Disconcerted by a death threat made by a user who claims to be a Canadian NRI to Anna Hazare on Facebook, the Maharashtra government on Wednesday increased the security detail outside the anti-corruption activist’s home and office in Ralegan Siddhi in Ahmednagar district.
The State government, already rattled by the yet-to-be solved murders of >rationalist Narendra Dabholkar and CPI leader >Govind Pansare , does not want to take any chances despite Mr. Hazare having received death threats in the past, police sources said.
Accordingly, metal detectors have been installed outside his home and office while a further detail of four policemen have been added to the septuagenarian activist’s ‘Z-category’ security.
Mr. Hazare’s office has already lodged a complaint with the Mahatma Phule police station in Kalyan in Mumbai. They have also intimated the Maharashtra DGP of the threats that were posted on Facebook on February 24 and 25.
In the post on the Facebook page of Mr. Hazare’s aide Ashok Gautam on February 24, one Gagan Vidhu, who claims to live in Edmonton, Alberta in Canada, ominously warns that the time had come to kill Mr. Hazare and boasts that he [Gagan Vidhu] would be the next Nathuram Godse soon.
On February 25, Mr. Vidhu further writes: “I am not kidding. I am coming to India soon. I will arrange for gun and shoot this modern Gandhi [Mr. Hazare].”
Meanwhile, speaking from his home in the village of Ralegan Siddhi, Mr. Hazare calmly brushed off the threat, pithily remarking he had been through such things many times in the past.
At the same time, he strongly urged the State government to bring the killers of Dabholkar and Pansare to book as ineffectual investigations were sending out a wrong message to society.
