Anti-Valentine’s Day violence, objecting to images of deities on Ganesh mandal members ’ shirts, imposing Marathi on businesses, cow vigilantism – even before an arsenal of guns and explosives was found in Vaibhav Raut ’s Nallasopara house , he frequently was in cops’ bad books

Shiv Sena

Raut (above) was arrested along with Sudhanva Gondhlekar (top left) and Sharad Kalaskar on Aug 9; (right) Vaibhav Raut’s home in Nallasopara

PICS: NILESH WAIRKAR

Thousands of people came together for an Aakrosh rally in support of Raut on Friday in Nallasopara (PIC: NILESH WAIRKAR)

ByRaut comes from an influential family. His father ran a thriving construction material business and one of his paternal uncles, Naresh Raut, was the’s town chief.In April 2016, when former JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar was slated to speak in Mumbai at a gathering under the banner ‘Students Youth Assembly Against Discrimination’, the youth organisations hosting the event struggled to finalise a venue as colleges and auditoriums kept turning them away fearing a backlash from righ-wing outfits. The event was finally held at Tilak Nagar’s Adarsh Vidyalaya. Among those protesting against Kumar’s visit to the city at the time was Vaibhav Raut.A Sanatan Sanstha sympathiser and gau rakshak from the Bhandar Ali locality in Nallasopara West, Raut, 40, is currently in the custody of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), along with his associates Sharad Kalaskar, 25, and Sudhanva Gondhalekar, 39, for an alleged plot to carry out blasts in Mumbai, Pune, Satara, and Nallasopara to disturb communal harmony. Diptesh Patil, a close associate of Raut, who cofounded the Hindu Govansh Raksha Samiti with him in early 2015, says Raut was disturbed by slogans raised in JNU allegedly calling for splitting the country. “He felt schools and colleges in Mumbai should turn their backs on Kanhaiya Kumar as it was evident that his sentiments were anti-national,” recalls Patil.Raut comes from a family with considerable heft in Nallasopara’s Bhandari community. His late father Subhash Raut ran a thriving construction material business, and one of his two paternal uncles, Naresh Raut, was Shiv Sena’s Nallasopara chief. Thousands of people came together for an Aakrosh rally in support of Raut on Friday. They claimed that Raut was a social activist and was ‘being framed’. They have demanded an independent inquiry into the matter. Raised in a joint family, Raut initially studied at Little Flower High School in Nallasopara (west) and then Z B Zakaria High School in the same area, before completing his schooling at New English School in Vasai. He then pursued a B.Com degree from a college in Matunga, but dropped out in the second year to take up his father’s business.Shortly after, he set himself up as a real estate broker. Accounts from close friends and associates in Bhandar Ali reveal that his Hindutva activism was not restricted to cow protection. “Gau raksha toh humare khoon mein hain (cow protection runs in our blood),” Patil asserts, before listing other ‘social causes’ Raut took up. “One of his campaigns was to promote Marathi ‘rajbhasha’ and to ensure that all establishments and government buildings had signboards in Marathi.” Tiles bearing images of Hindu deities on building facades, members of Govinda and Ganesh mandals wearing T-shirts with images of Gods printed on them, illegal loudspeakers installed at four mosques in his neighbourhood, and youngsters celebrating Valentine’s Day were other issues Raut railed against.Appearing as a representative of Sri Ram Sene on an online reality show, Raut had publicly defended the outfit when it faced national outrage over an incident of vigilantism at a Mangalore pub in January 2009. Over 30 Sri Ram Sene activists had allegedly barged into the pub and assaulted men and women, claiming they were violating traditional Indian values. All the arrested accused were later acquitted over lack of evidence.Addressing a group of students in a management school in the National Capital Region, again as a spokesperson of Sri Ram Sene, Raut can be seen in a YouTube video asking the young women present: “I’m not here to say what you should wear. You have the freedom to wear what you want, but you should also consider whether it causes any harm to society, nation and dharma…the clothes we are wearing, is it provoking anyone? Is it leaving any blemish on us? The clothes you’re wearing, and the thoughts cropping up in men’s minds, why are those thoughts arising?” Faced with a barrage of angry responses from the students, Raut is seen fumbling for answers.Aggressively stepping up cow vigilantism in Nallasopara, Raut landed in police records. “There are two rioting and assault cases registered against him in 2015 at the Nallasopara police station for illegally intercepting meat transportation vehicles and assaulting drivers,” says Senior Police Inspector K D Kolhe.The first of these cases was registered on February 1, 2015, a month before the Maharashtra government had secured Presidential assent to the Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Bill, 1995, banning cow slaughter. “We intercepted a truck carrying 600-700 kg of cow meat, and there was blood dripping from the truck. The police did not take any timely action, so we took matters into our own hands and taught the driver a lesson. I was booked in the case along with Vaibhav. The trial in the case is on at the Vasai sessions court, and incidentally, the next court date is August 19,” says Patil, who was Raut’s classmate in school.One of the targets of Raut’s illegal raids was Anees Qureshi, a local resident. “Three years ago, Raut stopped my tempo which was carrying goat meat. By the time I reached the spot, he had assaulted my driver. The vehicle was released only after I produced all the necessary papers at the police station. He and his associates harass butchers and meat suppliers without any valid reason.”Since then, externment orders against Raut have been routinely issued as a preventive measure ahead of Eid Al Adha each year.In four raids carried out in Nallasopara and Pune since August 9 this year, the ATS has allegedly recovered 20 crude bombs – eight from Raut’s residence on the first floor of a two-storey bungalow owned by his family, and 12 from his office in the same lane. It has also allegedly seized a large cache of firearms and ammunition, including 16 country-made pistols, five air guns, ten pistol barrels, seven pistol slides, nine partially assembled pistols, 30 live cartridges, six pistol magazines, three partially-made magazines and springs and triggers for firearms. Among the other articles seized are two gelatin sticks, 26 detonators, safety fuse wires, 150 grams of white powder wrapped in newspaper, two bottles labelled ‘poison’, batteries, soldering equipment, PCB circuits, relay switches, a hand-drawn partial circuit diagram, circuit drawings and printouts on the composition of explosives.With the ATS claiming to have unearthed a terror conspiracy, the hazy distinctions between the ostensible activities of hardline Hindutva outfits operating in Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka such as the Sanatan Sanstha, its affiliate Hindu Janjagruti Samiti (HJS), Sambhaji Bhide’s Shri Shivpratishthan Hindustan and Pramod Muthalik’s Sri Ram Sene, and those of ‘rogue individuals’ linked to these groups, has once again been called into question. In a press statement issued after Raut’s arrest, Sunil Ghanvat, Maharashtra state organiser of Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS), said: “Mr Vaibhav Raut is a gau-rakshak and was an active member of ‘Hindu Govansh Raksha Samiti’. He participated in programmes and agitations organised unitedly by Hindu organisations under the aegis of Hindu Janajagruti Samiti. However, Mr Raut had not participated in any of the programmes in the last few months.” A June 18, 2016, report on the HJS web site ‘hindujagruti.org’, about the 5th All India Hindu Adhiveshan organized by HJS and Sanatan Sanstha, describes Raut as “a devout Hindu”. A September 2016 report on Sanatan Sanstha’s web site ‘sanatan.org’ reveals Raut attended a press conference where speakers levelled allegations against members of Narendra Dabholkar’s family, accusing them of misappropriation of trust funds.Also attending the press conference was lawyer Sanjeev Punalekar, who has appeared for Sanatan Sanstha sadhaks accused of carrying out the 2009 Goa blast, and is currently defending Raut. Gondhalekar, who hails from Satara and was arrested by the ATS from Pune the same day as Raut, is a techie listed as one of the two directors of Cad Point Private Limited, a company incorporated on March 1, 2016, with its registered office in Guruwar Peth, Satara. It offers maintenance services for web sites and creation of multimedia presentations.Gondhalekar was an active member of Shri Shivpratishthan Hindustan, which was founded by Sambhaji Bhide, an accused in the Bhima-Koregaon riots case. He also had close ties with HJS, and several reports on the HJS web site reveal that Gondhalekar was associated with Sanatan Sanstha members too.According to a report published in Sanatan Sanstha mouthpiece, Sanatan Prabhat, on June 15 last year, the grandmother and daughters of Gondhalekar, one of the three arrested men, attained over “60 per cent spirituality” in the organisation and were felicitated for it.The links of the arrested accused to these outfits have led to renewed clamour for Sanatan Sanstha to be outlawed. State government officials claim they are again actively pursuing a proposal in this regard that has been languishing with the Home Ministry since December 2015, when the state government provided certain clarifications sought by the Centre on the proposal. The interrogation of the accused could, investigators believe, also throw up fresh leads in the probes into the murders of journalist Gauri Lankesh and rationalists M M Kalburgi, Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare in Karnataka and Maharashtra. According to sources, Gondhalekar’s and Raut’s names had cropped up during the interrogation of Amol Kale, a former HJS convenor in Pune, who has been arrested by the Karnataka SIT probing Gauri Lankesh’s murder. “Whatever information was available to us has been shared with the Maharashtra police. We have asked the Maharashtra ATS to share forensic reports of the pistols seized by them, for a possible match to the murder weapon in the Gauri Lankesh case. Beyond this, it would not be proper to divulge any more details at this point,” said IGP B K Singh, the chief of the Karnataka SIT.Forensic reports had earlier established that both Lankesh and Kalburgi were killed with the same 7.65 mm calibre country-made pistol. Top Maharashtra police officers also confirmed that the cache of country-made pistols could be of “particular importance” to the murder probes. Punalekar, who is representing Raut before a special Unlawful Activities (Pevention) Act court in Mumbai, said ATS has no credibility. “From what we have seen in the Malegaon blast investigation, it is a fact that the ATS plants evidence. How does one then believe ATS?” he asked, and claimed that Raut is being framed. “I would not at all be surprised if ballistics reports are produced to link any of the country-made pistols planted by the ATS to the murder weapon in the Pansare and Kalburgi murder cases,” he said. Punalekar alleged six manipulated forensic reports have already been produced by the investigating agencies to show that common weapons were used in these murder cases. “A report was produced from Gujarat forensic laboratory to show that one of the weapons used to murder Pansare was also used to kill Kalburgi. Can such forensic matches be carried out in case of country-made pistols at all? It’s laughable,” said Punalekar.Six people died and 101 were injured in the September 9, 2008 Malegaon blasts. All the accused are currently out on bail, and the case is now at the stage of framing of charges. On December 27, 2017, Special Judge S D Tekale dropped Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act charges against all accused. Pragya Singh Thakur, Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Purohit and five other accused will face terror charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and other IPC charges, including murder and criminal conspiracy. A discharge application filed by Thakur has been rejected by the judge despite the National Investigation Agency (NIA) exonerating her in a supplementary charge sheet filed in May 2016. The one big difference between Malegaon and this case is that the arrests in the former were made when the Congress-NCP government was in power in Maharashtra and in Delhi. In the Nallasopara case, the arrests and the seizures have been made when a BJP-led government is ruling the state and is also in power at the Centre.