Sect blames K.G.B. for hotel blast

Press, 25 February 1978, Page 9

Sect blames K.G.B. for hotel blast

NZPA-Reuter New Delhi A spokesman of the Ananda Marga sect has charged that incidents such as the Hilton Hotel bombing in Sydney last week were staged by the Soviet, secret police, the K.G.B. to give the India-based sect a bad name. “It is the K.G.8.,” Mr Acharya Raghunath Prasad, told reporters in New Delhi, denying again any connection with a series of attacks abroad against Indian officials and offices. » Mr Prasad called a news conference to announce that

P. R. Sarkar, the founder of Ananda Marga, had gone on a complete fast last Saturday to protest against new orders denying him contact with his followers at the Indian prison where he has been held since being convicted of murdering six dissident Margis — sect members. Comment from the Indian authorities was not immediately available. If Sarkar continued his fast, “it shall be highly deterimental to his weak health. When this news spreads over the world, it is bound to create an atmos-

I phere of extreme pain and tension,” Mr Prasad said. ( Some of those arrested in [connection with incidents abroad, al! non Indians, have [been identified as Ananda [Marga members or as "Proutists,” believers in Sar- ! kar’s “progressive utilisation , [ theory.” This is the political' (doctrine of the Ananda; Marga, advocating a new! world order with neither, capitalism nor communism. Mr Prasad said the Soviet' Union and its secret policemen were battling Ananda Marga because its political doctrine discredited Mar-xism-Leninism.