Rohini Salian, the Saga of Suffering

The bomb that exploded on September 29, 2008 in Malegaon coincided with that on the same day and time and in similar targeting, Muslims, in Modasa, Gujarat was explained away as the work of Lashkar-e-Toyba. In Malegaon the HM RR Patil spoke of firm hand in dealing with the incident but the people protested in large number. This time it was like similar explosions on Shabe Barat on September 8, 2006. They could not take it in any pacifist manner. In the 2006 case the Sangh meaning RSS had claimed responsibility in a letter that was sent to the Jamte Ulemae Hind. It also had warned further attack. Muslims it asserted must leave the land. But the accusing of first attack on Muslims persisted for some years until Swami Asimanand claimed that it also was the work of their men. By that he meant Sunil Josh module. His claim gravitated attention to the other terror attacks which were also ascribed to the right wing Hindutva group of Abhinav Bharat-- the 2007 Ajmer blast, the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast in Hyderabad and the 2007 Samjhauta Express attack. When it became clear that Lt Col Prasad Purohit had supplied RDX for Samjhauta attack, no other than the National Security Advisor MN Narayanan stalled the investigation of Haryana police because it was becoming a matter of shame for India. India dilly dallied in the matter and went on offensive in the case of 26/11. Manzoor Ali Memon, spokesperson for the Pakistan High Commission remarked: “Our job is to present evidence and prosecute the accused…we cannot push the judiciary…it is an independent institution and takes its own time.” [1]Notwithstanding this high claim India’s record is of sorts. Judiciary was subverted in full view of the media. Babu Bajrangi: “Narendrabhai got me out of jail…He kept on changing judges... He set it up so as to ensure my release, otherwise I shouldn’t have been out yet…The first judge was one Dholakiya… He said Babu Bajrangi should be hanged—not once but four-five times …Then came another who stopped just short of saying I should be hanged. Then there was a third one…By then four-five months had elapsed in jail; then Narendrabhai sent me a message—saying he posted a judge named Akshay Mehta…He (Mehta) never even looked at the file or anything at the file or anything… He just said [bail was] granted.”[2]The underlined clause implies that Modi established himself into the task of saving the guilty. DG Vanzara had arrested those who had killed Muslims in Naroda Patia. He detained them and hosted them special meal from staffs’ quarters and then released them. In another case of equal horror of mass killing under his watch, Modi ordered ten lakh rupees to be paid to the lawyer of Malika Sarabhai to torpedo the Narod Patia case from within. All this squarely places Modi in the line of hard core Hindutva extremists who are sworn to perpetrate mass casualties on Muslims. Those who are straight Hindus like RB Sreekumar, Rohini Salian are pucca Hindus. Then why Modi and Vanzra, Mehta, both Tushar and Akshay so hardened anti Muslims? Modi even cursed Ahsan Jaffri and instead of saving him and those who had sought refuge in his house he in full knowledge of their fatal circumstances of immediate extension let them go to their fiery death. That precisely is reason his never donning a traditional Muslim cap. For the crimes of hate committed by his omission and commission the last resort is not the SC but International Criminal Court. Modi made Akshay Mehta a member of the Nanavati Commission of inquiry. What truth can you expect from such? Removing Salian as PP is a step in the dark. She has stated that soon after Modi government assumed power in Delhi an NIA officer first phoned her and then called upon her at her office and told her that the higher-ups wanted her to go soft on the Malegaon 2008 case. She countered him saying that she would work for justice. The day of fixing the date of trial she was sitting in the MCOCA court she was witness to a Kafkaesque melodrama. An Additional General Solicitor of Maharashtra government came there and told the senior counsel who was to speak on her side, Mariar Puttam, would no more represent the government. Another Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh came there and asserted that he would replace Puttam. Then both nudged the senior counsel Mariar in full view of the court. They prodded him with their elbow and gestured him to leave showing the door. Mariar sought permission to leave. The judge observed that since Mariar was through the case for so many months the court would hear him. In the vaudeville the court heard and affidavits submitted. Then the end. On June 12, 2015 the same NIA officer came to her and told her that another PP would take over the work. She told him that she expected it and was happy to be relieved and asked him to settle the bill. She said now that she was free to appear in cases against NIA. Next step in the dark will come soon when Ajay Misar will be “shot down shortly” as conveyed in an anonymous letter to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis ten days ago, June 15, 2015. [3] Misar was helping Salian and was also the one who acted as public prosecutor at the session court in Nasik. Copies of the same letter were also received by the commissioners of Nasik and Mumbai and the special judge MCOCA court AL Pansare in Mumbai. Then came the parting shot of Salian: “I am a pucca Hindu. Hindu means what? You should be straight, not have bias against anyone — Hindus, anyone who commits an offence, is an offender.”[4] There is much broader context to Salian’s revelation. She says that within a month of Modi assuming office as PM the NIA officer said that the instruction to her go soft came from higher-ups. It couldn’t be any other than Prime Minister’s Office. Modi had given such an instruction in the late night meeting of February 27, 2002 which led to the genocide of Muslims in Gujarat. He also endorsed the murky terror operation that Swami Asimanand based in Gujarat’s Dangs area was handling. He came under cloud when Home Minister LK Advani asked Chief Minister Kehubhai Patel to check Asimanand’s activities. The Swami was also involved in terrorism became manifest later. “It was Jayanti bhai of Navsari who had arranged for our meeting [his meeting with Pragya Singh Thakur]. You [reporter] should not meet him. He was a trustee of the Dang temple. He became anti-Modi, went to the Keshubhai team. So we all have distanced ourselves from him.” “When my conversion stories made national news and Sonia Gandhi flew down to make speeches against me, there was a lot of discussion about me in the media. Then Advaniji was the home minister and asked Keshubhai to rein me in. Keshubhai started stopping our work and even arrested my people.” “Then, Keshubhai left and Narendrabhai came into power. Even before he became CM, Narendrabhai used to come to meet me and he told me, “I know that Keshubhai is troubling you. He will soon be out of power and I will become the CM. Phir aapka kaam hum karenge (Then, I will do your work.).””[5] The work that Modi promised to Asimanand he was maintaining it after becoming PM albeit with a gusto. Salian spoke of the higher ups telling her to go soft in the terror case of 2008 in Malegaon within a month of assuming power in Delhi. Like CM like PM. The threat to the life of Salian’s assistant Misar is of the same piece. TERRORISM. What caused so much agony to the victims, Christians in Dangs and Muslims in Malegaon and elsewhere was also the lot of the straight Hindu, Hemant Karkare. "I don't know why this case [2008 attack in Malegaon] has become so political. The pressure is tremendous and I am wondering how to extricate it from all the politics." [6] Till 7 in the evening of 26/11Karkare was with Salian. He was also in agony over how terrorism was politicized and caused tremendous suffering for which innocent Muslims were accused. In fact he said in an interview on September 17, 2008 that he had not found Muslim involvement in 2006 blasts. He had feared for his life when a couple of days before his assassination he was called by the army regarding his findings in 2008 blast. He feared for his life and had gone to the US embassy for asylum in case the right wing Hindutva made life difficult. He was stung by criticism against him and his family. Even the PM aspirant LK Advani wanted to change the investigators and raised the matter of the torture of Sadhvi Pragyasigh. The last evening of his was of acute suffering and therefore he mournfully asked Salian to read every page of his investigation report. It affected her in the same measure. Julio Ribeiro a former commissioner of police in Mumbai said that Salian was as a “prosecutor who can be equated to Karkare, albeit in a parallel arm of the judicial process. As Karkare was to probity in investigations, Rohini is to probity in prosecution… Shame on those who are attempting to interfere in the course of justice. They do not realise the damage they do to the rule of law, to which, incidentally, they pay lip service.” [7] Much of the apprehension which made Karkare grim faced also came to the PP he selected because both knew from experience and the reality on ground that naming the 2008 blasts as Hindutva terrorism was alarming. It could risk their life both as a public figure and also as a private individual. Just a day before 26/11 Karkare had received a death threat from a caller in Pune. Pune was also the place where Purohit had lived and had his stock of RDX stolen from the army and from where he as Mithun Chakervorty trained in bomb making those behind Nanded blasts, etc. The Hindutva groups are the most awesome in resources and power and would not bear anyone to go against them, Karkare or Salian. Rohini knew it and diagnosed it rightly for the ordinary people when she observed and paid with her job: ““You can’t be selective when it comes to terrorism on the lines of religion and doing so would be like providing the perpetrators with the voices.” [8] But unfortunately the state and the centre under Congress rule were prejudiced against Muslims much like the BJP and hence they tried to suppress the truth of 2006 blasts. Expressing her anguish over it Salian revealed: “I have given my opinion in the 2006 (the earlier Malegaon bombing) case. Hindu khichdi paka rahe hain. I could have done something in the case as a prosecutor. Used the prosecutor’s power. They did not give it to me. Give me in writing, I will save everyone, in the interest of justice…”[9] In his last interview Karkare says investigation in Hindutva terrorism is a double edged sword. Finally it claimed him and at long last Salian who reminisces her last meeting him: “His voice was shaking and he sounded very disturbed. Then I heard that the accused were all Hindus and I was surprised… From morning to evening I read the papers. I was shocked. I started crying and got emotionally upset. In that matter I also got to know about Samjhauta and Modasa. I started to talk to Karkare and was with him till 7 pm on 26/11 after deciding on the next day’s meeting too.” ------ [1] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/pakistan-rakes-up-2007-samjhauta-express-blast-as-india-protests-2611-mumbai-terror-attacks-case-delay/article6249444.ece [2] Tehelka November 6, 2007 [3]Asian Age June 27, 2015 [4] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/the-meaning-very-clearly-was-dont-get-us-favourable-orders/#sthash.74MzYcz6.dpuf [5] http://www.caravanmagazine.in/swami-aseemanand-interviews [6] http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/karkare-s-response-to-a-death-threat-a-smiley/391325/0 [7] http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/why-we-must-listen-to-salian/99/ [8] http://www.thecitizen.in/NewsDetail.aspx?Id=4166&Opposition/Attacks/PM/Modi/for/Double/Standards/on/Terrorism [9] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/i-am-out-of-all-nia-cases-its-a-matter-of-faith-principle-special-public-prosecutor-rohini-salian-the-day-after/#sthash.pkxe6tm4.dpuf