THE CPI(M) office in Pune, Maharashtra,  received a parcel containing an explosive device, a battery and wires on April 26, delivered by a private  courier service. It was also accompanied by a letter, obviously containing a message of dire consequences to the Party workers for working as Communists. A complaint has been registered with the Maharashtra Police, which has not been able to apprehend the culprits so far.

The Parcel was addressed to Ajit Abhyankar a senior Party state secretariat member, CITU leader and a prominent intellectual. While opening the parcel, Abhyankar detected suspicious looking material like a battery and wires packaged in a transparent bag inside the brown package. It also contained a letter addressed to him. He immediately informed the police and handed over the object to them on their arrival. The police came with the bomb disposal and detection squad, which confirmed that the material was an explosive device. The contents of the letter, since it is in possession of the police, are not known.

The police said that the parcel was addressed to Ajit Abhyankar and was sent by one Vedant Kulkarni, probably a fake name. It also has sender’s address and mobile number both of which are likely to be fake. The police declined to share the details of the letter.

This is not the first time that Abhyankar or CPI(M) office, which is located in the heart of the RSS dominated part of Pune, have come under attack by the right wing forces. As a student activist Abhyankar, along with other comrades, was attacked for putting up a poster exhibition on the myth of Lord Ganesha, well documented in history books. The last attack on the Party office had taken place in September 2014 when about ten unidentified persons attacked the office and beat some office bearers of the CITU. Abhyankar has been vociferous in convincingly criticising the RSS ideology and BJP politics on various platforms including the electronic media.

This attack has come in the wake of a series of murders by the Hindutva forces. First it was Mohsin Shaikh, an IT engineer in Pune followed by the assassinations of Dr Narendra Dabholkar and Com Govind Pansare. Two activists of the Sanatana Sanstha, a Hindutva terror organisation, have been arrested in the latter two cases. The Congress-NCP state government had sent to the central government a proposal to declare the Sanatana Sanstha, head quartered in Goa, as a terror organisation. The proposal is still gathering dust.

In an immediately convened meeting, the Maharashtra state secretariat of the CPI(M) condemned this dastardly attack and called upon all the Party units all over the state to conduct a militant protest action on May 8.