There is need for a holistic understanding of the kind of situation created by the disclosure of the magisterial inquiry report into the fake encounter of Irshad Jahan, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjad Ali Rana and Jisan Johar. Our definition of terrorism is not inclusive enough to cover the violence which the police or the state perpetrates on the hapless. We often hear people saying that a terrorist propagates certain causes while committing act of terror. Therefore propaganda is an integral defining feature of terror. This description of terrorism does not touch upon the stealth with which the state agents commit terror or a right wing group does in dastardly anonymity for the fear of being named and prosecuted. What is terrorism of one is fake encounter of another.
Gujarat Health Minister and Spokesperson of the government, Jay Narayan Vyas spoke tongue in cheek when he remarked that Irshat Jahan fake encounter must not be connected or compared with Sohrabuddin case. In both the cases state agents were used to kill ordinary people with hardly any criminal background, except smuggling of arms in the case of Sohrabuddin. In both the cases the killer cops justified the ghoulish murder in the name of deshbhakti or patriotism. DG Vanzara used that vernacular word repeatedly in describing how he and his killer team had killed the “terrorists” out to kill Narendra Modi. This created the kind of biased atmosphere against the victims which also helped consolidate the Chief Minister’s party in state election. Inadvertently the guilty cops sent another set of signal propagating the kind of treatment meted out to the minority community in India. To the groups that receive the signal as excuse for their diabolic design mount their own terrorist revenge attack. What the cops are doing is the “dousing of fire with petrol.”
The political parties and in particular BJP and Shiv Sena never fight shy of their muscle and monetary power in their own support of persons involved in terrorism. Thus BJP leader from Mumbai Kriti Somayia’s asking the government to slam MOCOCA against Abu Azmi for his statement that Ishrat was innocent. But nobody in Gujarat asked Pota to be used against industry minister of the central government Shakarbhai Vaghela when he said that Hindutva groups were behind Modasa blast and the police were deliberately neglecting this aspect. Shiv Sena threatened lawyers if they chose to defend anyone from Muslim community accused in terrorism while at the same time the party hired lawyers to defend Lt Col Prasad Purohit and sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur. This is another dimension of “dousing fire with petrol.”
The most dangerous instance of dousing fire with petrol is when the IB or RAW or Special Task Force or CBI in league with the extremist right wing groups like Abhinav Bharat use mukhbirs or police informers and turn them into terrorists for their own consideration of pleasing their political bosses or for promotion. The finger of suspicion points in this direction even in the case of Ishrat Jahan and the accused in the Malegaon blasts of 2006 and 2008, and even in the Samjhauta express bombing. Fighting fire with fire can burn either side. Therefore look carefully in the burn marks and scars.
In July 2004 the Ghazwa Times of Lashkar acknowledged Ishrat as “a woman activist of LeT.” To understand how this is so should not be a Herculean task as our intelligence agencies have their own established practice of luring Muslim youths in going to Pakistan and taking training at camps. They work for the intelligence agencies which then use them to get official recognition and promotion to lucrative posts by bumping them off and passing this off as terrorists on the way to kill Modi. Then apply the veneer of deshbhukti. Ishrat was kidnapped by Vanzara’s DCB. Why should the police carry away someone by force and illegally and then kill her altogether? In her case, the other three were killed early in night or around midnight but she was put in the car and shot in the seat in the wee hours of the next day! Kauserbi was also done to death. She along with Sohrabuddin was kidnapped from a road in Maharashtra on her way from Hyderabad and then taken to Ahemdabad, her last ride. The modern day Neros were making political capital and collecting spoils of office as the Rome was burning.
The double crossing of the Muslim youth had become so well entrenched that people like Afzal Guru had to buy the lucrative post made available to them by the Special Task Force. Destitute Muslim youths saw in this a break for a better opportunity in life and fell a victim when the police and intelligence agencies double crossed them.
This also happened with Irshad Ali and his colleague Nawab Qamar who worked as police informers to the Special Cell (which has acquired notoriety of having Rajbir Singh and MC Sherma on its staff) of Delhi police and the IB. When they refused to play the authorities declared them terrorists and now they are in jail number 8 of Tihar prison. In his letter to the Prime Minister Irshad revealed how they have been trapped and describes the way IB and Delhi police Special Cell are fighting terror as “dousing fire with petrol.”
Irshad and Nawab’s case has been documented by CBI on the order of the Delhi High Court. These two were coerced by the IB to join Lashkar-e-Toiba camp in Pakistan. They refused. The Special Cell acting at the instance of IB trapped them with the help of Mohamamd Khalid alias Majid of IB in league with the Special Cell officials Lalit, Bhushan, Rajinder and Devdutt kidnapped them and booked and implicated them in false cases.
The collusion between the police and the Hindu right in such matters is undeniable fact. In the case of Sohrabuddin a marble merchant belonging to BJP in Rajasthan had allegedgly tipped (supari) the police against Sohrabuddin. It is also well known that Narendra Modi created the kind of atmosphere where fake encounter is accepted by the people at large. For example, on December 4, 2007 Modi justified the murder of Sohrabuddin at an elelction rally at Mangrol in South Gujarat “he got what he deserved.” He asked the people what would they do to a man who dealt in smuggling of guns. The people thundered “mari nakho, [kill him]” Pat he rejoined: “Then if I have done anything wrong, let the government of Sonia Gandhi hang me.” Another version is: Modi: “What should have been done to a man from whom a large number of AK 47 rifles were recovered, who was on the search list of police from four states, who attacked the police, who had relations with Pakistan and was eyeing to enter Gujarat?” The audience replied: mari nakho, mari nakho. The chief minister then bared his fangs: “Does my government need to take permission of Sonaben for this?” He is using the fake encounter to build up vote bank for the Hindu right party but justifying the cold blooded murder. And he, a chief minister!
Modi’s government did not take permission for renting the farm houses of Hindutva activists in Ahemdabad. In such two houses Sohrabuddin and Kauserbi were kept. In some other such farm houses Ishrat and others must have also passed their last days between their kidnapping on June 12 2004 and night of June 14. Ahemdabad, Delhi, Hyderabad and Nashik and Deolali have acquired world fame of having such farm houses kept by the police and the IB where fake encounter victims are kept until they are dispatched at suitable opportune time. That depends on how much benefit the Hindu right demagogue can derive and what promotional chances of office the concerned cops and intelligence officials have. One such farm house is the Jagtap malla in Nashik where Abrar Ahmed (accused, in the Malelgaon bomb blast 2006) was kept and another in Deolali where he shared rooms with Lt Col Prsad Purohit!
http://kafila.org/2007/09/28/ibs-bearded-jihadi-moulvis-trapping-muslims/
“IB’s bearded ‘jihadi’ moulvis trapping Muslims” The Kashmir Times September 21 2007.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Malegaon: Terrorism and the enforced disappeared persons
As the UNO and many NGOs marked August 30 2009 as the 26th annual day of the disappeared persons it is necessary to look around to take stock. What happened in Malegaon in the aftermath of the bomb blast of September 8, 2006 is still fresh in the minds of the people. Three bombs exploded at around 1.30 pm at the graveyard mosque of what the locals call bada qabrastan and the adjoining Mushawarat chowk. The first enforced disappearance was not of any person who was alive or had survived the blasts. It was strangely the torso and head of a man who had a false beard. There were many volunteers at the scene like the tailor at the graveyard shopping complex who along with others saw the dead body with the false beard coming off from chin where it was stuck. Many also saw the remains at the Wadia hospital. Later on it disappeared. The police and the investigating agencies have not bothered to explain the situation.
But the day of the disappeared persons is mostly about the living who disappear on otherwise a regular, normal fine day. Mostly it is so in their own world. However, disturbances like acts of terrorism, war and riots or massacres take place where the atmosphere gets affected drastically and events are shrouded in mystery. Thus the disappearance of Shankar Shelke in the country side of Ahmednager on September 9, 2006 is puzzling. He was the scrap monger who could have supplied the RDX for the blast in Malegaon on the previous day. It is alleged that he had it in his stock. But given the vicinity of the army cantonment of Ahmednager there is also fear that it had its provenance there. With a hindsight of the reported revelation that Lt Col Prasad Purohit(allegedly involved in Malegaon September 29, 2008 blast) had procured RDX from the army in Jammu and Kashmir and kept it in his house in Pune and Deolali and also the reported tall and bulky man called Mithun Chakravarthy giving over explosives to several trained persons, the death of Shelke assumes sinister implication. The commissioner of Thane police had opined that the Malegaon blasts of 2006 were connected to the RDX found with Shelke, his disappearance and subsequent unnatural death.
The next such unnatural death arousing suspicion is that of Azhar Pervez who had reportedly approached some people and told them very material evidence about the blasts on shabebarat. Thereafter he disappeared. Later on his body was found in the deserted compound near his house. This is enforced disappearance which in 2006 the UN General Assembly defined and adopted through the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance as: "The arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons, or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law." Had the people in whom he had confided the horrible truth of the blasts provided him a protective sheath his testimony in court would have been invaluable.
The Malegaon blasts had taken place in the kind of atmosphere which the then home minister Chaggan Bhujbad and his police had created. He blamed SIMI for every bomb blast in the state and categorically dubbed the Ahlehadesh Muslims to be responsible. They were his bete noire, god alone knows for what reason. However, it is significant to note that the new ATS chief Hemant Karkare had said that as of August 16, 2008 the ATS had not found any involvement of SIMI in the blasts.
Nevertheless, the blame on SIMI had created such a scare that the disappearance of the SIMI president of the town Mohammad Amin Munawar is enigmatic. For, he was preparing meat hamburgers at home for Friday September 8, 2006 afternoon sale. Since then there is no trace of him. If he were a bomber and had conspired to blow up people why should he be making hamburgers for afternoon sale? Another enforced disappearance is that of the old cloth seller Ishtiyaq Ahmed Mustak. The third instance is that of Riyaz Arsalan Shafeeq. They have all disappeared. They were the breadwinners of their families and unlikely to indulge in criminal activities.
The most amazing and legally the most serious is the disappearance of Abrar Ahmed. He would have been what the UNO calls enforced disappeared person but for the habeas corpus that his high court lawyer brother Jalil Ahmed submitted on October 25 2006. From October 25 to December 15, 2006 Abrar was virtually guarded by the police and a police informer and his own brother in law Farooq Vardha. This police informer had a revolver given to him by the police. What for had they given him is a mystery. His one point agenda was to coax Abrar into toeing the police version and confessing his involvement in the blasts. If he did not, was the gun meant for bumping him off? Abrar’s case clearly shows “arrest, detention and abduction.” and “deprivation of liberty by agents of state.” In his affidavit submitted to Judge Shinde he says he was picked up by the police on September 13, 2006.
His arrest and detention was on account of what he had overheard in the Medi Care hospital where some people were talking. They were saying that the blasts were the work of their own people, meaning thereby fellow Hindus. They particularly mentioned Dr Rajender Amin, Dr Bipin Parekh, Someshwar Shankar and a couple of others. The in laws of Abrar discussed the matter of what Abrar had overheard and decided to consult Abrar’s brother in law in Bhiwandi, Farooq Verdha. This is how the police came to know. Rajwardhan showed Abrar some pictures of the suspects whom he did not know. But the senior cop was struck by what Abrar came to know at the Medi Care. In the meantime Abrar’s father and others in the paternal family did not have any contact with him immediately.
Rajwardhan gave Abrar a mobile phone 9823436809 for his use and another phone 9825826597 for his wife. The officer gave his own mobile phone number 9422250775 to them to contact him.
But Abrar and wife could not contact any relatives for the plain clothed police around them prevented it. He was not even allowed to visit Malegaon on the Id day on October 25, 2006. Such deprivation of liberty become even more unbearable as the days passed. He was often threatened of fatal consequences to his person if he did not go according to what the police were saying to him. Ultimately he lost his freedom when he was put in prison from where there is no hope that he would be ever released.
A crucial part of the affidavit which the court will have to analyze is Abrar’s meeting with Lt Col Prasad Purohit who introduced him to ATS in Deolali army cantonment on October 24, 2006. Why should the serving officer of the army introduce him to the ATS? Then on September 1, 2008 ATS officer Jaiswal, Sachin Kadam and Rajwardhan came to see Abrar in Byculla prison and told him that he would have been bailed out by now. But some investigating officers had changed the charge sheet and they (the investigating officers) would be removed as obstacles in two and half month’s time. This was part of their mission. Of course, it was the mission of Jaiswal, Sachin Kadam and Rajwardhan. The question is about what exactly the mission was? Was it a mission conducted by the investigating agencies or the Abhinav Bharat of which Purohit was the pivotal part? Remember that Abrar was brought to meet Dyanand Pandey in Bholenath temple of Ujjain. He also met sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur in the town on September 26, 2006. He stayed there for nine days. All this would imply that the organized crime syndicate is embedded by the civil and military parts. Who has infiltrated who?
For a lay person all such revelations are too awful, it would better be left to the courts to sort out. International bodies like Amnesty International could lend their expertise if we are quite honest and keen about resolving the matter.
But the day of the disappeared persons is mostly about the living who disappear on otherwise a regular, normal fine day. Mostly it is so in their own world. However, disturbances like acts of terrorism, war and riots or massacres take place where the atmosphere gets affected drastically and events are shrouded in mystery. Thus the disappearance of Shankar Shelke in the country side of Ahmednager on September 9, 2006 is puzzling. He was the scrap monger who could have supplied the RDX for the blast in Malegaon on the previous day. It is alleged that he had it in his stock. But given the vicinity of the army cantonment of Ahmednager there is also fear that it had its provenance there. With a hindsight of the reported revelation that Lt Col Prasad Purohit(allegedly involved in Malegaon September 29, 2008 blast) had procured RDX from the army in Jammu and Kashmir and kept it in his house in Pune and Deolali and also the reported tall and bulky man called Mithun Chakravarthy giving over explosives to several trained persons, the death of Shelke assumes sinister implication. The commissioner of Thane police had opined that the Malegaon blasts of 2006 were connected to the RDX found with Shelke, his disappearance and subsequent unnatural death.
The next such unnatural death arousing suspicion is that of Azhar Pervez who had reportedly approached some people and told them very material evidence about the blasts on shabebarat. Thereafter he disappeared. Later on his body was found in the deserted compound near his house. This is enforced disappearance which in 2006 the UN General Assembly defined and adopted through the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance as: "The arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons, or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law." Had the people in whom he had confided the horrible truth of the blasts provided him a protective sheath his testimony in court would have been invaluable.
The Malegaon blasts had taken place in the kind of atmosphere which the then home minister Chaggan Bhujbad and his police had created. He blamed SIMI for every bomb blast in the state and categorically dubbed the Ahlehadesh Muslims to be responsible. They were his bete noire, god alone knows for what reason. However, it is significant to note that the new ATS chief Hemant Karkare had said that as of August 16, 2008 the ATS had not found any involvement of SIMI in the blasts.
Nevertheless, the blame on SIMI had created such a scare that the disappearance of the SIMI president of the town Mohammad Amin Munawar is enigmatic. For, he was preparing meat hamburgers at home for Friday September 8, 2006 afternoon sale. Since then there is no trace of him. If he were a bomber and had conspired to blow up people why should he be making hamburgers for afternoon sale? Another enforced disappearance is that of the old cloth seller Ishtiyaq Ahmed Mustak. The third instance is that of Riyaz Arsalan Shafeeq. They have all disappeared. They were the breadwinners of their families and unlikely to indulge in criminal activities.
The most amazing and legally the most serious is the disappearance of Abrar Ahmed. He would have been what the UNO calls enforced disappeared person but for the habeas corpus that his high court lawyer brother Jalil Ahmed submitted on October 25 2006. From October 25 to December 15, 2006 Abrar was virtually guarded by the police and a police informer and his own brother in law Farooq Vardha. This police informer had a revolver given to him by the police. What for had they given him is a mystery. His one point agenda was to coax Abrar into toeing the police version and confessing his involvement in the blasts. If he did not, was the gun meant for bumping him off? Abrar’s case clearly shows “arrest, detention and abduction.” and “deprivation of liberty by agents of state.” In his affidavit submitted to Judge Shinde he says he was picked up by the police on September 13, 2006.
His arrest and detention was on account of what he had overheard in the Medi Care hospital where some people were talking. They were saying that the blasts were the work of their own people, meaning thereby fellow Hindus. They particularly mentioned Dr Rajender Amin, Dr Bipin Parekh, Someshwar Shankar and a couple of others. The in laws of Abrar discussed the matter of what Abrar had overheard and decided to consult Abrar’s brother in law in Bhiwandi, Farooq Verdha. This is how the police came to know. Rajwardhan showed Abrar some pictures of the suspects whom he did not know. But the senior cop was struck by what Abrar came to know at the Medi Care. In the meantime Abrar’s father and others in the paternal family did not have any contact with him immediately.
Rajwardhan gave Abrar a mobile phone 9823436809 for his use and another phone 9825826597 for his wife. The officer gave his own mobile phone number 9422250775 to them to contact him.
But Abrar and wife could not contact any relatives for the plain clothed police around them prevented it. He was not even allowed to visit Malegaon on the Id day on October 25, 2006. Such deprivation of liberty become even more unbearable as the days passed. He was often threatened of fatal consequences to his person if he did not go according to what the police were saying to him. Ultimately he lost his freedom when he was put in prison from where there is no hope that he would be ever released.
A crucial part of the affidavit which the court will have to analyze is Abrar’s meeting with Lt Col Prasad Purohit who introduced him to ATS in Deolali army cantonment on October 24, 2006. Why should the serving officer of the army introduce him to the ATS? Then on September 1, 2008 ATS officer Jaiswal, Sachin Kadam and Rajwardhan came to see Abrar in Byculla prison and told him that he would have been bailed out by now. But some investigating officers had changed the charge sheet and they (the investigating officers) would be removed as obstacles in two and half month’s time. This was part of their mission. Of course, it was the mission of Jaiswal, Sachin Kadam and Rajwardhan. The question is about what exactly the mission was? Was it a mission conducted by the investigating agencies or the Abhinav Bharat of which Purohit was the pivotal part? Remember that Abrar was brought to meet Dyanand Pandey in Bholenath temple of Ujjain. He also met sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur in the town on September 26, 2006. He stayed there for nine days. All this would imply that the organized crime syndicate is embedded by the civil and military parts. Who has infiltrated who?
For a lay person all such revelations are too awful, it would better be left to the courts to sort out. International bodies like Amnesty International could lend their expertise if we are quite honest and keen about resolving the matter.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
The Heart of the Matter: Partition
In the current controversy over Jinnah some ask with a smirk why India having an ancient civilization should be so much haunted by the past so soon and so often after its independence from the British. So soon, since we got independence in 1947 and so often since LK Advani’s tour of Pakistan in2005 and his hangover of that country’s founder and now Jaswant Singh’s book on qaid-e-azam, India, independence and partition. Still water runs deep and if historical events remain so dominant in shaping the present then there is something pathetic about it.
The creation of Pakistan or rather the inevitability of this eventuality and the role of religion ascribed to it is a matter of perennial interest. During a visit to London the Indian leaders sat for dinner. Sardar Patel, however, did not sit with the group. Afterwards Jinnah noticed him eating alone. He mused about Patel not deigning to eat with the rest. As an epiphany he found that it could be because there were people like him whom Patel did not consider equal and acceptable so far as the caste equation is concerned. If that was so how could the Muslims and Hindus share power and live together in an independent country after the British had left? This haughtier of Patel also comes out when he was home minister in the power sharing constitutional government. He could not appoint a peon without the approval of the finance minister who was from Muslim League. This drove him to such anger that he wished to have the country partitioned rather than governed together. The guilty men of India’s partition did play some role. The Hindu Mahasabha as well as Congress did want the partition of Punjab and Bengal although Jinnah had an altogether different view over the two provinces. (Something like the present time when BJP would be happy to have Jammu and Kashmir trifurcated between Hindu majority Jammu, Buddhist dominant Laddakh and the valley where the Muslims are in majority. )
Could Patel’s reluctance to eat with Jinnah be the result of hatred? There are people who feel so. Among them is Khushwant Singh who in his write up The Legacy of Jinnah says that hatred generated by history is the cause of partition. If this view persists then does it imply that the dynamic force of hatred is the motivating factor of those who want to continue to show the Muslims their place in independent India? Jinnah did change tactics to achieve his goal of having equitable share for Muslims in the governance of the emerging independent India. It was abysmal display of events which put his thought of equitable share in life and government beyond reach given the attitude of some Congress leaders. The strategic objective of equitability was invariable though he wanted to reach it by shuffling different tactics.
The division of India has made some wear their nationalism on their sleeves and be vociferous about it. Many such were not that enthusiastic during the freedom struggle, they were even very obliging to the British. It is they who have not let the ghost of Jinnah be buried once for all. They evoke it from time to time whenever the time is out of joint for them.
The creation of Pakistan or rather the inevitability of this eventuality and the role of religion ascribed to it is a matter of perennial interest. During a visit to London the Indian leaders sat for dinner. Sardar Patel, however, did not sit with the group. Afterwards Jinnah noticed him eating alone. He mused about Patel not deigning to eat with the rest. As an epiphany he found that it could be because there were people like him whom Patel did not consider equal and acceptable so far as the caste equation is concerned. If that was so how could the Muslims and Hindus share power and live together in an independent country after the British had left? This haughtier of Patel also comes out when he was home minister in the power sharing constitutional government. He could not appoint a peon without the approval of the finance minister who was from Muslim League. This drove him to such anger that he wished to have the country partitioned rather than governed together. The guilty men of India’s partition did play some role. The Hindu Mahasabha as well as Congress did want the partition of Punjab and Bengal although Jinnah had an altogether different view over the two provinces. (Something like the present time when BJP would be happy to have Jammu and Kashmir trifurcated between Hindu majority Jammu, Buddhist dominant Laddakh and the valley where the Muslims are in majority. )
Could Patel’s reluctance to eat with Jinnah be the result of hatred? There are people who feel so. Among them is Khushwant Singh who in his write up The Legacy of Jinnah says that hatred generated by history is the cause of partition. If this view persists then does it imply that the dynamic force of hatred is the motivating factor of those who want to continue to show the Muslims their place in independent India? Jinnah did change tactics to achieve his goal of having equitable share for Muslims in the governance of the emerging independent India. It was abysmal display of events which put his thought of equitable share in life and government beyond reach given the attitude of some Congress leaders. The strategic objective of equitability was invariable though he wanted to reach it by shuffling different tactics.
The division of India has made some wear their nationalism on their sleeves and be vociferous about it. Many such were not that enthusiastic during the freedom struggle, they were even very obliging to the British. It is they who have not let the ghost of Jinnah be buried once for all. They evoke it from time to time whenever the time is out of joint for them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
