Swadheen Bharat Subhas Sena
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
A backgrounder
The Times of India, June 3, 2016
The radical group of squatters behind the deadly violence in Mathura on Thursday claims loyalty to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and wants to alter the political and economic landscape of India.
But deep down, its ambition primarily was to grab government-owned prime real estate in this Hindu holy city and create an empire of their own in the growing market-mix of politics and sprituality.
The ragtag army of the little known Swadheen Bharat Subhas Sena, allegedly led by Ram Vriksha Singh Yadav, a disciple of Mathura-based Tulsidas Maharaj also known as "Jai Gurudev", had been occupying Mathura's sprawling 300-acre Jawaharbagh since January 2014. The group, which calls itself "satyagrahis" or revolutionaries, began staying in the park on the pretext of staging demonstrations. The protests had started as part of a rally from Madhya Pradesh that was supposed to terminate at Delhi. The rallyists were denied permission to move on to the capital but were allowed to hold the demonstration at the park -- which once had thousands of mango, gooseberry, and berry trees -- but only for two days.
The rallyists, however, stayed on and encroached the park for two years, during which they felled the trees to facilitate the shanty town of thousands of protesters from eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh. According to police, there were 3,000 of them living inside the park where their leader Ram Vriksha Singh Yadav, who is now untraceable, ran a "parallel government", amassing a huge cache of arms and ammunition. Police claimed to have recovered some 47 country-made pistols, six rifles and 178 live cartridges from the park after the bloodshed on Thursday saw 24 persons, including a superintendent of police and 22 encroachers, killed. A police officer told IANS on condition of anonymity that the squatters had also managed illegal electricity and water connections and had built toilets by destroying pavements. They would pick fights with any outsider trying to enter the park. All this was happening right under the nose of the authorities. The district magistrate's office and the police line complex are at a stone's throw from the park.
Ram Vriksha Singh Yadav, the cult leader on the run, is a known disciple of "Jai Gurudev" who was said to have left behind a Rs 12,000-crore empire after his death. This sparked a leadership tussle between three claimants -- Ram Vriksha Singh Yadav, Pankaj Yadav and Umakant Tiwari. The empire included land worth Rs 4,000 crore, a school, a petrol pump in Mathura - all in the name of the "Jai Gurudev Trust". His fleet of luxury cars included Plymouths, Mercedes Benz, Skodas and BMWs. Pankaj Yadav won the battle, and Ram Vriksha Singh Yadav fell apart with him and led his own faction of Gurudev followers to create another empire on the grabbed government land.
During 2013-15, he became so powerful that even the administration could not touch him and get the park vacated. He even allegedly held hostage a government officer who had gone to inquire about the group inside the cluster of slums and semi-permanent structures. The group had been raising demands like no prime minister elections and establishment of an "Azad Hind government", a kind of dictatorial set. They also demanded the rule book of Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army to be treated as the law of the land and used for governance in the country. They wanted the currency notes used by Azad Hind Fauj, or the Indian National Army which fought the British Empire with the Japanese help, to be printed again with Bose's name and brought back into circulation.
They wanted petrol and diesel to be priced at one rupee a litre, and above all the park to be handed over to them permanently.
But curtains came down violently on the 30-month old "revolution" after police stormed the park on Thursday and were showered with bullets by squatters. Some 250 of them have been arrested, and the rest have run away.
Salient facts
The Times of India, 4 June, 2016
News is slowly trickling out about the bizarre cults - who claim to owe allegiance to Netaji Subhas Bose. The cults' members allegedly initiated the violent clashes in Mathura on Thursday evening that killed 24 people including two policemen. The cults, Azad Bharat Vidhik Vaicharik Kranti Satyagrahi and the Swadheen Bharat Subhas Sena, might even be just one group with the Sena as the militant arm of the Satyagrahi. It's unclear. They have a roster of decidedly odd demands, including the discontinuation of the Indian currency and the sale of fuel at prices - that they quote in rupees. Here's what we know about them:
1. The Azad Bharat Vidhik Vaicharik Kranti Satyagrahi and Swadheen Bharat Subhash Sena have been camped at the 300-acre Jawahar park since January 2014, reports say.
2. According to police, there were 3,000 of them living inside the park where their leader Ram Vriksha Singh Yadav, who is now untraceable, ran a "parallel government".
3. The Sena is reportedly led by a Ram Vriksha Singh Yadav - on the run, currently - who is a disciple of someone called Tulsidas Maharaj. The latter also responded to Jai Gurudev, presumably no relation to The Beatles's Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
4. Gurudev, aka Maharaj, is said to have amassed a Rs 12,000 crore empire until his death. No information is available on when he died. His empire is said to have included land worth Rs 4,000 crore, a school and a petrol pump in Mathura. All these properties are apparently registered in the name of the 'Jai Gurudev Trust'.
5. Gurudev liked his cars and he liked them luxurious. He reportedly owned many cars from the likes of Plymouth, Mercedes Benz and BMW.
6. His death led to a 'leadership' void. Three people - the aforementioned Ram Vriksha Singh Yadav, and two others called Pankaj Yadav and Umakant Tiwari - wanted to lead the Sena. Pankaj won and Ram Vriksha started his own faction of Gurudev followers to create another empire on land "grabbed" either from or by the government, it's unclear.
7. That land that has been "grabbed" is Mathura's Jawahar park. In the last two years, Ram Vriksha's became very powerful, IANS says. He once allegedly held hostage a government officer who had gone to inspect the park.
8. Azad Bharat Vidhik Vaicharik Kranti Satyagrahi member call themselves satyagrahis, or seekers of truth.
9. The Satyagarhi group wants to the discontinuation of the Indian rupee. They wanted the currency notes used by Azad Hind Fauj, or the Indian National Army to be the currency of India.
10. The Sena and the Satyagrahi want 40 litres of petrol for Rs 1 and 60 litres of diesel also for Rs 1.
The armed commune within Jawahar Park
The Times of India, Jun 06 2016
Anuja Jaiswal
Jawahar Bagh, once known for its lush orchards has turned up a large haul of weapons, ammunition and what police term a functional bomb-making unit.
What remains indicates how the 260-acre park was turned into a personal empire by Swadheen Bharat Subhas Sena's leader Ram Vriksha Yadav and his armed followers, who had stocked provisions and material for what they evidently expected to be a long siege. In a large makeshift struc ture that functioned as a community kitchen, utensils lie scattered. A generator and several batteries and inverters, as well as solar panels, show how the group managed after electricity was cut off two months ago. Remnants of clothes, pro visions, books and com ics can be seen in various structures in Jawahar Bagh, including government offices which existed inside the park before the group took over. The remains indicate how the cult members were fully prepared to live in “a world of their own“.
Of the finds, the most striking are the extensive stores of weapons and ammunition. Investigators have also recovered 5 kg of sulphur, 1 kg of potassium as well as nearly 2.5 kg gunpowder.This, said officials, indicates the cult had a functioning bomb manufacturing unit inside the park. “The batteries seem to have been used to run solar panels,“ said Mathura SP (rural) Arun Singh.
The park also appeared to have a makeshift `supermar ket', with large quantities of food and unused tents. Separate toilet facilities for men and women, as well as a small Shiva temple were also inside the park. According to locals, for the past few months, SBSS members had been selling vegetables inside the enclosure at very cheap rates and locals from nearby colonies had started frequenting it.
“Classes for the children who lived inside the compound used to be held in full public view. We used to see the group's members being trained in firearms and unarmed combat,“ said a resident of Mathura district.
