Haren Pandya

Articleissues
unreferenced = December 2007
weasel = December 2007

Haren Pandya was the Home Minister of the Gujarat State in India. He was murdered in 2003 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, when he was sitting in his car after a morning walk in the Law Garden area. This murder was attributed to Islamic Terrorists.

Political career

He represented the Ellis Bridge constituency of Ahmedabad City as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Legislator. He was a member of the RSS from his early age and was also a Municipal Councilor from the Paldi Area of Ahmedabad City. Pandya was a strong supporter of Keshubhai Patel and a fierce opponent of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, and that was the reason he was denied BJP ticket in the Gujarat Assembly Elections of 2002.

Aftermath of Pandya's Murder

A lot of controversy followed his murder and high level BJP Leaders such as Chief Minister Narendra Modi and the then Deputy Prime Minister of India Lal Krishna Advani were under intense criticism from within the Sangh Pariwar and General Public for sidelining Haren Pandya and not providing him proper security despite threats to his life and his request for security cover. As naturally Modi was Pandya's enemy number one and the public knew it very well, several allegations were made on Modi as being the mastermind behind Pandya's murder, but a certain section of the General Public knew that Modi would not ever commit such an act against a political rival. Controversies further extended when Pandya's father commented that his son's murder was a political murder and not committed by the Islamic Terrorists. This comment of his was making indirect allegations on Narendra Modi as behind his son's murder, at this time Lal Krishna Advani rushed to New Delhi and made a hurried statement that Pakistan based Islamic Organizations were behind Pandya's murder. At the time of his statement, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had not even started the investigation in Pandya's murder.

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