Source: Agence France Presse
NEW DELHI, INDIA, October 21, 2002: The RSS, ideological mentor of India’s ruling nationalist BJP party, Monday rejected calls by a radical leader for Hindu suicide squads, according to a report in Agence France Presse, the French wire service. Shiv Sena party leader, Bal Thackeray, leading political power of Gujarat, last week said Hindus must make the “supreme sacrifice” to combat “Islamic terrorism” by forming “suicide squads.” But the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), or National Volunteer Corps, said Monday that while Thackeray’s proposal was “a reaction to Islamic fundamentalist terrorism that has played havoc in the country,” it ran counter to the tenets of Hinduism. “Hindu suicide squads are not permissible. No Hindu scripture gives sanction to such terrorist activities,” RSS spokesman M. G. Vaidya told the Press Trust of India news agency.