Maharashtra’s Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) has — in its chargesheet — linked “members of terrorist gang” arrested for their role in what has come to be known as the “Maharashtra arms haul” case to the Hindu right-wing outfits like the “Sanathan Sanstha” and “Hindu Janjagruti”.

In a detailed chargesheet filed before the Special NIA Court here on Wednesday, the State ATS named 12 accused linked to Hindu right-wing organisations like “Sanathan Sanstha”, “Hindu Janjagruti” and some other smaller outfits and said that the accused had “conspired to form a terrorist gang of youths with similar mind set, which would work towards undermining unity, integrity, security and sovereignty of the country”.

The ATS, it may be recalled, had on August 9 this year busted a major conspiracy to engineer terror acts in major cities across the state, including Mumbai, Pune and Satara, with the arrest of three right-wing activists and seizure of a huge a cache of arms, explosives and material used for making arms and explosives at Nala Sophara in Palghar district.

Subsequently, the ATS arrested nine more persons and more arms and explosives in connection with the same case. The investigators are looking for three wanted accused in the case.

“During investigation, it was revealed that the members of the terrorist gang are also members of organisations such as “Sanathan Sanstha”, “Hindu Janjagruti” and similar other smaller organisations,” the ATS stated in its charge-sheet.

“They (the accused) had conspired to form a terrorist gang of youths with similar mind set, which would work towards undermining unity, integrity, security and sovereignty of the country. Towards this end, the gang had planned to use country made pistols, country made bombs, etc. and target the individuals who would speak, write, perform against the so called Hindu Dharma, its traditions and customs besides targeting similar kinds of programmes in order to terrorise the minds of the common people,” the charge-sheet stated.

During the investigations, the ATS seized a huge cache of arms, including 23 live country made bombs, 15 pistols, 3 pistols without barrels, 10 pistol barrels, 6 pistol magazines, 3 partially made pistol magazines, 7 pistol slides, 41 live rounds of ammunition of assorted bores, 26 electric and non-electric detonators, tools and raw-material to make country bombs and fire arms, several CD drives, pen drives, memory cards, hard discs, 8 number plates of vehicles, two cars and five motor cycle and copies of Marathi book “Kshatra Dharma Sadhana”. The investigators made the seizures from various places, including Nala Sopara, Thane, Solapur, Satara, Jalgaon and Kolhapur.

The ATS investigations revealed that the terror gang planned to attack a western musical programme “Sunburn” festival slated to be organised in Pune in December using the country made bombs, petrol bombs and firearms and indulge in heavy stone pelting to “send a strong message to the followers of Western music and Western culture and terrorise those attending it.”

The gang had carried out reconnaissance of the targets and was completely prepared to undertake the attack on the music festival, but abandoned it after one of the accused informed his associates that he had possibly been captured in one of the CCTV cameras installed at the programme venue.

The terror gangs also had also carried out reconnaissance of the residences at least three rationalists, speakers and litterateurs who target the Hindu religion and its traditions and customs, but their names have not been revealed.

The 12 accused named in the charge-sheet are: Sharad Bhausaheb Kalskar (25), Vaibhav Subhash Raut(44), Sudhanwa Sudhir Gondhlekar (39), Shrikant Jagnath Pangarkar (40), Avinash Anant Pawar(30), Leeladhar Ukhirde(32),  Vasudeo Bhagwan Suryawanshi (19), Suchit Kumar Rangswamy (37), Bharat Jayawant Kurne, (37), Amol Arvind Kale (34), Amit Ramchandra Baddi (27) and Ganesh Dasharath Miskin (28).

All of them have been charged under various sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967, Explosive Substances Act 1908, Explosives Act 1884; Indian Penal Code, the Arms Act 1959 and the Maharashtra Police Act 1951.