File photo of Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan
A right-wing organization accused of killing a social activist it dubbed "anti-Hindu", escaped being banned years ago because the Centre did not act, former Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan has said, blaming his own Congress party, which was in power at the time.
The organization, Sanatan Sanstha, is in the spotlight after the arrest of its member Samir Gaikwad for the murder of activist and CPI leader Govind Pansare in February.
Prithviraj Chavan said he had urged the Centre to ban the hardline group after two of its members were convicted in a 2008 bomb blast in a Thane auditorium.
"We wanted to ban the Sanstha under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). We sent a 1,000 page dossier to the Centre in April 2011. Banning has to be done by the Union of India," Mr Chavan told NDTV, adding that "a lot of correspondence" was exchanged between the Centre and Maharashtra.
At a hearing in the Bombay High Court, Mr Chavan said, the Centre sought additional documents from Maharashtra and even said the Sanatan Sanstha would be banned in 45 days.
Maharashtra never responded or got back with any proof, said a top Congress source.
Then Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has reacted sharply to his party colleague's comments.
"If he (Chavan) was serious about banning Sanatan Sanstha, then he could have called me up. We are both from the same state, it would have been done. It was this attitude that led us to lose power in the state," Mr Shinde has reportedly said.
Sources tell NDTV that banning the Sanstha wouldn't have been easy. In the Thane blast case, they were only convicted under lesser charges like the Explosives Act and for destroying public property. The more serious charge had been dropped by the court.
After the arrest of Gaikwad, it has emerged that senior journalists Nikhil Wagle and Shyamsundar Sonnar were also on the group's hit-list.
Denying it, a senior Sanstha leader, Virendra Marathe said: "There is nothing like a 'hit list'. We are a spiritual organisation. Wagle is anti-Hindutva. But we don't kill."