RSS offices in Karnataka to be given security after ‘destruction’ threat

Karnataka home minister Araga Jnanendra said RSS offices will be given security after destruction threats were circulated from several WhatsApp numbers.

Karnataka home minister Araga Jnanendra said on Tuesday that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) offices in the state will be given security after destruction threats were circulated from several WhatsApp numbers, news agency PTI reported.

Karnataka Home Minister Araga Jnanendra. (ANI image)

These threats were allegedly being sent by one Raj Mohammad, who threatened to blow up RSS offices at six locations, of which four were from Karnataka. Mohammad was detained in Pudukudi, Tamil Nadu on Tuesday, a press note from the Uttar Pradesh Anti Terror Squad said.

"In the wake of messages threatening to destroy RSS offices in the state, all RSS offices will be provided with adequate security," Jnanendra told PTI. "A case has been registered in this regard, and the person who had sent the WhatsApp message has been arrested in Tamil Nadu," he added.

In a statement given out by his office, Jnanendra said, "Stringent legal action will be taken against miscreants making such threat calls or sending such messages."

The RSS has been at the forefront of talks ever since a chapter on RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar was allegedly included in school textbooks in Karnataka, fuelling the imminent textbook revision row in the state, after which several groups alleged that the state education department is “saffronising” textbooks.

This has also led to a political slugfest between the ruling BJP and the opposition party Congress, with Congress stalwart Siddaramaiah saying that the RSS is a non-secular organisation.

The controversy spiralled in the state and came to be known as the ‘chaddi’ row after several members of the Congress's student wing, NSUI (National Students' Union of India), reportedly burnt a pair of khaki shorts in front of state education minister BC Nagesh's residence in Tumkur last week while protesting the revisions in school textbooks.

Following the public outrage, a report published in The Indian Express said the education department has decided to reprint the lessons on Ambedkar and Basavanna with the content recommended by the Barguru Ramachandrappa committee.

State education minister BC Nagesh spoke to the newspaper and said a portion of a lesson on Ambedkar will be rectified and a missing phrase ‘Ambedkar is the architect of the constitution’ will be added.

"As far as Basavanna’s lessons are concerned we will be restoring it to the content as per Barguru Ramchandrappa’s committee. We will shortly make the previous and current textbooks public so that people know what is added and dropped by both committees. Not just that, any further objections raised from the content that has been revised will also be addressed accordingly. Students will be receiving textbooks between June 17-20," the daily quoted Nagesh as saying.