Targeting of RSS leaders points to a pattern: Cops

Chandigarh : The police believe that the fourth attack on the RSS in the past more than one-and-a-half years points to a pattern to single out the Hindu organisation.
“It is too much of a coincidence, though the police are probing a personal angle to each attack,” a senior officer said. Ravinder Gosain was killed on the day Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh visited the state. This means the assailants want to give out a message, a senior officer said.
In January 2016, Naresh Kumar, an RSS leader, was injured in an attack in Ludhiana, while an RSS shakha in Ludhiana’s Kidwai Nagar came under attack a few days later. In both cases, two motorcycle-borne youths had fired the shots.
In August 2016, Brig VK Gagneja (retd), vice-president of the RSS Punjab unit, was gunned down in Jalandhar.The police suspect the role of Sikh terror groups for the four attacks, but they have failed to identify or pinpoint any of them. “We have reasons to believe that such groups are upset with RSS activities. The RSS doesn’t recognise Sikhism as a separate religion. It continues to claim that Sikhs are still part of Hindus,” a police officer said. The police believe the frequent visits of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat to deras in 2014 had irked Sikh hardliners, he said. “The number of RSS shakhas is about 900 now, while it was less than 600 before 2014.”