The German Bakery, a hang out near the Osho resort for sannyasins since old times, was bombed by Islamists in 2010 and people killed and injured. As we remember people were arrested, and one sentenced to death, but we cannot find references to hand. Maybe someone knows more?
Not mentioned at that time was the fact that it was not the first experience where sannyasins had been attacked by Islamic fundamentalists. Hotel Rajneesh was attacked as early as 1983 by an Islamic sect. The details are below:
The bombing of the Hotel Rajneesh can be positively tied to an al-Fuqra member. On July 29, 1983, Stephen Paul Paster, an al-Fuqra member, set off a bomb at the Hotel Rajneesh, a hotel in Portland, Oregon. This hotel, located at SW 11th Avenue and Main Street, was owned by the Rajneesh religious group and featured the Zorba the Buddha nightclub. Paster had several bombs and homemade napalm in his room, but one of the bombs went off in his hands while he was placing the bombs in the midst of the napalm.
Paster was almost immediately arrested after the bombs went off, as he was one of only two people injured in the explosion, which took place at 1:23 a.m. After the hotel was evacuated two other explosions occurred at 3 a.m. Paster was charged with arson due to the fire which resulted from the explosions. Paster posted $20,000 bail, but fled Oregon and was not apprehended until June 1984 in Englewood, Colorado. In November 1985, Paster was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a Multnomah County circuit judge.
Just to correct one very basic and flawed fact, Pune terrorist attack was not against sannyasins, it was not against westerns.
German Bakery was a soft target against Israelis. During that phase of history, Israeli young people, after their compulsory military service, used to visit Osho Commune in bulk. Just 100 metres away from German Bakery, they have even opened a get-together centre in a rented villa.
The American involved researched places in 2009 which the Pakistani group could attack. It included a visit to the Osho Pune Resort. So this seems like your view is at least open to dispute, young Shantam.
This news link is worth reading by those who are interested in forgotten event:
http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Was-Chabad-House-target-in-Pune-attack
While reading this I too remembered this piece of news which was in circulation at that time in Koregaon Park which Shantam mentions, but I find it strange even now: why would Islamic groups be targeting Jewish establishments, particularly in India? I think it’s a much deeper strategy used by actual perpetrators .
Kavita,
As I remember, at least one sannyasin was killed?
So I don’t get this Jewish angle really.
Yes, Parmartha, one sannyasin: Nadia Mercerini. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Pune_bombing
Even I don’t get this Jewish angle; it was probably to scare the foreign tourists of all nationalities, of different income groups. of course, goes without saying, I could be wrong.
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2016/03/25/david-headley-26-11_n_9545234.html
Also see this article about Headley’s visit to Poona:
http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/pune/terror-trail-headley-visited-pune-twice-surveyed-german-bakery-and-chhabad-house/
A reliable site says:
Paster (the Rajneesh Hotel bomber) was a suspect in several other bombings, served four years of his twenty-year sentence, and, according to reports, is now living in Pakistan, training militants in the use of explosives.
I have a question:
Why did he serve only four years of his 20 year sentence? Maybe an American would know?
Things must be getting bad when it appears that Shantam has a point!
I think that any Muslim fundamentalist bomber would consider a blown-up Jew as a success story any day of the week.
I knew of a Muslim cabbie who used to run sannyasins from Mumbai to Pune. A customer of his, a friend of mine, an American Jewish guy who liked to chat extensively to everyone he met, was quite surprised to find that the driver believed that story about 9/11 being set up by Jews.
So there is a considerable vein of anti-Semitism amongst Muslims, even in India. I remember one old mullah I spoke to back in the 70s saying to me that the Jews were bad people because they had invented the atom bomb and given it to the Christians, who had used it. An arguable, if idiosynchratic view of history, for sure, but possibly more common than you might think.
Personally, I`m not altogether surprised that one bunch of guys who think that their God told them to cut the end of their dicks off are battling it out with another bunch of guys who believe that their God told them to chop the end of their dicks off…
It`s hard to imagine how people with such psychotic beliefs could do much better…
You may say that I’m` a cynical bastard -
but at least I`m a cynical bastard with a foreskin.
I don`t know which God I should thank for that.
I remember that the German Bakery bomb exploded during White Robe Brotherood. As the terrorist had visited the Resort previously, I see this as a form of respect towards sannyasins. The terrorist decided to have the bomb exploding not in the Resort, but in a cafeteria in the surroundings, and during the White Robe Brotherood, that is while any sannyasin, according to Osho, should have been watching one of his videos in the Resort. At that time there were no metal detectors in the Resort and it would have been very easy to put a bomb in the Resort restaurant or cafeteria. But the terrorist decided otherwise.
Perfectly correct, Anand Osokin!
As you clearly state, the bomber showed immense respect and compassion for sannyasins by not blowing them up! As you say, “any sannyasin, according to Osho, should have been watching one of his videos in the Resort.”
Quite right! So any sannyasin, ex-sannyasin or other baboon who was not following Osho`s guidelines and attending White Robe Brotherhood, but was instead lurking around the German Bakery, mixing with the unconscious masses, looking for girls, buying drugs and most likely catching AIDS, deserved to be blown up!
Yahoo!
That’s right, Anand, and just as Dr. Amrito recently stressed in his latest video, the evening White Robe Brotherhood was always the most important thing in 1989, meditating together and everything would come out with a “bublublubaa”, and Osho used to ask for a coke at four o’ clock in the morning and he would ask, “where was so and so?” and “why wasn’t so and so at the evening meeting?”
Ivan,
It`s possible, but terrorists can also bottle it at the last moment and take an easy way out.
Btw, it`s a good job the terrorists didn`t recruit Shantam as the underpants bomber as they would still be cleaning the place up now!
To kill sannyasins you don´t need bombs, misinterpretation of their founding father is enough to make them out of circulation.
Who would like to be called murderer by killing someone who is in the old people´s home, just like our faceless Frank?!
Head priest of Osho cult was already a paranoid man, the German Bakery bombing gave him the chance to dig bunkers around his resort.
This is one of the reasons very, very less people even walk on the street leading to Resort, one gets the impression there may be land mines on the Gaza Strip!
Well, the guy really was respectful to sannyasins if he deliberately avoided targeting the evening meditation.
The Sunni nutcases in Pakistan and other places often blow themselves up in the midst of prayer time in the mosque, where Shia Muslims are gathered. Christians are also targeted when praying together.
The Mumbai court overturns the death sentence on German Bakery bomber:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-35830799
I checked with Swami Veet Arthen who I know was in the Rajneesh Hotel at the time of the bombing. As he says now, he was the mug who saved the bomber as he bravely rushed into the room where he had blown himself up and extracted him from it, though he did not know that at the time.
This guy is now active as a terrorist trainer in Pakistan, apparently.