Of manufacturing riots and terrorism for a price

The need for a thorough and impartial investigation in some of the terrorist attacks is grounded in the context of the events. In some of these there are so many deliberately planted snags, biases and discrepancies that people like jurists with international reputation are needed to unearth the truth. The need for optional protocol in the case of Gujarat 2002 and UN investigation into some other events is also felt. The last is of course more relevant as Malegaon bomb blast of 2008 is ascribed to even Israel. In the case of FBI taking away fisherwoman Anita Udaiyya to the US and her assertion that only six people and not ten had landed at Cuff Parade beach and that she had seen each one of them is simply amazing. She did not find anyone like Kasab there. The cook of the Chabbad House buying a hundred kilos of chicken and a huge quantity of wine! Whom did he buy all this for? What about the news that the attackers had stayed at the Chabbad House prior to the attacks? Why was the Israeli consulate security officer assaulted at the Chabbad when he was heavily armed? Why did the police take a very long time to come there? When the investigation agencies value so much our Israeli connection and security, how come we take the Israeli connection so summarily when it comes to attacks within India? Israelis are past masters of offshore operations and some of the people at CST saw attackers who looked like Semitic Israelis of European origin.
Our investigation officers leave much to be desired. For example, the ATS in Maharashtra has created a national sensation over Pune blast of February 2010 by declaring that the IM was behind it by parading the supposed telephone congratulation of Riyaz Bhatkal to Salmaan Chhotu. All the mainstream papers had headlined and carried lead stories on this on Sunday 9, 2010. But then in the evening of the same day DNA updated the story and strangely quoted an ATS officer saying: "Salman is also under our scanner for the Pune blast, but it appears that he was not involved in the blast directly or indirectly," (Phone intercepts suggest involvement of Indian Mujahideen in Pune blast). Another report says that four IM activists involved in Pune blast have fled to Pakistan and very queerly goes on to add: ‘The connection between the Bhatkal brothers and the four suspects is yet to be established.

Once the suspects are sent to prison it is next to impossible for them to come out as they are framed in so many cases that their career and youth are wasted. In this way more and more Muslim youths are arrested and are put behind bars. As the courts do not take up the cases and dispose off soon the agony and suffering of the incarcerated and their families increase manifold. Many right minded people then organize People’s Tribunals consisting of eminent jurists with infallible record of meritorious service. One such group held public hearing in such cases in August 2008 in Hyderabad and they observed: “This fight against terrorism, victims emphasized, has veered more around witch hunting of Muslims rather than curbing terrorism, thus robbing people of their liberty and freedom and making them more insecure than ever before. The real culprits, they said, often roam freely whereas the poor and gullible Muslims are picked up and thrown into jails at whims and fancies of the powers that be. Victims after victims, who have undergone harassment and torture without any evidence permissible in the court of law against them, deposed before the tribunal — comprising country’s eminent personalities including former judges, lawyers and renowned social activists – and narrated their tales of woes to the shock and anguish of hundreds of audience.”

But the deliberations of such tribunals do not have any impact on the biased investigation of terrorist crimes and inordinate delay in the judicial process. This has made many concerned people look outside India. For example in Beirut where a former Prime Minister Mr Rafik Harere was killed and Syria was suspected to be behind it. A UN investigation revealed the truth. Recently an investigation in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto by the UN has brought to light how President of Pakistan Gen Musharruf knew of the conspiracy and failed to protect her. What is wrong, such concerned people say, if terrorism cases are taken to UN though optional protocol or the UNO institute an inquiry commission. India still has a stature in the world and would not like to baulk from such a move although its internal organs and agencies have been made dysfunctional by the RSS and its affiliates.
The display of disbelief by the right wing Hindutva groups at the disclosure of RSS involvement in riots and acts of terrorism is simply hypocrisy. You can wake up a man who is sleeping but not one who is pretending to be asleep. The enormous funds that Sonal Shah and Praveen Togadia are pumping into India are having very disturbing effect. It is common knowledge that RSS and its offshoots had distributed money to kar sevaks to reach Ayodhya in 1992 and also distributed money to the chhara community members and Bajrang Dal activists as well as tribals to attack Muslims in Gujarat 2002. If Jitesh Kumar of Shri Ram Sene bludgeoned a maulvi in a manufactured riot in Kerala it is not for nothing he did it. He pocketed money for it. The RSS is involved because it is turf war for them there. Every felon caught in such a situation is either a current member or a past worker of RSS. In fact the bond with RSS is unbreakable and it is a façade to shield RSS from accusation of present membership and past membership. Nathuram Godse never left RSS yet LK Advani pretended that he had left the organization when he assassinated Gandhiji.
Any investigation into terrorism must focus on the huge amount of money transferred to the perpetrators. In Malegaon 2006 blasts also crores or rupees changed hands, yarn merchants and most possibly Israeli agents must have funded the terrorists. The government seems to have no motivation to investigate this as if it was also paid to keep quiet. Hence an international inquiry commission is the crying need of the hour.
Slowly but steadily all the organs of the government and the state are being sucked into the malaise. Retired police officers of distinguished record and even wives of many are writing books exposing how the right wing groups and people within service have waylaid the agencies of the government. One such is S Mushiff whose book on Hemant Karkare the authorities have simply ignored. No court has taken a suo motto note of it, either. Much like what has just come out that Shri Ram Sene of Pramod Muthalik had almost contracted to produce a communal riot for 70 lakh rupees! A communal riot is no less an act of terrorism in India.
What Mushriff perhaps did not include in his references is that meeting of Hemant Karkare and his two assistant commissioners of police in ATS Sukhwinder Singh and Parambir Singh with the National Security Advisor MK Narayanan and the chief of Army intelligence on Tuesday November 25, 2008. That is, just a day before he fell to the bullets of his assassins in Mumbai on November 26, 2008. The sequence of time is of utmost crucial importance. On Monday November 24, 2008 the ATS was denied custody of Purohit and Pragya. Was it a high handed attempt to gag Purohit from exposing more sensitive information that he knew( as a liaison officer in the intelligence wing of the army dealing with counter terrorism)? On Saturday November 22, 2008 Karkare had exposed the link between Purohit and Samjhauta train blast in the Nasik court. That must have rattled NSA. Hence Karkare was summoned to Delhi. Army’s denial that Purohit sourced the RDX from the army in JK came in May 2010. The demur of the army in taking so much of time to deny is calculated to isolate the army from the exposure of its involvement in terrorism. That is on account of the infiltration of the right wing Hindutva into the army since the army so far was secular.
Even more disturbing is Purohit’s revelation that non Wahabi Muslims were also used in the conspiracy in terrorist attacks in Malegaon and elsewhere. If that is anything to go by it is not so much the maligned ISI but the indigenous groups of Hindutva and most probably Mossad and the FBI which played some roles. David Headley didn’t travel in Samjhauta express, I suppose?
Even if he did there are in all seven countries affected by or connected in 26/11 according to the Interpol report. Why did D Sivanandan fly to Israel of all the countries? As a man is known by the company he keeps so is a country. Our close association with the US and Israel is bound to make us share the deja vu of terrorism they countenance and how they fight it.