, Kathmandu

Two people have been killed and at least one more injured after a mosque was bombed in Nepal’s second biggest city, Biratnagar.

Reports say two men on a motorcycle hurled four bombs at the Choti mosque during evening prayers on Saturday.

Three of the devices exploded, and two of the people who were seriously injured died on their way to hospital.

A shadowy Hindu extremist group – the Nepal Defence Army – said in a statement it carried out the attack.

The group first emerged more than a year ago, saying it was fighting to preserve Nepal’s old status as a Hindu state.

An indefinite curfew has been imposed in the district.

Most of Nepal’s small Muslim minority live in the southern plains, where Biratnagar is situated.

For many months the region has seen ethnic tensions, with numerous antagonistic factions emerging.

Violence grounded in religion is rare, but some Hindu nationalists have threatened that it will increase because, they say, there is widespread resentment over Nepal being declared a secular state.

Nepal’s monarchy is closely bound-up with Hinduism. But after King Gyanendra’s royal government fell in 2006 the restored parliament declared the country secular.

Political violence has been steadily rising in the run-up to elections due in less than two weeks.