It is a sad day that police have nurtured informants into waging war against the nation!
Sajid Shaikh overheard three Kashmiri men in Secunderabad in January 2006. They were hatching a conspiracy against India. Hundreds of miles from there the police in Mumbai arrested the three Kashmiri. Sajid also implicated the Imam Maulana Yahyah Baksh of the Haj House in Mumbai for harbouring the three Kashmir. The imam was arrested on January 14, 2006. Sajid then had boasted, “I got the Kashmiri terrorists arrested.” The imam was acquitted in 2010 but the three were sentenced to seven years in jail. Some arms and explosives were recovered from them.
It is usual that the Kashmiri people speak in Kashmiri dialect and not in Urdu in intimate context. Why should the three speak a very grave matter of conspiracy in Urdu so loudly that Sajid the informer could over hear? That too on a platform rather than in an alcove or a closet!
On September 8, 2006 bombs went off at the graveyard mosque of Malegaon and at Mushawarat chowk. The police were absent from both the sites. This is not as eerie as Sajid knowing that the people who planted the bombs had come there to reconnoiter the scene on the pretext that they were searching suitable girls for marriage! If this much is the trailer that has come out then this police informant must have the whole film for the court to hear. He has claimed to know the inside story of the blasts! He claims that he joined the ATS on September 8, 2006 and since then he worked for them. Similarly he had joined not just the ATS, the Crime Branch of Mumbai and even the Intelligence Bureau to report what he was snooping. He had joined them on January 6, 20006 for the Haj House melodrama. He must have been a cloak and dagger type of police spy. Only a detective thriller or a bollywood thriller is the refuge of such!
As he hails from Azad nager area of Malegaon, it is worth to know that his environs make him a suspect. The area abounds in antisocial elements including informers, gamblers, absconders, and extortionists. Though this does not mean that all the people there are like this. On May 15, 2006 the police reportedly broke open a shop under the very nose of the police station there at 11 in the night. They seized arms and ammunitions and explosives. They held a press conference after an hour and half. The present MLA Mufti Ismail was called several miles away from the scene of seizure of arms to witness the haul. No one was called to bear witness and verify what the police took from the shop at the time of breaking open the shutters.
Thereafter Sajid was involved in extortion and cases were registered against him including that of assault. After that he disappeared in the murky scene.
Suddenly Sasjid came out of his hibernation on January 21. 2011. This time he himself planted bombs at a garage in Malad and got three brothers arrested. But a man saw him planting the bombs so the police arrested him. Mehmood and his wife Irfana purchased a house from Rashid. The earlier owners were the three brothers of Rashid who jointly owned it. This is how the additional commissioner of police Ramrao Pawar in charge of the northern region put it: “At Irfana’s home they (Irfana and Sajid, etc,) hatched a plan to implicate Rashid’s three brothers so that they (the three brothers) would end up behind bars and they (Irfana and her husband Mehmood) would get the property.” A plot within a plot, the eighteenth century dramatists would fade out of memory if you unravel this taking place in Malad. All these personae are from Malegaon and performed their intrigues in Mumbai. But this was not the most melodramatic part. The police had slapped Sajid with the charge of “waging war against the nation.” This intrigue comedy had had to end with a whimper, a bathos, when the Hindustan Times reporter would give a running commentary on it: “But a tea vendor, who saw them (Sajid and company) place the bags, informed Salim, Hanif and Hafiz(the three brothers), and they assumed that their brother(Rashid) had performed black magic and disposed off the bags in a creek behind Inorbit Mall.” The drama of the absurd does not have an ending. For the police reappear. They told the next day that Sajid Shaikh was not slammed with the heinous act of “waging war against the nation”. That would have made it a problem play, if not for the audience, at least for the cops in the gallery.
One more sop fed to the media, it is not any news to the wary how Sajid was extorting money as is seen in what inspector Deepak Phatangare says: "Sajid would warn his targets that he could implicate them in cases filed with the CBI or the ATS. The residents were too scared to protest. Finally, in 2007, one of his targets lodged a complaint with the local police claiming that Sajid had demanded Rs 1 lakh from him. The police arrested Sajid, but he was later released on bail,"
Every day the police are revealing a little about Sajid. What is the police strategy behind the trickle release to the mainstream newspaper? Do they take the public for granted? What else is it than an ipso facto justification of what the informer has been doing and saving him departmentally? Even the director general of police of Maharashtra said that he was unaware of the slapping of “waging war against the nation” charge! Good example of the right hand not knowing what the left was doing! Good way of conducting investigation in serious crimes like terrorism!
Monday, January 31, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
The old man and the terrorists
An old man can be dangerous, as he fears nothing. – GB Shaw, Heartbreak House
In a conversation among the conspirators of Abhinav Bharat Dr RP Singh tells Major Ramesh Upadhay, Lt Col Shrikant Prohit and others he had a call from Tehelka and he thundered at the caller “You communist witch. I will parade you naked.” Later Purohit told them that they needed “negotiating ability” in establishing the Hindu Rashtra. To negotiate needs communication ability as such. The doctor lacked the ability, as did Shailash Raiker, in charge of the Bhonsle Military School in Nasik near Malegaon. Raiker remarked that the bomb explosion at Bhiku chowk could not have been the handiwork of a motley group like Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, and others. He overlooked the fact that India is not a banana republic and our military people are not ragtag junta trying to seize power by abrogating the constitution. He even told his reporter he would not like the reporter to take his photo nor to have any mention of his name in any report. But the reporter could write what he liked, he added.
Yes they sorely missed negotiating ability.
What they missed, an old Bengali man had in abundance. He violently reconverted the Christian tribals of the Dangs. He even did not bother about the restraint that former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee and his deputy LK Advani were exerting on him. The Government of Narendra Modi even withheld permission to build a hospital. But he had successfully communicated with the tribals. They bonded well with him even when there was a well-organized hunt for him. This would remind you of Graham Greene’s novel The Power and the Glory. Like the priest of the novel he let the tribals sacrifice animals and drink liquor. More important was preventing their conversion to Christianity or Islam. It was this that set him apart from RSS and other Hindutva groups. He would not play any politics over it, as would Indresh Kumar. Nor would he have any sophistry, as the RSS would indulge in an attempt to prevaricate.
He confessed that on the next day of bomb blast in Malegaon on September 29, 2008 he had picked up two persons, Ramji Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange in his car. A rickshaw driver in Pune had also picked up two passengers on their arrival in Pune from Malegaon after sunset of the day the first terrorist attack on September 8, 2006. These two were talking about how what was scheduled to happen at late night had actually prematurely happened at 130 pm on Friday September 8, 2006. They were obviously talking of Malegaon as they had alighted from a bus coming from that town. The rickshaw driver was shown on a popular TV channel in the night. The police never bothered about this footage. It assumes importance because reports of Nanded 2006 blasts show that Mithun Chakerwarty (Lt Col Shrikant Purohit?) had trained the terrorists of Abhinav Bharat and while parting at the railway station in Pune he handed them the bombs. Were the two passengers coming from Malegaon Sandeep Dange, Sunil Joshi or Ramji? The Pune angle like the Dangs angle was not explored by the investigation agencies. Two senior professors of Wadia college and Rakesh Dhawde were also from there. The place Akansa resort is also located there. To point out these to the investigating agencies is like showing candle to the sun. Aseemanand’s confession in the wake of his encounter with Kaleem in Hyderabad jail has made him expansive. Will he also throw light on these? If he does his communication will bear the hallmark of his integrity. If he diverges into vindication of retributive terrorism it would mean resurgence of his ideological association with RSS.
Another such related matter is that there are people in the country with the same mindset. They want to laugh away the whole matter by comparing the investigation agencies vis-à-vis Aseemanand with Stalin’s smoking pipe. The Russian dictator had lost his pipe and the KGB chief Beria arrested about a dozen suspects of which half died during investigation and the remaining confessed to the crime of stealing the pipe. Of course, Stalin later found it in the papers under his table! The two are not comparable; investigation agencies arresting and having Aseemanand confess the truth and Stalin’s episode. But it reveals the patent RSS habit of berating what is unwanted and undesirable to it.
Those who have died during interrogation like Khwaja Yunus in Ghatkoper case have their ghosts come to haunt us. This may have disturbing effect on those who tortured him and may be some would follow suit of Aseemanand. Or, the accused wrongfully arrested will learn the law of the land and fight back like Shahid Azmi or Dr Farogu Makhdumi. The brilliant fight of the former saved Fahim Ansari from ATS framing him for 26/11 and the latter’s defence in the closing days of the last year has exposed the inanity of the confession sans any corroborative evidence in the Malegaon 2006 case.
Coming to the inner core of communication ability or lack of it in 2006 case there is the incommunicado of SP Rajwardhan under whom the first investigation was done. When the reporters of Asia Express (January 22, 2011) asked him to react to allegation that he is accused by the Muslims youths to be involved in their frame up he refused to speak. But he said that he would tell the CBI.
First the CBI told the Supreme Court that it did not find anything in 2006 case. Later it simply passed on the local police’s and ATS”s chargesheet as if it had thoroughly investigated the matter and came to the same conclusion. This was the greatest blunder the CBI committed.
Now it is in the town again. It has learnt from its mistake and is doing what I wrote some years back, throwing the net wider to catch the culprits behind the Graveyard mosque and Mushawarat chowk attacks. It is striving hard to have three disappeared persons including Arsalan surrender to the police. Now that the whole world press has its focus on Malegaon, the agency thinks, they need not fear torture. On January 20 and 21 2011 the officer gave their cell phone numbers to the people with whom they interacted in a wider range of investigation. This is a commendable work of the CBI officers as easy access is open to all: call to MV Lad 9870285917, Iqbal 9870967107 and Kumar9773201515.
This flies in the face of the mobile that Abrar alleges Rajwardhan had given him and recorded a doctored conversation of one of the alleged planters of the bomb, Zahid. Abrar claims that Rajwardhan had the conversation not only recorded but made Abrar and Lt Col Purohit hear the recording. It was then that Purohit remarked that Abrar was now a witness.
Verbal communication communicates more than words. Rajwardhan had at first told Abrar that he had some inkling that the 2006 blasts was caused by Muslims as well as Hindus. But when Abrar told him that he had overheard people in the Galaxy hospital saying that Dr Rajender Amin, Dr Bipin Parekh and Someshwar Shankar etc were behind the blasts, Rajwardhan was startled. Does this mean that what Abrar had overheard gave away the secret? Incidentally, Parekh’s mobile number was found in Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur’s phone. How come this happened! On his arrest Purohit admitted that Abhinav Bharat had used local Students Islamic Movement of India activists in 2006.
Such is the nature of communication of terror. It would remain a muddle until CBI resolves it.
Until then suffice it to say that truth does appear in what the guilty says and how does he say. Much depends on the psychology of the person. The district chief of RSS in Shajapur Sandeep Dange had great expertise in coordination of the bomb blasts of 2006 – 2008. He was short tempered as well. This closed lipped man was quite secretive albeit snappish by nature. He is a fugitive from law and quite elusive, the least communicative. On the other hand Indresh Kumar so far left out is too assertive and aggressive. RP Singh also left from arrest and interrogation is the most abrasive, abusive and well qualified, an endocrinologist with awful endocrines who could dare and be prepared to burn Vice President Hamid Ansari. What chance for the humble weavers, children and beggars of Malegaon graveyard! Against his hubris is the Swami of humble origin but educated whose heart not just melted with pity for Kaleem but who also had clairvoyance. “I understood that love between two human beings is more powerful than the hatred between two communities.”
When will the people and their groups acquire this clairvoyance?
In a conversation among the conspirators of Abhinav Bharat Dr RP Singh tells Major Ramesh Upadhay, Lt Col Shrikant Prohit and others he had a call from Tehelka and he thundered at the caller “You communist witch. I will parade you naked.” Later Purohit told them that they needed “negotiating ability” in establishing the Hindu Rashtra. To negotiate needs communication ability as such. The doctor lacked the ability, as did Shailash Raiker, in charge of the Bhonsle Military School in Nasik near Malegaon. Raiker remarked that the bomb explosion at Bhiku chowk could not have been the handiwork of a motley group like Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, and others. He overlooked the fact that India is not a banana republic and our military people are not ragtag junta trying to seize power by abrogating the constitution. He even told his reporter he would not like the reporter to take his photo nor to have any mention of his name in any report. But the reporter could write what he liked, he added.
Yes they sorely missed negotiating ability.
What they missed, an old Bengali man had in abundance. He violently reconverted the Christian tribals of the Dangs. He even did not bother about the restraint that former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee and his deputy LK Advani were exerting on him. The Government of Narendra Modi even withheld permission to build a hospital. But he had successfully communicated with the tribals. They bonded well with him even when there was a well-organized hunt for him. This would remind you of Graham Greene’s novel The Power and the Glory. Like the priest of the novel he let the tribals sacrifice animals and drink liquor. More important was preventing their conversion to Christianity or Islam. It was this that set him apart from RSS and other Hindutva groups. He would not play any politics over it, as would Indresh Kumar. Nor would he have any sophistry, as the RSS would indulge in an attempt to prevaricate.
He confessed that on the next day of bomb blast in Malegaon on September 29, 2008 he had picked up two persons, Ramji Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange in his car. A rickshaw driver in Pune had also picked up two passengers on their arrival in Pune from Malegaon after sunset of the day the first terrorist attack on September 8, 2006. These two were talking about how what was scheduled to happen at late night had actually prematurely happened at 130 pm on Friday September 8, 2006. They were obviously talking of Malegaon as they had alighted from a bus coming from that town. The rickshaw driver was shown on a popular TV channel in the night. The police never bothered about this footage. It assumes importance because reports of Nanded 2006 blasts show that Mithun Chakerwarty (Lt Col Shrikant Purohit?) had trained the terrorists of Abhinav Bharat and while parting at the railway station in Pune he handed them the bombs. Were the two passengers coming from Malegaon Sandeep Dange, Sunil Joshi or Ramji? The Pune angle like the Dangs angle was not explored by the investigation agencies. Two senior professors of Wadia college and Rakesh Dhawde were also from there. The place Akansa resort is also located there. To point out these to the investigating agencies is like showing candle to the sun. Aseemanand’s confession in the wake of his encounter with Kaleem in Hyderabad jail has made him expansive. Will he also throw light on these? If he does his communication will bear the hallmark of his integrity. If he diverges into vindication of retributive terrorism it would mean resurgence of his ideological association with RSS.
Another such related matter is that there are people in the country with the same mindset. They want to laugh away the whole matter by comparing the investigation agencies vis-à-vis Aseemanand with Stalin’s smoking pipe. The Russian dictator had lost his pipe and the KGB chief Beria arrested about a dozen suspects of which half died during investigation and the remaining confessed to the crime of stealing the pipe. Of course, Stalin later found it in the papers under his table! The two are not comparable; investigation agencies arresting and having Aseemanand confess the truth and Stalin’s episode. But it reveals the patent RSS habit of berating what is unwanted and undesirable to it.
Those who have died during interrogation like Khwaja Yunus in Ghatkoper case have their ghosts come to haunt us. This may have disturbing effect on those who tortured him and may be some would follow suit of Aseemanand. Or, the accused wrongfully arrested will learn the law of the land and fight back like Shahid Azmi or Dr Farogu Makhdumi. The brilliant fight of the former saved Fahim Ansari from ATS framing him for 26/11 and the latter’s defence in the closing days of the last year has exposed the inanity of the confession sans any corroborative evidence in the Malegaon 2006 case.
Coming to the inner core of communication ability or lack of it in 2006 case there is the incommunicado of SP Rajwardhan under whom the first investigation was done. When the reporters of Asia Express (January 22, 2011) asked him to react to allegation that he is accused by the Muslims youths to be involved in their frame up he refused to speak. But he said that he would tell the CBI.
First the CBI told the Supreme Court that it did not find anything in 2006 case. Later it simply passed on the local police’s and ATS”s chargesheet as if it had thoroughly investigated the matter and came to the same conclusion. This was the greatest blunder the CBI committed.
Now it is in the town again. It has learnt from its mistake and is doing what I wrote some years back, throwing the net wider to catch the culprits behind the Graveyard mosque and Mushawarat chowk attacks. It is striving hard to have three disappeared persons including Arsalan surrender to the police. Now that the whole world press has its focus on Malegaon, the agency thinks, they need not fear torture. On January 20 and 21 2011 the officer gave their cell phone numbers to the people with whom they interacted in a wider range of investigation. This is a commendable work of the CBI officers as easy access is open to all: call to MV Lad 9870285917, Iqbal 9870967107 and Kumar9773201515.
This flies in the face of the mobile that Abrar alleges Rajwardhan had given him and recorded a doctored conversation of one of the alleged planters of the bomb, Zahid. Abrar claims that Rajwardhan had the conversation not only recorded but made Abrar and Lt Col Purohit hear the recording. It was then that Purohit remarked that Abrar was now a witness.
Verbal communication communicates more than words. Rajwardhan had at first told Abrar that he had some inkling that the 2006 blasts was caused by Muslims as well as Hindus. But when Abrar told him that he had overheard people in the Galaxy hospital saying that Dr Rajender Amin, Dr Bipin Parekh and Someshwar Shankar etc were behind the blasts, Rajwardhan was startled. Does this mean that what Abrar had overheard gave away the secret? Incidentally, Parekh’s mobile number was found in Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur’s phone. How come this happened! On his arrest Purohit admitted that Abhinav Bharat had used local Students Islamic Movement of India activists in 2006.
Such is the nature of communication of terror. It would remain a muddle until CBI resolves it.
Until then suffice it to say that truth does appear in what the guilty says and how does he say. Much depends on the psychology of the person. The district chief of RSS in Shajapur Sandeep Dange had great expertise in coordination of the bomb blasts of 2006 – 2008. He was short tempered as well. This closed lipped man was quite secretive albeit snappish by nature. He is a fugitive from law and quite elusive, the least communicative. On the other hand Indresh Kumar so far left out is too assertive and aggressive. RP Singh also left from arrest and interrogation is the most abrasive, abusive and well qualified, an endocrinologist with awful endocrines who could dare and be prepared to burn Vice President Hamid Ansari. What chance for the humble weavers, children and beggars of Malegaon graveyard! Against his hubris is the Swami of humble origin but educated whose heart not just melted with pity for Kaleem but who also had clairvoyance. “I understood that love between two human beings is more powerful than the hatred between two communities.”
When will the people and their groups acquire this clairvoyance?
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
The Augean stables of RSS
More recent disclosures have made it clear that the enemy within the country is beyond doubt of local origin. Rashtrya Swayamsevak Sangh is not voluntary force for the defence of India. The very opposite is true. It is hell bent on destroying India in the name of a narrow ideology of hatred for and genocidal instinct against the minorities, particularly Muslims.
These revelations leave no room for doubt that the RSS has successfully adapted the ideology of fighting terror to the detriment of the Muslims. Until the new facts emerging from the lap tops of Dyanand Pandey and the voluntary confession of Swami Aseemanand the tactic of igniting communal riots had been in vogue, thanks to RSS and demagogues like Advani.. Then it transmogrified into terrorism. What else can you make of the conversation recorded by Pandey of the saffron brigade of Abhinav Bharat who went on record saying that they were involved in Mecca mosque blast in Hyderabad in 2007. the lap top of Pandey was seized after his a rres t in November 2008. For two years this was ignored as a lead. The plethora of bias against the Muslims is the cause of communal riots. So the bomb blasts in the name of terrorism is ascribed to Muslims to prejudice the populace against them. The end justifies the means, different means but one end. That glaring negligence on the part of investigating agencies and the police prompted Chrisopher Jaffrelot to say “as if in the rule of law prevailing in India, Muslims had to be guilty of violence, whereas Hindus could get away with it. This is the perfect recipe for communal disaster”. If Muslims feel outraged by these how long will it take for the extremists among the Hindus not to let the Muslims collect mercy for their plight? Competitive communalism will not disappear even after what Aseemanand said, “I understood that love between two human beings is more powerful than the hatred between two communities.” Can this tragic realization or agnorisis wash the Augean stables of sangh parivar?
There is a context bound exposure that makes the case against RSS more cogent than was the matter a week ago. Context bound exposure means that Swami Aseemanand had written separate letters to the presidents of India and Pakistan explaining why he had chosen to confess voluntarily. But the offices of the presidents of India and Pakistan have not so far received the letters. He had entrusted the letters to his brother. It boils down to the fact that he wanted to make it doubly sure that the role of the RSS must be exposed by all means.
Another matter that calls for attention is that the swami knew that Indresh Kumar, the doughty RSS leader, was just a truly Machiavellian. He had successfully removed the link between him and the perpetrators who executed his design to liquidate Sunil Joshi. Joshi was that link and with his death there is no direct or indirect proof against Indresh Kumar. But it is not as easy as said. The investigation agencies have an uphill task to find out more about Kumar. His case is like that of the other right wing politician, Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi. His meeting with the bureaucracy and police on the night of February 27 2002 is a top-guarded secret of India. There is so much of infiltration of RSS into the government organs that it would require Herculean efforts like washing the Augean stables to unearth the truth!
That is why the veteran Congress leader Digvijay Singh remarked " Those persons arrested by the MP Police in the case are only foot- soldiers. The orders for eliminating Joshi came from the top in the RSS. The MP Police will never probe that aspect." LtCol Shrikant Prasad Purohit stumbled upon Indresh Kumar’s role when he was in charge of the military intelligence. He had alerted Swami Aseemanand to be wary of Kumar and have him under scanner. If Indresh Kumar could provide two Muslim boys to bomb Ajmer shrine he could be capable of anything. Given close association of Mossad and RSS it should not startle us tomorrow if Kumar is also linked to Ajmal Kasab phenomenon materializing on the floor of the VT station. So a thorough probe is the crying need of the hour, conspiracy theories or no conspiracy theories. It was Central Bureau of Investigation chief Ashwin Kumar who had said that the evidence in the case of Mecca masjid was very thin! He even categorically denied that the CBI had ever interrogated any RSS leader. He remarked so when Devendra Gupta the RSS paracharak holding position of responsibility was arrested. The same prejudice gathering over the decades is seen in Civil liberty people giving Devendra Gupta’s RSS background but Anti Terrorism Squad disregarding it for a long time.
The accumulations of arms over more than eight decades of RSS was on display in Dewas on Sunday January 16 2010. The cadres included school children, retired and serving employees of the government, public prosecutors, government pleaders as well as editors. They were marching seven kilometers stretch of the road in the town of the most dangerous terrorist of the saffron brigade, Sunil Joshi. His fellow RSS workers murdered him. The speakers gave ominous hints that the communalism threat is palpable and real and would come to the fore to defend. The pointed references to the present hunt for fugitives from law Ramji Kalsangra, Sandeep Dange and others and central government’s tacit approval to let the investigation agencies pursue the matter undeterred by BJP and other groups of Hindutvawadi calling it a witch-hunt. The volunteers brandished swords and shouted war like slogans of Jai Sriram, Jai Shivaji Jai Bhavani.
Among the speakers was Suresh Joshi who asked rhetorically: “Is it right to malign an entire community for some small (“chhoti moti”) incidents?” “Will anybody be safe if Hindus take to terrorism?” More frightening was the Nazi like behaviour of the marchers. They looked straight ahead of them, did not talk with each other.
Hundreds of miles away from Dewas there were two meetings on Friday January 14, 2010. Malegaon is the town, which Sunil Joshi targeted for bomb attacks on September 8, 2006. More than thirty-five people lost their life and several hundred were injured. The police called twenty suspected Hindus for questioning but strangely did not follow it up. They began arresting Muslim youths who were not terrorists at all. They have been languishing in prison for more than four years. The confession of Swami Aseemanand has made it abundantly clear that they are innocent. The founder of Nirdharmiya Rajkiya Vichar Sanghatan (Organization of people of non religious Political thought) and former MLA Nihal Ahmed threatened to go on court-arrest movement or jail bharo andolan if the innocents are not given bail soon. Thirty thousand people had gathered to hear him though he had not sought permission to hold such a meeting. Such a situation is fraught with danger of spinning out of control. In another part of the town Lok Sangharsh Samiti held a meeting where Colonel Sudher Sawant pointedly asked, not all Brahmins are terrorists but why all recently arrested saffron terrorists are Brahmins.
These two places Dewas and Malegaon are diametrically opposed in every sense but quintessentially in communal groupings. What is worrying is the raising of the ugly head of the great divide.
These revelations leave no room for doubt that the RSS has successfully adapted the ideology of fighting terror to the detriment of the Muslims. Until the new facts emerging from the lap tops of Dyanand Pandey and the voluntary confession of Swami Aseemanand the tactic of igniting communal riots had been in vogue, thanks to RSS and demagogues like Advani.. Then it transmogrified into terrorism. What else can you make of the conversation recorded by Pandey of the saffron brigade of Abhinav Bharat who went on record saying that they were involved in Mecca mosque blast in Hyderabad in 2007. the lap top of Pandey was seized after his a rres t in November 2008. For two years this was ignored as a lead. The plethora of bias against the Muslims is the cause of communal riots. So the bomb blasts in the name of terrorism is ascribed to Muslims to prejudice the populace against them. The end justifies the means, different means but one end. That glaring negligence on the part of investigating agencies and the police prompted Chrisopher Jaffrelot to say “as if in the rule of law prevailing in India, Muslims had to be guilty of violence, whereas Hindus could get away with it. This is the perfect recipe for communal disaster”. If Muslims feel outraged by these how long will it take for the extremists among the Hindus not to let the Muslims collect mercy for their plight? Competitive communalism will not disappear even after what Aseemanand said, “I understood that love between two human beings is more powerful than the hatred between two communities.” Can this tragic realization or agnorisis wash the Augean stables of sangh parivar?
There is a context bound exposure that makes the case against RSS more cogent than was the matter a week ago. Context bound exposure means that Swami Aseemanand had written separate letters to the presidents of India and Pakistan explaining why he had chosen to confess voluntarily. But the offices of the presidents of India and Pakistan have not so far received the letters. He had entrusted the letters to his brother. It boils down to the fact that he wanted to make it doubly sure that the role of the RSS must be exposed by all means.
Another matter that calls for attention is that the swami knew that Indresh Kumar, the doughty RSS leader, was just a truly Machiavellian. He had successfully removed the link between him and the perpetrators who executed his design to liquidate Sunil Joshi. Joshi was that link and with his death there is no direct or indirect proof against Indresh Kumar. But it is not as easy as said. The investigation agencies have an uphill task to find out more about Kumar. His case is like that of the other right wing politician, Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi. His meeting with the bureaucracy and police on the night of February 27 2002 is a top-guarded secret of India. There is so much of infiltration of RSS into the government organs that it would require Herculean efforts like washing the Augean stables to unearth the truth!
That is why the veteran Congress leader Digvijay Singh remarked " Those persons arrested by the MP Police in the case are only foot- soldiers. The orders for eliminating Joshi came from the top in the RSS. The MP Police will never probe that aspect." LtCol Shrikant Prasad Purohit stumbled upon Indresh Kumar’s role when he was in charge of the military intelligence. He had alerted Swami Aseemanand to be wary of Kumar and have him under scanner. If Indresh Kumar could provide two Muslim boys to bomb Ajmer shrine he could be capable of anything. Given close association of Mossad and RSS it should not startle us tomorrow if Kumar is also linked to Ajmal Kasab phenomenon materializing on the floor of the VT station. So a thorough probe is the crying need of the hour, conspiracy theories or no conspiracy theories. It was Central Bureau of Investigation chief Ashwin Kumar who had said that the evidence in the case of Mecca masjid was very thin! He even categorically denied that the CBI had ever interrogated any RSS leader. He remarked so when Devendra Gupta the RSS paracharak holding position of responsibility was arrested. The same prejudice gathering over the decades is seen in Civil liberty people giving Devendra Gupta’s RSS background but Anti Terrorism Squad disregarding it for a long time.
The accumulations of arms over more than eight decades of RSS was on display in Dewas on Sunday January 16 2010. The cadres included school children, retired and serving employees of the government, public prosecutors, government pleaders as well as editors. They were marching seven kilometers stretch of the road in the town of the most dangerous terrorist of the saffron brigade, Sunil Joshi. His fellow RSS workers murdered him. The speakers gave ominous hints that the communalism threat is palpable and real and would come to the fore to defend. The pointed references to the present hunt for fugitives from law Ramji Kalsangra, Sandeep Dange and others and central government’s tacit approval to let the investigation agencies pursue the matter undeterred by BJP and other groups of Hindutvawadi calling it a witch-hunt. The volunteers brandished swords and shouted war like slogans of Jai Sriram, Jai Shivaji Jai Bhavani.
Among the speakers was Suresh Joshi who asked rhetorically: “Is it right to malign an entire community for some small (“chhoti moti”) incidents?” “Will anybody be safe if Hindus take to terrorism?” More frightening was the Nazi like behaviour of the marchers. They looked straight ahead of them, did not talk with each other.
Hundreds of miles away from Dewas there were two meetings on Friday January 14, 2010. Malegaon is the town, which Sunil Joshi targeted for bomb attacks on September 8, 2006. More than thirty-five people lost their life and several hundred were injured. The police called twenty suspected Hindus for questioning but strangely did not follow it up. They began arresting Muslim youths who were not terrorists at all. They have been languishing in prison for more than four years. The confession of Swami Aseemanand has made it abundantly clear that they are innocent. The founder of Nirdharmiya Rajkiya Vichar Sanghatan (Organization of people of non religious Political thought) and former MLA Nihal Ahmed threatened to go on court-arrest movement or jail bharo andolan if the innocents are not given bail soon. Thirty thousand people had gathered to hear him though he had not sought permission to hold such a meeting. Such a situation is fraught with danger of spinning out of control. In another part of the town Lok Sangharsh Samiti held a meeting where Colonel Sudher Sawant pointedly asked, not all Brahmins are terrorists but why all recently arrested saffron terrorists are Brahmins.
These two places Dewas and Malegaon are diametrically opposed in every sense but quintessentially in communal groupings. What is worrying is the raising of the ugly head of the great divide.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Malegaon blasts of 2006 in retrospect
The sitting MLA of Malegaon Mufti Ismail said that hamara ek naujawan tha jo ATS ka mukhbir bun kar police ka dalal ban kar lakhun rupya le kar us ne hamare Muslim nawjawanon ke namon ki nishan dhahi ki aur un ko griftar karwaya. Jab lakhon rupya le kar ghar ata tha tub ghar walon ko nazar nahin aya tha ke yeh kutch kam nahn kar ta. Aaj lakho rupya leker ghar kahan se aaraha hai (There was one of our youth who was informer of the ATS and worked as an agent of the police. He took lakhs of rupees home and identified names of Muslim youths and got them arrested. When he was bringing lakhs of rupees home then why did not the folk at home see where he was bringing the money from. That he was not doing any work and yet he was bringing home lakhs of rupees!) (Discipline. October 3, 2010)
This piece of information in the local Urdu daily of Malegaon town needs vetting. Though a politician makes the allegation he is also a mufti leading prayer at the central mosque of the town and also at the Id gah. It is like the certain knowledge of an insider. It is an insider’s job. Could Mufti Ismail have grapevines within the police force? In this respect he parallels the veteran MLA Nihal Ahmed who had informed the home minister of the terrorist attacks even before they took place. Between them they owe to their people explanation of how far were both (mufti and former MLA) in the know of the matter. Why did they not prevent the disaster?
There are enough people in Malegaon who would like to quiz not just these two leaders but also the police and the government how come the innocents are still languishing in jail. Those arrested were all Muslims. So far nothing has been proved against them.
One explanation of all this is that if not the government itself, the police have taken Muslims for granted. They believe Muslims to be too backward to do anything. The investigations in the bomb explosions of September 8, 2006 have strangely ended up in the desert of unreason. The Police under the then SP of Malegaon Rajwardhan made the world know that the Muslims themselves conspired to kill themselves to create tension in the country. But this illogicality is throwing up strange facts that have successfully resisted all attempts to cover them.
1. Among the dead bodies was one of a man with fake beard. 2. The police sketches of the two suspects who bought new bicycles do not match with the bearded Muslims who are languishing in jail. The bombs were fitted into the cycles. 3. Accused number one Noorulhoda was already under close watch of the police. 4 Another accused Shabbir Masiullah was in police custody since many days before the explosions. 5. At first the police called twenty Hindus for interrogation, and then left the trail there. 6. The imam of Phoosangvi village of Yawatmal, Zahid, performed the Friday prayer there. How could he be planting bomb at the same time in Malegaon more than five hundred miles away. 7. Some of the accused like Abrar Ahmed about whom the Mufti speaks eloquently were police informers. Abrar claims that he was introduced to Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thaku, Lt Col Purohit, Dayanand Pandey and others involved in 2008 blasts. Why should the police chief of Malegaon let Abrar travel to Indore and other places at the cost of the Anti Terrorist Squad and meet them and be photographed and video made of his visit? Why have the agencies not taken his affidavit submitted to special court judge YD Shinde into consideration so far? 8. Why was Rajwardhan taken aback when Abrar told him that he had heard Hindus saying that Dr Rajendra Amin, Dr Bipin Parekh, Someshwar Shanker and others caused the blasts? 9. Why did the police make doctored tape of conversation among the accused? 10. What had Purohit to do with the fake recording and make Abrar hear it? 11. The source of money paid to Abrar’s father in law and wife and also his brother in law is the Gordon’s knot. 12. There are discrepancies in the application form of Abrar for getting a phone connection. He claims that it was the police who supplied it. He also heard people talking in strange languages. The identity of the speakers has never been bothered about in investigation. 13.The man who called local Marathi paper Dinkar and threatened more such attacks in future has never come within the radar of the police and investigative agencies. 14. The police have also failed to trace the caller to the chief of Jamiatul Ulemae Hind in connection with the explosions. 15. If Indresh Kumar had accepted crores of rupees from the ISI to cause the blasts, did this include Malegaon blasts of 2006? 16. Purohit has asserted that he had given the Israelis two examples of Abhinav Bharat’s action of causing disruption within the country to exterminate the Muslims. Were the terrorist attacks of 2006 one of them? He has confessed that he had given RDX for the 2007 Samjhauta express attack. He has also remarked that in the past Abhinav Bharat has used Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) activists to cause blasts. How far is it true? Why have the police not probed this so far? 17. The two incidents of bomb blasts of Nanded need more probing. In the case of April 2006 several Bajrang Dal extremists died when they were assembling bombs at the house of a retired engineer and RSS activist. The police covered it up saying that it was a fire accident caused by crackers. In the second incident of February 9, 2007 at Amol Bakery two were killed while assembling bombs. One of them was the chief of Shiv Sena, Pandurang Bhagwan Amritkanthwar, whose identity the police had tried to hide. They also tried to cover it up by saying that biscuit cartons had caught fire. Who was the police officer that gave them this kind of fake explanation for police recording? Some of those involved in Nanded blasts had received training in bomb making from Mithun Chkerborty who is now believed to be no other than Purohit. Were those who succeeded in causing bomb explosions in Malegaon in 2006 and 2008 a part of the batch that was trained in bomb making by Purohit, etc.? 18. 2006 was crucial. On February 11 to 13 there was a meeting in Dangs, Gujarat attended by Swami Asimanand and his followers. A road directly links Dangs and Malegaon. Then two follow up meetings were held at the house of Ramji Kalsangra in Indore in March and April 2006. In the light of these stepped up activities it is but natural the first terrorist attack in Malegaon took place on September 2006. It falls in line of the logical sequence of events.(Probe links Swami to Samjhauta bast. Hindustan Times November 21, 2010.) 19. If Swami Asimanand is the mastermind of 2008 blast, he was also responsible for 2006 blast in Malegaon. The Secret meeting at Gujarat Samaj Guest House, Jaipur in 2005 was attended by Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur, Asimanand, Indresh Kumar, etc. It was an important meeting because Indresh Kumar was there and mass killing of Muslim in retaliation was his brainchild. More than thirty Muslims lost their lives and many more lost their limbs in the 2006 blasts. (Ajmer blast accused spent night at BJP MP house. Express New Service November 18, 2010.) Etc.
The 2006 attacks are similar to the attack in 2008. More casualties were in the minds of the terrorists. There was no question of schism within the right wing Hindu extremists. Indresh Kumar wanted more casualties and so that happened. Sadhvi Pragyasingh wondering at low casualty in 2008 blast reveals the common agenda of the sangh parivar which of course includes Abhinav Bharat. Indresh Kumar of RSS as well as Parveen Togadia of VHP has important bearing on Malegaon blasts of 2006 and 2008. Togadia had donated money to Abhinav Bharat and Indresh Kumar had attended a meeting in which Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Purohit were present prior to Malegaon terrorist attacks of 2006.
As of now the entire investigation of Malegaon 2006 and prosecution in the court is based on the premise that the Muslims are prone to rioting and they used the bomb attacks of 2006 to cause a riot. This is the chink in the armor of the police and the prosecution. The Muslims became irate and attacked the police vehicle. The police opened fire at them at Azad nager police station as they did in front of Mecca Mosque of Hyerabad. Therefore the faulty assumption flies in the face of logic. It is important to note that the Muslims also rioted against the police in 2008 because the police tried to cover up the Bhiku chowk explosion as a cooking gas cylinder burst. Now the world knows how the police have become the laughing stock of the world.
And why should not the world laugh at it? The police and prosecution also believe that the bombs were planted on a height, on a wall, to cause fewer casualties among the fellow Muslims. This is simply absurd. The bombs were fitted in bicycles of which the upper parts remained attached to the pole while the lower parts blew away. The bombs could not have been any higher than a foot from the ground. Any way the bombs did kill more than 30 people and injured hundreds. Moreover Hindus and Muslims alike helped in carrying the dead and the injured to hospitals and donated blood. There was absolutely no communal riot. It is also the height of absurdity that the police have reasoned in their charge sheet that the Muslims exploded bombs to take revenge of the communal riots of 2001. Why should the Muslims in the town blow bombs to kill more Muslims five years later to take revenge of the 2001 riot in which more than a dozen Muslims were killed by the police?
This piece of information in the local Urdu daily of Malegaon town needs vetting. Though a politician makes the allegation he is also a mufti leading prayer at the central mosque of the town and also at the Id gah. It is like the certain knowledge of an insider. It is an insider’s job. Could Mufti Ismail have grapevines within the police force? In this respect he parallels the veteran MLA Nihal Ahmed who had informed the home minister of the terrorist attacks even before they took place. Between them they owe to their people explanation of how far were both (mufti and former MLA) in the know of the matter. Why did they not prevent the disaster?
There are enough people in Malegaon who would like to quiz not just these two leaders but also the police and the government how come the innocents are still languishing in jail. Those arrested were all Muslims. So far nothing has been proved against them.
One explanation of all this is that if not the government itself, the police have taken Muslims for granted. They believe Muslims to be too backward to do anything. The investigations in the bomb explosions of September 8, 2006 have strangely ended up in the desert of unreason. The Police under the then SP of Malegaon Rajwardhan made the world know that the Muslims themselves conspired to kill themselves to create tension in the country. But this illogicality is throwing up strange facts that have successfully resisted all attempts to cover them.
1. Among the dead bodies was one of a man with fake beard. 2. The police sketches of the two suspects who bought new bicycles do not match with the bearded Muslims who are languishing in jail. The bombs were fitted into the cycles. 3. Accused number one Noorulhoda was already under close watch of the police. 4 Another accused Shabbir Masiullah was in police custody since many days before the explosions. 5. At first the police called twenty Hindus for interrogation, and then left the trail there. 6. The imam of Phoosangvi village of Yawatmal, Zahid, performed the Friday prayer there. How could he be planting bomb at the same time in Malegaon more than five hundred miles away. 7. Some of the accused like Abrar Ahmed about whom the Mufti speaks eloquently were police informers. Abrar claims that he was introduced to Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thaku, Lt Col Purohit, Dayanand Pandey and others involved in 2008 blasts. Why should the police chief of Malegaon let Abrar travel to Indore and other places at the cost of the Anti Terrorist Squad and meet them and be photographed and video made of his visit? Why have the agencies not taken his affidavit submitted to special court judge YD Shinde into consideration so far? 8. Why was Rajwardhan taken aback when Abrar told him that he had heard Hindus saying that Dr Rajendra Amin, Dr Bipin Parekh, Someshwar Shanker and others caused the blasts? 9. Why did the police make doctored tape of conversation among the accused? 10. What had Purohit to do with the fake recording and make Abrar hear it? 11. The source of money paid to Abrar’s father in law and wife and also his brother in law is the Gordon’s knot. 12. There are discrepancies in the application form of Abrar for getting a phone connection. He claims that it was the police who supplied it. He also heard people talking in strange languages. The identity of the speakers has never been bothered about in investigation. 13.The man who called local Marathi paper Dinkar and threatened more such attacks in future has never come within the radar of the police and investigative agencies. 14. The police have also failed to trace the caller to the chief of Jamiatul Ulemae Hind in connection with the explosions. 15. If Indresh Kumar had accepted crores of rupees from the ISI to cause the blasts, did this include Malegaon blasts of 2006? 16. Purohit has asserted that he had given the Israelis two examples of Abhinav Bharat’s action of causing disruption within the country to exterminate the Muslims. Were the terrorist attacks of 2006 one of them? He has confessed that he had given RDX for the 2007 Samjhauta express attack. He has also remarked that in the past Abhinav Bharat has used Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) activists to cause blasts. How far is it true? Why have the police not probed this so far? 17. The two incidents of bomb blasts of Nanded need more probing. In the case of April 2006 several Bajrang Dal extremists died when they were assembling bombs at the house of a retired engineer and RSS activist. The police covered it up saying that it was a fire accident caused by crackers. In the second incident of February 9, 2007 at Amol Bakery two were killed while assembling bombs. One of them was the chief of Shiv Sena, Pandurang Bhagwan Amritkanthwar, whose identity the police had tried to hide. They also tried to cover it up by saying that biscuit cartons had caught fire. Who was the police officer that gave them this kind of fake explanation for police recording? Some of those involved in Nanded blasts had received training in bomb making from Mithun Chkerborty who is now believed to be no other than Purohit. Were those who succeeded in causing bomb explosions in Malegaon in 2006 and 2008 a part of the batch that was trained in bomb making by Purohit, etc.? 18. 2006 was crucial. On February 11 to 13 there was a meeting in Dangs, Gujarat attended by Swami Asimanand and his followers. A road directly links Dangs and Malegaon. Then two follow up meetings were held at the house of Ramji Kalsangra in Indore in March and April 2006. In the light of these stepped up activities it is but natural the first terrorist attack in Malegaon took place on September 2006. It falls in line of the logical sequence of events.(Probe links Swami to Samjhauta bast. Hindustan Times November 21, 2010.) 19. If Swami Asimanand is the mastermind of 2008 blast, he was also responsible for 2006 blast in Malegaon. The Secret meeting at Gujarat Samaj Guest House, Jaipur in 2005 was attended by Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur, Asimanand, Indresh Kumar, etc. It was an important meeting because Indresh Kumar was there and mass killing of Muslim in retaliation was his brainchild. More than thirty Muslims lost their lives and many more lost their limbs in the 2006 blasts. (Ajmer blast accused spent night at BJP MP house. Express New Service November 18, 2010.) Etc.
The 2006 attacks are similar to the attack in 2008. More casualties were in the minds of the terrorists. There was no question of schism within the right wing Hindu extremists. Indresh Kumar wanted more casualties and so that happened. Sadhvi Pragyasingh wondering at low casualty in 2008 blast reveals the common agenda of the sangh parivar which of course includes Abhinav Bharat. Indresh Kumar of RSS as well as Parveen Togadia of VHP has important bearing on Malegaon blasts of 2006 and 2008. Togadia had donated money to Abhinav Bharat and Indresh Kumar had attended a meeting in which Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Purohit were present prior to Malegaon terrorist attacks of 2006.
As of now the entire investigation of Malegaon 2006 and prosecution in the court is based on the premise that the Muslims are prone to rioting and they used the bomb attacks of 2006 to cause a riot. This is the chink in the armor of the police and the prosecution. The Muslims became irate and attacked the police vehicle. The police opened fire at them at Azad nager police station as they did in front of Mecca Mosque of Hyerabad. Therefore the faulty assumption flies in the face of logic. It is important to note that the Muslims also rioted against the police in 2008 because the police tried to cover up the Bhiku chowk explosion as a cooking gas cylinder burst. Now the world knows how the police have become the laughing stock of the world.
And why should not the world laugh at it? The police and prosecution also believe that the bombs were planted on a height, on a wall, to cause fewer casualties among the fellow Muslims. This is simply absurd. The bombs were fitted in bicycles of which the upper parts remained attached to the pole while the lower parts blew away. The bombs could not have been any higher than a foot from the ground. Any way the bombs did kill more than 30 people and injured hundreds. Moreover Hindus and Muslims alike helped in carrying the dead and the injured to hospitals and donated blood. There was absolutely no communal riot. It is also the height of absurdity that the police have reasoned in their charge sheet that the Muslims exploded bombs to take revenge of the communal riots of 2001. Why should the Muslims in the town blow bombs to kill more Muslims five years later to take revenge of the 2001 riot in which more than a dozen Muslims were killed by the police?
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