Comments

You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name

Your e-mail (optional)

Website (optional)

	My Original Nic Pic-a-Nic Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Foto

Submit your comments on this article

India-Pakistan

Indian MP Accused of 2008 Mosque Bombing Appears in Court

2019-06-08

[AnNahar] A firebrand
...firebrands are noted more for audio volume and the quantity of spittle generated than for any actual logic in their arguments...
Hindu nationalist nun accused of participating in the deadly bombing of a mosque appeared in court Friday, two weeks after she won a parliamentary seat in India's election.

Sadhvi Pragya Thakur is being tried on terrorism and criminal conspiracy charges over the 2008 attack in western India that killed six people and injured more than 100 others.

The MP for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appeared before a special terror offences court in Mumbai, her first appearance since charges were laid last October.

Thakur, 49, had been instructed by the judge to attend at least one hearing per week. The court granted her an exemption on Thursday due to ill health.

Police say her cycle of violence

was used to carry the explosives used in the attack in Malegaon, and that she took part in a key planning meeting before it was staged.

Thakur spent nine years in detention as India's notoriously slow legal system dragged before she was bailed in 2017.

She won an emphatic victory in India's mammoth general election, taking 62 percent of the vote for a seat in the central industrial city of Bhopal.

Indian election rules allow anyone to stand for office as long as they have not been convicted of a crime.

Thakur only joined the BJP in April and the party stunned many when it named her as a parliamentary candidate the next month.

She courted controversy throughout the campaign, telling journalists that the radical Hindu assassin of Indian independence hero Mahatma Gandhi was a "patriot" -- earning her a rebuke from Modi.

Thakur also raised eyebrows for claiming that drinking cow urine had helped cure her cancer and extolling the benefits of drinking a concoction of milk, butter and cow dung.

The opposition Congress party, which was trounced in the election, have denounced her as symbolic of the rise of extreme Hindu nationalism in India under Modi.

The BJP has regularly jumped to her defense. Party president Amit Shah, now India's home affairs minister, has called the terrorism charges against her "fake".

Posted by:trailing wife

#5 bummer, that

Posted by: Frank G 2019-06-08 15:41

#4 Hindus of today are not something grandly philosophical or gifted with intuition and an inherent oneness with the cosmos, like popular culture depicts. Lazy, navel-gazing nonsense. They are selfish, narrow-minded, irrational and self destructive.

Against the leftists and muslims, however they are a necessary evil. Politics is often double entry book-keeping between two evils.

Posted by: Dron66046 2019-06-08 15:05

#3 Ha! Nope, she's not that. You have to understand that a real sadhu won't be in the limelight for anything. The current format of organized buffoonery that passes for hinduism is very contrived. Control and enforcement was never meant to be superposed on hindu philosophy. It was never meant to be a religion.

One prevalent trend across the world is denominationalism. Just as you will find few 'saints' in organized churches, so will you find few real sadhus among these saffron-clad mini-deities.

Her real job is politics. As I said, she's muscle against muslim leaders. To rouse the hindu rabble and intimidate other communities. Unfortunately, they also attack christians sometimes.

Posted by: Dron66046 2019-06-08 14:58

#2 From Wikipedia:

A sadhu (IAST: sādhu (male), sādhvī or sādhvīne (female)), also spelled saddhu, is a religious ascetic, mendicant (monk) or any holy person in Hinduism and Jainism who has renounced the worldly life.[1][2][3] They are sometimes alternatively referred to as jogi, sannyasi or vairagi.[1]

It literally means one who practises a ″sadhana″ or keenly follows a path of spiritual discipline.[4] Although the vast majority of sādhus are yogīs, not all yogīs are sādhus. The sādhu is solely dedicated to achieving mokṣa (liberation), the fourth and final aśrama (stage of life), through meditation and contemplation of Brahman. Sādhus often wear simple clothing, such saffron-coloured clothing in Hinduism, white or nothing in Jainism, symbolising their sannyāsa (renunciation of worldly possessions). A female mendicant in Hinduism and Jainism is often called a sadhvi, or in some texts as aryika.

Maybe it’s Western thing, but I don’t understand how someone who has given up worldly things can actively be involved in the very worldly hurly burly that is democratic politics.

Posted by: trailing wife 2019-06-08 14:36

#1 She's a female sadhu apparently. And illiterate sadhus are deified in this stupid society. Even more so these days when they've killed a few muslims. But giving her a seat was tactically wise of them. She won by 300K votes after all.

From buddhists to sadhus to... rain, everybody turns homicidal against mooslims.

The whole truth is, the lady in question is hindu muscle, posing as religious leader. Until these people run totally afoul of the constitution, the govts keep giving them a pass. Just as long as they're well disguised as hindu.

It isn't right, but that's just the way it is. A strong response to rising leftist and islamist influence was needed. With no alternative in sight, Indian society looked to it's own indigenous horde of trident carrying, mantra chanting sociopaths. They're here to stay. At least they don't rape and kill and rob by default as a religious imperative.

Posted by: Dron66046 2019-06-08 09:50

00:00