More Sanatan Sanstha activists under scanner

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, August 11

The Anti-Terror Squad of the Maharashtra police is questioning several members of the Sanatan Sanstha and the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti following the arrest of three persons from different parts of the state on Friday.

"We are questioning several suspects in Mumbai, Pune, Satara and other places in Maharashtra," an ATS official told reporters here this afternoon. He did not rule out more arrests in the case.

The ATS had on Friday arrested Vaibhav Raut from Nala Sopara on the outskirts of Mumbai after a large quantity of explosives and IEDs were allegedly recovered from his premises. Subsequently two more people,Sharad Kalaskar and Sudhanva Gondhalekar, were arrested from Pune and Mumbai.

All three are members of the Sanatan Sanstha and other Hindutva organisations, police said. They were produced before a local court, which remanded them to custody till August 18.

The three are being questioned for their possible links to the murders of rationalists Narendra Dabholkar and MM Kalburgi, communist leader Govind Pansare and journalist Gauri Lankesh.

ATS Chief Atulchandra Kulkarni told reporters that members of various social media groups that the three were part of will also be questioned. The mobile phones of all the three have been sent for forensic analysis, he added.