Bhonsala army school officials quit

Mumbai/Nashik: Two officials of the Nashik-based Bhonsala Military School (BMS) have quit from their posts after they were interrogated in connection with the Malegaon bomb blasts, a school authority said yesterday.

BMS commandant Lt Col (retired) Shailesh S. Raikar and official Rajan Gaidhani submitted their resignations, without assigning any reasons, to the school management, Central Hindu Military Education Society (CHMES), BMS principal R.R. Kute told IANS in Mumbai.

The resignations, which have not yet been accepted, shall be discussed at a CHMES meeting scheduled in Nashik today before a final decision, he said.

School management secretary Diwakar Kulkarni said: "They were with us yesterday [Tuesday]. If the subject had come up then, a decision could have been taken then and there."

Raikar had been appointed BMS commandant barely six months ago, while Gaidhane had been working in the school for nearly seven years, Kute said.

Raikar, 42, and Gaidhane, 55, were detained and interrogated by the Mumbai Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) regarding their involvement in the September 29 bomb blasts in Malegaon, which left six dead and 20 injured. The BMS is under the ATS scanner as a suspected meeting point for a number of Hindu activists arrested in connection with the blast.

Raikar and Gaidhani were subjected to intense interrogation by the ATS following revelations that they had attended a crucial meeting of the Hindutva group Abhinav Bharat in the school's premises on September 16, where the bomb blast plan was allegedly hatched. Both of them reportedly admitted that they had attended the meeting.