Audio from Aseemanand interview naming RSS’ Bhagwat released

A profile of Samjhauta blast case accused Swami Aseemanand in The Caravan, which includes startling revelations about the role of RSS in terror activities, has sent shock waves across the Sangh Parivar and its political wing, the BJP, which has now termed it as a political conspiracy barely two months ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat. PTI

Titled 'The Believer', the 11,200-word-long article quotes Aseemanand, a long-time RSS worker as saying that the organisation, including its current chief Mohan Bhagwat, had sanctioned various terror activities in which he participated.

"Aseemanand told me (the reporter) about a meeting that allegedly took place, in July 2005. After an RSS conclave in Surat, senior Sangh leaders including Bhagwat and Indresh Kumar, who is now on the organisation's powerful seven-member national executive council, travelled to a temple in the Dangs, Gujarat, where Aseemanand was living—a two-hour drive. In a tent pitched by a river several kilometres away from the temple, Bhagwat and Kumar met with Aseemanand and his accomplice Sunil Joshi. Joshi informed Bhagwat of a plan to bomb several Muslim targets around India. According to Aseemanand, both RSS leaders approved, and Bhagwat told him, "You can work on this with Sunil. We will not be involved, but if you are doing this, you can consider us to be with you.""

The magazine also released two audio recordings of the interview, both of which can be accessed here, where Aseemanand recollects the discussion he had held with the top RSS leaders when they came to visit him in Shabari Dham, Gujarat.

Sunil said to Bhagwatji: We should do some violence in the name of Hindus. There are many in the Sangh who feel so. Whatever happens it will be limited to us. We will not link the Sangh with this. We won't take any help from you for this. We are letting you know because you are the top officials of the Sangh that we are planning to do this.

Another recording quotes Aseemand on what Bhagwat and Indresh said:

This is great. It's very important that it be done. But the Sangh will not do this ... (unclear) ... That now Hindus will also have someone to do this. But don't link this to the Sangh. Because this not the ideology of the Sangh.

Aseemanand then recollected what Bhagwat told him:

If you will do this, we will be at ease with this. Nothing wrong will happen then. This will not be criminalized then. If you do it then people won't say that we did a crime for the sake of doing a crime. It will be connected to the ideology. This is very important for Hindus. Please do this. You have our blessings. Nothing more than that from us.

Aseemanand's lawyer JS Rana, however, denied that these interviews had ever taken place. "The contents of this article are false, baseless and concocted," he told NDTV.

The RSS too has slammed the report, saying its accuracy is 'questionable'. Spokesperson Ram Madhav termed the interview as "concocted". "A lot of questions have been raised about the veracity of this interview. The veracity of the audio that has surfaced is also questionable," he told news agency PTI.

Another RSS leader MG Vaidya dismissed the report saying planting bombs was not part of RSS ideology. "All of it is a lie. Such acts will not be done by RSS. The Sangh does not tell someone to explode bombs; its job is character building, creating history. It has no connection with terror."

The BJP too rejected charges against the RSS leadership, terming the reports as a ploy by the Congress party, questioning why the interview was released just ahead of general elections. Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters that the story was "baseless" and his (Aseemanand) lawyer has already denied the interview. "This is the work of dirty tricks department before elections," he said. "It (Congress) doesn't have any answer for the questions on corruption and price rise on which these elections are being fought."

According to The Caravan magazine press release, however, the Bhagwat sound bytes were taken from interviews conducted in January 2014, a culmination of two years of intensive reporting by author Leena Gita Reghunath.