Mumbai, November 17
Prominent Kashmiri Pandits from the corporate sector, media, film industry and even some retired bureaucrats are under the scanner of the Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) of the Maharashtra police for their links with Swami Amritanand Dev Teerth Maharaj, alias Dayanand Pandey.
Pandey, who is a self-styled Shankaracharya of the Sharada Sarvagya Peeth, claimed to represent the original Sarvagya Peeth in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. He has set up ashrams in a number of towns in north India, including Jammu and Faridabad in Haryana where members of the expatriate Kashmiri Pandit community flocked in large numbers. Pandey even claimed association with prominent members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, including its ideologue N. Govindacharya who has disowned the arrested swami.
According to sources here, Pandey used be a guest at the residences of a number of prominent Kashmiris in Mumbai, Delhi and other places. He had also mobilised a large amount of funds from the Kashmiri Pandit community, according to the police. Pandey was also said to be associated with an organisation, which is demanding the creation of a separate homeland for the Pandits in the Kashmir valley.
Pandey is known to have held meetings at the houses of these people in the guise of satsangs and prayer meetings, according to the police. The police is now probing if these people had any links in the bomb blasts allegedly masterminded by Pandey as well.
ATS officials are examining documents and computers seized from Pandey and some of these people may be called for questioning.
So far, the police is not revealing the names of the persons under the ATS scanner. However, some of the prominent persons, who were openly espousing the cause of the Kashmir Pandits in the past, have become incommunicado.
The police now say that Pandey, who had been trying his luck as a swami in many parts of the country, finally managed to buy the title of Shankaracharya by paying money to a religious body in Varanasi.
