The report from Kanpur says that the BJP will toe the line of RSS and defend sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur, who had provided her motorbike in the bomb blast in Malegaon on September 29 and hence was part of the conspiracy. The meeting of RSS seniors there has churned out this strategy on which the election would have to be fought. There is no need to have inhibition over what the sadhvi and her accomplices have done. The sangh feels more emboldened today as it enjoys comprehensive support of the Hindu population of the country although it is clearly reprehensible that conspiracy in high places and gross violation of laws do not match with the kind of democracy the country boasts of.
But this should not come as a surprise because we have fallen so low in our own estimate that everything goes in the name of religion and nationalism. After all how many felt outraged over the pogroms of Muslims in Gujarat? Compounding into this nightmare was the specter of the familiar and ubiquitous doppelganger in tunic with beard and cap although post September 29 Malegaon shows that beards and caps and tunics as well as veil for ladies are not in short supply. Do not be shocked by the terrorist at your dining table in the morning.
The coterie at Kanpur bears all the hallmarks of Delhi or Lucknow vintage 1947-48. Rajeshwar Dayal was the secretary in the central government when the deputy inspector general of UP, BLL Jaitley, came to his house with two trunks of documents of details of houses and establishments of Muslims in the western part of the state marked out and with accurate details on how to approach them. RSS had collected the information in a conspiracy to systematically attack and destroy the houses and properties of the Muslims and kill them. RSS chief Golwalker had prepared this sinister plot personally. So serious was the discovery that Dayal called it “incontrovertible evidence of a dastardly conspiracy to create a communal holocaust” and took the matter immediately to the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru surprised him by not ordering arrest of Golwalker. Instead he wanted the cabinet to discuss the matter. The cabinet dithered and filibustered. But the premier asked Dayal to write a letter to RSS boss Golwalker about the cache. Golwalker got the wind of what was transpiring as RSS had planted moles in the high places and one such tipped him off. He changed his residence frequently to dodge the government missive. The government servant was unable to meet him although he was in the same neighbourhood.
It is highly significant to note that Malegaon blast is connected to Kanpur. The ATS is hunting for a retired colonel in UP who had directly helped in preparing the blast. The chemical analysis links the explosion to the other explosions in Kanpur in recent times.
The police have record of the 400 minutes telephonic conversation of the sadhvi with the accomplices including, serving lieutenant colonel Shasikant Purohit of the army, Ramesh Upadhya who taught the others how to make a bomb and procure RDX. Moreover they had met at the Bhonsla Military school of Nasik on April 16 among them was Sameer Kulkarni who transported the explosives to Maleagoin. The police are in search of Ram Narayan Singh who planted the bomb at Bhiku chowk. There is also report that they had met at the school on September 16, some other papers report that the meeting also took place on September 13. They are members of Abhinav Bharat which in turn was the resurrection of Abhinav Bharat society which Savarkar had found in 1905. Savarkar, Moonje and Hegdewar were captivated by fascism and Savarkar had modeled his organization on the Italian nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini’s Young Italy. Most of the accused in Malegaon blasts are also connected with Pune where Abhinav Bharat is headed by no other than the daughter in law of Savarkar. Himani Savarkar is also the niece of Nathuram Godse hence the slogan of her outfit “kshama yachna nahin ab to ran hoga, sangharsh bada bhishan hoga. This slogan is on posters of the organization in Bhopal. Nasik also occupies a crucial place as the Bhonsla military school is located there where the bombers took training and held meeting. The session court is hearing the case there.
The RSS meeting in Kanpur discussed the Malegaon blast and came out with a cynical assessment that the startling revelations of Malegaon blast would not affect the people who habitually vote BJP. Therefore they are back to square one: Hindutuva extremism. For this and all other matters of religious extremism of the Hindutuva you don’t have to go to Tirupati or Chidambrum or Trivandrum because there is a world of difference between the Hindi heartland and the Dravadian south. UP and Madhya Pardesh are central to deep-rooted antipathy to the ‘other.’ After them comes Gujarat. Sadhvi Pragya was from that part of Madhya Pardesh which is famed for anti-Muslims feeling, Malwa region, for it is the stronghold of Hindutuva. If this were not so Malwa would be like Chidambrum.
Hindu Jagran Mach based in Indore came into existence in 2002 during the trouble in Dhar, MP, over prayer at Bhojshala where Hindus as well as Muslims pray in adjoining place. However, the Hindus were allowed to pray only once a year. As the extreme among the Hindus became ascendant they took to aggression and wanted to pray to Saraswati without any restrictive stipulation. The sadhvi and her accomplices are embedded in HJM for their anti minority activities.
On the other hand Kanpur boasts a much larger presence with 60 supported RSS schools known as Saraswati Vidayalas and Deen Dayal Vidayalas. Indeed one such Saraswati Vidayala of Govind nager also hosts the offices of RSS and VHP. There are some 1,500 branches of RSS in Kanpur region of which 300 are in Kanpur itself. There are also 12,000 Bajrang Dal activists. Given such a massive presence in Kanpur it is bound to be the hub of the extreme Hindutuva activities such as bomb making. Two times in August and October there have been two distinct incidents of bomb explosion. In fact in the explosion on August 24 two Bajrang Dal activists, Rajive Misra and Bhupender Sigh died while handling the bomb. An analysis of the chemicals there and of the September 29 blast in Malegaon could establish similarity. In both the places RDX must be present. As the police officer in Kanpur observed that the storage of the explosives in Kanpur was so large that it could have blown up half of the city!
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
The winter of our discontent: provincialism and terrorism
There is the winter of our discontent that has set in. The stock market is in doldrums, protests and violence in the streets, lynching and encounters in the financial capital of the country, war of words between states of the union, involvement of ex-servicemen and a serving lieutenant colonel in terrorism, the slide of the reputed Bhonsla military school of Nasik and Nagpur into the nadir of terrorism, and 25 bomb blasts in Assam, etc.
It is dreadful to think what the situation would be as the winter advances and the long day’s journey into the night winds up. The next day is unwilling to be born into the murky atmosphere. There is no definite beginning to any of the sordid games we Indians are in the habit of playing against each other rather than any enemy from the outside world (at least no one has definitely been caught so far). A judge in Mumbai showed displeasure that the state was head over heels busy in deciphering the Indian Mujahideen email while failing to see the writing on the wall by the Maharashtra Naunirman Sena. Another judge remarked that had the leaders of Bihar and UP used their resources (kickbacks) the migrants would not have flooded the metropolis. Raj Thackeray then chirped in that the state does not understand the language of nonviolence. Then the violence erupted. Thirteen examination centers for the recruitment of candidates for railway jobs were attacked. The northerner youths appearing for the examination were under brutal attack. One Pawan Kumar died in the attack, there is another version that he slipped from a running train and accidentally died. The mobs in Bihar burnt railway property. In tandem came the deaths of Rahul Raj shot dead by the police as he tried to hijack a bus to propagate his grouse against Raj Thackeray and the lynching of Dharmadeo Rai by the Marathi speaking mob in a local train. These events have made tension and violence move in a crescendo as Lalu Prasad called Raj Thackeray a psychopath and Deputy Home Minister RR Patil justifying the killing: “If a madman gets into a bus and goes on a shooting spree, this is the response they will get.” Besides raising the parochial and political temper this situation is fraught with danger to the country. The center cannot hold and things fall apart and anarchy is let loose. The peace that Bihar maintained and its refusal to espouse provincialism in the face of attack on its citizens in Assam 2003 is under strain.
Even more terrifying is the theft of RDX from government ordnance factory. It is now in the hands of the home grown terrorists, to the groups that included Sadhvi Pragysingh Thaku. On the day Sadhvi appeared in a court of Nasik a Marathi daily there carried report that the cross border or Jihad terrorism has RDX from Pakistan military while the home grown terrorists would have only one source, the government of India ordnance factories. But cross border terrorism has been rampant though it cannot be ruled out that home grown terrorism was not very much there. More than twenty five bomb blasts rocked Assam on October 30, 2008 killing more than 50 including military and police personnel and injuring about two hundred. One attack took place quite near the office of the chief minister but the most terrific was at the Ganeshgudi flyover. Rows of cars turned into wreckage in dust and smoke as if the fury of Hiroshima visited Guwahati. The minister of state in home department of the central government Shakeel Ahmed remarked that it was too early to be categorical but October 3-5 saw communal riots in which 54 lost their life. Muslims inhabit the areas affected by bomb explosions where the shopkeepers are Marwari.
Another cause of concern is that the civilian population of the affected areas of Guwahati turned violent against the police and the fire fighters and pelted stones. This is exactly what happened during the serial bomb blasts in Malegaon September 8 2006 and September 29 2008.
Most of the observers believe that only United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), the Assamese upper caste organization fighting for autonomy, is behind the serial blasts. “ULFA has a history of triggering serial blasts," Assam's health minister
Himanta Biswa Sarma stated soon after the blasts. Organizing such a preplanned attacks requires enormous resources and widespread local support. Some also think that it is Hurkatul Jihad e Islami (HuJI). If it is ULFA then the same concern is evident as in the case of Malegaon Septmber 29 blast. Who supplied the RDX? Is it from the government ordnance stock? There is growing fear that right wing Hindu organizations have long been using ex-service men and institutions like the Bhonsla military school to train Hindu youths in arms and ammunition though under the ruse of personality development. Nagpur Bhonsla military school had allowed even Bajrang Dal to use its premises and the Nasik branch has confirmed that Major Prabhakar Kulkarni is not only the past director but also the secretary of the institution that runs the school. The major is believed to have trained the sadhvi and the others in the use of RDX.
Somebody must have also trained the terrorists behind the Assam attacks. The scale of the attack leaves no doubt that RDX was used. Although much limited in Malegaon the blast has left RDX marks on 19 items. In Assam it could be in hundreds as more than 25 bombs exploded there. If it turns out to be HuJI then there is of course ISI.
The two terrorist outfits have one thing in common: communalism. The explosion allegedly caused by SIMI, IM or HuJI leaves many dead and wounded and that motivates backlash that is equally an act of terrorism. Hence the father of sadhvi Pragyasingh, Chandrapal Singh Thakur justified her part saying that “a reply to terrorist attacks was required. If the government does not act in time, the common people will have to do something about their own security.” But it seems his daughter will fight from jail, an election on the ticket of Uma Bharati's Bharatiya Janshakti Party (BJS) because the saints cannot be what the police is trying to prove. She would be taking on any leader of the BJP, despite the President of BJP Rajnath Singh himself declaring the sadhvi innocent because anyone who adheres to the cultural nationalism of the RSS cannot be terrorist, including serving lieutenant colonel Shrikant Purohit of the army. Given this kind of rationale we are in for a long winter.
It is dreadful to think what the situation would be as the winter advances and the long day’s journey into the night winds up. The next day is unwilling to be born into the murky atmosphere. There is no definite beginning to any of the sordid games we Indians are in the habit of playing against each other rather than any enemy from the outside world (at least no one has definitely been caught so far). A judge in Mumbai showed displeasure that the state was head over heels busy in deciphering the Indian Mujahideen email while failing to see the writing on the wall by the Maharashtra Naunirman Sena. Another judge remarked that had the leaders of Bihar and UP used their resources (kickbacks) the migrants would not have flooded the metropolis. Raj Thackeray then chirped in that the state does not understand the language of nonviolence. Then the violence erupted. Thirteen examination centers for the recruitment of candidates for railway jobs were attacked. The northerner youths appearing for the examination were under brutal attack. One Pawan Kumar died in the attack, there is another version that he slipped from a running train and accidentally died. The mobs in Bihar burnt railway property. In tandem came the deaths of Rahul Raj shot dead by the police as he tried to hijack a bus to propagate his grouse against Raj Thackeray and the lynching of Dharmadeo Rai by the Marathi speaking mob in a local train. These events have made tension and violence move in a crescendo as Lalu Prasad called Raj Thackeray a psychopath and Deputy Home Minister RR Patil justifying the killing: “If a madman gets into a bus and goes on a shooting spree, this is the response they will get.” Besides raising the parochial and political temper this situation is fraught with danger to the country. The center cannot hold and things fall apart and anarchy is let loose. The peace that Bihar maintained and its refusal to espouse provincialism in the face of attack on its citizens in Assam 2003 is under strain.
Even more terrifying is the theft of RDX from government ordnance factory. It is now in the hands of the home grown terrorists, to the groups that included Sadhvi Pragysingh Thaku. On the day Sadhvi appeared in a court of Nasik a Marathi daily there carried report that the cross border or Jihad terrorism has RDX from Pakistan military while the home grown terrorists would have only one source, the government of India ordnance factories. But cross border terrorism has been rampant though it cannot be ruled out that home grown terrorism was not very much there. More than twenty five bomb blasts rocked Assam on October 30, 2008 killing more than 50 including military and police personnel and injuring about two hundred. One attack took place quite near the office of the chief minister but the most terrific was at the Ganeshgudi flyover. Rows of cars turned into wreckage in dust and smoke as if the fury of Hiroshima visited Guwahati. The minister of state in home department of the central government Shakeel Ahmed remarked that it was too early to be categorical but October 3-5 saw communal riots in which 54 lost their life. Muslims inhabit the areas affected by bomb explosions where the shopkeepers are Marwari.
Another cause of concern is that the civilian population of the affected areas of Guwahati turned violent against the police and the fire fighters and pelted stones. This is exactly what happened during the serial bomb blasts in Malegaon September 8 2006 and September 29 2008.
Most of the observers believe that only United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), the Assamese upper caste organization fighting for autonomy, is behind the serial blasts. “ULFA has a history of triggering serial blasts," Assam's health minister
Himanta Biswa Sarma stated soon after the blasts. Organizing such a preplanned attacks requires enormous resources and widespread local support. Some also think that it is Hurkatul Jihad e Islami (HuJI). If it is ULFA then the same concern is evident as in the case of Malegaon Septmber 29 blast. Who supplied the RDX? Is it from the government ordnance stock? There is growing fear that right wing Hindu organizations have long been using ex-service men and institutions like the Bhonsla military school to train Hindu youths in arms and ammunition though under the ruse of personality development. Nagpur Bhonsla military school had allowed even Bajrang Dal to use its premises and the Nasik branch has confirmed that Major Prabhakar Kulkarni is not only the past director but also the secretary of the institution that runs the school. The major is believed to have trained the sadhvi and the others in the use of RDX.
Somebody must have also trained the terrorists behind the Assam attacks. The scale of the attack leaves no doubt that RDX was used. Although much limited in Malegaon the blast has left RDX marks on 19 items. In Assam it could be in hundreds as more than 25 bombs exploded there. If it turns out to be HuJI then there is of course ISI.
The two terrorist outfits have one thing in common: communalism. The explosion allegedly caused by SIMI, IM or HuJI leaves many dead and wounded and that motivates backlash that is equally an act of terrorism. Hence the father of sadhvi Pragyasingh, Chandrapal Singh Thakur justified her part saying that “a reply to terrorist attacks was required. If the government does not act in time, the common people will have to do something about their own security.” But it seems his daughter will fight from jail, an election on the ticket of Uma Bharati's Bharatiya Janshakti Party (BJS) because the saints cannot be what the police is trying to prove. She would be taking on any leader of the BJP, despite the President of BJP Rajnath Singh himself declaring the sadhvi innocent because anyone who adheres to the cultural nationalism of the RSS cannot be terrorist, including serving lieutenant colonel Shrikant Purohit of the army. Given this kind of rationale we are in for a long winter.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Multi headed hydra monstrosity of the sangh parivar
We have failed to fully account for the role the so-called cultural organization RSS has played and is still playing in violent acts. Why does this need arise from time to time? It is primarily because the extreme right wing organization has meddled into politics of the country from time to time and by not recognizing Muslims as part of it. Or, as is its assertion from time to time that Muslims have to forgo their allegiance to the foreign faith they have embraced and be sanskritized. This is not only ridiculous but also simply impossible. The RSS indoctrinates its cadres in such a way that they view the Muslims as their enemy and trains them to fight the Muslims. Moreover from much earlier time the organization has indulged in prevarication, secrecy and conspiracy. These are not the stuff on which to build democratic structure. They are outrageously and offensively wrong, hence monstrosity. Multi headed ! Thanks to juggling of words. The police first said it was Hindu Jagran Manch behind the Malegaon September 29 blast and then said it was Rashtriya Jagran Manch. Remember Hindu Jagran Manch is anti minority. It owned up the terrible attacks on Christians and Muslims in Gujarat and other parts of the country. It is also fact that the accused were from Durga Vahini who had links with Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad. Samir Kulkarni was from Abhinau Bharat, but also from Abhinav Bharat Sansthan as well as ABVP.
Mahatma Gandhi’s assassins were from RSS and Hindu Mahasabha. In his letter to Syam Prasad Mukherji, Sardar Patel wrote in July 1948 about the assassination of Gandhi: “our reports do confirm that, as a result of the activities of these two bodies, particularly the former, an atmosphere was created in the country in which such a ghastly tragedy became possible.” Nathuram Godse was baudhik karyavah or intellectual worker of RSS and made five known attempts to assassinate. In fact Gopal Godse asserted: “All the brothers were in the RSS. Nathuram, Dattatreya, myself and Govind. You can say we grew up in the RSS rather than in our home. It was like a family to us”. Can such inveterate and committed person change his party before assassinating Gandhi? What had gone into the making of Nathuram is a matter of years of ideological stockbreeding. What was equally serious about the affair was what the IAS officer told Justice Jeevan Lal Kapoor inquiry commission that the right wing organizations had secretly made plans of subverting the established government and taking over the reigns of the government.
Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur’s involvement in the bomb blast is no less serious than what was the case at the time of the assassination of Gandhi. She and Major Ramesh Upadhya and Major Y D Sahasrabuddhe and even a serving armyman, posted at Panchmarhi in Madhya Pradesh had established a network of terror across states involving groups as strategic as ex-service personnel, Bhonsle Military Schools and men in ordance factory or defence services who could pass on RDX as scrap. Does it require any more proof to show that this is sedition? Even the letter of Santosh Kumar Rai National Organising Secreatry AKHIL BHARAT HINDU MAHASABHA (Mo. 09818334959) appeals “to all Hindu community please come in support of SADHWI and UNITE to make BHARAT as HINDU NATION.”
The kind of atmosphere built up over the last six months was such that it could have led to upheaval in the society on unprecedented scale. Amar Singh feared that Muslims might rebel against their repression and oppression on account of the innumerable arrests of many innocent members of the community. It is for such an eventuality that the RSS is training its cadres in arms and ammunition. They would take over the reign. Tarun Tejpal asked the people to pause and think coolly in the wee time of the lull before the storm. It is most opportune that the Maharashtra police did what would become another historic milestone in the administrative service of the country. Their investigation may not fulfill all the expectations of the people of different groups but the nation can legitimately heave a sigh of relief. Bombs will not stop exploding but investigation would be not one sided. Those who admire Hitler could also use the techniques of Hitler of burning the parliament in order to arouse strong nationalist feelings and hatred against the Jews and minorities. Today’s Jews in India are the Muslims hunted and haunted as their Semite brethren of yore. People will be wary now.
There are enough reasons why one should be wary and of what. First what the right wing leaders including the prime ministerial candidate say. It is interesting to note that LK Advani is now saying that the sadhvi had left the sangh parivar’s Durga Vahini. She was a member of several such outfits. This is what Advani has been saying about Nathuram, too. The national convener of Bajrang Dal also told the same about Rajive Misra and Bhupender Singh who blew themselves up while making or assembling bomb in Kanpur on August 24. In the case of the Nanded blast of February 2007 the police tried to hide the identity of the man killed, later it was found out that he was Shiv Sena lealder of Nanded. People should also be wary of fire crackers bursting or biscuit cartons exploding not only in Nanded but also in Rajasthan and elsewhere.
Thus some policemen and the right wing organizations try to hide the fact that Hindu extremists are involved in blasts. Even officers with science background do not behave with honesty and integrity because of the mindset created by RSS ideology. For example look at how a lady doctor treats a Muslim suspect Noorulhoda of Malegaon September 8, 2006 blasts case:
“During the test I was given electric shocks. I was beaten so much on my ears and forehead that I still feel the pain in my brain nerves and bones of the chest. Bangalore’s lady doctor Malini told me “speak up what police is asking you to say otherwise they will implicate you in two or three more such cases.” She too was threatening in the same way and on my repeated refusal she used to give me electric shocks on my ear.”
There is also a schismatic deflective device of the Hindu extremists when members of one organization are caught, first they are either disowned or are made out to have left the organization. But it is not long when other organizations jumped in to defend the accused or arrested. The extremists among the Hindutva group in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat as well as Shiv Sena leaders want to defend the sadhvi. Manohar Joshi believes that the Islamic terrorism is responsible for forcing the sadhvi to take to terrorism. Hindus were so much enraged by jihad terrorism that they were forced to react the same way. Some say that this should be treated an aberration rather than the norm of the Hindu community. They labour under the illusion that terrorism is a matter of faith and not of the character of the people. In fact the editorial in Samna goes to say that given Jihad terrorism it would be no surprise if all Hindus take to terrorism. This is sure recipe for subversion.
Another device is subterfuge or trick to escape trouble. The sangh parivar is master in subterfuges. The VHP leader Ramvilas Vedanti had got his disciples email letters to him on August 30 2008 threatening his life. The emails were sent in the name of SIMI and Indian Mujahideen. The police in UP found out the truth that the fake letters were used to get z security cover to Vedanti but the police did not take action against the disciples or Vedanti. The Malegaon blast provides another instance of subterfuge and deflective device. The Ahemdabad police have arrested general secretary of VHP of Ahmedabad, Ashwin Patel. The police have this to say in the FIR: "Since the last two to two and a half months, derogatory and defamatory SMSes were doing the rounds about Narendra Modi and his government. Besides there were SMSes to mislead about the Malegaon, Modasa and Ahmedabad blasts and the language used could provoke communal passions". It would take some more time to unearth the whole meaning but it is beyond doubt that the three incidents of bombing had one common purpose: inciting communal passion that could produce backlash. The obvious beneficiary would be, of course, BJP. But the question is not of that party, what about the country? Theft of RDX in the name of sale of scrap ends up in the hands of the extremists of well-spread and well-organized organizations who in the name of defending the country are in fact engaged in terrorism.
Mahatma Gandhi’s assassins were from RSS and Hindu Mahasabha. In his letter to Syam Prasad Mukherji, Sardar Patel wrote in July 1948 about the assassination of Gandhi: “our reports do confirm that, as a result of the activities of these two bodies, particularly the former, an atmosphere was created in the country in which such a ghastly tragedy became possible.” Nathuram Godse was baudhik karyavah or intellectual worker of RSS and made five known attempts to assassinate. In fact Gopal Godse asserted: “All the brothers were in the RSS. Nathuram, Dattatreya, myself and Govind. You can say we grew up in the RSS rather than in our home. It was like a family to us”. Can such inveterate and committed person change his party before assassinating Gandhi? What had gone into the making of Nathuram is a matter of years of ideological stockbreeding. What was equally serious about the affair was what the IAS officer told Justice Jeevan Lal Kapoor inquiry commission that the right wing organizations had secretly made plans of subverting the established government and taking over the reigns of the government.
Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur’s involvement in the bomb blast is no less serious than what was the case at the time of the assassination of Gandhi. She and Major Ramesh Upadhya and Major Y D Sahasrabuddhe and even a serving armyman, posted at Panchmarhi in Madhya Pradesh had established a network of terror across states involving groups as strategic as ex-service personnel, Bhonsle Military Schools and men in ordance factory or defence services who could pass on RDX as scrap. Does it require any more proof to show that this is sedition? Even the letter of Santosh Kumar Rai National Organising Secreatry AKHIL BHARAT HINDU MAHASABHA (Mo. 09818334959) appeals “to all Hindu community please come in support of SADHWI and UNITE to make BHARAT as HINDU NATION.”
The kind of atmosphere built up over the last six months was such that it could have led to upheaval in the society on unprecedented scale. Amar Singh feared that Muslims might rebel against their repression and oppression on account of the innumerable arrests of many innocent members of the community. It is for such an eventuality that the RSS is training its cadres in arms and ammunition. They would take over the reign. Tarun Tejpal asked the people to pause and think coolly in the wee time of the lull before the storm. It is most opportune that the Maharashtra police did what would become another historic milestone in the administrative service of the country. Their investigation may not fulfill all the expectations of the people of different groups but the nation can legitimately heave a sigh of relief. Bombs will not stop exploding but investigation would be not one sided. Those who admire Hitler could also use the techniques of Hitler of burning the parliament in order to arouse strong nationalist feelings and hatred against the Jews and minorities. Today’s Jews in India are the Muslims hunted and haunted as their Semite brethren of yore. People will be wary now.
There are enough reasons why one should be wary and of what. First what the right wing leaders including the prime ministerial candidate say. It is interesting to note that LK Advani is now saying that the sadhvi had left the sangh parivar’s Durga Vahini. She was a member of several such outfits. This is what Advani has been saying about Nathuram, too. The national convener of Bajrang Dal also told the same about Rajive Misra and Bhupender Singh who blew themselves up while making or assembling bomb in Kanpur on August 24. In the case of the Nanded blast of February 2007 the police tried to hide the identity of the man killed, later it was found out that he was Shiv Sena lealder of Nanded. People should also be wary of fire crackers bursting or biscuit cartons exploding not only in Nanded but also in Rajasthan and elsewhere.
Thus some policemen and the right wing organizations try to hide the fact that Hindu extremists are involved in blasts. Even officers with science background do not behave with honesty and integrity because of the mindset created by RSS ideology. For example look at how a lady doctor treats a Muslim suspect Noorulhoda of Malegaon September 8, 2006 blasts case:
“During the test I was given electric shocks. I was beaten so much on my ears and forehead that I still feel the pain in my brain nerves and bones of the chest. Bangalore’s lady doctor Malini told me “speak up what police is asking you to say otherwise they will implicate you in two or three more such cases.” She too was threatening in the same way and on my repeated refusal she used to give me electric shocks on my ear.”
There is also a schismatic deflective device of the Hindu extremists when members of one organization are caught, first they are either disowned or are made out to have left the organization. But it is not long when other organizations jumped in to defend the accused or arrested. The extremists among the Hindutva group in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat as well as Shiv Sena leaders want to defend the sadhvi. Manohar Joshi believes that the Islamic terrorism is responsible for forcing the sadhvi to take to terrorism. Hindus were so much enraged by jihad terrorism that they were forced to react the same way. Some say that this should be treated an aberration rather than the norm of the Hindu community. They labour under the illusion that terrorism is a matter of faith and not of the character of the people. In fact the editorial in Samna goes to say that given Jihad terrorism it would be no surprise if all Hindus take to terrorism. This is sure recipe for subversion.
Another device is subterfuge or trick to escape trouble. The sangh parivar is master in subterfuges. The VHP leader Ramvilas Vedanti had got his disciples email letters to him on August 30 2008 threatening his life. The emails were sent in the name of SIMI and Indian Mujahideen. The police in UP found out the truth that the fake letters were used to get z security cover to Vedanti but the police did not take action against the disciples or Vedanti. The Malegaon blast provides another instance of subterfuge and deflective device. The Ahemdabad police have arrested general secretary of VHP of Ahmedabad, Ashwin Patel. The police have this to say in the FIR: "Since the last two to two and a half months, derogatory and defamatory SMSes were doing the rounds about Narendra Modi and his government. Besides there were SMSes to mislead about the Malegaon, Modasa and Ahmedabad blasts and the language used could provoke communal passions". It would take some more time to unearth the whole meaning but it is beyond doubt that the three incidents of bombing had one common purpose: inciting communal passion that could produce backlash. The obvious beneficiary would be, of course, BJP. But the question is not of that party, what about the country? Theft of RDX in the name of sale of scrap ends up in the hands of the extremists of well-spread and well-organized organizations who in the name of defending the country are in fact engaged in terrorism.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Malegaon is at it again!
Malegaon/Communalism/Pressure on police
Once it was the pride of Hindu Muslim unity, mutual respect and trust. Even the riots in the sixties and seventies did not dent into the harmonious relationship between the various sections of the society. But the 1980s and 1990s changed all that. With the rise of right wing BJP and its newly won respectability of its extreme view the town began to feel strain of being pulled in opposite directions. Since then Malegaon has become captive of communalists.
The police in Malegaon must be under tremendous strain. This is borne out by two recent incidents. Raj Thackeray’s arrest and the police action against those who were barricading the high way and forcing shutting down of shops on October 21-22 and the people pelting stones and manhandling the police in the aftermath of the bomb explosion on September 29 are dissimilar in nature. The people attacked the police in Bhiku chowk on the spur of the moment and several policemen were injured. But the police prevailed upon the situation and even opened fire on the riotous mob in which two persons died and many were injured. They even declared curfew but within minutes called it off. The police who described the blast as gas cylinder explosion when it was clearly bomb blast incensed the mob all the more because people had informed about the abandoned motorcycle(later found to be property of Poornachetanand or sadhvi Pragya) to the police more than an hour before the explosion. They ignored it.
The police did not make ignominious retreat (padta bhui) as is claimed by a Marathi daily columnist. If it were only that perhaps it would not be much, after all we have right to have personal view of events. But then the writer goes on to say that the police should not have thrashed the MNS activists in Hindu areas after how the cops were beaten up by the Muslim mob and after their abject retreat from the Muslim ghetto of Bhiku chowk. This is fine-tuning of communalism where it does not and should not exist. And exhorting to police to keep the avatar or appearance of god (permatmachi roop) is expecting too much. It could be instigating, rather.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena also boasts of having Muslims in it. However, the supporters of Raj Thackeray did not go into the old town where Muslims live. The Muslims kept themselves busy in the midst of their marriage season. They of course had read news paper report about how the Maharashtra police on October 13 arrested Lalit Kolhe, the Corporator from MNS in Jalgaon . About 16 swords were reportedly seized from his place at the height of the communal riots in Dhule and instances of arson in Jalgaon. So the old township in the east was astir with activities and business as usual.
In the other incident there was a press conference where a district level police officer in the aftermath of the bomb explosion had allegedly stared down at the Urdu reporters (two of whom had nailed the lie of the home minister that no one was injured in police firing) and remarked ominously that a bullet cost 150 rupees and he would not waste government money. Though the import was clear but it was not made out to be communalist expression. This is a tribute to the good sense which the people in Malegaon otherwise have. At the time of both bomb blasts there was no communal flare up and Hindus had helped in by donating blood and treating Muslim victims.
Thus the police otherwise generally believed by Muslims to be biased against them are also stigmatized by the majority community who look at them in the manner of the big brother. Look at what happens during religious processions how the routes and time are observed. They do not want to feel constrained by police regulations because of their surge in emotion and devotion. For two years Malegaon police have had tough time during the elephant god procession. Some who contravene the security norms are habitually extradited from the town but pressure builds up on the police. The show down between the members of the majority community and the police is of a different hue from the Muslim going berserk at perceived injustice or act of cruelty.
According to the influential group of the majority community the police arrested the protesters and took them back to the highway and handed over the protesters to the commandoes who beat them mercilessly. This they perceive is how the police settle old score. That of course is their grouse that their exuberance at the time of religious procession or political protests should be untrammeled by regulatory procedure of the police. As the irascible behaviour of the mob in the Bhiku chowk the disgruntlement of the majority is a chink in their armour. All this in addition to the whopping pressure on the cops to investigate the bomb explosions!
Once it was the pride of Hindu Muslim unity, mutual respect and trust. Even the riots in the sixties and seventies did not dent into the harmonious relationship between the various sections of the society. But the 1980s and 1990s changed all that. With the rise of right wing BJP and its newly won respectability of its extreme view the town began to feel strain of being pulled in opposite directions. Since then Malegaon has become captive of communalists.
The police in Malegaon must be under tremendous strain. This is borne out by two recent incidents. Raj Thackeray’s arrest and the police action against those who were barricading the high way and forcing shutting down of shops on October 21-22 and the people pelting stones and manhandling the police in the aftermath of the bomb explosion on September 29 are dissimilar in nature. The people attacked the police in Bhiku chowk on the spur of the moment and several policemen were injured. But the police prevailed upon the situation and even opened fire on the riotous mob in which two persons died and many were injured. They even declared curfew but within minutes called it off. The police who described the blast as gas cylinder explosion when it was clearly bomb blast incensed the mob all the more because people had informed about the abandoned motorcycle(later found to be property of Poornachetanand or sadhvi Pragya) to the police more than an hour before the explosion. They ignored it.
The police did not make ignominious retreat (padta bhui) as is claimed by a Marathi daily columnist. If it were only that perhaps it would not be much, after all we have right to have personal view of events. But then the writer goes on to say that the police should not have thrashed the MNS activists in Hindu areas after how the cops were beaten up by the Muslim mob and after their abject retreat from the Muslim ghetto of Bhiku chowk. This is fine-tuning of communalism where it does not and should not exist. And exhorting to police to keep the avatar or appearance of god (permatmachi roop) is expecting too much. It could be instigating, rather.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena also boasts of having Muslims in it. However, the supporters of Raj Thackeray did not go into the old town where Muslims live. The Muslims kept themselves busy in the midst of their marriage season. They of course had read news paper report about how the Maharashtra police on October 13 arrested Lalit Kolhe, the Corporator from MNS in Jalgaon . About 16 swords were reportedly seized from his place at the height of the communal riots in Dhule and instances of arson in Jalgaon. So the old township in the east was astir with activities and business as usual.
In the other incident there was a press conference where a district level police officer in the aftermath of the bomb explosion had allegedly stared down at the Urdu reporters (two of whom had nailed the lie of the home minister that no one was injured in police firing) and remarked ominously that a bullet cost 150 rupees and he would not waste government money. Though the import was clear but it was not made out to be communalist expression. This is a tribute to the good sense which the people in Malegaon otherwise have. At the time of both bomb blasts there was no communal flare up and Hindus had helped in by donating blood and treating Muslim victims.
Thus the police otherwise generally believed by Muslims to be biased against them are also stigmatized by the majority community who look at them in the manner of the big brother. Look at what happens during religious processions how the routes and time are observed. They do not want to feel constrained by police regulations because of their surge in emotion and devotion. For two years Malegaon police have had tough time during the elephant god procession. Some who contravene the security norms are habitually extradited from the town but pressure builds up on the police. The show down between the members of the majority community and the police is of a different hue from the Muslim going berserk at perceived injustice or act of cruelty.
According to the influential group of the majority community the police arrested the protesters and took them back to the highway and handed over the protesters to the commandoes who beat them mercilessly. This they perceive is how the police settle old score. That of course is their grouse that their exuberance at the time of religious procession or political protests should be untrammeled by regulatory procedure of the police. As the irascible behaviour of the mob in the Bhiku chowk the disgruntlement of the majority is a chink in their armour. All this in addition to the whopping pressure on the cops to investigate the bomb explosions!
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Post September 29th Terrorism Scenario
Terrorism/Propaganda/Cultural Hegemony/Communalism
As 9/11 turned out to be the familiar hunting cry of going after Muslim groups in the ‘war’ on terrorism in which India also jumped on the bandwagon, 29/11 is proving a mockery of all the endeavours that investigation agencies, the police and the media have made to create hoopla over terror.
There is a chemistry of change in dealing with terrorism. The media and the police and the investigating agencies have balked from going full steam in their disclosures and presentation of terrorism in India in the aftermath of the startling revelation that sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur of Hindu Jagran Manch of Indore and Surat owned the motor cycle that carried the bomb that exploded in Malegaon. She along with her three accomplices (Sham Sahu, Dilip Nahar and Shivnarayan Singh from Indore and Dharmendra Bairagi from Dewas) are arrested and sent to custody till November 3. this has dismayed some who are still harping on jihad terrorism despite the fact that terrorism unleashed by LTTE in SriLanka and India was the precursor of the suicide bombing of the Palestinians. Such is the vainglory of some that they do not want to accept that Hindus can be terrorists, even the extremist among them. This is strange for the proverbial tolerance of the Hindus got a jolt with the demolition of the Babri mosque at Ayodhya and violence subsequent to it and the pogroms of Muslims in Gujarat 2002.
It would be wrong to assert that pre 29/11 was in its entirety the handiwork of Jihad terrorism. Malegan blasts of September 8, 2006 militate against the biased perception and twisted theories of terrorism juggernaut of 9/11. This is true even when the accused are all Muslims. Those accused are languishing in jail with hardly any credible evidence found against them because they were not involved. The affidavits they have submitted shows that they were either in prison (Shabeer Masiullah) or at home and mosque (Noorulhoda) or leading Friday prayer more than five hundred miles away.
The former chief of ATS Raghuvanshi had remarked that the bombs that the Bajrang Dal activists of Nanded were making were not for pooja. They had been already used three different times at mosques in Purna, Jalna, Parbhani. One of the ones meant for Aurangabad railway station mosque accidentally exploded 1.30 am Thursday night rather than 1.30 pm Friday group prayer time like all the other mosques including Mecca mosque of Hyderabad and Jama masjid of Delhi. The home made bombs manufactured with the help of retired army officers had also been used at the mosque in Panvel by activists of Hindu Janjagran Samiti and Sanatan Sanstha. These of course preceded September 29, 2008 Modasa and Malegaon blasts. In the sophistry of the right wing Hindu organizations everything is okay and can be connived at by sweeping them under the carpet of safeguarding religion. Moreover they are sophisticated(?) enough not to blare out in their manifesto that their intent is like that of the intrepid Al Qaeda.
Till the time of the Delhi high court special tribunal hearing there was no evidence whatsoever which the government could put before the tribunal in its appeal for continuing the ban on SIMI(Students Islamic Movement of India). People even on suspicion of being connected to it have been arrested and are languishing in jail day in and day out. On the other hand, Bajrang Dal was conceived and created as the the sword arm of Hindutva to carry out its violent campaign aginst the minorities, quintessentially Muslim minority. Who but they were the youths with saffron bands tied to their foreheads scaling and systematically tearing down the walls and domes of the mosque at Ayodhya.
If Muslims are caught for any trivial crime and also for not having any criminal background their profiling includes if they had any link to SIMI. Let alone that their beard and long tunic and skullcap lands them into trouble as it happened, among other places, the north east. After 29/11 there is no attempt to standardize the profiling of terrorism of the sangh privar in terms of their cultural symbols although the RSS boasts of being just a cultural organization.
Hindu Janjagrun Manch of Indore, Bajrang Dal, VHP, Hindu Janjagran Samiti, Shiv Sena, Sanatan Sanstha, Durga Vahini, Akhil Bharti Vidyarthi Parishad are different organizations whose members have now been found to be making bombs and exploding them in mosques or in Muslim ghettoes. It makes no sense that extremist Hindus who are caught should be tried as miscreants irrespective of their organizational affiliation. Many but not the masses of Hindus are members of one or more of such organizations. They receive training in arms and ammunition and explosives periodically in a highly organized manner. Former members of armed forces train them. How can it be that Hindus who are caught in terror crime should be tried as individuals and not as members of the numerous affiliates of the sangh parivar. Nathu Ram Godse and Dr Parchure of Indore were members of the RSS and were sworn enemies of Mahatma Gandhi. The prevailing ethos of these organizations is characterized by proneness to violence, secrecy, and conspiracy. Their patriarch Moonje wanted to find out means where by many people can be killed in one go, his obvious target were Muslims, though it is also relevant to note that the Christians too have come under the attack of the extremist Hindu organizations. Therefore the nature of the organizations and their exhibited practice and material in possession must also be considered as causes of terrorism today. On October 19, 2008 RSS cadres displayed guns, swords and other weapons in a public during their parade through the Ashok nager of Indore city. This was done in flagrant violation of the code of conduct in force in Madhya Pradesh for the coming election. Some of them had allegedly used guns to kill Muslims during the agitation for grant of land for the Anant nag yatra. Therefore organizations and the nature of their known activities give enough proof of how such organizations are involved in terrorist acts.
There are statements that political leaders make and they give enough clues for what is the critical mass. The police of course record but conveniently do not act or provide correct feedback. VHP leader Parveen Togadia had made a speech to the lusty cheering of his audience that Hanuman had come to Godhra, Ravana had set his tail on fire and Hanuman had visited Naroda Patia, etc. Those who had ignited fire in Gujarat were causing terror as well as those who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. Their affiliation to organizations supplies the ideological motivation. They are the variant versions of Sheikh Yasin. For example this is what Bal Thackeray told Shekhar Gupta : “To understand me, you have to go back to 1948, or even before that. Have you ever thought of Godse’s action, why he decided to kill? He got annoyed, upset, very upset. Even after giving a chunk of our land to Muslims, you were giving Rs 55 crore to them. Godse thought that if this old man lives any longer then he will ruin the country.” Or Narendra Modi hectoring his audience that Hindus can’t be terrorists and if they take to terrorism they would finish off Pakistan. Such is the plosive stuff that can set the ball rolling.
Howsoever we may question the premise that all terrorists are Muslims, what is unquestionable is that all terrorism is propaganda. Exploding bombs in theatres showing Aamhe Pachpute or Jodha Akbar, burning train to Pakistan, or exploding bombs on shabebarat or around shabeqader propagates a message. This could be that there are organizations that are devoted to establish a narrow kind of nationhood and/or maintain cultural hegemony.
As 9/11 turned out to be the familiar hunting cry of going after Muslim groups in the ‘war’ on terrorism in which India also jumped on the bandwagon, 29/11 is proving a mockery of all the endeavours that investigation agencies, the police and the media have made to create hoopla over terror.
There is a chemistry of change in dealing with terrorism. The media and the police and the investigating agencies have balked from going full steam in their disclosures and presentation of terrorism in India in the aftermath of the startling revelation that sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur of Hindu Jagran Manch of Indore and Surat owned the motor cycle that carried the bomb that exploded in Malegaon. She along with her three accomplices (Sham Sahu, Dilip Nahar and Shivnarayan Singh from Indore and Dharmendra Bairagi from Dewas) are arrested and sent to custody till November 3. this has dismayed some who are still harping on jihad terrorism despite the fact that terrorism unleashed by LTTE in SriLanka and India was the precursor of the suicide bombing of the Palestinians. Such is the vainglory of some that they do not want to accept that Hindus can be terrorists, even the extremist among them. This is strange for the proverbial tolerance of the Hindus got a jolt with the demolition of the Babri mosque at Ayodhya and violence subsequent to it and the pogroms of Muslims in Gujarat 2002.
It would be wrong to assert that pre 29/11 was in its entirety the handiwork of Jihad terrorism. Malegan blasts of September 8, 2006 militate against the biased perception and twisted theories of terrorism juggernaut of 9/11. This is true even when the accused are all Muslims. Those accused are languishing in jail with hardly any credible evidence found against them because they were not involved. The affidavits they have submitted shows that they were either in prison (Shabeer Masiullah) or at home and mosque (Noorulhoda) or leading Friday prayer more than five hundred miles away.
The former chief of ATS Raghuvanshi had remarked that the bombs that the Bajrang Dal activists of Nanded were making were not for pooja. They had been already used three different times at mosques in Purna, Jalna, Parbhani. One of the ones meant for Aurangabad railway station mosque accidentally exploded 1.30 am Thursday night rather than 1.30 pm Friday group prayer time like all the other mosques including Mecca mosque of Hyderabad and Jama masjid of Delhi. The home made bombs manufactured with the help of retired army officers had also been used at the mosque in Panvel by activists of Hindu Janjagran Samiti and Sanatan Sanstha. These of course preceded September 29, 2008 Modasa and Malegaon blasts. In the sophistry of the right wing Hindu organizations everything is okay and can be connived at by sweeping them under the carpet of safeguarding religion. Moreover they are sophisticated(?) enough not to blare out in their manifesto that their intent is like that of the intrepid Al Qaeda.
Till the time of the Delhi high court special tribunal hearing there was no evidence whatsoever which the government could put before the tribunal in its appeal for continuing the ban on SIMI(Students Islamic Movement of India). People even on suspicion of being connected to it have been arrested and are languishing in jail day in and day out. On the other hand, Bajrang Dal was conceived and created as the the sword arm of Hindutva to carry out its violent campaign aginst the minorities, quintessentially Muslim minority. Who but they were the youths with saffron bands tied to their foreheads scaling and systematically tearing down the walls and domes of the mosque at Ayodhya.
If Muslims are caught for any trivial crime and also for not having any criminal background their profiling includes if they had any link to SIMI. Let alone that their beard and long tunic and skullcap lands them into trouble as it happened, among other places, the north east. After 29/11 there is no attempt to standardize the profiling of terrorism of the sangh privar in terms of their cultural symbols although the RSS boasts of being just a cultural organization.
Hindu Janjagrun Manch of Indore, Bajrang Dal, VHP, Hindu Janjagran Samiti, Shiv Sena, Sanatan Sanstha, Durga Vahini, Akhil Bharti Vidyarthi Parishad are different organizations whose members have now been found to be making bombs and exploding them in mosques or in Muslim ghettoes. It makes no sense that extremist Hindus who are caught should be tried as miscreants irrespective of their organizational affiliation. Many but not the masses of Hindus are members of one or more of such organizations. They receive training in arms and ammunition and explosives periodically in a highly organized manner. Former members of armed forces train them. How can it be that Hindus who are caught in terror crime should be tried as individuals and not as members of the numerous affiliates of the sangh parivar. Nathu Ram Godse and Dr Parchure of Indore were members of the RSS and were sworn enemies of Mahatma Gandhi. The prevailing ethos of these organizations is characterized by proneness to violence, secrecy, and conspiracy. Their patriarch Moonje wanted to find out means where by many people can be killed in one go, his obvious target were Muslims, though it is also relevant to note that the Christians too have come under the attack of the extremist Hindu organizations. Therefore the nature of the organizations and their exhibited practice and material in possession must also be considered as causes of terrorism today. On October 19, 2008 RSS cadres displayed guns, swords and other weapons in a public during their parade through the Ashok nager of Indore city. This was done in flagrant violation of the code of conduct in force in Madhya Pradesh for the coming election. Some of them had allegedly used guns to kill Muslims during the agitation for grant of land for the Anant nag yatra. Therefore organizations and the nature of their known activities give enough proof of how such organizations are involved in terrorist acts.
There are statements that political leaders make and they give enough clues for what is the critical mass. The police of course record but conveniently do not act or provide correct feedback. VHP leader Parveen Togadia had made a speech to the lusty cheering of his audience that Hanuman had come to Godhra, Ravana had set his tail on fire and Hanuman had visited Naroda Patia, etc. Those who had ignited fire in Gujarat were causing terror as well as those who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. Their affiliation to organizations supplies the ideological motivation. They are the variant versions of Sheikh Yasin. For example this is what Bal Thackeray told Shekhar Gupta : “To understand me, you have to go back to 1948, or even before that. Have you ever thought of Godse’s action, why he decided to kill? He got annoyed, upset, very upset. Even after giving a chunk of our land to Muslims, you were giving Rs 55 crore to them. Godse thought that if this old man lives any longer then he will ruin the country.” Or Narendra Modi hectoring his audience that Hindus can’t be terrorists and if they take to terrorism they would finish off Pakistan. Such is the plosive stuff that can set the ball rolling.
Howsoever we may question the premise that all terrorists are Muslims, what is unquestionable is that all terrorism is propaganda. Exploding bombs in theatres showing Aamhe Pachpute or Jodha Akbar, burning train to Pakistan, or exploding bombs on shabebarat or around shabeqader propagates a message. This could be that there are organizations that are devoted to establish a narrow kind of nationhood and/or maintain cultural hegemony.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Why queasy about Raj Thackeray being a terrorist
Why only the nephew? Call a rose by any other name; it will give the same smell. Howsoever you anglicize your name your essence of sub continental origin stinks to the outsider. This complexity rebounds on you when you are terribly obsessed by provincialism.
Of late Raj Thackeray has been in the news for attempting to wear the saffron garb of his uncle and thereby trespassing his domain. That has raised alarm because of the elections round the corner. Fighting election in the name of fighting terrorism is not every body’s cup of tea, though you can fool some for sometimes or others for all the time, as Narendra Modi has at succeeded in doing. But the truth will have to emerge as Chanderyaan emerged in the clear sky over Sriharikotla after leaving the cloud of smoke behind on September 22 2008.
The virtual shut down of Mumbai on October 21 2008 on account of the nephew is of the vintage of the hay day of the uncle in 2000. After all he is the chip of the old block. Hold the metropolis to ransom by the awesome muscle power is terrorism localized. What Maharashtra Navnerman Sena is doing now is the repetition of what Shiv Sena did before and is doing on the sly to keep it afloat. Shopkeepers, commuters, students, drivers are too terrified to stir out. It is not a civil boycott but enforced quarantine where you risk your limb and life if you go against the dictates of the shakha pramukhs. Their collecting of fund for the party and other programmes smacks of involuntary submission to their fiefdom where the satraps hold their sway and of course it extends to the neighbouring police station. There you negotiate through them to strike a deal.
Where is civic sense and fair play in such a set up?
The skimpy youths from north India appearing for exams of railway are from the most wretched families without much hope of a future eager to go out wherever they are posted to eke out existence. They are ready to jettison everything much like the south Indians of the bygone time. The MNS activists entered 13 centers of examination and physically assaulted them leading to death and injury. That is terrorizing.
Primarily the question of the north Indians seeking job is a constitutionally justifiable matter. This, irrespective of the fact of how much corruption is in any state for no state is without it. No need to say who is holier than the other. Nor is the amount of bribe and kick back available for the public good. Since Mumbai is the financial capital of the country it is inevitable that people would strive for their share of what they earn by the sweat of their brows. The police at the instance of the government maintain law and order. When both of them look the other way what happens is what has been happening for quite sometimes in Mumbai as elsewhere in the country. One kind of terrorism cannot innately preclude other acts of terrorism.
Raj or Swaraj himself sough a definition of a terrorist. Or was he asking for it with tongue in cheek? Anyone who uses brutal force for a political cause by creating fear in others should know what it is. Force means violence and bloodshed, he did it once only recently and wants to perpetuate it at will whenever he wants to appropriate the sovereignty of the state.
Raj Thackeray has opened the bottle and let the genii out and now it is not within his control to call the genii back. The burning of railway stations across Bihar and other parts of north India threatens to derail the country itself.
Of late Raj Thackeray has been in the news for attempting to wear the saffron garb of his uncle and thereby trespassing his domain. That has raised alarm because of the elections round the corner. Fighting election in the name of fighting terrorism is not every body’s cup of tea, though you can fool some for sometimes or others for all the time, as Narendra Modi has at succeeded in doing. But the truth will have to emerge as Chanderyaan emerged in the clear sky over Sriharikotla after leaving the cloud of smoke behind on September 22 2008.
The virtual shut down of Mumbai on October 21 2008 on account of the nephew is of the vintage of the hay day of the uncle in 2000. After all he is the chip of the old block. Hold the metropolis to ransom by the awesome muscle power is terrorism localized. What Maharashtra Navnerman Sena is doing now is the repetition of what Shiv Sena did before and is doing on the sly to keep it afloat. Shopkeepers, commuters, students, drivers are too terrified to stir out. It is not a civil boycott but enforced quarantine where you risk your limb and life if you go against the dictates of the shakha pramukhs. Their collecting of fund for the party and other programmes smacks of involuntary submission to their fiefdom where the satraps hold their sway and of course it extends to the neighbouring police station. There you negotiate through them to strike a deal.
Where is civic sense and fair play in such a set up?
The skimpy youths from north India appearing for exams of railway are from the most wretched families without much hope of a future eager to go out wherever they are posted to eke out existence. They are ready to jettison everything much like the south Indians of the bygone time. The MNS activists entered 13 centers of examination and physically assaulted them leading to death and injury. That is terrorizing.
Primarily the question of the north Indians seeking job is a constitutionally justifiable matter. This, irrespective of the fact of how much corruption is in any state for no state is without it. No need to say who is holier than the other. Nor is the amount of bribe and kick back available for the public good. Since Mumbai is the financial capital of the country it is inevitable that people would strive for their share of what they earn by the sweat of their brows. The police at the instance of the government maintain law and order. When both of them look the other way what happens is what has been happening for quite sometimes in Mumbai as elsewhere in the country. One kind of terrorism cannot innately preclude other acts of terrorism.
Raj or Swaraj himself sough a definition of a terrorist. Or was he asking for it with tongue in cheek? Anyone who uses brutal force for a political cause by creating fear in others should know what it is. Force means violence and bloodshed, he did it once only recently and wants to perpetuate it at will whenever he wants to appropriate the sovereignty of the state.
Raj Thackeray has opened the bottle and let the genii out and now it is not within his control to call the genii back. The burning of railway stations across Bihar and other parts of north India threatens to derail the country itself.
Malegaon shows the way:On the right track fighting terror
Though the police might have fought shy of going formally public but initial report that Hindu extremists were behind Modasa and Malegaon bomb blasts of September 29 2008 is a welcome albeit belated acceptance of truth. Someone higher up with RSS link must have been maneuvering to mislead investigation or else how come the police could not register crimes against Hindu extremists for so long when accusing finger was pointing at them all the while. As Nathu Ram Godse was reportedly circumcised before the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi so that Muslims would bear the brunt of the backlash of national anger and violence so were all the blasts blamed on Muslims. The right wing Jan Sang and its new avatar BJP are par excellent in this game of camouflaging because of their ideological indoctrination.
The truth was an open secret accepted at all hands that the bomb blasts were benefiting exclusively BJP politically and were fitting in the scheme of things of the ideology of its right wing paternal body. The most ironical was the crying wolf by the BJP leaders like the prime ministerial candidate LK Advani who never introspected as to what havoc the harsher laws would produce when the present laws were themselves so grossly misused. The victims of the Batla house of Jamia nager encounter had gun wounds on the skull as if shot from above like fake encounter victims of Gujarat. This is one of the many facts which point to a heinous design insidiously adopted to fight terror. It could be one of the reasons why most of the investigations into terrorism ended up in a blind alley. If the present laws allow shooting and killing two or three, the more stringent laws would lead to wiping out the whole Jamia nager! Perhaps that is what the BJP would like to see.
This is no matter of exaggeration for what happened in Dhule after the visit of the home minister and the patron minister in the first week of October is fraught with such dangerous possibility. Dhule was burnt in the name of terrorism.
Malegaon was seized with the apprehension of dread and insecurity on September 29 2008 because of the Delhi blasts of September 13. How could the people forget September 8 2006-blasts that came on the heels of 7/11 local train blasts in Mumbai? But such is the wont of the police and the investigative agencies that they would go according to the worldview, weltanschauung, on jihad terrorism. The Hindu Jagran Manch of Indore is believed to be behind last month’s bombing. Their fellow accomplices were from the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad. It is a telltale that the former owner of the LML Freedom, the death carrier, is a lab assistant of a college in Nashik. However the police found out that the vehicle had many assembled parts of different two wheelers for hiding identity of the vehicle and ownership. It was also part of camouflage that it was parked under the first floor office of SIMI rather than in front of the police chowki across the road much like the SIMI sticker found on the two-wheeler in Modasa.
The disclosure is breath of fresh air after all these suffocating years of chasing the HUJi and IM.
The truth was an open secret accepted at all hands that the bomb blasts were benefiting exclusively BJP politically and were fitting in the scheme of things of the ideology of its right wing paternal body. The most ironical was the crying wolf by the BJP leaders like the prime ministerial candidate LK Advani who never introspected as to what havoc the harsher laws would produce when the present laws were themselves so grossly misused. The victims of the Batla house of Jamia nager encounter had gun wounds on the skull as if shot from above like fake encounter victims of Gujarat. This is one of the many facts which point to a heinous design insidiously adopted to fight terror. It could be one of the reasons why most of the investigations into terrorism ended up in a blind alley. If the present laws allow shooting and killing two or three, the more stringent laws would lead to wiping out the whole Jamia nager! Perhaps that is what the BJP would like to see.
This is no matter of exaggeration for what happened in Dhule after the visit of the home minister and the patron minister in the first week of October is fraught with such dangerous possibility. Dhule was burnt in the name of terrorism.
Malegaon was seized with the apprehension of dread and insecurity on September 29 2008 because of the Delhi blasts of September 13. How could the people forget September 8 2006-blasts that came on the heels of 7/11 local train blasts in Mumbai? But such is the wont of the police and the investigative agencies that they would go according to the worldview, weltanschauung, on jihad terrorism. The Hindu Jagran Manch of Indore is believed to be behind last month’s bombing. Their fellow accomplices were from the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad. It is a telltale that the former owner of the LML Freedom, the death carrier, is a lab assistant of a college in Nashik. However the police found out that the vehicle had many assembled parts of different two wheelers for hiding identity of the vehicle and ownership. It was also part of camouflage that it was parked under the first floor office of SIMI rather than in front of the police chowki across the road much like the SIMI sticker found on the two-wheeler in Modasa.
The disclosure is breath of fresh air after all these suffocating years of chasing the HUJi and IM.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Cause of Communal Violence: Exterminate the Brutes
Unlike the robust belief that the 21st century would herald in better governance what we are witnessing is the very opposite of it. We seem to be slipping into the dark ages over again. What with six of a family (mostly children and women) in Bhainsla in Andhra Pradesh burnt to death and 120 of 140 houses of the same community torched in Nardana in Dhule over inter religious marriage, we are in for another spectre of violence visiting us after the partition of the country. Dhule riots are not a watershed. The town is not in a backwater state of India where the law of the jungle generally prevails. It is an old town of a state that has seen reformation movement of the society, Maharashtra.
The communal riots of Dhule resemble what had happened in Gujarat in 2002. There was some resistance on the part of the Muslims but it quickly melted away against the prolonged onslaught of attacks and police bias. There were gory scenes in which young children and adolescents were teeming in crowds with abusive words in their mouth against the “other” and brandishing lethal weapons of all size and make. They were baying for blood of their neighbours with whom they had shared civil life till the morning of the fateful day of October 5.
In the marauding crowd powered by swelling destructive frenzy and egged on by chants of killing the victims were boys from well to do families who had enjoyed better housing and education facilities denied to most of their victims. Moving from this scene in Dhule to another town, Jalgaon, the crowd is thinner, about two hundred but the ferocity is the same and so is the murderous intent. In front of Bhoitegde the crowd tried to burn the houses of Bhiken Sheikh Karim Shikalgar and Gani Khan Mohammad. Similarly on the bank of the Lendi canal in the Chamhar wada the house of Sheikh Javed Sheikh Majid was ransacked and looted. But this time the police swung into action and arrested some 25 attackers. The events in Dhule went beyond recall because of poor or no governance. In Jalgaon there was semblance of governance. The Maharashtra police on October 13 arrested Lalit Kolhe, the Corporator from Maharashtra Nava Nirman Sena (MNS) reportedly with 16 swords.
In Dhule the provocative handbill declares that the Hindu heartland of Shindu river and the Ganges is in the grip of threat given by fanatics (dharm vediani ladleleya sankatani grast). The storm of fanaticism is menacingly approaching the country from all sides of the world. Such is the belief of the fanatics that they value only their religion and god and consider others false and kafir. They want to eliminate all others; this is the aim of their jihad.
The handbill then addresses the jihadis and calls them pushuvano, brutes, and exclaims how could such brutes teach bhakti, archana and dharm to the Hindus who are their great great grandfathers. Then the handbill warns the Hindus of the human blood-drunk-fanatic-jihadi wolves (mansacha raktala chataole hinst dharmvede landge) who would not spare them irrespective of whatever caste or class groups the Hindus belong to. When confronted with such brutes you don’t have to parley with them but stab them to death. In the main part of the handbill the word terrorist is avoided and the fanatics (read Muslims) are called brutes or beasts.
Enough! What more would the superintendent of police Mr Kolhe want to read to deny permission for the rally and the banners? JG Khairnar of the local Marathi daily Aapla Maharashtra had the experience and knowledge of what constitutes provocation and what instigates violence and what antagonizes the people besides making the situation explosive. He was part of a fact-finding team headed by Medha Patkar who visited the town. He had read the bill and had urged in an appeal he wrote to the district administration of Dhule to take immediate steps to defuse the situation. They did not heed him.
What is unmistakably acerbic in the bill is the profiling of the Muslims as fanatics and demonizing of them as brutes. The difference between jihadis and ordinary Muslim is deliberated b(s)lurred. The invisible jihadi is made visible Muslim who lives next door. Moreover, the terrorists are identified with the Muslim community as a whole. But the most ominous is the final solution: exterminate the brutes. Is this not what VD Savarkar had advocated? In his Itihasachi saha soneri pane he says:
“It can be seen from history that those nation-states, who did not demolish Muslim political and religious power were completely Islamised. Only those few 5-10 nation states who not only demolished the Muslim state but also got rid of Muslim religious power could be successful in getting rid of Muslims altogether. One such nation was Spain. The state administration of liberated Spain specified a time period within which all Muslim men and women were either converted to Christianity or leave the country altogether. It was also said that those who would not abide by either would be killed. After the given period was over all the men and women, young and old Muslims were killed in Spain. The church got purified in their blood. Spain had exterminated Muslims and that is why Spain remained Spain and did not become Morocco.”
The sangh parivar and essentially RSS has indoctrinated its followers towards this end of what is otherwise called the final solution. The most moving example illustrating this comes from Shirud where a BSF soldier
Arif Hussain Khati had to beg for his life as the marauding crowd of Hindus burnt down Muslim houses from early evening to 12 o’clock in the night of October 6 2008. As he bent down before the crowd identifying himself as a soldier on duty in Kashmir, the crowd yelled: “You are a Muslim first then a soldier and we can’t spare you.” The mob pulled his brother and threw him into the fire but Khati saved him and ran for life. His uniform, identity card and gallantry certificates were burnt first and then the house was set on fire. He along with others ran to a police station but was told to wait outside whole night. They refused to lodge FIR. He had to leave his ancestral land for good. Like another hapless victim of violence now of universal fame, Ansari Quttubudin, Arif Hussain Khati with his family sought refuge in Malegaon.
The strategic implication of this BSF soldier’s plight is grave and calls for serious thinking and sanity in saving the country from destruction. His worrisome but truthful story is making rounds in the websites of/on Kashmir on both sides of the border. We have had the consequences of VHP and Bajrang Dal achieving in the Kashmir valley what twenty years of terrorism had failed to do and perhaps would respectfully remember Shaheed Hameed and his heroic deeds for which Dhule has a memorable corner in his memory and eschew violence.
The communal riots of Dhule resemble what had happened in Gujarat in 2002. There was some resistance on the part of the Muslims but it quickly melted away against the prolonged onslaught of attacks and police bias. There were gory scenes in which young children and adolescents were teeming in crowds with abusive words in their mouth against the “other” and brandishing lethal weapons of all size and make. They were baying for blood of their neighbours with whom they had shared civil life till the morning of the fateful day of October 5.
In the marauding crowd powered by swelling destructive frenzy and egged on by chants of killing the victims were boys from well to do families who had enjoyed better housing and education facilities denied to most of their victims. Moving from this scene in Dhule to another town, Jalgaon, the crowd is thinner, about two hundred but the ferocity is the same and so is the murderous intent. In front of Bhoitegde the crowd tried to burn the houses of Bhiken Sheikh Karim Shikalgar and Gani Khan Mohammad. Similarly on the bank of the Lendi canal in the Chamhar wada the house of Sheikh Javed Sheikh Majid was ransacked and looted. But this time the police swung into action and arrested some 25 attackers. The events in Dhule went beyond recall because of poor or no governance. In Jalgaon there was semblance of governance. The Maharashtra police on October 13 arrested Lalit Kolhe, the Corporator from Maharashtra Nava Nirman Sena (MNS) reportedly with 16 swords.
In Dhule the provocative handbill declares that the Hindu heartland of Shindu river and the Ganges is in the grip of threat given by fanatics (dharm vediani ladleleya sankatani grast). The storm of fanaticism is menacingly approaching the country from all sides of the world. Such is the belief of the fanatics that they value only their religion and god and consider others false and kafir. They want to eliminate all others; this is the aim of their jihad.
The handbill then addresses the jihadis and calls them pushuvano, brutes, and exclaims how could such brutes teach bhakti, archana and dharm to the Hindus who are their great great grandfathers. Then the handbill warns the Hindus of the human blood-drunk-fanatic-jihadi wolves (mansacha raktala chataole hinst dharmvede landge) who would not spare them irrespective of whatever caste or class groups the Hindus belong to. When confronted with such brutes you don’t have to parley with them but stab them to death. In the main part of the handbill the word terrorist is avoided and the fanatics (read Muslims) are called brutes or beasts.
Enough! What more would the superintendent of police Mr Kolhe want to read to deny permission for the rally and the banners? JG Khairnar of the local Marathi daily Aapla Maharashtra had the experience and knowledge of what constitutes provocation and what instigates violence and what antagonizes the people besides making the situation explosive. He was part of a fact-finding team headed by Medha Patkar who visited the town. He had read the bill and had urged in an appeal he wrote to the district administration of Dhule to take immediate steps to defuse the situation. They did not heed him.
What is unmistakably acerbic in the bill is the profiling of the Muslims as fanatics and demonizing of them as brutes. The difference between jihadis and ordinary Muslim is deliberated b(s)lurred. The invisible jihadi is made visible Muslim who lives next door. Moreover, the terrorists are identified with the Muslim community as a whole. But the most ominous is the final solution: exterminate the brutes. Is this not what VD Savarkar had advocated? In his Itihasachi saha soneri pane he says:
“It can be seen from history that those nation-states, who did not demolish Muslim political and religious power were completely Islamised. Only those few 5-10 nation states who not only demolished the Muslim state but also got rid of Muslim religious power could be successful in getting rid of Muslims altogether. One such nation was Spain. The state administration of liberated Spain specified a time period within which all Muslim men and women were either converted to Christianity or leave the country altogether. It was also said that those who would not abide by either would be killed. After the given period was over all the men and women, young and old Muslims were killed in Spain. The church got purified in their blood. Spain had exterminated Muslims and that is why Spain remained Spain and did not become Morocco.”
The sangh parivar and essentially RSS has indoctrinated its followers towards this end of what is otherwise called the final solution. The most moving example illustrating this comes from Shirud where a BSF soldier
Arif Hussain Khati had to beg for his life as the marauding crowd of Hindus burnt down Muslim houses from early evening to 12 o’clock in the night of October 6 2008. As he bent down before the crowd identifying himself as a soldier on duty in Kashmir, the crowd yelled: “You are a Muslim first then a soldier and we can’t spare you.” The mob pulled his brother and threw him into the fire but Khati saved him and ran for life. His uniform, identity card and gallantry certificates were burnt first and then the house was set on fire. He along with others ran to a police station but was told to wait outside whole night. They refused to lodge FIR. He had to leave his ancestral land for good. Like another hapless victim of violence now of universal fame, Ansari Quttubudin, Arif Hussain Khati with his family sought refuge in Malegaon.
The strategic implication of this BSF soldier’s plight is grave and calls for serious thinking and sanity in saving the country from destruction. His worrisome but truthful story is making rounds in the websites of/on Kashmir on both sides of the border. We have had the consequences of VHP and Bajrang Dal achieving in the Kashmir valley what twenty years of terrorism had failed to do and perhaps would respectfully remember Shaheed Hameed and his heroic deeds for which Dhule has a memorable corner in his memory and eschew violence.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Republic Nonesuch: A Comedy in two parts
[You have already seen our first series, that is, Nanded (April 2006) and Nanded (February2007). Here we are back with Kanpur (August 2008) and Kanpur (October 2008), and what is more, Falstaff and the King and the Duke in new colours in familiar soliloquy mode. ]
[The scene opens on Ilol, Gujarat. Song: In Ilol did Vanzara a stately pleasure dome decree where Modi holds scepter and sway.]
Another blast and we look at Gujarat police, for it is they who rule the roost. If they say it is crackers, be it crackers then. Or, wait; are they saying another section of the Azamgarh brigade responsible? Then it is AB, once again.
Why do the police in the rest of the country look at the Gujarat police for hints to know how they should work? It may sound bizarre but it is true. The chief minister of the state has proved himself to take on not only the central government and Sonia Gandhi but also the SC. PC Pandey is now the DGP. Is it not the miracle of miracles that despite all allegations and phone records and Tehelka exposure no body can challenge the way Narendra Modi has managed the police and the judiciary. Akshay Mehta is the justice who saved Babu Bajrangi from possible conviction when other justices warned the marauder par excellent of the paterfamilias that he would face gallows. Modi had the temerity to repeat the full name of James Michael Lyngdoh, the chief Election Commissioner of 2002 to despise his origin and identity. He dared to evoke Mian Musharraf for his own election and when that worthy took the matter all the way to the podium of the General Assembly nothing happened to the chief minister of a state of India when the whole country was pulled up to account for what that chief minister had wrought. He does not wince a little for having been denied visa to visit the US but would take teleconferencing to make the point that it is the Congress which does not allow him harsher laws to fight terror, though the harsher laws already in force in the state have given him lever to try Godhra train accused as terrorists and those who perpetrated the pogroms against the Muslims of the state as ordinary criminals. And when it comes to the National Integration Council meet it is he who cries foul at vote bank as cause of terror although his own vote bank is also built on qua communal consideration of vote bank.
Most tangential is the most talked about fake encounter of Jamia nager in Delhi. After having crowded out of sight the infamous encounter death of Sohrabuddin from the scene with a hope to tackle it another day, after all DG Vanzara did it as deshbhakti, the state police is giving tips to the metropolitan police. Soon after the Delhi police bought the Ahmedabad police theory of the Azamgarh brigade they carried out the raid at the Jamia nager. Even LK Advani wants us not to malign the police. For, that would go against our fight against terrorism.
The whole country is waiting with bated breath for the word from Gandhinager. Until the definite words flash the cops and, of course, we all can take random guess at the possible cause of the blast in Kanpure today in the evening, that is, Tuesday October 14 2008. Early, hence unedited, report shows that a man was carrying crackers in a polythene bag on the carrier of his cycle when it blew up injuring seven to eight people. But then the city is Kanpure again, so soon after August 24 blast that killed two Bajrang Dal activists. How can it dent any body’s credibility, least of all that of the police and the investigative agencies? Haven’t we grown so cussed not to bother about particulars because of the on going juggernaut of fighting terror unleashed by the jihadis. Moreover with Diwali round the corner the man carrying the crackers was after all doing what is commemorative of the festival of the victorious return to Ayodhya. But how come the crackers burst by themselves! Well, wait, the meeting is going on.
Till the definite word is uttered we must remember that huge amount of money is involved in fake encounters. The cops who pocket the award money grow enormously rich and there is enough to go around. If the Gujarat police are doing so well who will not take a page from their book. [As the scene fades since no one appears at the parapet or at the window to utter the words.]
[The scene opens on Ilol, Gujarat. Song: In Ilol did Vanzara a stately pleasure dome decree where Modi holds scepter and sway.]
Another blast and we look at Gujarat police, for it is they who rule the roost. If they say it is crackers, be it crackers then. Or, wait; are they saying another section of the Azamgarh brigade responsible? Then it is AB, once again.
Why do the police in the rest of the country look at the Gujarat police for hints to know how they should work? It may sound bizarre but it is true. The chief minister of the state has proved himself to take on not only the central government and Sonia Gandhi but also the SC. PC Pandey is now the DGP. Is it not the miracle of miracles that despite all allegations and phone records and Tehelka exposure no body can challenge the way Narendra Modi has managed the police and the judiciary. Akshay Mehta is the justice who saved Babu Bajrangi from possible conviction when other justices warned the marauder par excellent of the paterfamilias that he would face gallows. Modi had the temerity to repeat the full name of James Michael Lyngdoh, the chief Election Commissioner of 2002 to despise his origin and identity. He dared to evoke Mian Musharraf for his own election and when that worthy took the matter all the way to the podium of the General Assembly nothing happened to the chief minister of a state of India when the whole country was pulled up to account for what that chief minister had wrought. He does not wince a little for having been denied visa to visit the US but would take teleconferencing to make the point that it is the Congress which does not allow him harsher laws to fight terror, though the harsher laws already in force in the state have given him lever to try Godhra train accused as terrorists and those who perpetrated the pogroms against the Muslims of the state as ordinary criminals. And when it comes to the National Integration Council meet it is he who cries foul at vote bank as cause of terror although his own vote bank is also built on qua communal consideration of vote bank.
Most tangential is the most talked about fake encounter of Jamia nager in Delhi. After having crowded out of sight the infamous encounter death of Sohrabuddin from the scene with a hope to tackle it another day, after all DG Vanzara did it as deshbhakti, the state police is giving tips to the metropolitan police. Soon after the Delhi police bought the Ahmedabad police theory of the Azamgarh brigade they carried out the raid at the Jamia nager. Even LK Advani wants us not to malign the police. For, that would go against our fight against terrorism.
The whole country is waiting with bated breath for the word from Gandhinager. Until the definite words flash the cops and, of course, we all can take random guess at the possible cause of the blast in Kanpure today in the evening, that is, Tuesday October 14 2008. Early, hence unedited, report shows that a man was carrying crackers in a polythene bag on the carrier of his cycle when it blew up injuring seven to eight people. But then the city is Kanpure again, so soon after August 24 blast that killed two Bajrang Dal activists. How can it dent any body’s credibility, least of all that of the police and the investigative agencies? Haven’t we grown so cussed not to bother about particulars because of the on going juggernaut of fighting terror unleashed by the jihadis. Moreover with Diwali round the corner the man carrying the crackers was after all doing what is commemorative of the festival of the victorious return to Ayodhya. But how come the crackers burst by themselves! Well, wait, the meeting is going on.
Till the definite word is uttered we must remember that huge amount of money is involved in fake encounters. The cops who pocket the award money grow enormously rich and there is enough to go around. If the Gujarat police are doing so well who will not take a page from their book. [As the scene fades since no one appears at the parapet or at the window to utter the words.]
Friday, October 10, 2008
Skewed ‘war on terror’ and human rights on skewer
(Apropos Bangalore Public Discussion Human Rights in the context of Terrorism and Communalism, October 11, 2008)
What is transpiring in Dhule in Mahrashtra calls for serious thinking over how the ‘war on terror’ is going on. On September 29 2008 a bomb blast at a chowk in Malegaon killed five and injured more than a hundred. All the victims were Muslims. Fifty kilometers away in Dhulia Hindu raksha samiti put up digital banners on October 3 inviting Hindus to gather at Ram mandir on October 5 in protest against terrorism. The district police administration gave them permission for the banners as well as the rally even when the images on the banners and the writing were very offensive to Muslims as a community. Human rights activists like the local unit of Movement for Peace and Justice and some well meaning citizens were filled with dreadful premonition of things to come and hence they approached the district administration on October 4 to intervene in the affair to maintain peace and harmony.
It was distressing to see that a banner of Hindu rakshak samiti was found in the morning of October 5 to be torn but much more distressing was to see the trail of violence and arson and loot in the aftermath of it. The catastrophe that left two hundred and fifty people injured and nine dead and as many as fifteen thousand houses destroyed and the residents of many areas turned into internal refugees in their own town and innumerable commercial establishments looted and burnt. This is the saga of suffering of people when their human rights are deliberately and systematically trampled in the name of religion.
In Orissa this has been going on for quite sometimes on a larger scale.
The most fundamental right is right to life. Even if it is the bounden duty of the government to protect the life of the citizens irrespective of their caste and religion there is complete failure of governance all around. The premium on the life of the victims in riots is the government figure of compensation that is announced in a jejune manner by ministers of state and central governments. The government figures only in this regard after having abdicated its duty to stop riots from breaking or prevent riots from spreading. The religious outfits which do the murder and mayhem and the communal parties behind them never take the responsibility and the governments fail to prosecute them and the national election commission never bothers to derecognize the parties. This is how the erosion of the credibility of the state has played havoc with the country and resulted in the violation of the human rights of the minority mostly.
In a case study of Dhule we see how communalism and terrorism go in tandem in India today. The police and investigating agencies go public with every arrest of Muslim youths who are generally dubbed as terrorists without any judicial finding. This media trial and conviction creates the indelible impression in the minds of the people that Muslims are terrorists. While at the same time Bajrang Dal activists have blown up themselves in assembling or making bombs but no television channel focuses on them or calls them terrorists. As a result the fear psychosis created against the bearded and cap and tunic-wearing Muslims deepens in the minds of the unsuspecting ordinary citizens. The prejudice against the Muslims spreads like a poison.
It poisons the minds of the people against them in general. They are all perceived as terrorists even before they have a chance to have their case heard in the court of justice. In the last three months Muslims youths detained by police have been exposed to the camera wearing Palestinian scarf and thus terrorism is made out to be the outcome of their faith. In contrast the vermilion mark [tika] on the forehead of the Bajrang Dal activists, with their red headbands and trishul in hands are patently Hindu in implication and are loudly proclaiming just that but the media has not worked out for that nor has the police worked over any detained Hindu for that and hence they are not viewed as terrorists. Even the central government staves off the pressure to ban that outfit of RSS. Deliberately or inadvertently the media and the government have played in the hands of the right wing extremists who have hijacked the mammoth majority of the citizens of the country for their nefarious electoral end. A Muslim dubbed as terrorist even before trial starts in the court of law has no chance of redeeming himself or his community. Even when some Muslims youths were acquitted of charge of terrorism the media did not carry the report let alone apologize for maligning them. Thus right to live life of dignity is trampled as well. It finds expressions in well-qualified and decent people from Muslim community denied accommodation in the middle class housing societies.
Excepting the already decided cases of the bomb blasts of Bombay 1993 and Coimbatore 1998 no other case of terrorism has been adjudged so far. But thousands of Muslim youths have been incarcerated without trial. The only thing against them is their confession under duress. This self-incrimination of the so-called alleged terrorists is disturbing, excruciating as well as polarizing the society vertically. Their right to fair trial is denied to them as they are brutalized under detention for the confession extracted from them under torturous situation. Some of them like Khwaja Yunus were killed in fake encounter—a deadly weapon against the innocent Muslims. Scores of youths from Muslim ghettoes of Hyderabad as well as Malegaon were arrested. Some of them appear to have simply disappeared, either dead, killed or hiding because of fear of arrest for no fault of their own. Many of them were the sole breadwinners of their necessitous families. Where would the deprived families get the means to meet both the ends? Imagine their suffering if the young ones are ultimately proved innocent after a decade. Their youth as well as livelihood are lost to this so-called ‘war on terrorism’. Anti terrorism should not make self-incrimination as the fulcrum on which our judicial system should move or else it would perpetuate denial of right to justice.
Muslims, it seems, have no objection to even harsher laws then the dreaded Pota. But there should be a trade off between the rights they forgo and the security the state should give them in return. Instead of prevaricating LKAdvani should see that the life of the Muslims is most insecure whether there are bomb blasts or not, or whether they are involved or not in any such incident. And what is more much of their insecurity and threat to their life is on account of his rathyatra of yore. As a refugee from Pakistan he must take time to read partition literature like Praful Roy’s story “Where there is No Frontier.” Lajpat Singh’s an agnorisis or realization of past mistake is truly cathartic and can do for him [the prime ministerial candidate] good in this fight against terrorism and communalism.
What is transpiring in Dhule in Mahrashtra calls for serious thinking over how the ‘war on terror’ is going on. On September 29 2008 a bomb blast at a chowk in Malegaon killed five and injured more than a hundred. All the victims were Muslims. Fifty kilometers away in Dhulia Hindu raksha samiti put up digital banners on October 3 inviting Hindus to gather at Ram mandir on October 5 in protest against terrorism. The district police administration gave them permission for the banners as well as the rally even when the images on the banners and the writing were very offensive to Muslims as a community. Human rights activists like the local unit of Movement for Peace and Justice and some well meaning citizens were filled with dreadful premonition of things to come and hence they approached the district administration on October 4 to intervene in the affair to maintain peace and harmony.
It was distressing to see that a banner of Hindu rakshak samiti was found in the morning of October 5 to be torn but much more distressing was to see the trail of violence and arson and loot in the aftermath of it. The catastrophe that left two hundred and fifty people injured and nine dead and as many as fifteen thousand houses destroyed and the residents of many areas turned into internal refugees in their own town and innumerable commercial establishments looted and burnt. This is the saga of suffering of people when their human rights are deliberately and systematically trampled in the name of religion.
In Orissa this has been going on for quite sometimes on a larger scale.
The most fundamental right is right to life. Even if it is the bounden duty of the government to protect the life of the citizens irrespective of their caste and religion there is complete failure of governance all around. The premium on the life of the victims in riots is the government figure of compensation that is announced in a jejune manner by ministers of state and central governments. The government figures only in this regard after having abdicated its duty to stop riots from breaking or prevent riots from spreading. The religious outfits which do the murder and mayhem and the communal parties behind them never take the responsibility and the governments fail to prosecute them and the national election commission never bothers to derecognize the parties. This is how the erosion of the credibility of the state has played havoc with the country and resulted in the violation of the human rights of the minority mostly.
In a case study of Dhule we see how communalism and terrorism go in tandem in India today. The police and investigating agencies go public with every arrest of Muslim youths who are generally dubbed as terrorists without any judicial finding. This media trial and conviction creates the indelible impression in the minds of the people that Muslims are terrorists. While at the same time Bajrang Dal activists have blown up themselves in assembling or making bombs but no television channel focuses on them or calls them terrorists. As a result the fear psychosis created against the bearded and cap and tunic-wearing Muslims deepens in the minds of the unsuspecting ordinary citizens. The prejudice against the Muslims spreads like a poison.
It poisons the minds of the people against them in general. They are all perceived as terrorists even before they have a chance to have their case heard in the court of justice. In the last three months Muslims youths detained by police have been exposed to the camera wearing Palestinian scarf and thus terrorism is made out to be the outcome of their faith. In contrast the vermilion mark [tika] on the forehead of the Bajrang Dal activists, with their red headbands and trishul in hands are patently Hindu in implication and are loudly proclaiming just that but the media has not worked out for that nor has the police worked over any detained Hindu for that and hence they are not viewed as terrorists. Even the central government staves off the pressure to ban that outfit of RSS. Deliberately or inadvertently the media and the government have played in the hands of the right wing extremists who have hijacked the mammoth majority of the citizens of the country for their nefarious electoral end. A Muslim dubbed as terrorist even before trial starts in the court of law has no chance of redeeming himself or his community. Even when some Muslims youths were acquitted of charge of terrorism the media did not carry the report let alone apologize for maligning them. Thus right to live life of dignity is trampled as well. It finds expressions in well-qualified and decent people from Muslim community denied accommodation in the middle class housing societies.
Excepting the already decided cases of the bomb blasts of Bombay 1993 and Coimbatore 1998 no other case of terrorism has been adjudged so far. But thousands of Muslim youths have been incarcerated without trial. The only thing against them is their confession under duress. This self-incrimination of the so-called alleged terrorists is disturbing, excruciating as well as polarizing the society vertically. Their right to fair trial is denied to them as they are brutalized under detention for the confession extracted from them under torturous situation. Some of them like Khwaja Yunus were killed in fake encounter—a deadly weapon against the innocent Muslims. Scores of youths from Muslim ghettoes of Hyderabad as well as Malegaon were arrested. Some of them appear to have simply disappeared, either dead, killed or hiding because of fear of arrest for no fault of their own. Many of them were the sole breadwinners of their necessitous families. Where would the deprived families get the means to meet both the ends? Imagine their suffering if the young ones are ultimately proved innocent after a decade. Their youth as well as livelihood are lost to this so-called ‘war on terrorism’. Anti terrorism should not make self-incrimination as the fulcrum on which our judicial system should move or else it would perpetuate denial of right to justice.
Muslims, it seems, have no objection to even harsher laws then the dreaded Pota. But there should be a trade off between the rights they forgo and the security the state should give them in return. Instead of prevaricating LKAdvani should see that the life of the Muslims is most insecure whether there are bomb blasts or not, or whether they are involved or not in any such incident. And what is more much of their insecurity and threat to their life is on account of his rathyatra of yore. As a refugee from Pakistan he must take time to read partition literature like Praful Roy’s story “Where there is No Frontier.” Lajpat Singh’s an agnorisis or realization of past mistake is truly cathartic and can do for him [the prime ministerial candidate] good in this fight against terrorism and communalism.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Ah, sister-town of Malegaon: Dhulia!!!
Coming on the heels of the bomb blast of September 29 2008 in Malegaon, the communal flare up in Dhulia is the last straw that threatens to break the back of the camel that is the state of Maharashtra. Or is it the early straw in the wind? Will it spiral into full-blown pogrom as is underway in Orissa’s Kanthamal district? Or is it still a matter of time? However, what is truthfully most horrendous is that the severity of the systematic attacks and arson should have been ‘sky rocketed’ after the visit of the state home minister RR Patil and the Director General of Police AN Roy. The forbidding faces of these two men looked already quite grim when they had toured Malegaon only last week.
An image of how the organized marauding brigades have wrought havoc is the victim, Karimullah Lal Mohammad. He had got down at the crossing on the Agra road near the Gurduwara of Dhulia as he traveled from Malegaon. A group of youths on motorcycles swooped upon him and pulled him down and mercilessly beat him. This fifty-plus man of humble origin was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was at a loss to understand how the fury had over taken him so swiftly and him so unaware! The travail and trauma of the unwary stranger is a saga of suffering that all human beings dread most. Karimullah was a stranger to the town as he had gone there to meet his truck-driver son who was passing Dhulia on his way to their town in north of India. The son had saved some money and wanted to give it to his lonely father staying in Malegaon. The Id festival was still fresh. The eyes of Karimullah were transfixed in shock, surprise and pain at the cops who stood nearby and did nothing to save him. Fortunately he survived, four others from his community lost their lives to the mobs and police bullet.
Hundreds of people from Malegaon travel to Dhulia daily for shopping, medical treatment, meeting relatives as well as students commuting to medical and engineering colleges. Dhulia is the biggest market for buffaloes in Maharashtra. Dealers in animals gather there Sunday to Tuesday from neighboring Malegaon and from as far as Kathiyawad.
The organized and well planned attacks on the Muslim houses and commercial establishments threaten to destroy the extremely close relationship between the people of the two towns. They had nurtured it over more than a century. Moreover the town was free from the kind of communal tension and strife that has almost undone Malegaon. The two towns seem to have been joined as twins by the same umbilical cord. The Agra road connects them like artery supplying nourishment to thousands of people who depend on the road and live on both the sides of it. But there was something else in their fate. The garages and mechanical shops in auto industry and the uncountable hotels and motels and other satellite commercial establishments bore the brunt. Most among them were owned by Muslims and were systematically looted and burnt.
The Marathi Sakal news network editor Uttam Kamble saw a scene at 6 p.m. on October 5 in which a crowd of youths and young children (choteya poranche) was setting fire to a garage. What is disturbing here is the induction of the young children! Catch them young is the motto of the extremist right wing. What would happen whey this young generation comes to age! This is a frightening premonition of the future of our common destiny. Passersby were watching where this agitated mob would go and how much would they do. All this not far from the Memorial of Shaheed Hameed who had attacked Pakistani tanks and destroyed them in the most ferocious battle near Lahore. One such Pak tank is put up as a trophy in the traffic island of Hameed chowk.
If that is what was happening in the evening, in the night according to the reporter of Urdu Times Aziz Ejaz there were conflagrations all over the town!
As the casualties started coming in at the civil hospital the mobs intimidated and scared away the Muslims from seeking medical help or treatment. Some medical doctors wearing Muslim skullcaps had trouble helping the injured as the Shiv Sainiks objected their presence obviously for their look? But the collector intervened and assured the mob that it was their conventional dress and nothing more.
Strangely, the alibi the police offer that their Dhulia contingents were deployed in Malegaon and so the situation went out of control in Dhulia is anomalous since Dhulia has district headquarters of state reserve police force as well. It hardly takes an hour to move over to Dhulia from Malegaon. Trouble started with provocative banners and notice boards put up by Hindu Rakshak Sabha in the morning itself while curfew was declared after four in the evening. Much like Gujarat the violence was well planned and coordinated. At one time the mob attacked additional collector of Dhulia district Mustak Patel who has passed into coma since the attack. In one place the mob of the majority community attacked a ghetto and when people within the ghetto came out the police allegedly moved to the front of the mob of the majority and confronted the inmates of the ghetto with guns. This is obviously state complicity.
It is disturbing to note that the miniscule minority of Muslims scattered in pockets of ghettoes all over Dhulia town and overwhelmed by a huge majority of Hindus should be subjected to desecration of some two dozen mosques and burning of nearly two thousand houses! Even children of two to four year’s age group were brutalized. If this were the beginning of havoc in Maharashtra what would be the end!
An image of how the organized marauding brigades have wrought havoc is the victim, Karimullah Lal Mohammad. He had got down at the crossing on the Agra road near the Gurduwara of Dhulia as he traveled from Malegaon. A group of youths on motorcycles swooped upon him and pulled him down and mercilessly beat him. This fifty-plus man of humble origin was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was at a loss to understand how the fury had over taken him so swiftly and him so unaware! The travail and trauma of the unwary stranger is a saga of suffering that all human beings dread most. Karimullah was a stranger to the town as he had gone there to meet his truck-driver son who was passing Dhulia on his way to their town in north of India. The son had saved some money and wanted to give it to his lonely father staying in Malegaon. The Id festival was still fresh. The eyes of Karimullah were transfixed in shock, surprise and pain at the cops who stood nearby and did nothing to save him. Fortunately he survived, four others from his community lost their lives to the mobs and police bullet.
Hundreds of people from Malegaon travel to Dhulia daily for shopping, medical treatment, meeting relatives as well as students commuting to medical and engineering colleges. Dhulia is the biggest market for buffaloes in Maharashtra. Dealers in animals gather there Sunday to Tuesday from neighboring Malegaon and from as far as Kathiyawad.
The organized and well planned attacks on the Muslim houses and commercial establishments threaten to destroy the extremely close relationship between the people of the two towns. They had nurtured it over more than a century. Moreover the town was free from the kind of communal tension and strife that has almost undone Malegaon. The two towns seem to have been joined as twins by the same umbilical cord. The Agra road connects them like artery supplying nourishment to thousands of people who depend on the road and live on both the sides of it. But there was something else in their fate. The garages and mechanical shops in auto industry and the uncountable hotels and motels and other satellite commercial establishments bore the brunt. Most among them were owned by Muslims and were systematically looted and burnt.
The Marathi Sakal news network editor Uttam Kamble saw a scene at 6 p.m. on October 5 in which a crowd of youths and young children (choteya poranche) was setting fire to a garage. What is disturbing here is the induction of the young children! Catch them young is the motto of the extremist right wing. What would happen whey this young generation comes to age! This is a frightening premonition of the future of our common destiny. Passersby were watching where this agitated mob would go and how much would they do. All this not far from the Memorial of Shaheed Hameed who had attacked Pakistani tanks and destroyed them in the most ferocious battle near Lahore. One such Pak tank is put up as a trophy in the traffic island of Hameed chowk.
If that is what was happening in the evening, in the night according to the reporter of Urdu Times Aziz Ejaz there were conflagrations all over the town!
As the casualties started coming in at the civil hospital the mobs intimidated and scared away the Muslims from seeking medical help or treatment. Some medical doctors wearing Muslim skullcaps had trouble helping the injured as the Shiv Sainiks objected their presence obviously for their look? But the collector intervened and assured the mob that it was their conventional dress and nothing more.
Strangely, the alibi the police offer that their Dhulia contingents were deployed in Malegaon and so the situation went out of control in Dhulia is anomalous since Dhulia has district headquarters of state reserve police force as well. It hardly takes an hour to move over to Dhulia from Malegaon. Trouble started with provocative banners and notice boards put up by Hindu Rakshak Sabha in the morning itself while curfew was declared after four in the evening. Much like Gujarat the violence was well planned and coordinated. At one time the mob attacked additional collector of Dhulia district Mustak Patel who has passed into coma since the attack. In one place the mob of the majority community attacked a ghetto and when people within the ghetto came out the police allegedly moved to the front of the mob of the majority and confronted the inmates of the ghetto with guns. This is obviously state complicity.
It is disturbing to note that the miniscule minority of Muslims scattered in pockets of ghettoes all over Dhulia town and overwhelmed by a huge majority of Hindus should be subjected to desecration of some two dozen mosques and burning of nearly two thousand houses! Even children of two to four year’s age group were brutalized. If this were the beginning of havoc in Maharashtra what would be the end!
Friday, October 3, 2008
Malegaon blast: changing horses in the mid stream
In the bomb blast at Bhiku chowk on September 29 2008 more than five people died including a ten-year-old girl, Farheen. The people around were very much angered by the inaction of the police and resorted to protesting and pelting the police as a result the police opened fire and a man lost his life and some others received bullet injury. In all some hundred people were injured.
The cause of the anger of the people is central to the whole drama that turned it into a grim Greek tragedy. The residents and shopkeepers of the chowk had discovered an abandoned motor bike and reported the matter to the police at the police chowki located cheek by jowl from the blast site. The cops dilly-dallied and told the people that the handle was locked albeit they tried to move and shake the bike. But they left it there. It was the tragic flaw. That was early evening of Monday. After sunset crowd swelled around for shopping and refreshment. At 9.30 the special prayers of the recital of the holy book that had attracted huge crowd was over. The worshippers as usual were moving to the chowk. That was when the bomb was set to go off. It went off with a big bang and the nearby hotel stove caught fire, as the balls from the improvised explosive device must have pierced the gas cylinder.
The tragic realization that the police did not seriously take their concern for the abandoned vehicle produced a chemistry of change as their blood boiled at the preventable terrific murder and mayhem. This much is not to say that the people are justified to take the law in their hand. There were sane people among the crowd. Faheem Siddiqui, the local reporter of Urdu Times along with the SP Sanjay Patil tried to reason with the crowd. He was overwhelmed and fell down and was trampled under feet and injured.
Of course, police advisory always asks the public to report unclaimed or abandoned things. The otherwise simple minded and forthright people did their job in reporting the police. It is strange that the police did not call the anti terrorist squad to search and defuse the device. To cover their shortcoming they allegedly gave out that it was the gas cylinder that had caused the explosion. The splinter injuries and hole marks belie this claim. The police should have known that in October 2001 a policeman had snatched a leaflet from a Muslim youth and then tore it up which had set off a communal riot in which 15 people had lost life. It seems the police lack tact or are not fully trained, if not really biased.
Thereafter the scene shifted to the circuit guesthouse where the home minister RR Patil and Chaggan Bhujbal,patron minister of the district, held forth on what they usually say. When the Congress leader Baba Siddiqui entered the meeting and took the official stance the anger of the Muslim representatives swayed them as they stopped him from speaking. To a pointed question the home minister paused but the district police chief whispered the answer into his ears that he should say that no one had died in police fire.
In the meantime the investigating agencies made a departure from the past, a welcome sign. They said that they would inquire into the blast from all angles, including probing the involvement of any Hindu extremist group. This was logical inference as the two blasts incidents of Malegaon of 2006 and 2008 had targeted exclusively Muslim worshippers coming out of mosques. This was much in line with the attacks on the mosques of Jalna, Purna, Parbhani, Jama masjid of Delhi and the Mecca masjid of Hyderabad. Their assertion was a healthy sign as Hindu extremists belonging to Sanatan Sanstha, Hindu Janjagran Samiti and Bajrang Dal had not only exhibited their bomb making but also had blown themselves up in Nanded and Kanpure as well as in other places. This was the case till October 1.
The next day the police and the agencies took a histrionic U turn as if they were puppets in the hands of the higher ups like the IB. As has become the fixed mode of operation into inquiry the police have now decided to go back in to the past. That is September 2008. Now they want to hunt the three who have simply disappeared. Their family members wonder in the manner of Suhan-Tauqeer’s whether they are even alive. One is the former SIMI president of Malegaon Munavar Ahmed and the other two are Riyaz Arsalan, and Ishtiaq Ahmed Mohammad. This militates against what the MLA of adjoining constituency of Dabhadi has asserted that the bomb blast of 2006 could not have been the work of local people.
But there is a catch here. Most of the people within the old town are emigrants from UP and the hunt for the “Azamgarh brigade” in the wake of the encounter killing of Atif and his friend in Jamia nager following Delhi blasts of September 13 has given the police newer pastures. Hence there is close surveillance of Jaffernager, Golden Nager and the Naya bazaar area where the three missing accused by the ATS charge sheet come from.
Despite denial from the police, reports indicate that the police had detained two youths from Chalisgaon and some from Malegaon. It is difficult to say whether the dramatic change in the direction of investigation came after the arrest of these or prior to it. If after it we will have to wait for infinity to get truth.
The cause of the anger of the people is central to the whole drama that turned it into a grim Greek tragedy. The residents and shopkeepers of the chowk had discovered an abandoned motor bike and reported the matter to the police at the police chowki located cheek by jowl from the blast site. The cops dilly-dallied and told the people that the handle was locked albeit they tried to move and shake the bike. But they left it there. It was the tragic flaw. That was early evening of Monday. After sunset crowd swelled around for shopping and refreshment. At 9.30 the special prayers of the recital of the holy book that had attracted huge crowd was over. The worshippers as usual were moving to the chowk. That was when the bomb was set to go off. It went off with a big bang and the nearby hotel stove caught fire, as the balls from the improvised explosive device must have pierced the gas cylinder.
The tragic realization that the police did not seriously take their concern for the abandoned vehicle produced a chemistry of change as their blood boiled at the preventable terrific murder and mayhem. This much is not to say that the people are justified to take the law in their hand. There were sane people among the crowd. Faheem Siddiqui, the local reporter of Urdu Times along with the SP Sanjay Patil tried to reason with the crowd. He was overwhelmed and fell down and was trampled under feet and injured.
Of course, police advisory always asks the public to report unclaimed or abandoned things. The otherwise simple minded and forthright people did their job in reporting the police. It is strange that the police did not call the anti terrorist squad to search and defuse the device. To cover their shortcoming they allegedly gave out that it was the gas cylinder that had caused the explosion. The splinter injuries and hole marks belie this claim. The police should have known that in October 2001 a policeman had snatched a leaflet from a Muslim youth and then tore it up which had set off a communal riot in which 15 people had lost life. It seems the police lack tact or are not fully trained, if not really biased.
Thereafter the scene shifted to the circuit guesthouse where the home minister RR Patil and Chaggan Bhujbal,patron minister of the district, held forth on what they usually say. When the Congress leader Baba Siddiqui entered the meeting and took the official stance the anger of the Muslim representatives swayed them as they stopped him from speaking. To a pointed question the home minister paused but the district police chief whispered the answer into his ears that he should say that no one had died in police fire.
In the meantime the investigating agencies made a departure from the past, a welcome sign. They said that they would inquire into the blast from all angles, including probing the involvement of any Hindu extremist group. This was logical inference as the two blasts incidents of Malegaon of 2006 and 2008 had targeted exclusively Muslim worshippers coming out of mosques. This was much in line with the attacks on the mosques of Jalna, Purna, Parbhani, Jama masjid of Delhi and the Mecca masjid of Hyderabad. Their assertion was a healthy sign as Hindu extremists belonging to Sanatan Sanstha, Hindu Janjagran Samiti and Bajrang Dal had not only exhibited their bomb making but also had blown themselves up in Nanded and Kanpure as well as in other places. This was the case till October 1.
The next day the police and the agencies took a histrionic U turn as if they were puppets in the hands of the higher ups like the IB. As has become the fixed mode of operation into inquiry the police have now decided to go back in to the past. That is September 2008. Now they want to hunt the three who have simply disappeared. Their family members wonder in the manner of Suhan-Tauqeer’s whether they are even alive. One is the former SIMI president of Malegaon Munavar Ahmed and the other two are Riyaz Arsalan, and Ishtiaq Ahmed Mohammad. This militates against what the MLA of adjoining constituency of Dabhadi has asserted that the bomb blast of 2006 could not have been the work of local people.
But there is a catch here. Most of the people within the old town are emigrants from UP and the hunt for the “Azamgarh brigade” in the wake of the encounter killing of Atif and his friend in Jamia nager following Delhi blasts of September 13 has given the police newer pastures. Hence there is close surveillance of Jaffernager, Golden Nager and the Naya bazaar area where the three missing accused by the ATS charge sheet come from.
Despite denial from the police, reports indicate that the police had detained two youths from Chalisgaon and some from Malegaon. It is difficult to say whether the dramatic change in the direction of investigation came after the arrest of these or prior to it. If after it we will have to wait for infinity to get truth.
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