The incessant threats from ISIS notwithstanding, there is something eerily rabid about a group of colonial-era rifle-wielding men who are not policemen practicing "self-defence camps" and felling men with skullcaps as a hallmark of their training in patriotism. But that's exactly what we are being offered by Bajrang Dal, the quasi-militant wing of Sangh Parivar, when it conducts its classes of inducting Hindu men into martial glory.

In a 21 second video posted by the wire agency ANI, Bajrang Dal men, all pumped up and sporting lathis and rusty old rifles still used by cops in India, are seen combatting and defeating men posing as terrorists. Point to be noted is that all the so-called playacting terrorists are wearing skullcaps in the video.

WATCH: Bajrang Dal conducts its annual self defence camps in Ayodhya (UP) (14/05/16)https://t.co/SYsjoX1q6Q — ANI (@ANI_news) May 23, 2016

Given that one of the main goals of the Dal is to build the Ramjanmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya, the Krishnajanmabhoomi temple in Mathura and the Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi,its self-defence classes showing Muslims as the enemy fit comfortably into the Hindutva narrative that is spreading its dominion every passing day.

Spreading unwarranted paranoia about India's "Hindu" identity and stirring up the rabid communal pot with hysterical falsehoods on Muslim demographic growth, Christian conversion, and beef-eating - all have been Bajrang Dal's forte.

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The latest exercise, ostensibly paraded as a "self-defence camp", is exactly the kind of ugly Islamophobic paranoia that the Hindu rightwing has peddling for long in this country and abroad.

Screenshot of ANI tweet on Bajrang Dal's "self-defence camp".

It was for these reasons that the Bajrang Dal was banned in 1992 by the then PV Narasimha Rao-led Congress government in the wake of the sordid Babri Masjid demolition episode. Since then, Bajrang Dal has been practising its martial techniques in riots such as the 2002 Gujarat pogrom, as well as carrying out atrocities and organised violence against religious minorities such as Muslims and Christians.

In the light of its stellar history, can we make light of its "self-defence" camps? Guess not.