Malegaon bomb blasts of 2006 and 2008, a reflection (3)

Chapter: the police

The hangover of communalism from the past among the police men is reinvigorated by the surge in terrorist acts. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks twice in Malegaon and once in Hyderabad the police became target of angry crowd. Their anger is based on the perception that there is police complicity in the bomb blasts. The cops catch Muslim youths who have nothing to do with terror and torture them all the same. Hence the ire of the crowds at mosques or places where Muslims fall victims of bomb attacks. In Hyderabad the police shot and killed five Muslims who protested outside the Mecca mosque. This was heralded by Malegaon 2006 bombings. Not far from the graveyard in Malegaon where three bombs exploded there is Azad nager police chowki. The crowd attacked the police who opened fire and killed one. Right adjacent to the graveyard the crowd overturned a police jeep and manhandled a police officer. He had reached there much after the explosion then he moved to the close vicinity of the door of the graveyard where the youths obstructed him and then turned him back and manhandled him.
The youths go berserk at such times since their intense awareness of bias finds easy outlet at such times. The Indian Express reporter reported on September 10, 2006 that the police officials in private admit that they hesitate to enter Muslim dominated areas. “There have been bomb blasts in other cities but you never see people attacking police. Here their first targets are police men” said a senior police officer. There is no easy way either side can exonerate itself from blame of partiality and complicity or outlawry.
There was Ganesh immersion on September 6th; the police arrangement was phenomenal to say the least. Within forty eight hours bombs exploded killing Muslims at the festival occasion. The police had promised to be in large number to tackle the crowd and very eerily there was no cop at the cemetery or the Mushawarat chowk where the bombs exploded. The police came much after the explosions.
The 2008 blast also coincided a much larger festivity in Malegaon. The National transport company owner noticed the LML Freedom of Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur parked outside his shop he went to the cops across the chowk hardly twenty meters away. He requested them to remove it. The cops ignored his request to remove the vehicle. An hour later the deadly motorcycle spewed death and mayhem there. Even with this in the background the police declared that the explosion was caused by the gas cylinder in the hotel in front of the transport company. The crowd became furious and confronted the police. They opened fire and people were injured. One such was a youth who received a bullet wound in the leg. Dr Vaidya took out the bullet and refused to let the police have the bullet unless they did panchnama or registering of the event. The police then hushed up the matter. But then Urdu paper Inquilab carried the report which created a furor in the assembly hall in Mumbai when the legislators questioned the government about it which of course it denied the firing in the first place. At a subsequent press briefing police officer Nikhil Gupta was furious at the Urdu paper reporters. He menacingly told them in the meeting that he would not let any cartages be wasted. He would prefer the cartages to find their target! This kind of blatant cussed attitude of the police makes the Muslim restive at times of violence.
Even so there is an interesting turn of events in the town. The SP of Malegaon Mr Rajwadhan from Patna achieved almost what is otherwise impossible, rapport with the people. This went on so much that he was hailed as the messiah. What went wrong with Rajwardhan was the realization dawning upon the Muslim that he was himself responsible for what was happening in the city. The accused in the blasts of 2006 filed a case in which he was respondent number one. Unfortunately the High Court dismissed the petition but the feeling persists. Abrar Ahmed whom Rajwardhan made approver turned against the cop and filed an affidavit in the court of judge YD Shinde blaming Rajwardhan for framing him in the case. Among other things he also wrote that Rajwardhan had given more than 25 lakh rupees to his father in law, Chowdhary and his wife and his brother in law. All this to make Abrar toe the police line that the bombs were the handiwork of the Muslims, essentially SIMI.
For some months Abrar did what Rajwardhan instructed him to do. But then he discovered that he was set up against the Muslims whom he had trapped in false accusation at the instance of the cop.