An afternoon nap markedly boosts the brain’s learning capacity

By Yasmin Anwar, Media Relations | February 22, 2010

BERKELEY —

If you see a student dozing in the library or a co-worker catching 40 winks in her cubicle, don’t roll your eyes. New research from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that an hour’s nap can dramatically boost and restore your brain power. Indeed, the findings suggest that a biphasic sleep schedule not only refreshes the mind, but can make you smarter.

Students who napped (green column) did markedly better in memorizing tests than their no-nap counterparts. (Courtesy of Matthew Walker)

Conversely, the more hours we spend awake, the more sluggish our minds become, according to the findings. The results support previous data from the same research team that pulling an all-nighter — a common practice at college during midterms and finals — decreases the ability to cram in new facts by nearly 40 percent, due to a shutdown of brain regions during sleep deprivation.

“Sleep not only rights the wrong of prolonged wakefulness but, at a neurocognitive level, it moves you beyond where you were before you took a nap,” said Matthew Walker, an assistant professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and the lead investigator of these studies.

In the recent UC Berkeley sleep study, 39 healthy young adults were divided into two groups — nap and no-nap. At noon, all the participants were subjected to a rigorous learning task intended to tax the hippocampus, a region of the brain that helps store fact-based memories. Both groups performed at comparable levels.

At 2 p.m., the nap group took a 90-minute siesta while the no-nap group stayed awake. Later that day, at 6 p.m., participants performed a new round of learning exercises. Those who remained awake throughout the day became worse at learning. In contrast, those who napped did markedly better and actually improved in their capacity to learn.

Matthew Walker, assistant psychology professor, has found that a nap clears the brain to absorb new information.

These findings reinforce the researchers’ hypothesis that sleep is needed to clear the brain’s short-term memory storage and make room for new information, said Walker, who presented his preliminary findings on Sunday, Feb. 21, at the annual meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Diego, Calif.

Since 2007, Walker and other sleep researchers have established that fact-based memories are temporarily stored in the hippocampus before being sent to the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which may have more storage space.

“It’s as though the e-mail inbox in your hippocampus is full and, until you sleep and clear out those fact e-mails, you’re not going to receive any more mail. It’s just going to bounce until you sleep and move it into another folder,” Walker said.

In the latest study, Walker and his team have broken new ground in discovering that this memory-refreshing process occurs when nappers are engaged in a specific stage of sleep. Electroencephalogram tests, which measure electrical activity in the brain, indicated that this refreshing of memory capacity is relate
d to Stage 2 non-REM sleep, which takes place between deep sleep (non-REM) and the dream state known as Rapid Eye Movement (REM). Previously, the purpose of this stage was unclear, but the new results offer evidence as to why humans spend at least half their sleeping hours in Stage 2, non-REM, Walker said.

“I can’t imagine Mother Nature would have us spend 50 percent of the night going from one sleep stage to another for no reason,” Walker said. “Sleep is sophisticated. It acts locally to give us what we need.”

Walker and his team will go on to investigate whether the reduction of sleep experienced by people as they get older is related to the documented decrease in our ability to learn as we age. Finding that link may be helpful in understanding such neurodegenerative conditions as Alzheimer’s disease, Walker said.

In addition to Walker, co-investigators of these new findings are UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow Bryce A. Mander and psychology undergraduate Sangeetha Santhanam.

An afternoon nap is recommended in Hadiths as sunnah. 

Abhinav Bharat: Hindu terrorist group

When blasts took place first at the Ajmer Dargah near Jaipur and then at the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad, the police and the government immediately blamed Pakistani-based terror groups like the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJi).

The attacks in Ajmer and Hyderabad took place nearly five months apart in 2007. Three people were killed in the Ajmer attack; another nine died in the Hyderabad explosion. Immediately after them, young Muslims were arrested in Hyderabad for Mecca Masjid blasts.

Three years later, new evidence suggests that the investigating agencies and the government got it all wrong. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) says it believes that radical Hindu groups planned those blasts.

What’s led to this new theory is the arrests last week of three men by the Rajasthan Anti-Terror Squad. They were tracked down because they were using SIM cards found in the debris after the attack at Ajmer.

The men arrested are all Hindus, and are believed to be associated to Abhinav Bharat, a Hindu radical group that India confronted for the first time in 2006.

In September 2006, a series of blasts in Malegaon in Maharashtra left 37 people dead and another 25 injured. Almost two years later, Mumbai Police Anti-Terrorism Squad arrested Sadhvi Pragya Thakur on October 10, 2008 and then serving army officer, Lieutenant Colonel S P Purohit, believed to be the leaders of Abhinav Bharat. Their alleged agenda: to target Muslim crowds.

Purohit, in recent interrogation, has allegedly said that a man named Sunil Joshi was behind the Ajmer blast. That’s what the Rajasthan police also suspects. Sunil Joshi, who was an RSS pracharak in Madhya Pradesh’s Mhow area, had links with Devendra Gupta, the first suspect arrested in the Ajmer Dargah case. Joshi, a resident of Indore, was killed in Dewas in December 2007. The call details of Gupta indicate that both were in touch.

“Colonel Purohit, arrested for Malgaon blast, has confessed that Sunil Joshi had organised the Dargah operation with the help of Devendra Gupta,” Rajasthan Home Minister Shanti Dhariwal told the Hindu newspaper on May 2.

The CBI says that in both the Ajmer and Hyderabad blasts, identical explosives were used. Cellphones triggered both bombs.

So in two different cities, Pakistani groups were held responsible, and young Muslims paid the price. Muslims like Ibrahim Junaid, who, along with 25 others, was picked up from the Old City of Hyderabad and accused of terror links. They were reportedly tortured in illegal custody. There was no chargesheet accusing them of links to the Mecca Masjid attack. Instead they were accused of conspiring to wage war against the state, of preparing and playing out CDs of the Gujarat communal riots of 2002 to create communal tension.

Junaid was at that time was a Unani doctor; he was finally acquitted after 2 years.

“Without proof, they arrested our children. They didn’t even inform us. We didn’t know their whereabouts for 7-8 days,” said Arifunnisa, Junaid’s mother.

All 26 men were later acquitted but they say the stigma never goes away. Junaid says, “When there is a blast, youth of a particular community are targeted. They are playing with our lives. That happened to me. I lost a year in college. I was not able to do my MD because of this.”

Junaid and some of the other Muslims who were arrested have gone to court seeking compensation.

“We are demanding compensation from the police officers who tortured us. That they should be made to pay compensation from their salary, says Rayeesuddin.

CBI chief Ashwani Kumar on Monday said that there was a link between the three alleged hardline Hindutva activists arrested for 2007 blast in Ajmer and the Mecca Masjid, pointing to a network of saffron terror larger than so far believed. 

“There is a link between the Ajmer blast and Mecca Masjid blast,” Kumar said on the sidelines of the annual D P Kohli Memorial Lecture on Monday. 

The CBI chief said the Rajasthan police along with their Andhra Pradesh counterparts and the CBI have been working on the links for the last six months. “We are coordinating our efforts. For the time being, we can only say that there is a link. We are hopeful of cracking the case,” Kumar added. 

Radical Hindutva formations have already been identified as allegedly responsible for the second terror attack on Malegaon. With investigations suggesting that the Hindutva radicals had the motivation, reach and access to resources that they has so far not been suspected of, police will be looking closely at any sign of their involvement in other unsolved cases of attacks on Muslim targets — like the attack on Jama Masjid in the capital. 

The Maharashtra police have chargesheeted alleged jehadis in the first attack on a Malegaon mosque, but a demand to re-examine the case is very much likely. 

With the CBI breaking its silence over the alleged links between the two cases, Hyderabad-based Muslim groups called upon CBI to not just revisit the Mecca case but also probe the involvement of alleged Hindu terrorists Col P S Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur who are accused in the 2008 Malegaon bombing. 

According to the agency, links have also been found with the Malegaon blast. Sources said that the links had been established due to the use of the similar modus operandi and explosives. The Rajasthan police informed CBI, which is probing the Mecca case, about the arrest last week of three accused — Devender Gupta, Vishnu Patidar and Chandrashekhar Patidar — in the Ajmer shrine blast case. The accused have links with the group, Abhinav Bharat.

Unfinished stories, goes an old idiom in Ajmer, find their denouement in Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti’s shrine. Perhaps, unfinished investigations do too. Two-and-a-half years after low-intensity blasts ripped apart the courtyard of the centuries-old shrine, the Rajasthan police arrested three men—Devendra Gupta, Vishnu Prasad and Chandrashekhar Patidar. Gupta, an RSS worker, was suspected to have bought the mobile phone and SIM card that triggered off the October 2007 blast in which three were killed. Till their arrest on April 30 this year, the story narrated by the investigators, lapped up by the establishment and reiterated in large sections of the media was that the Ajmer blast was the handiwork of jehadi terrorists.

The SIM-mobile phone-detonated bombs are similar in Ajmer and Mecca Masjid blasts, with RDX-TNT mix in proportion used by the Indian army.

The one troubling question—would jehadis target Muslim devout at a dargah?—can have complicated answers, as the body count at Lahore’s Data Ganj Baksh would testify. But in India, the question wasn’t even deemed worthy of being asked as a reasonable line of inquiry. The needle of suspicion remained firmly and automatically fixed on Islamic terrorists—young men from the community were detained at various stages of the investigation and interrogated at length—until the trail finally led to Gupta and pointed to radical Hindu nationalist groups instead. Says Rajasthan Anti-Terrorist Squad chief Kapil Garg: “We have arrested some people of that religion (Hinduism) and we’re dead sure we’re on the right track.”

In Hyderabad too, the CBI team believes it is on the right track, finally, in the Mecca Masjid bomb blasts case. Four men belonging to radical Hindu groups were arrested this May for triggering a high-intensity bomb that went off in the masjid complex in May 2007, killing 14 and injuring some 50. At that time, the Hyderabad police had said it was most likely the work of the Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami (HuJI), backed by local logistical support; some 26 Muslim men were picked up, interrogated, forced to confess and detained for up to six months.

The terror trail in India changed after the Maharashtra ATS’s investigations into the 2008 Malegaon blasts, which alerted them to Abhinav Bharat.

The story followed this script till the CBI found evidence to the contrary: the SIM card-and-mobile phone-detonated explosives packed in metal tubes were strikingly similar to the Ajmer blasts contraption. Tellingly, both bombs are believed to have contained a deadly mix of RDX and TNT, in proportions often used by the Indian army. CBI director Ashwani Kumar told the media that an activist named Sunil Joshi “played a key role in orchestrating the Ajmer blast… and a set of mobile SIM cards that had been used in activation of the bomb-triggers in the Mecca Masjid blast was used again in the Ajmer blast”.

Around the same time, officers of the National Investigating Agency (NIA) filed a chargesheet in a Panjim court accusing 11 people, all Hindus and members of the ultra-right-wing Sanathan Sanstha, of masterminding and executing the October 2009 Margao blasts that killed the two people ferrying the explosives to a local festival. Investigation in Pune’s German Bakery blast this February has run aground after the initial suspicion, detaining and interrogation of suspected Muslim men, some believed to be members of “sleeper cells of jehadi groups” or the Indian Mujahideen (IM). When Abdul Samad was arrested last month, the Maharashtra ATS actively encouraged the understanding that he was the man caught on CCTV cameras in the bakery that night. However, Samad was never charged with the blast and subsequently let off in other cases too.


Malegaon Blasts-I
September 8, 2006
37 dead

* Initial arrests: Arrested include Salman Farsi, Farooq Iqbal Makhdoomi, Raees Ahmed, Noorul Huda Samsudoha and Shabbir Batterywala.
* Later revelation: Suspicion now rests on Hindu terrorists because of the 2008 blasts.

Samjhauta Express Blasts
February 18, 2007
68 dead, mostly Pakistanis

* Initial suspicion: LeT and JeM were blamed. Those arrested included Pakistani national Azmat Ali.
* Later revelation: Police have seen the evidence trail lead to right-wing Hindu activists. Investigators claim the triggering mechanism for the Mecca masjid blast three months later was similar to the one used here. Police are looking for RSS pracharaks Sandeep Dange and Ramji.

Mecca Masjid Blast
May 18, 2007
14 dead

* Initial arrests: Around 80 Muslims detained for questioning and 25 arrested. Several have now been acquitted, including Ibrahim Junaid, Shoaib Jagirdar, Imran Khan and Mohammed Adul Kaleem.
* Later revelation: In June 2010 the CBI announced a cash reward of Rs 10 lakh for information on the two accused, Sandeep Dange and Ramchandra Kalsangra. Lokesh Sharma arrested.

Ajmer Sharif Blast
October 11, 2007
3 dead

* Initial arrests: HuJI, LeT blamed. Those arrested include Abdul Hafiz Shamim, Khushibur Rahman, Imran Ali.
* Later revelation: In 2010, Rajasthan ATS arrests Devendra Gupta, Chandrashekhar and Vishnu Prasad Patidar. Accused Sunil Joshi, who was killed weeks before the blast, is believed to have been a key planner.

Thane Cinema Blast
June 4, 2008

* Affiliated to Hindu Janjagruti Samiti and Sanathan Sanstha, Ramesh Hanumant Gadkari and Mangesh Dinkar Nikam arrested. Blast planned to oppose the screening of Jodhaa Akbar.

Kanpur And Nanded Bomb Mishaps
August 2008

* Two members of Bajrang Dal—Rajiv Mishra and Bhupinder Singh—were killed while assembling bombs in Kanpur. In April 2006, N. Rajkondwar and H. Panse from the same outfit died under similar circumstances in a bomb-making workshop in Nanded.

Malegaon Blasts II
September 29, 2008
7 dead

* Initial suspicion: Groups like Indian Mujahideen involved
* Later revelation: Abhinav Bharat and Rashtriya Jagaran Manch accused of involvement. Arrested include Pragya Singh Thakur, Lt Col Srikant Purohit and Swami Amritanand Dev Tirth, also known as Dayanand Pandey.

Goa Blasts
October 16, 2009

* 2 dead Both accused are members of the Sanathan Sanstha. Malgonda Patil and Yogesh Naik were riding a scooter laden with explosives, which accidentally went off.

Terror trails in India dramatically changed with the Malegaon blasts investigation in September-October 2008. Led by then Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare, who was subsequently killed on the night of 26/11, the investigation pointed to Abhinav Bharat (AB), an ultra-right-wing Pune-based organisation established in 2005-06, and its members or affiliates. What Karkare’s teams managed to uncover is part of recent history and should have become the basis of examining and monitoring the new phenomenon of Hindutva terror but didn’t.

The Hindutva links to Mecca Masjid, Ajmer and other low-intensity blasts have been in the public domain for close to two years; the signs were visible since 2002-03 when an ied found at the Bhopal railway station was traced back to local Hindutva activists Ramnarayan Kalsangra and Sunil Joshi. They were questioned, but no evidence was found. Yet, it prompted Congress leader Digvijay Singh to declare a Bajrang Dal hand. Later in 2006, there were explosions in the houses of Hindutva activists in Nanded and Kanpur, where ieds were being prepared. Through that year, mosques in several towns in Maharashtra—Purna, Parbhani, Jalna—were rocked by low-intensity blasts; the Nanded one was meant for a mosque in Aurangabad. Recovered with a map of Aurangabad were false beards and Muslim male outfits. That should have been warning enough.

However, till May-June this year, the establishment did not either see these warning signals or chose to ignore them—except for a brief two-month period in 2008 when Karkare led the Malegaon probe. Now, it may be difficult to sustain the denial. “For the last 10 years, stories about Hindu right-wing violence have been trickling out. Instead of a systematic investigation, there has been an event-to-event investigation. The larger story has remained underinvestigated and under-reported,” says Mumbai advocate and human rights campaigner Mihir Desai. The CBI is only now seeking directions from the Union home ministry to see the Ajmer, Mecca Masjid, Malegaon and other blasts in conjunction after there has been no conclusive evidence of the involvement of Islamic groups.

Malegaon 2008 provided the much-needed aperture to review the role of Hindutva groups. In September that year, eight people were killed and many injured in a low-intensity blast. The ATS investigation led to Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, whose motorcycle was used to explode the bomb, and then to 13 others, including self-styled guru Dayanand Pandey and Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit, the first-ever serving officer to be charged. During interrogation, he had disclosed to ATS investigators that he had provided the RDX in the Mecca Masjid blasts too but the ATS was reportedly asked not to make it public as the Hyderabad police had detained HuJI suspects. The similarity with the Ajmer Sharif blasts was evident too.

The 4,528-page chargesheet filed in the Malegaon case offers insight into the grand design of the Abhinav Bharat and its affiliates. Purohit, the Sadhvi and others had spoken to one another “to avenge bomb attacks on Hindu shrines” and had engineered a series of blasts with the larger ambition to establish a “separate Hindu rashtra”. Abhinav Bharat—whose original avatar was started by Veer Savarkar, later disbanded, and restarted by Himani Savarkar—was set up to achieve this ambition. “This organised crime syndicate,” states the chargesheet, “wanted to adopt a national flag, that is, a solo-themed saffron flag with a golden border…with an ancient golden torch.”

Malegaon honoured Karkare by naming a chowk after him—the tribute of a relieved town to a man they believed would have led them to the truth about the September 2006 blasts too. Three bombs had gone off that Friday afternoon near a mosque and cemetery, killing 37 and injuring 100. Typically, Muslim men alleged to be members of the proscribed SIMI were picked up, interrogated and forced to confess. But the chargesheet had several loopholes—main accused Mohammed Zahid, though a SIMI activist, was leading prayers in a village 700 km from Malegaon that day; conspirator Shabbir Masiuallah had been in police custody a month before the blasts, police sketches made on the basis of eyewitness accounts showed clean-shaven men while all accused had kept beards for years.

The Rajasthan ATS now believes that Devendra Gupta, linked to the Ajmer blasts, was in touch with AB members through RSS pracharak Sunil Joshi. Providing the other end of the link, the Maharashtra ATS says the Sadhvi, enraged when Joshi was killed by suspected SIMI activists in September 2007, ordered the 2008 Malegaon blast. Joshi has also been linked to the Samjhauta Express blasts which killed 68 people, all Pakistanis. The evidence has come from Purohit’s reported phone conversation as narrated by an unnamed witness.

Yet, the story has several loose ends, most critical among them being fugitives Ramnarayan Kalsangra, Swami Aseemanand and others. Kalsangra, investigators in Maharashtra and Rajasthan say, was introduced to Devendra Gupta by the Sadhvi and is believed to be an expert at assembling bombs. Finding Kalsangra is crucial since all accused in custody have named him as “the man”. Ajmer, Mecca Masjid, Malegaon, Samjhauta Express and several other blasts are clearly part of a larger story. Only when the CBI puts all the pieces together will the entire Hindutva terror picture emerge, if at all.

Two days after stoking a controversy by accusing BJP and RSS of conducting terror training camps and promoting ” Hindu terrorism“, the Union home ministerSushilkumar Shinde on Tuesday got an official backing of his remarks from home secretary R K Singh. The senior bureaucrat emphasized that the government has names of at least 10 people involved in several blasts, who were associated with the RSS. 

Though Singh did not mention anything about BJP or existence of any training camp that might be promoting terrorism as claimed by Shinde, he disclosed the names of 10 people against whom investigating agencies have evidence. 

“During investigation of Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid and (Ajmer) Dargah Sharif blasts, we have found at least 10 names who have been associated with the RSS at some point or the other,” Singh said. 

Responding to a question whether government has any evidence linking RSS with any person involved in any terrorist strike anywhere in the country as claimed by Shinde, the home secretary said, “We have evidence against them. There are statements of witnesses”. 

Names disclosed by Singh are of those who were either arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) or are absconders for their alleged roles in Samjhauta Express, Ajmer Sharif Dargah, Mecca Masjid and Malegaon blasts at different points of time. 

Incidentally, Singh did not take name of the RSS senior leader Indresh Kumar whose name is there in the NIA’s chargesheet as one of the “suspect” in the Samjhauta Express blast case – an indication that the investigating agency hasn’t any corroborative evidence against him so far. 

The names that were made public by the home secretary had links with the RSS in one or the other way. 

These names — part of the report sent by the NIA to the home ministry — include slain RSS activist Sunil Joshi who was allegedly involved in Samjhauta Express and Ajmer Sharif Dargah blasts. Joshi was an “activist of RSS” in Dewas and Mhow from 1990s to 2003. 

The other nine include two absconders — Sandeep Dange and Ramji Kalsangra — and seven arrested accused like Lokesh Sharma, Swami Aseemanand alias Naba Kumar Sarkar, Rajender alias Samunder, Mukesh Vasani, Devender Gupta, Chandrasekhar Leve and Kamal Chauhan. 

The NIA’s report claimed that Dange, who was allegedly involved in Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid and Ajmer Sharif Dargah blasts, was “RSS pracharak” in Mhow, Indore, Uttarkashi and Sajhapur from 1990s to 2006 while Lokesh Sharma – accused in Samjhauta Express and Mecca Masjid blasts — was the RSS “nagar karyavahak” in Deogarh. 

Similarly, Aseemanand – chargesheeted in Samjhauta Express blast case — was “associated with RSS wing Vanavashi Kalyan Parishad” in Dang, Gujarat, in 1990s to 2007, while Rajender (Samjhauta and Mecca Masjid blasts accused) was “RSS varg vistarak”. 

Ajmer Sharif Dargah accused Mukesh Vasani was an “activist of RSS” in Godhra. The report also claimed that Devender Gupta, involved in Mecca Masjid blast, was a “RSS pracharak” in Mhow and Indore. Chandrasekhar – a Mecca Masjid accused — was a “RSS pracharak” in Shajhanpur in 2007, while Kamal Chouhan (Samjhauta and Mecca Masjid blasts accused) was a “RSS activist”. 

The NIA also claimed that the absconder Ramji Kalsangra was a “RSS associate”. He was involved in Samjhauta Express and Mecca Masjid blasts. 

Names of five of them – Aseemanand, Joshi, Sharma, Dange and Kalsangra — had figured in the Samjhauta Express charge-sheet, filed by the NIA in June 2011. Though the RSS leader Indresh Kumar was not an accused in the case, the agency referred to him thrice in the chargesheet stating that his involvement in the conspiracy is “highly suspected”. 

Kumar’s name is figured as “suspect” on the basis of his meeting with the perpetrators twice during 2005-06 when they “discussed about jihadi attacks on Hindu places of worships and the need to give befitting replies”. 

These meetings were followed by similar secret gatherings of select people which finally culminated into terror attacks not only on Samjhauta Express train, but also blasts in dargah Ajmer Sharief, Mecca Masjid (Hyderabad) and twice in Malegaon under the radicals’ “bomb ka badla bomb” plan. The NIA had earlier referred to Kumar as “suspect” in the Ajmer blast case as well. 

The NIA, in its 24-page chargesheet, had claimed that “investigation has brought out strong suspicion about the role of some more persons in the conspiracy as well” and therefore further probe in the case would be continued. 

 

Investigations and allegations

Hindu extremist organisations have been accused of involvement in terrorist attacks including 2006 Malegaon blasts, Mecca Masjid bombing (Hyderabad), Samjhauta Express bombings and the Ajmer Sharif Dargah Blast.^{[7][8][9][10][11][12]}

[edit]Investigation of Ajmer Dargah blast

A blast shook the sufi shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer on 11 October 2007 at 6:20 pm, leaving two dead and eleven injured. The blast was initially blamed on the Pakistani terrorist group LeT.^[13] However, in 2010, The ATS arrested five individuals for the blast, four of whom were members of the Hindu Nationalist group RSS.^[14][15] Swami Aseemanand, in his confession, also admitted the involvement of former RSS members and the Inter-Services Intelligence in the blast.^[16][17][18] Aseemanand later retracted his “confession” and his lawyer said the confession was not voluntary and made under extreme pressure.^[19]

[edit]Investigation of Samjhauta Express bombing

Initially the primary suspects of the bombing were considered to be Pakistan-based terror groups like the LeT and the JeM.^[20] In November 2008, it was reported that Indian officials also suspected the attacks were linked to Prasad Shrikant Purohit, an Indian army officer and member of Hindu nationalist group Abhinav Bharat.^[21] Wikileaks reports name David Headley as behind the Samjhauta attacks.^[22] On January 8, 2011, Swami Aseemanand allegedly confessed that Saffron terror outfits were behind the bombing of Samjhauta express,^[23] a statement later alleged to be obtained under duress.^[19][24][25] His confessions included allegations that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was supporting the activities logistically.^[18][26] On March 31, 2011 Aseemanand redacted his confession, citing government pressure. Security analyst B. Raman has termed this investigation as a “partisan political game.”.^[27] On July 18, 2011 Swami Aseemanand further unveiled that NIA had fabricated evidence against him and his arrest was illegal. He further alleged that he was tortured to give wrong statements.^[28][29] On November 29, 2011 the Punjab and Haryana High Court issued notice to the NIA on a petition filed by Swami Aseemanand.^[30] Kamal Chauhan a former RSS member confessed that he planted a bomb on the Delhi-Lahore Samjhauta Express that killed 68 people. This was under the leadership of Joshi a former RSS zila pracharak in Madhya Pradesh, who quit RSS for its diversion from the core idealogies.^[31][32]

[edit]Investigation of 2008 Malegaon blasts

Police filed a chargesheet that named Indian Army officer Lt Col Prasad Purohit as the alleged main conspirator who provided the explosives, and Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur as the alleged prime accused who arranged for the men who planted the explosives.^[33]

A 4,000-page chargesheet, filed by Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) before the Special MCOCA court here, stated that Purohit joined the right-wing Hindu group Abhinav Bharat in 2007 with an alleged intention to ‘propagate a separate Hindu Rashtra with its own Constitution’. According to the document, the Army officer allegedly collected ‘huge amounts’ to the tune of Rs 21 lakh for himself and Abhinav Bharat to promote his “fundamentalist ideology.”^[33]

It was in the aftermath of the September 29 bomb blast in the predominantly Muslim town^[34] of Malegaon in Maharashtra that the alleged terms Saffron Terror and Hindutva Terror came to be used widely in various medias. ^[35] However, the accused parties confessed to police on narco-analysis that a group of Muslim individuals was used to obtain the RDX used in the blast.^[36] However, Purohit allegedly admitted that a splinter group with tenuous ties to him had executed two blasts in India, which prompted investigators to look into the blasts in Ajmer and Hyderabad.^[37]

Three men accused of the 2006 Malegaon bombings, including Lt Col Shrikant Purohit of the India army and Pragya Singh Thakur, have been described as representing Saffron terror. ^[38][39] Purohit was also accused of being involved in the 2007 Samjhauta Express bombings }</ref>

[edit]Investigation of Mecca Masjid bombing

Main article: Mecca Masjid bombing#Suspected bombers

While the United Progressive Alliance-led central government has claimed that Abhinav Bharat was behind the Mecca Masjid bombing,^[40] the South Asia Terrorism Portal, the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, the United States and the United Nations have asserted that the Islamicoutfit Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami was behind the attacks.^{[41][42][43][44]} Noting this, security analyst B. Raman has questioned “the two different versions that have emerged from Indian and American investigators.”^[45] On September 22, 2010 a report submitted by the United States National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) to the United States Department of Homeland Security, named HuJi responsible for the blasts. The CBI claimed in their response that the NCTC “do not seem to be updated with developments in the case”^[46]

Swami Aseemanand allegedly confessed in January 2011^[47] that he and other Hindu activists were involved in bombings at Muslim religious places(including the mecca masjid). Hyderabad was chosen because the Nizam of Hyderabad wanted to opt for Pakistan at the time of partition.^[47]However his lawyer claimed that confession was obtained under pressure.^[19][24]

[edit]Other allegations

Members of Abhinav Bharat have recently been alleged to have been involved in a plot to kill Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh President Mohan Bhagwat.^[48] allegedly with the help of Pakistan‘s Inter-Services Intelligence.^[49] Headlines Today released a recorded video tested by the Central Forensic Science Laboratory which indicated the uncovering of an alleged plot to assassinate the Vice President of India Hamid Ansari.^[50] Tehelka also released alleged audio tapes transcripts of main conspirators of Abhinav Bharat which indicated involvement of Military intelligence officers with the Abhinav Bharat group in their January 2011 edition.^[51]

In January 2013, Indian Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde accused Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Bharatiya Janata Party for setting up camps to train Hindu Terrorism including planting bombs in 2007 Samjhauta Express bombings, Mecca Masjid bombing and 2006 Malegaon blasts.Shinde said “Reports have come during investigation that BJP and RSS conduct terror training camps to spread terrorism … Bombs were planted in Samjhauta express, Mecca Masjid and also a blast was carried out in Malegaon,” .He also added, “This is saffron terrorism that I have talked about. It is the same thing and nothing new.”^[52]. A few days later, Indian Home Secretary Raj Kumar Singh released the names of 10 people, who were involved in the blasts, also alleged to have been involved with the RSS at some point or the other.^[53]

According to some released documents by WikiLeaks, Congress(I) party’s general secretary Rahul Gandhi remarked to US Ambassador Timothy Roemer, at a luncheon hosted by Prime Minister of India at his residence in July 2009, that R.S.S. was a “bigger threat” to India than theLashkar-e-Tayiba. RSS spokesman Panchjanya responded that the statement showed that Gandhi “is totally unaware of the history of Hindutva as well as the concept of nationalism.”^[54]

At The Annual Conference of Director General of Police held in New Delhi on 16 September 2011, a special director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) reportedly informed the state police chiefs that the Hindutva activists have either been suspected or are under investigation in 16 incidents of bomb blasts in the country.^[55][56]

[edit]Organizations and alleged people

The following organizations are alleged to be involved in acts of terrorism attributable to Hindu nationalism:

• Abhinav Bharat – Notable members: Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Lt. Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit, Swami Aseemanand

Two persons with alleged links to the Hindutva organization Sanatan Sanstha were sentenced to 10 years in jail for planting explosives and causing an explosion in various theatres in Thane and Vasai.^[57]

[edit]Usage

The first known use of the term “Saffron Terror” is from an 2002 article in Frontline in reference to 2002 Gujarat Riots.^[58] However it was in the aftermath of the September 29, 2008 bomb blast in the predominantly Muslim town of Malegaon in Maharashtra that these terms came to be used widely.^[59] In late 2008, Indian police arrested members of a Hindu radical cell allegedly involved in an attack Malegaon which killed 7 Muslims.^[60] For incidents like these, Saffron terror has been used synonymously with “Anti-Muslim terrorism” or “Anti-Muslim reprisals”^[61] and also as Hindu terrorism.^[62]

The current Home Minister of India, P. Chidambaram urged Indians to beware of “Saffron terror” on August 25, 2010 at a meeting of state police chiefs in New Delhi.^[5] This was the first time the word was “officially” used by the Government of India.^[1] Since making the remark, a Hindu Swamiin the Patan district has filed a defamation lawsuit against Chidambaram, on the grounds that the saffron color is a conventional Hindu symbol and worn regularly by Hindu religious clergy, and that Chidambaram has hurt the sentiments of Hindus by linking the symbol to terrorism.^[63]Chidambaram responded by stating “I cannot claim patent on the phrase.”^[64] On September 6, 2010 a Gujarat court ordered a probe into the use of the term by Chidambaram.^[65] Chidambaram was also criticized by members of his own party (the Indian National Congress) for the use of the term, with Congress spokesman Janardhan Dwivedi claiming “terrorism does not have any colour other than black”.^[66]

 

India is in something of a state of shock after learning from official sources that its first Hindu terror cell may have carried out a series of deadly bombings that were initially blamed on militant Muslims. The revelation is forcing the country to consider some difficult questions.

At least 10 people have been arrested in connection with several bomb blasts in the Muslim-dominated town of Malegaon in the western state of Maharashtra in September, which left six people dead. But reports suggest that police believe the cell may also have carried out a number of previous attacks, including last year’s notorious bombing of a cross-border train en route to Pakistan, which killed 68 people. Among the alleged members of the cell are a serving army officer and a Hindu monk.

 

Bomb attacks are not uncommon in India – there has been a flurry in recent months – but police usually blame them on Muslim extremists, often said to have links to militant groups based in either Pakistan or Bangladesh. As a result, the recent cracking of the alleged Hindu cell has forced India to face some difficult issues. A country that prides itself on purported religious and cultural toleration – an ambition that in reality often falls short – has been made to ask itself how this cell could operate for so long. India’s military, which prides itself on i
ts professionalism, has been forced to order an embarrassing inquiry.

 

The near-daily drip of revelations from police has also caused red faces for India’s main political opposition, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), ahead of state polls and a general election scheduled for early next year. The BJP and its prime ministerial candidate, Lal Krishna Advani, have long accused the Congress Party-led government of being soft on terrorism that involved Muslims. However, the BJP has refused to call for a clampdown on Hindu groups, and last week Mr Advani even criticised the police over the way they questioned one of the alleged cell members, a woman called Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur.

 

The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, phoned his rival to ask him not to politicise the issue or the investigation. “There is a strong case so let the police do their job,” he told Mr Advani. While some commentators have expressed surprise about the discovery of the alleged cell, others have pointed out that there has been growing concern about the possible threat from Hindu extremists. In the summer, two members of a right-wing Hindu group were killed while putting together a bomb, and two other suspected members of the same group died in similar circumstances in 2006.

 

Meanwhile, senior right-wing leaders have made no secret of their wish that Hindus should form suicide squads to protect themselves against Muslim extremists. Bal Thackeray, leader of a group called the Shiv Sena, which has been responsible for communal and regional violence in Mumbai, wrote recently in the party’s magazine: “The threat of Islamic terror in India is rising. It is time to counter the same with Hindu terror. Hindu suicide squads should be readied to ensure the existence of Hindu society and to protect the nation.”

 

Observers say the fact that the police have arrested the alleged cell members amid considerable political pressure suggests the growing professionalism of its security forces. “It’s the first Hindu cell and it’s the first time Hindus have been shackled and taken to jail,” said Professor Dipankar Gupta, a sociologist at Delhi’s Jawarlahal Nehru University. “I’m quite pleased with the way the police have done their jobs.”

 

 

Is it ironical when United States terms India’s indigenous terror as Hindu terrorism as its President Barack Obama preaches a noble concept of ‘Terrorism has no religion’. Amidst heated arguments on the controversial topic of ‘saffron terrorism’ in the country, the latest U.S. Congressional report on India says militant Hindu nationalist groups are planning on launching domestic terrorist attacks. The report, however, acknowledge that ‘Hindu Terrorism’ has became a new and highly controversial phrase in India’s national language.

The independent and bipartisan wing of the U.S. Congress, CRS prepares periodic reports on various issues of interest to the lawmakers and the India report was made public by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS). “Even more recent are overt signs that India is home to militant Hindu nationalist groups intent on launching domestic terrorist attacks. In September 2008, seven people were killed by two bomb blasts in Maharashtra’s Malegaon, a hotbed of Hindu-Muslim communal strife,” the report said. “Many Indian observers warned of the danger of a ‘militant majoritarianism’ among Hindu nationalists that threatens to rend the secular fabric of the nation,” reports PTI quoting the CSR study.

Abhinav Bharat: Hindu terrorist group

When blasts took place first at the Ajmer Dargah near Jaipur and then at the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad, the police and the government immediately blamed Pakistani-based terror groups like the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJi).

The attacks in Ajmer and Hyderabad took place nearly five months apart in 2007. Three people were killed in the Ajmer attack; another nine died in the Hyderabad explosion. Immediately after them, young Muslims were arrested in Hyderabad for Mecca Masjid blasts.

Three years later, new evidence suggests that the investigating agencies and the government got it all wrong. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) says it believes that radical Hindu groups planned those blasts.

What’s led to this new theory is the arrests last week of three men by the Rajasthan Anti-Terror Squad. They were tracked down because they were using SIM cards found in the debris after the attack at Ajmer.

The men arrested are all Hindus, and are believed to be associated to Abhinav Bharat, a Hindu radical group that India confronted for the first time in 2006.

In September 2006, a series of blasts in Malegaon in Maharashtra left 37 people dead and another 25 injured. Almost two years later, Mumbai Police Anti-Terrorism Squad arrested Sadhvi Pragya Thakur on October 10, 2008 and then serving army officer, Lieutenant Colonel S P Purohit, believed to be the leaders of Abhinav Bharat. Their alleged agenda: to target Muslim crowds.

Purohit, in recent interrogation, has allegedly said that a man named Sunil Joshi was behind the Ajmer blast. That’s what the Rajasthan police also suspects. Sunil Joshi, who was an RSS pracharak in Madhya Pradesh’s Mhow area, had links with Devendra Gupta, the first suspect arrested in the Ajmer Dargah case. Joshi, a resident of Indore, was killed in Dewas in December 2007. The call details of Gupta indicate that both were in touch.

“Colonel Purohit, arrested for Malgaon blast, has confessed that Sunil Joshi had organised the Dargah operation with the help of Devendra Gupta,” Rajasthan Home Minister Shanti Dhariwal told the Hindu newspaper on May 2.

The CBI says that in both the Ajmer and Hyderabad blasts, identical explosives were used. Cellphones triggered both bombs.

So in two different cities, Pakistani groups were held responsible, and young Muslims paid the price. Muslims like Ibrahim Junaid, who, along with 25 others, was picked up from the Old City of Hyderabad and accused of terror links. They were reportedly tortured in illegal custody. There was no chargesheet accusing them of links to the Mecca Masjid attack. Instead they were accused of conspiring to wage war against the state, of preparing and playing out CDs of the Gujarat communal riots of 2002 to create communal tension.

Junaid was at that time was a Unani doctor; he was finally acquitted after 2 years.

“Without proof, they arrested our children. They didn’t even inform us. We didn’t know their whereabouts for 7-8 days,” said Arifunnisa, Junaid’s mother.

All 26 men were later acquitted but they say the stigma never goes away. Junaid says, “When there is a blast, youth of a particular community are targeted. They are playing with our lives. That happened to me. I lost a year in college. I was not able to do my MD because of this.”

Junaid and some of the other Muslims who were arrested have gone to court seeking compensation.

“We are demanding compensation from the police officers who tortured us. That they should be made to pay compensation from their salary, says Rayeesuddin.

CBI chief Ashwani Kumar on Monday said that there was a link between the three alleged hardline Hindutva activists arrested for 2007 blast in Ajmer and the Mecca Masjid, pointing to a network of saffron terror larger than so far believed. 

“There is a link between the Ajmer blast and Mecca Masjid blast,” Kumar said on the sidelines of the annual D P Kohli Memorial Lecture on Monday. 

The CBI chief said the Rajasthan police along with their Andhra Pradesh counterparts and the CBI have been working on the links for the last six months. “We are coordinating our efforts. For the time being, we can only say that there is a link. We are hopeful of cracking the case,” Kumar added. 

Radical Hindutva formations have already been identified as allegedly responsible for the second terror attack on Malegaon. With investigations suggesting that the Hindutva radicals had the motivation, reach and access to resources that they has so far not been suspected of, police will be looking closely at any sign of their involvement in other unsolved cases of attacks on Muslim targets — like the attack on Jama Masjid in the capital. 

The Maharashtra police have chargesheeted alleged jehadis in the first attack on a Malegaon mosque, but a demand to re-examine the case is very much likely. 

With the CBI breaking its silence over the alleged links between the two cases, Hyderabad-based Muslim groups called upon CBI to not just revisit the Mecca case but also probe the involvement of alleged Hindu terrorists Col P S Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur who are accused in the 2008 Malegaon bombing. 

According to the agency, links have also been found with the Malegaon blast. Sources said that the links had been established due to the use of the similar modus operandi and explosives. The Rajasthan police informed CBI, which is probing the Mecca case, about the arrest last week of three accused — Devender Gupta, Vishnu Patidar and Chandrashekhar Patidar — in the Ajmer shrine blast case. The accused have links with the group, Abhinav Bharat.

Unfinished stories, goes an old idiom in Ajmer, find their denouement in Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti’s shrine. Perhaps, unfinished investigations do too. Two-and-a-half years after low-intensity blasts ripped apart the courtyard of the centuries-old shrine, the Rajasthan police arrested three men—Devendra Gupta, Vishnu Prasad and Chandrashekhar Patidar. Gupta, an RSS worker, was suspected to have bought the mobile phone and SIM card that triggered off the October 2007 blast in which three were killed. Till their arrest on April 30 this year, the story narrated by the investigators, lapped up by the establishment and reiterated in large sections of the media was that the Ajmer blast was the handiwork of jehadi terrorists.

The SIM-mobile phone-detonated bombs are similar in Ajmer and Mecca Masjid blasts, with RDX-TNT mix in proportion used by the Indian army.

The one troubling question—would jehadis target Muslim devout at a dargah?—can have complicated answers, as the body count at Lahore’s Data Ganj Baksh would testify. But in India, the question wasn’t even deemed worthy of being asked as a reasonable line of inquiry. The needle of suspicion remained firmly and automatically fixed on Islamic terrorists—young men from the community were detained at various stages of the investigation and interrogated at length—until the trail finally led to Gupta and pointed to radical Hindu nationalist groups instead. Says Rajasthan Anti-Terrorist Squad chief Kapil Garg: “We have arrested some people of that religion (Hinduism) and we’re dead sure we’re on the right track.”

In Hyderabad too, the CBI team believes it is on the right track, finally, in the Mecca Masjid bomb blasts case. Four men belonging to radical Hindu groups were arrested this May for triggering a high-intensity bomb that went off in the masjid complex in May 2007, killing 14 and injuring some 50. At that time, the Hyderabad police had said it was most likely the work of the Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami (HuJI), backed by local logistical support; some 26 Muslim men were picked up, interrogated, forced to confess and detained for up to six months.

The terror trail in India changed after the Maharashtra ATS’s investigations into the 2008 Malegaon blasts, which alerted them to Abhinav Bharat.

The story followed this script till the CBI found evidence to the contrary: the SIM card-and-mobile phone-detonated explosives packed in metal tubes were strikingly similar to the Ajmer blasts contraption. Tellingly, both bombs are believed to have contained a deadly mix of RDX and TNT, in proportions often used by the Indian army. CBI director Ashwani Kumar told the media that an activist named Sunil Joshi “played a key role in orchestrating the Ajmer blast… and a set of mobile SIM cards that had been used in activation of the bomb-triggers in the Mecca Masjid blast was used again in the Ajmer blast”.

Around the same time, officers of the National Investigating Agency (NIA) filed a chargesheet in a Panjim court accusing 11 people, all Hindus and members of the ultra-right-wing Sanathan Sanstha, of masterminding and executing the October 2009 Margao blasts that killed the two people ferrying the explosives to a local festival. Investigation in Pune’s German Bakery blast this February has run aground after the initial suspicion, detaining and interrogation of suspected Muslim men, some believed to be members of “sleeper cells of jehadi groups” or the Indian Mujahideen (IM). When Abdul Samad was arrested last month, the Maharashtra ATS actively encouraged the understanding that he was the man caught on CCTV cameras in the bakery that night. However, Samad was never charged with the blast and subsequently let off in other cases too.


Malegaon Blasts-I
September 8, 2006
37 dead

* Initial arrests: Arrested include Salman Farsi, Farooq Iqbal Makhdoomi, Raees Ahmed, Noorul Huda Samsudoha and Shabbir Batterywala.
* Later revelation: Suspicion now rests on Hindu terrorists because of the 2008 blasts.

Samjhauta Express Blasts
February 18, 2007
68 dead, mostly Pakistanis

* Initial suspicion: LeT and JeM were blamed. Those arrested included Pakistani national Azmat Ali.
* Later revelation: Police have seen the evidence trail lead to right-wing Hindu activists. Investigators claim the triggering mechanism for the Mecca masjid blast three months later was similar to the one used here. Police are looking for RSS pracharaks Sandeep Dange and Ramji.

Mecca Masjid Blast
May 18, 2007
14 dead

* Initial arrests: Around 80 Muslims detained for questioning and 25 arrested. Several have now been acquitted, including Ibrahim Junaid, Shoaib Jagirdar, Imran Khan and Mohammed Adul Kaleem.
* Later revelation: In June 2010 the CBI announced a cash reward of Rs 10 lakh for information on the two accused, Sandeep Dange and Ramchandra Kalsangra. Lokesh Sharma arrested.

Ajmer Sharif Blast
October 11, 2007
3 dead

* Initial arrests: HuJI, LeT blamed. Those arrested include Abdul Hafiz Shamim, Khushibur Rahman, Imran Ali.
* Later revelation: In 2010, Rajasthan ATS arrests Devendra Gupta, Chandrashekhar and Vishnu Prasad Patidar. Accused Sunil Joshi, who was killed weeks before the blast, is believed to have been a key planner.

Thane Cinema Blast
June 4, 2008

* Affiliated to Hindu Janjagruti Samiti and Sanathan Sanstha, Ramesh Hanumant Gadkari and Mangesh Dinkar Nikam arrested. Blast planned to oppose the screening of Jodhaa Akbar.

Kanpur And Nanded Bomb Mishaps
August 2008

* Two members of Bajrang Dal—Rajiv Mishra and Bhupinder Singh—were killed while assembling bombs in Kanpur. In April 2006, N. Rajkondwar and H. Panse from the same outfit died under similar circumstances in a bomb-making workshop in Nanded.

Malegaon Blasts II
September 29, 2008
7 dead

* Initial suspicion: Groups like Indian Mujahideen involved
* Later revelation: Abhinav Bharat and Rashtriya Jagaran Manch accused of involvement. Arrested include Pragya Singh Thakur, Lt Col Srikant Purohit and Swami Amritanand Dev Tirth, also known as Dayanand Pandey.

Goa Blasts
October 16, 2009

* 2 dead Both accused are members of the Sanathan Sanstha. Malgonda Patil and Yogesh Naik were riding a scooter laden with explosives, which accidentally went off.

Terror trails in India dramatically changed with the Malegaon blasts investigation in September-October 2008. Led by then Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare, who was subsequently killed on the night of 26/11, the investigation pointed to Abhinav Bharat (AB), an ultra-right-wing Pune-based organisation established in 2005-06, and its members or affiliates. What Karkare’s teams managed to uncover is part of recent history and should have become the basis of examining and monitoring the new phenomenon of Hindutva terror but didn’t.

The Hindutva links to Mecca Masjid, Ajmer and other low-intensity blasts have been in the public domain for close to two years; the signs were visible since 2002-03 when an ied found at the Bhopal railway station was traced back to local Hindutva activists Ramnarayan Kalsangra and Sunil Joshi. They were questioned, but no evidence was found. Yet, it prompted Congress leader Digvijay Singh to declare a Bajrang Dal hand. Later in 2006, there were explosions in the houses of Hindutva activists in Nanded and Kanpur, where ieds were being prepared. Through that year, mosques in several towns in Maharashtra—Purna, Parbhani, Jalna—were rocked by low-intensity blasts; the Nanded one was meant for a mosque in Aurangabad. Recovered with a map of Aurangabad were false beards and Muslim male outfits. That should have been warning enough.

However, till May-June this year, the establishment did not either see these warning signals or chose to ignore them—except for a brief two-month period in 2008 when Karkare led the Malegaon probe. Now, it may be difficult to sustain the denial. “For the last 10 years, stories about Hindu right-wing violence have been trickling out. Instead of a systematic investigation, there has been an event-to-event investigation. The larger story has remained underinvestigated and under-reported,” says Mumbai advocate and human rights campaigner Mihir Desai. The CBI is only now seeking directions from the Union home ministry to see the Ajmer, Mecca Masjid, Malegaon and other blasts in conjunction after there has been no conclusive evidence of the involvement of Islamic groups.

Malegaon 2008 provided the much-needed aperture to review the role of Hindutva groups. In September that year, eight people were killed and many injured in a low-intensity blast. The ATS investigation led to Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, whose motorcycle was used to explode the bomb, and then to 13 others, including self-styled guru Dayanand Pandey and Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit, the first-ever serving officer to be charged. During interrogation, he had disclosed to ATS investigators that he had provided the RDX in the Mecca Masjid blasts too but the ATS was reportedly asked not to make it public as the Hyderabad police had detained HuJI suspects. The similarity with the Ajmer Sharif blasts was evident too.

The 4,528-page chargesheet filed in the Malegaon case offers insight into the grand design of the Abhinav Bharat and its affiliates. Purohit, the Sadhvi and others had spoken to one another “to avenge bomb attacks on Hindu shrines” and had engineered a series of blasts with the larger ambition to establish a “separate Hindu rashtra”. Abhinav Bharat—whose original avatar was started by Veer Savarkar, later disbanded, and restarted by Himani Savarkar—was set up to achieve this ambition. “This organised crime syndicate,” states the chargesheet, “wanted to adopt a national flag, that is, a solo-themed saffron flag with a golden border…with an ancient golden torch.”

Malegaon honoured Karkare by naming a chowk after him—the tribute of a relieved town to a man they believed would have led them to the truth about the September 2006 blasts too. Three bombs had gone off that Friday afternoon near a mosque and cemetery, killing 37 and injuring 100. Typically, Muslim men alleged to be members of the proscribed SIMI were picked up, interrogated and forced to confess. But the chargesheet had several loopholes—main accused Mohammed Zahid, though a SIMI activist, was leading prayers in a village 700 km from Malegaon that day; conspirator Shabbir Masiuallah had been in police custody a month before the blasts, police sketches made on the basis of eyewitness accounts showed clean-shaven men while all accused had kept beards for years.

The Rajasthan ATS now believes that Devendra Gupta, linked to the Ajmer blasts, was in touch with AB members through RSS pracharak Sunil Joshi. Providing the other end of the link, the Maharashtra ATS says the Sadhvi, enraged when Joshi was killed by suspected SIMI activists in September 2007, ordered the 2008 Malegaon blast. Joshi has also been linked to the Samjhauta Express blasts which killed 68 people, all Pakistanis. The evidence has come from Purohit’s reported phone conversation as narrated by an unnamed witness.

Yet, the story has several loose ends, most critical among them being fugitives Ramnarayan Kalsangra, Swami Aseemanand and others. Kalsangra, investigators in Maharashtra and Rajasthan say, was introduced to Devendra Gupta by the Sadhvi and is believed to be an expert at assembling bombs. Finding Kalsangra is crucial since all accused in custody have named him as “the man”. Ajmer, Mecca Masjid, Malegaon, Samjhauta Express and several other blasts are clearly part of a larger story. Only when the CBI puts all the pieces together will the entire Hindutva terror picture emerge, if at all.

Two days after stoking a controversy by accusing BJP and RSS of conducting terror training camps and promoting ” Hindu terrorism“, the Union home ministerSushilkumar Shinde on Tuesday got an official backing of his remarks from home secretary R K Singh. The senior bureaucrat emphasized that the government has names of at least 10 people involved in several blasts, who were associated with the RSS. 

Though Singh did not mention anything about BJP or existence of any training camp that might be promoting terrorism as claimed by Shinde, he disclosed the names of 10 people against whom investigating agencies have evidence. 

“During investigation of Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid and (Ajmer) Dargah Sharif blasts, we have found at least 10 names who have been associated with the RSS at some point or the other,” Singh said. 

Responding to a question whether government has any evidence linking RSS with any person involved in any terrorist strike anywhere in the country as claimed by Shinde, the home secretary said, “We have evidence against them. There are statements of witnesses”. 

Names disclosed by Singh are of those who were either arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) or are absconders for their alleged roles in Samjhauta Express, Ajmer Sharif Dargah, Mecca Masjid and Malegaon blasts at different points of time. 

Incidentally, Singh did not take name of the RSS senior leader Indresh Kumar whose name is there in the NIA’s chargesheet as one of the “suspect” in the Samjhauta Express blast case – an indication that the investigating agency hasn’t any corroborative evidence against him so far. 

The names that were made public by the home secretary had links with the RSS in one or the other way. 

These names — part of the report sent by the NIA to the home ministry — include slain RSS activist Sunil Joshi who was allegedly involved in Samjhauta Express and Ajmer Sharif Dargah blasts. Joshi was an “activist of RSS” in Dewas and Mhow from 1990s to 2003. 

The other nine include two absconders — Sandeep Dange and Ramji Kalsangra — and seven arrested accused like Lokesh Sharma, Swami Aseemanand alias Naba Kumar Sarkar, Rajender alias Samunder, Mukesh Vasani, Devender Gupta, Chandrasekhar Leve and Kamal Chauhan. 

The NIA’s report claimed that Dange, who was allegedly involved in Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid and Ajmer Sharif Dargah blasts, was “RSS pracharak” in Mhow, Indore, Uttarkashi and Sajhapur from 1990s to 2006 while Lokesh Sharma – accused in Samjhauta Express and Mecca Masjid blasts — was the RSS “nagar karyavahak” in Deogarh. 

Similarly, Aseemanand – chargesheeted in Samjhauta Express blast case — was “associated with RSS wing Vanavashi Kalyan Parishad” in Dang, Gujarat, in 1990s to 2007, while Rajender (Samjhauta and Mecca Masjid blasts accused) was “RSS varg vistarak”. 

Ajmer Sharif Dargah accused Mukesh Vasani was an “activist of RSS” in Godhra. The report also claimed that Devender Gupta, involved in Mecca Masjid blast, was a “RSS pracharak” in Mhow and Indore. Chandrasekhar – a Mecca Masjid accused — was a “RSS pracharak” in Shajhanpur in 2007, while Kamal Chouhan (Samjhauta and Mecca Masjid blasts accused) was a “RSS activist”. 

The NIA also claimed that the absconder Ramji Kalsangra was a “RSS associate”. He was involved in Samjhauta Express and Mecca Masjid blasts. 

Names of five of them – Aseemanand, Joshi, Sharma, Dange and Kalsangra — had figured in the Samjhauta Express charge-sheet, filed by the NIA in June 2011. Though the RSS leader Indresh Kumar was not an accused in the case, the agency referred to him thrice in the chargesheet stating that his involvement in the conspiracy is “highly suspected”. 

Kumar’s name is figured as “suspect” on the basis of his meeting with the perpetrators twice during 2005-06 when they “discussed about jihadi attacks on Hindu places of worships and the need to give befitting replies”. 

These meetings were followed by similar secret gatherings of select people which finally culminated into terror attacks not only on Samjhauta Express train, but also blasts in dargah Ajmer Sharief, Mecca Masjid (Hyderabad) and twice in Malegaon under the radicals’ “bomb ka badla bomb” plan. The NIA had earlier referred to Kumar as “suspect” in the Ajmer blast case as well. 

The NIA, in its 24-page chargesheet, had claimed that “investigation has brought out strong suspicion about the role of some more persons in the conspiracy as well” and therefore further probe in the case would be continued. 

 

Investigations and allegations

Hindu extremist organisations have been accused of involvement in terrorist attacks including 2006 Malegaon blasts, Mecca Masjid bombing (Hyderabad), Samjhauta Express bombings and the Ajmer Sharif Dargah Blast.^{[7][8][9][10][11][12]}

[edit]Investigation of Ajmer Dargah blast

A blast shook the sufi shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer on 11 October 2007 at 6:20 pm, leaving two dead and eleven injured. The blast was initially blamed on the Pakistani terrorist group LeT.^[13] However, in 2010, The ATS arrested five individuals for the blast, four of whom were members of the Hindu Nationalist group RSS.^[14][15] Swami Aseemanand, in his confession, also admitted the involvement of former RSS members and the Inter-Services Intelligence in the blast.^[16][17][18] Aseemanand later retracted his “confession” and his lawyer said the confession was not voluntary and made under extreme pressure.^[19]

[edit]Investigation of Samjhauta Express bombing

Initially the primary suspects of the bombing were considered to be Pakistan-based terror groups like the LeT and the JeM.^[20] In November 2008, it was reported that Indian officials also suspected the attacks were linked to Prasad Shrikant Purohit, an Indian army officer and member of Hindu nationalist group Abhinav Bharat.^[21] Wikileaks reports name David Headley as behind the Samjhauta attacks.^[22] On January 8, 2011, Swami Aseemanand allegedly confessed that Saffron terror outfits were behind the bombing of Samjhauta express,^[23] a statement later alleged to be obtained under duress.^[19][24][25] His confessions included allegations that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was supporting the activities logistically.^[18][26] On March 31, 2011 Aseemanand redacted his confession, citing government pressure. Security analyst B. Raman has termed this investigation as a “partisan political game.”.^[27] On July 18, 2011 Swami Aseemanand further unveiled that NIA had fabricated evidence against him and his arrest was illegal. He further alleged that he was tortured to give wrong statements.^[28][29] On November 29, 2011 the Punjab and Haryana High Court issued notice to the NIA on a petition filed by Swami Aseemanand.^[30] Kamal Chauhan a former RSS member confessed that he planted a bomb on the Delhi-Lahore Samjhauta Express that killed 68 people. This was under the leadership of Joshi a former RSS zila pracharak in Madhya Pradesh, who quit RSS for its diversion from the core idealogies.^[31][32]

[edit]Investigation of 2008 Malegaon blasts

Police filed a chargesheet that named Indian Army officer Lt Col Prasad Purohit as the alleged main conspirator who provided the explosives, and Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur as the alleged prime accused who arranged for the men who planted the explosives.^[33]

A 4,000-page chargesheet, filed by Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) before the Special MCOCA court here, stated that Purohit joined the right-wing Hindu group Abhinav Bharat in 2007 with an alleged intention to ‘propagate a separate Hindu Rashtra with its own Constitution’. According to the document, the Army officer allegedly collected ‘huge amounts’ to the tune of Rs 21 lakh for himself and Abhinav Bharat to promote his “fundamentalist ideology.”^[33]

It was in the aftermath of the September 29 bomb blast in the predominantly Muslim town^[34] of Malegaon in Maharashtra that the alleged terms Saffron Terror and Hindutva Terror came to be used widely in various medias. ^[35] However, the accused parties confessed to police on narco-analysis that a group of Muslim individuals was used to obtain the RDX used in the blast.^[36] However, Purohit allegedly admitted that a splinter group with tenuous ties to him had executed two blasts in India, which prompted investigators to look into the blasts in Ajmer and Hyderabad.^[37]

Three men accused of the 2006 Malegaon bombings, including Lt Col Shrikant Purohit of the India army and Pragya Singh Thakur, have been described as representing Saffron terror. ^[38][39] Purohit was also accused of being involved in the 2007 Samjhauta Express bombings }</ref>

[edit]Investigation of Mecca Masjid bombing

MB official: Egyptian Jews should return to Egypt

Senior Muslim Brotherhood official Essam el-Erian says Egyptian Jews are welcome in Egypt, should leave Israel to Palestinians.

 PHOTO: REUTERS

An opportunistic pathogen isolated from the gut of an obese human causes obesity in germfree mice
Open

Na Fei¹ and Liping Zhao^1,2

The role of the gut microbiota in the pathogenesis of obesity has emerged into an important research area (Backhed et al., 2004). Gram-negative opportunistic pathogens in the gut may be pivotal in obesity (Schumann et al., 1990; Zhang et al., 2010, 2012). Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) endotoxin purified from Escherichia coliinduced obese and insulin-resistant phenotypes when subcutaneously infused into mice at a concentration comparable to what can be found in a mouse model of high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obesity (Cani et al., 2007). Endotoxin-induced inflammation seems to be essential for the development of obese and insulin-resistant phenotypes in the mouse model involving LPS infusion, as CD14-knockout mice did not develop these phenotypes after endotoxin infusion (Cani et al., 2007). Epidemiological studies show increased population of endotoxin producers and elevated endotoxin load in various obese cohorts (Lepper et al., 2007; Ruiz et al., 2007; Moreno-Navarrete et al., 2011), but experimental evidence of endotoxin producers having a causative role in human obesity is lacking.

During our clinical studies, we found that Enterobacter, a genus of opportunistic, endotoxin-producing pathogens (Sanders and Sanders, 1997), made up 35% of the gut bacteria in a morbidly obese volunteer (weight 174.8 kg, body mass index 58.8 kg m⁻²) suffering from diabetes, hypertension and other serious metabolic deteriorations (Table 1). The volunteer lost 30.1 kg after 9 weeks, and 51.4 kg after 23 weeks, on a diet composed of whole grains, traditional Chinese medicinal foods and prebiotics (WTP diet, Supplementary Information; Supplementary Figure 1), with continued amelioration of hyperinsulinemia, hyperglycemia and hypertension until most metabolic parameters improved to normal ranges (Table 1). After 9 weeks on the WTP diet, this Enterobacter population in the volunteer’s gut reduced to 1.8%, and became undetectable by the end of the 23-week trial, as shown in the clone library analysis (Table 1; Supplementary Figures 2 and 3). The serum–endotoxin load, measured as LPS-binding protein (Schumann et al., 1990), dropped markedly during weight loss, along with substantial improvement of inflammation, decreased level of interleukin-6 and increased adiponectin (Table 1). Metagenomic sequencing of the volunteer’s fecal samples at 0, 9 and 23 weeks on the WTP diet confirmed that during weight loss, the Enterobacteriaceae family was the most significantly reduced population (Supplementary Figure 4). The abundance of 25 KEGG Orthologies involved in the LPS biosynthetic pathway diminished considerably, together indicating a significant reduction of the endotoxin-producing capacity of the volunteer’s gut microbiota after the intervention (Supplementary Figures 5–7). In light of previous reports of the pivotal role that endotoxins have in metabolic diseases in mice (Cani et al., 2007), we hypothesized that this endotoxin-producing Enterobacter population may have a causative role in the metabolic deteriorations of its human host. To confirm the causative role it may have in obesity development, we confirm Koch’s postulate in an experimental host with an isolated strain of this Enterobacter population (Evans, 1976). We then obtained one clinical isolate (B29) from the volunteer’s fecal sample via a ‘sequence-guided isolation’ scheme (Rappé et al., 2002; Supplementary Figure 8), and identified it as Enterobacter cloacae through biochemical tests and 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing (Supplementary Table 1). We performed whole-genome sequencing on B29, and phylogenetic analysis using CVTree (Qi et al., 2004) and identified its nearest neighbor as E. cloacaesubsp. cloacae ATCC 13047 (Supplementary Information). A limulus amebocyte lysate test showed that B29 LPS has strong endotoxin activity (Supplementary Figure 9), and the draft genome sequence revealed LPS biosynthesis genes similar to those in the metagenome from the day 0 fecal sample (Supplementary Figure 10).

Table 1 – Changes of endotoxin load, inflammation indicators, metabolic phenotypes and the gut microbiota during weight loss of a morbidly obese volunteer.

Full table

Previous studies show that germfree mice are resistant to HFD-induced obesity (Backhed et al., 2007; Ding et al., 2010; Rabot et al., 2010). To test whether B29 can overcome this resistance to obesity by colonizing the gut of germfree mice (Supplementary Figure 11), we inoculated 10¹⁰ cells of B29 every day for the first week into 6- to 10-week-old germfree C57BL/6J mice (n=7 per group) under either normal chow diet (NCD) or HFD. We observed a slight body weight reduction among the mice during the inoculation period (Supplementary Figures 11–14). One mouse in each group died during inoculation because of the translocation of B29 into various organs (Sanders and Sanders, 1997; Supplementary Table 2). After the first week, the HFD-fed gnotobiotic mice inoculated with B29 (HFD+B29) showed a steady weight gain until eventually reaching an obese state comparable to that of the HFD-fed conventional mice (n=8 per group; Figures1a–c; Supplementary Figures 14–17). The excessive fat accumulation in the HFD+B29 gnotobiotic mice was associated with an altered lipometabolism including a leptin-resistant phenotype, reduced expression of fasting-induced adipose factor in the ileum, and increased expression of acetyl-CoA carboxylase 1, fatty acid synthase and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma genes in the liver (Supplementary Figures 18–19; Backhed et al., 2004, 2007). The HFD+B29 gnotobiotic mice developed the most significant insulin-resistant phenotype as shown in the oral glucose tolerance test and 2 h post load insulin levels at the end of the trial (Figures 1d and e). This group also had the greatest increases in liver and spleen weights and the greatest decrease in cecum weight (Supplementary Table 3). The NCD-fed mice inoculated with either B29 (NCD+B29) or Luria–Bertani (LB) medium (NCD+LB) both remained lean throughout the trial (Figures 1a–c). The HFD-fed germfree mice inoculated with LB (HFD+LB) experienced significant weight gain over the first 9 weeks but eventually became no different, based on the obesity parameters tested, from the NCD-fed groups by the end of the 16-week trial, except for a moderately increased epididymal fat pad and a low level of insulin resistance (Supplementary Figure 14; Figures 1b and d). Our repeat of the animal test with HFD-fed gnotobiotic mice mono-associated with B29 confirmed that a single endotoxin producer such as B29 can function in the capacity of the whole microbiota for inducing obese and insulin-resistant phenotypes (Supplementary Figure 20). Inoculating 6- to 10-week-old germfree mice (n=4–6 per group) with a strain of Bifidobacterium animals via alternation of NCD and HFD feeding did not induce the same obese phenotype (Supplementary Figure 21), suggesting that obesity cannot be induced by introducing any bacteria in the germfree mice under HFD feeding.

Figure 1.

Gnotobiotic mice mono-associated with E. cloacae B29 become obese and insulin resistant with increased endotoxin load and provoked systemic inflammation under HFD feeding (data collected at the end of 16 weeks after inoculation). (a) Body weight; (b) mass of epididymal, mesenteric, subcutaneous inguinal and retroperitoneal fat pad; (c) abdominal photographs; (d) oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) and the areas under the curve (AUC) for the plasma glucose; (e) serum 2 h post load insulin; (f) enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) analysis of serum LPS-binding protein (LBP); (g) serum amyloid A (SAA); and (h) adiponectin corrected for bodyweight. The two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed a significant effect of the diet (P<0.01), a significant effect of B29 (P<0.01) and a significant diet × B29 interaction effect (P<0.01) on body weight, mass of epididymal, mesenteric, subcutaneous inguinal and retroperitoneal fat pad, serum LBP; a significant effect of the diet (P<0.01) and a significant effect of B29 (P<0.01) on OGTT; a significant effect of B29 (P<0.05) on serum 2 h post load insulin. Data are shown as means±s.e.m. (n=6). NS, no significant difference; *P<0.05; **P<0.01. Color code for animal groups: NCD+LB, blue slash; NCD+B29, blue; HFD+LB, red slash; HFD+B29, red. LB, Luria–Bertani medium.

Full figure and legend (325K)

A slightly increased endotoxin load can induce a low-grade, chronic inflammation as a driving force for insulin resistance and altered lipometabolism in mice (Hotamisligil et al., 1996; Cani et al., 2007). The serum LPS-binding protein was significantly higher in the HFD+B29 gnotobiotic mice than in the NCD+B29 gnotobiotic mice (Figure 1f), despite the fact that B29 reached a significantly greater population size in the gut of the NCD-fed gnotobiotic mice (Supplementary Figure 13). As B29 was the only LPS producer in the gnotobiotic-mouse gut (Supplementary Figure 22), the increased serum–endotoxin load in the HFD+B29 gnotobiotic mice could only come from B29. As the gene expression levels of the two tight junction proteins occludin and ZO-1 (Cani et al., 2008) in the ileum were not significantly different among the groups (Supplementary Figure 23), the high amount of endotoxin translocation from the gut to the serum in the HFD+B29 gnotobiotic mice may be facilitated by chylomicrons induced by long-chain fatty acids in the HFD (Cani et al., 2007; Ghoshal et al., 2009), rather than by impaired gut barrier function (Cani et al., 2007; Zhang et al., 2010, 2012). In accordance with the increased endotoxin load, the HFD+B29 gnotobiotic mice had the greatest increase in serum amyloid A protein levels and the greatest decrease in adiponectin secretion, suggesting that these mice had the greatest increase in systemic inflammation (Figures 1g and h). The expression of the tumor necrosis factor-alpha, interleukin-1β, interleukin-6, I kappa B kinase epsilon and Toll-like receptor 4 pro-inflammatory genes increased significantly in the liver and epididymal fat pad but not in the ileum of the HFD+B29 gnotobiotic mice (Supplementary Figure 24), indicating local inflammation induced in the former two tissues but not in the gut, in contrast to a previous report (Ding et al., 2010). The HFD+LB germfree mice had moderately higher levels of serum serum amyloid A and liver tumor necrosis factor-alpha expression than the NCD-fed groups, suggesting that the HFD induced some host inflammation (Tripathy et al., 2003), which is, however, much lower than that induced by B29. Taken together, our results suggest that endotoxin-induced inflammation may have a pivotal role in obesity induced by E. cloacae B29, supporting the existence of a putative chain of causation from endotoxin producers in the gut to the obesity end points.

Germfree mice have been extensively used for obesity studies. For example, Gordon et al. showed that co-inoculation of germfree mice with the plant polysaccharide-fermenting Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron and the methane-producing Methanobrevibacter smithii significantly increased the epididymal fat pad but not the total bodyweight (Samuel and Gordon, 2006). As a step forward, our study has followed a procedure modified from Koch’s Postulates (Evans, 1976) and, for the first time, established a gnotobiotic-mouse obesity model combining HFD with a human-originated endotoxin producer. This work suggests that the overgrowth of an endotoxin-producing gut bacterium is a contributing factor to, rather than a consequence of, the metabolic deteriorations in its human host. In fact, this strain B29 is probably not the only contributor to human obesity in vivo, and its relative contribution needs to be assessed. Nevertheless, by following the protocol established in this study, we hope to identify more such obesity-inducing bacteria from various human populations, gain a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms of their interactions with other members of the gut microbiota, diet and host for obesity, and develop new strategies for reducing the devastating epidemic of metabolic diseases.

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References

1. Backhed F, Ding H, Wang T, Hooper LV, Koh GY, Nagy A et al. (2004). The gut microbiota as an environmental factor that regulates fat storage. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101: 15718–15723. | Article | PubMed | CAS |
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12. Rabot S, Membrez M, Bruneau A, Gerard P, Harach T, Moser M et al. (2010). Germ-free C57BL/6J mice are resistant to high-fat-diet-induced insulin resistance and have altered cholesterol metabolism. FASEB J 24: 4948–4959. | Article | PubMed | ISI | CAS |
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Acknowledgements

We appreciate Professor R. Losick, L Neuhauser, M Obin and M Pop for critical reading of the manuscript and kind suggestions. We are also grateful to the following individuals for their kind assistance during the study: S Xiao, J Shen, X Pang, M Zhang, XJ Zhang, Y Zhao, L Wang, J Wang, Y Zhang, G Wu, G Wang, H Ou, J Qi, JJ Wang, X Zhang, R Wang, M Song, J Xu, H Tang, T Liu, Q Zhang, N Zhao, C Zhang, Y Fan, S Liu, YZ Fan, T Wang, Z Hu, R Xi, XY Zhang, C Liu, H Wu, X Guo, X Li, G Ning, S Yang and G Zhao.

This work was supported by Project 30730005 of the National Nature Science Foundation of China (NSFC), 863 Projects 2008AA02Z315 and 2009AA02Z310, Key Projects 2007DFC30450 and 075407001 of International Cooperation Program Grants and Project in the National Science and Technology Pillar Program 2006BAI11B08.

Supplementary Information accompanies the paper on The ISME Journal website

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visithttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/.

Microsoft to stop Linux, older Windows, from running on Windows 8 PCs | ZDNet

Summary: It doesn’t take much reading between the lines to see that Microsoft is going to try to keep Linux, older versions of Windows, and other operating systems off Windows 8 PCs.
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols for Linux and Open Source | September 23, 2011 — 07:55 GMT (00:55 PDT)

[The Microsoft Death Star is back in orbit and firing.] Thanks to Mary Jo Foley, we now know that in the name of “security,” Microsoft will be trying to use UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) to block Linux, older versions of Windows, and other alternative operating systems from booting on Windows 8 PCs. Thanks Microsoft we appreciate it.

In a new Microsoft blog, Building Windows 8, by Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft’s president of the Windows division, Linux isn’t mentioned, and he tries to place the blame on the UEFI security protocol. Behind all his dodging, the facts are that Microsoft UEFI secure boot is requirement for Windows 8 certification and that, while “OEMs [original equipment manufacturers) are free to choose how to enable this support,” they still have to have it. In turn, that will make it harder for OEMs to support alternative operating systems and, if the OEM does bow down to Microsoft’s demands, it will make it almost impossible for end-users to run Linux, older versions of Windows, or other alternative operating systems on Windows 8 certified PCs.

In short, if Microsoft has its way, all Windows 8 PCs will be even more locked into their pre-installed operating systems than Macs are into Mac OS X. Indeed, a better comparison would be how phone companies lock you into their smartphone operating systems. Just like them the Windows 8 PC you buy in 2013 will be permanently locked into Windows 8. And, like smartphones, only expert firmware hackers will be able to switch out operating systems or even enable dual-booting operating systems.

This isn’t the first time Microsoft has tried to lock out competitors from Windows PCs. In the early 2000s, Microsoft tried to combine Windows and the BIOS with a Digital Right Management (DRM) scheme called Next Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB), AKA Palladium. At the time, the point wasn’t so much as to block operating systems as it was to build DRM into PCs so you couldn’t play any music or video content unless you had a license for it. That effort failed.

That isn’t stopping Microsoft from once more trying to stop you from using your computer the way you want to use it though.

Matthew Garrett, the Red Hat engineer who first spotted Microsoft’s new sneak attack on alternative operating systems, has taken a new look at Microsoft’s latest announcements and Garrett and Red Hat after “discussing the problem with other Linux vendors, hardware vendors and BIOS vendors [to make] sure that we understood the ramifications of the policy in order to avoid saying anything that wasn’t backed up by facts. These are the facts:”

Windows 8 certification requires that hardware ship with UEFI secure boot enabled.
Windows 8 certification does not require that the user be able to disable UEFI secure boot, and we’ve already been informed by hardware vendors that some hardware will not have this option.
Windows 8 certification does not require that the system ship with any keys other than Microsoft’s.
A system that ships with UEFI secure boot enabled and only includes Microsoft’s signing keys will only securely boot Microsoft operating systems.

Garrett explains that this is a problem “Because there’s no central certification authority for UEFI signing keys. Microsoft can require that hardware vendors include their keys. Their competition can’t. A system that ships with Microsoft’s signing keys and no others will be unable to perform secure boot of any operating system other than Microsoft’s. No other vendor has the same position of power over the hardware vendors. Red Hat is unable to ensure that every OEM carries their signing key. Nor is Canonical. Nor is Nvidia, or AMD or any other PC component manufacturer. Microsoft’s influence here is greater than even Intel’s.”

Indeed Microsoft still owns the desktop market. Macs still have less than 5% of the world desktop market according to Gartner and the Linux desktop has proven to be a non-starter, PC vendors will have little choice but to kowtow to Microsoft’s Windows 8 demands.

“What does this mean for the end user?” continued Garrett. “Microsoft claims that the customer is in control of their PC. That’s true, if by ‘customer’ they mean ‘hardware manufacturer.’ The end user is not guaranteed the ability to install extra signing keys in order to securely boot the operating system of their choice. The end user is not guaranteed the ability to disable this functionality. The end user is not guaranteed that their system will include the signing keys that would be required for them to swap their graphics card for one from another vendor, or replace their network card and still be able to netboot, or install a newer SATA controller and have it recognize their hard drive in the firmware. The end user is no longer in control of their PC.”

Garrett concluded, “So, the truth is that Microsoft’s move removes control from the end user and places it in the hands of Microsoft and the hardware vendors. The truth is that it makes it more difficult to run anything other than Windows. The truth is that UEFI secure boot is a valuable and worthwhile feature that Microsoft [is] misusing to gain tighter control over the market. And the truth is that Microsoft [hasn’t] even attempted to argue otherwise.”

Garrett is, understandably, most concerned about how this will effect desktop Linux. I wonder though if what Microsoft really wants is to avoid a repeat of the Vista fiasco by making sure OEMs and end-users can’t go back to Windows 7 or XP. As Windows 7’s slow adoption and Vista’s flop has shown, users really haven’t been that interested in moving off Windows XP. Since Windows 8’s Metro interface adds an entirely new level of complications for both independent software vendors (ISV)s and end-users, I can see why Sinofsky would want to force Windows 8 down the throats of Windows users “for their own good.”

So what does it all boil down to? As it stands now Microsoft is saying OEMs don’t have to do it. They just have to do it if they want to sell PCs with Windows on them. Paging the anti-trust lawyers, I think Microsoft’s latest attempt to abuse their PC monopoly power bears investigation. Welcome back Evil Empire, I knew you couldn’t really be that far away.