Malegaon revisited
Malegaon revisited
Mustafa Khan
Even Keel September 29 2020 mustufakhan1948@gmail.com
Books by the same author
Hindutva Genocide of Muslims and its Architect
(January 26,
2014)
Aggressive Hindutva terrorism and Malegaon
(January 30, 2014)
Decade of the Demagogue and His Demagoguery
(January 30, 2014)
Mass-Terror Atrocities on Muslims for a Hindu
Rashtra (January 30, 2014)
Premeditated Framing of Innocent Muslims in
False Terror Charges (March 20, 2014)
Ishrat Jahan : sacrificed at the altar of
Hindutva Moloch
Narendra Modi and his pack: the terror streak
(April 29, 2014)
Muzaffarnagar, fury and ferocity (April 10,
2014)
Polarizing India in attempt to Hinduize it
(February 27, 2015)
Indian Muslims’ continuing agony (July 12, 2015)
Elephant in the room, radicals and the
radicalized (September 25, 2015)
Enemies of living together (2015)
Renaissance at the JNU (April 9 2016)
Plague of the pellet guns (October 30,
2016)
Towards designing a new syllabus
Impunity from the crimes of terrorism has
doomed Indian democracy (May 14, 2020)
Content
Introduction
Chapter 1 The land was ours
Chapter 2 What was at stake?
A tribute to a Hero
Introduction
Malegaon bomb attack in 2006 and 2008 was a
precursor of how Hindutva right wing would use soon even miniscule atom bomb to
target Muslim minority in India. That would definitely lead to such havoc that
mass migration or exodus and holocaust could result. The improbable possibility
in the words of Aristotle’s definition of tragedy, is imminent acquittal of
Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Srikant Purohit. It poses greater danger than
Narendra Modi’s coming to power in Gujarat and ascent to the throne in Delhi.
The highlighting Tahir Hussain, an Aam Aadmi Party councilor accused of killing
an Intelligence Bureau staffer, Ankit Sharma and blaming him for the causing
the apocalyptic in a locality in the violence on the departure of President
Donald Trump in February 2020 is a cover to hide more Armageddon to come. The
use of bombs of Hindu mobs, using explosives openly and without fear in Delhi’s
Mustafabad, Chand Bagh and Karawal Nagar areas spells doomsday at hand. It is
coupled with how India is sucked into a whirlpool on the heels
of exposure of how the courts have featured in what is certainly miscarriage of
justice. On September 4 2020 Lieutenant Prasad Srikant Purohit moved the High
Court in Mumbai to quash the case of conspiracy and execution of the bomb blast
in Malegaon on September 29, 2008. Let alone quashing that case he is equally
involved in September 8, 2006 blast in Malegaon, arms haul, etc.
Quintessentially even this move is towards establishing the Hindu state or else
what Purohit and others including members of Abhinav Bharat were doing when
they met with members of the Napalese royal family, Yogi Adityanath and others
including Bharatbhai Riteshwar? Purohit had mapped the conspiracy and supplied
RDX.1
The yogi cannot be blamed directly for setting
the bomb off in Maharashtrian town as he cannot be said to have taken the gun
on Vikas Dubey and fired. But as Shekhar Gupta in his walk the talk in The Print
reveals that the nexus between the infrastructure of police informers, the
smugglers (of all kinds like cows, bulls, drug pedlars extortion (collectors)
and of course the police and military officers who claim share in the plunder.
A big enterprise cannot exist without political
patronage. Meat and yarn merchants abound in Malegaon. They are sucked into
even the worst crime like terrorism. Who supplied the corrugated carton boxes
used in cotton and polyster yarn in Malegaon and who helps in sharing commission
in the transport of banned animals for slaughter? A born and innate man of
integrity like Hemant Karkare would be content with the pay packet he carries
home every month. His rise through his professional achievement and calling is
different from a committed ideologue like lieutenant colonel Prasad Srikant
Purohit or KP Raghuvanshi who would not only use the Bhonsla Military schools
for training army/police officers for a cause but also collect graft for buying
guns for a price for someone who is a Hindu radical and let someone use the
artillery compartment or housing facility in the Deolali artillery cantonment. Thus
the nexus extends from Indore and Ujjain to other places as the launch pad of
Sunil Joshi module of terrorists! October 25 2001 saw unprecedented destruction
not just in the town of Malegaon but in large number of towns and villages that
came under the influence of the rightwing violence. For the first time the
Hindutva used the dreaded white powder that Purohit wanted to use to
terminate RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and Indresh Kumar for allowing huge amount of
fake currency notes reportedly supplied by those from across the border.
Purohit as intelligence officer of the army knew it and shared this
intelligence with his fellow conspirators in Abhinav Bharat and other
organizations.
There is an irreversible march of phalanx of
rabid recruitment of RSS trained and inspired cadres for more violence. Those
who planted bombs in Malegaon in 2006 and 2008 figure somewhere in this set up.
As the situation worsens in India what with
four hours worth consideration in demonetization and then lockdown the PM is
ruggedly insisting on the usual hypocritical humanistic approach to improve the
economic front while addressing the United States India Strategic Partnership
Forum circa September 3, 2020. This is done in order to shift attention from
terrorism cases like the way courts moved in dealing with Sanjive Bhatt
attending the meeting at the official residence of Modi on February 27, 2002,
Haren Padya murder, Akshardham attack etc.
When every move is geared to Hindutva cause, hidden and now apparent
agenda, can the PM take everyone for a ride after how he touted bringing
development to Gujarat where Muslim minority suffered horrendously and the
Hindutva terror was swept under the carpet?
PM AB Vajpayee,
Narendra Modi, DG Vanzara
To begin at the
beginning Godhra is still a conundrum. On April 4, 2002 PM
Vajpayee visited Godhra and asked Maulana Umerji about what had happened.
Umerji raised his finger to Gujarat Chief Minister and remarked, 'Inhi se
puchiye, inke karname (Ask him about his evil deeds).' This
transpired nearly a year before Umerji was arrested. He spoke freely without
inhibition. His arrest was due to a bogus confession of an 18 year old. Modi
brought about all this to a man who sat with Sardar Patel in meetings held in
his house for the country’s freedom. . "We belong to a family that
has fought for India's freedom. (India's first home minister) Sardar (Vallabhbhai)
Patel sat where you are sitting now. Meetings used to happen in this house at
the time of the freedom struggle.”
On February 22, 2011, 63 persons accused of
burning the Sabamati Express at Godhra were acquitted after having spent 9
years in prison. They rue that the 31 who were still in prison and were
convicted were also innocent. This would make it clear that fire on the train
at Godhra was an accident or caused by other than those who were framed
falsely. One of the accused was Sadiq who remarked: "The
other 31 are also innocent. They should be released. Catch those who did the
crime. Not these people."From Surat there is a road
that goes straight to Malegaon in Maharashtra. In his Independence Day speech
of August 15, 2020 PM Modi had time to club terrorism (of Pakistan) with
expansionism (obviously of China) and then asserting that he is fighting them
bravely. But he has not bothered about it because he cannot come out clean of
the streak of terror that has already marked him off. The road that Sadhvi
Pragyasingh Thakur had taken on September 29, 2008 was catastrophic. It was
Biblical visitation. Much of the energy and resources on that road was wasted
in destroying phone call records and maneuvering judicial process to turn
terrorism as development that would let the guilty escape the long arms of law.
The US did take cognizance of terrorism in 2002 and denied visa to CM Narendra Modi.
But power/money circumvented that and now he is at it again for a larger aim.
Those
who are lieutenants like chief editors of some television channels and others
like Devendra Fadnavis and even others are actively stoking fire that would
surely engulf the country. The way Kangana Ranaut is behaving is questionable
dragging the name of Pakistan is regrettable. The kind of anarchy they would
usher will clear the way of Purohit to come out of prison with the blue print
of Hindu rashtra. ,
Lt. Col ( Retd) Indrajit Chakraborty’s just one sentence was, perhaps, potent
enough to hit the sensitive among us –“Congratulations India, you have arrested
my son, I'm sure next on the line is my daughter and I don't know who is next
thereafter. You have effectively demolished a middle-class family…”
In his letter to PM Modi Purohit also used
double entendre when he pleads for help from the PM as those who arrested are
so called secular and he confides in PM through this letter that they are real
‘natinalists’ (he and Modi) 11
“Congratulations
India, you have arrested my son, I'm sure next on the line is my daughter and I
don't know who is next thereafter. You have effectively demolished a
middle-class family…”
Vrinda Grover: “It was soon after the Sohrabuddin case was
taken up by the Supreme Court and the nexus between the cops and politicians
was exposed that I was contacted by Ishrat’s family to take up their case. It
was the conviction of the mother and family in the innocence of Ishrat and
their determination to have her name cleared of the tag of terrorism, that
persuaded me. They wanted their respect and dignity restored…As a human rights
lawyer I often represent victims of police atrocities and violence. But after
meeting Shamima Kauser (Ishrat’s mother)and her children, seeing the case file
and the reading the truth about Sohrabuddin’s murder, it was clear that this
‘encounter’ was not just a crime committed by some trigger happy cops, but
rather part of the State sanctioned and planned violence against Muslims, which
was unleashed in the genocidal pogrom of 2002.”
Vrinda had also
detailed ,“It is very important to bring out the truth behind these fake
encounters because in Gujarat there is a criminal nexus between the political
Executive, the police and even persons in critical positions in the I.B. both
in the Centre and State. This is a very dangerous and lethal combination and
before our eyes a fascist state is in the making.”
If shifting attention from terrorism that
was the pogroms of Muslims in 2002, its off shoot is again struggling like
mushrooms from the graves of slain Muslims of that holocaust. The Nero is again
fiddling when the Rome is burning. Those who were murdered in that catastrophe
were so burnt that there was no trace other than their ashes. When their
remains are found the grave wherein it is buried is marked by a nameplate like
that of the youth Osaib Altaf Marazi shot dead by Indian soldiers on the same
day of August 5, 2019 and buried as shown below. Modi regime denied that anyone
was shot dead that day but conceded when the court prevailed but the grave
could not tell any lie. It was the day Modi and Amit Shah scrapped Article 370
and turned J&K as a UT. Truth has a way to find its way that is why Modi
fears Room 1 of the Supreme Court which he
‘The civil suits for
compensation were filed by kin of the victims, Shirin Dawood, Shamima Dawood
(both British nationals) and Imran Salim Dawood.
Apart from Modi, other
defendants included as part of the suit include the six accused who were
eventually acquitted by the special court as well as former home minister in
Gujarat Gordhan Zadaphia, late DGP K Chakravarthi, former additional chief
secretary at home department Ashok Narayan, late IPS officer Amitabh Pathak,
then inspector D K Vanikar and the state government.
On February 28, 2002, British
national Imran Dawood, then a boy of 18, had made his maiden visit to India
along with his UK-based uncles -Saeed Dawood, Shakeel Dawood and Mohammed
Aswat. The four had toured Jaipur and Agra, and were returning to their native
village Lajpur near Prantij in Sabarkantha district where a mob blocked their
way and set ablaze their Tata Sumo. The order dated September 5, the taluka
court noted that “there is not a single averment showing presence of defendant
No.1 (Modi) at
” If the case is still
bothering Modi and it is on account of how even foreign diplomats have deposed
then what about the massacre at Ode village where who killed the Muslim victims
for their landed property had escaped to America. Modi later used his position
to clear their names from prosecution.
The order also noted that the
victims’ relatives had in no way stated as to how Modi “is personally liable
for the alleged acts or omissions of officials” of the then state government.
“The averments in the plaint
are made cleverly to connect defendant No.1 (Modi) with all pre and post Godhra
incidents and thereby to array defendant No.1 (Modi) as perpetrator of the
crime making him liable for compensation…. In my view, such reckless allegations
without any basis, i.e. evidence, can hardly establish any nexus or help in
raising cause of action” against Modi.
The petitioners had sought Rs
22 crore as damages claimed alleging acts of commissions and omissions on the
part of defendants including Modi
It was for nothing that the US based
Terrorism Centre had included Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh better known as RSS
is a terrorist organization. Nathuram Godse who shot Mahatma Gandhi dead was a
member of it. A serving Lieutenant Colonel of the army Prasad Purohit had
stolen from the army stock and stored 60 kg RDX in the ashram of Sudhakar
Pandey aka Shankaracharya in Jammu. It was used in making bombs in Nanded, Parbhani,
Malegaon and a number of other places. It was also used in framing Muslim
youths in a case called RDX smuggling. Soon after the blasts on September 8
2006 a phone call at the instance of Abrar Ahmad was made in which the speaker
spoke to someone that ‘(mother fucker) we brought the samaan (read RDX) into
the town now you do what you want’. It was this that Purohit made Abrar repeat from Jagtap farm house near Nasik
after his detention. Purohit was also known as Mithun Chakerwarthy by the
members of Bajrang Dal, Abhinav Bharat who were all close associates of RSS. Sadhvi
Pragyasingh Thakur was based in Surat and was connected to Sabridham ashram
where Swami Asimanand was based. Just before becoming CM Modi was a secretary
of RSS and had donated money to the Swami and had promised direct and more help
once his predecessor Keshubai Patel was removed from power. He also assured
that he would let the Swami continue his work against the Christians in Gujarat
and in hindsight terrorism against the Muslims also and more actively afterward
as it turned out. Whether nine years or
seven years in prison, there is no hope that the system would end soon easing
the agony of the targeted community. Nor is there any sign of succor from
Amnesty International or any Indian group capable of wiping out the rot in the
system. Framing the innocents in bogus terror charges or making conspiracy to
target minorities in pogroms cannot be expected to make India shine in the
world.
A Kerala family with father worker who
educated his son by the sweat of his brows and the grand children who lived
through dolour in family house and jail
Most
recurring pattern of arresting innocent Muslims was to frame them in charges of
being members of Students Islamic Movement of India or doubtful cases in which
they were not involved like the family shown above and bogus presumption as in
the case of Khwja Yunus. SIMI was an obscure body whom the police and
investigation made famous by creating hype over it in the aftermath of 9/11.
The Americans must have been amused by how our agencies had been pandering the
case of SIMI involvement. In the case of
the attack on the American consulate library in Kolkata they called it simply a
revenge of a man who had lost so much in Gujarat. Then the situation was
different as Hindutva’s hold on the country was less strangulating. Today such
cases as Sushant Singh Rajput and Sunanda Pushkar case have gone into regular
every day show that attracts intense public interesting. There is also much
politics involved in it. As compared to this why was there so much hush up when
innocent Muslims were tried and framed and even hanged. If Rajput case is a
subversion of judicial Process and Pushkar case a parall investigation then why
cases against Purohit and high casualties in Malegaon go unnoticed?
Grotesque but grueling is to note that Modi on his tour of China
remarked in Shanghai on May 16, 2015
that once it was felt shameful for an Indian to profess that he was an
Indian. Modi’s minister’s outburst is off the mark to NDTV on The TownHall,
May 20, 2015 Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had a question for the
Congress."Did you forget about India's image abroad when the United States
of America denied Narendra Modi a visa? Did you protest even once? Did you
stand up even once for an elected Chief Minister of India?" she asked
Congress leader and former minister Sachin Pilot who was debating her on the
same programme. The former chief minister of Gujarat was denied visa for his
alleged involvement in the genocide of Muslims and his anti Muslim stance was
in violation of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom’s basic
tenet. So if India’s image is tarnished it is because of what is transpiring
within the country. If the minister is so concerned over India’s image why not
let the deputy chair person Katrina Lantos Swett visit India to find the truth
about ghar wapsi or reconversion of
Muslims and Christians or what transpired in the genocide. In fact PM AB
Vajpayee had rushed Chairman J.S. Verma of National Human Rights Commission and
jurist and Advocate General of India Soli Sorabji to Geneva to prevent
Chairperson Mary Robinson of Amnesty International from visiting India during
the genocide in 2002. Modi as CM had prevented journalists visiting Gujarat and
covering the genocide by holding out threat of the fate of Daniel Pearl. His
utterances in foreign visits is like dry cleaning his image as Slobodan
Milosevic of India. He even uttered in his meet and greet of Indian diaspora,
“The menace of terrorism has become enemy of humanity. People are being killed
in every part of the world (due to terrorism). Who will apply balm on their
injuries, who will give them a hope to live in this crisis?”
“Only those whose ancestors have said ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ (the world
is one family)” “It is in our DNA. We
should make the world recognise this.” [1] In the present scenario of 2020 how
could he be fighting bravely terrorism of Pakistan and expansionism of China
when he has been using along with his then Modi was Home Minister and Shah
minister of state for home? Why and how most of the cases of the pogroms of
Muslims ended in utter failure of the judiciary. And the most astonishing is
why have the people wanted another chance for Modi to do what he did in 2002?
How abysmal is the travesty of justice!
The Chinese of course recognize this and more and yet they have let him
know about the difference between trade and terrorism.
The Chinese have had no such officer as KK Mysorewalla whose sentence
became the title of Human Rights Watch report of April 2002 although they too
have their own problems. Within two months of the genocide of Muslims in
Gujarat the book issued by HRW disturbed many around the world. “WE HAVE NO ORDERS TO SAVE YOU” State
Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat.
Taunting the other is the excruciating and
seemingly unending source of agony. After winning election in Pune in 2015 BJP
and its associates in Pramod Muthalik’s Shri Ram Sena put a banner that they
have captured Babri mosque and hence won Ayodhya. Their next aim is Mecca and
the next celebration will be in the holy cities of Saudia Arabia:after every
victory like Modi’s win in 2014 a Muslim soft ware engineer was assalted and
killed, neither Modi took notice nor did he bother as he is used to taunting
pupping being killed under his car and the more vultgar we five and our 25, the
greaser at the side of road and the abusive taunt that Ahsan Jafri was still
alive!)
IThe family of
Mehbood Mansoorie lost eight members, within three weeks he narrated it to HRW:
“On February 28, we went to Ahsan Jafri’s
home for safety. He is an ex-member of
parliament…. At 10:30 a.m. the stone
throwing started. First there were 200
people then 500 from all over, then more. We were 200-250 people. We threw
stones in self-defense. They had swords, pipes, soda-lemon bottles, sharp
weapons, petrol, kerosene, and gas cylinders.
They began shouting, “Maro, kato,” [“Kill them, cut them”] and “Mian ko
maro.” [“Kill the Muslims”]. I hid on
the third floor. Early in the day at
10:30 the police commissioner came over and said don’t worry. He spoke to Jafri and said something would
work out, then left. The wall in front
of the house was broken at 11:30 a.m. When they entered the hall we had lost
our spirit, we had no weapons, we couldn’t fight back. Other people also came there for safety. When the gas cylinder exploded I jumped from
the third floor. This was around 1:30
p.m. At 3:30 p.m. they started cutting people up, and by 4:30 p.m. it was game
over. Ahsan Jafri was also killed. He was holding the door closed. Then the door broke down. They pulled him out and hit him with a sword
across the forehead, then across the stomach, then on his legs…. They then took
him on the road, poured kerosene on him and burned him. There was no police at all. If they were there then this wouldn’t have happened.
Eighteen people from my family died. All
the women died. My brother, my three
sons, one girl, my wife’s mother, they all died. My boys were aged ten, eight,
and six. My girl was twelve years old.
The bodies were piled up. I recognized
them from parts of their clothes used for identification. They first cut them and then burned them. Other girls were raped, cut, and burned. First they took their jewelry, I was watching
from upstairs. I saw it with my own
eyes. If I had come outside, I would
also have been killed. Four or five girls were treated this way. Two married women also were raped and
cut. Some on the hand, some on the
neck.
At 5:30 p.m. a car came, it was the
assistant commissioner. They brought us out slowly; some were hiding in the water tank underground. Some tried to get out but were attacked. Sixty-five to seventy people were killed
inside. After the police came we told
them to take us somewhere safe. They
brought us to the camp. We didn’t go to
the police station. Three patients were
admitted in the civil hospital. On March
3 and 4 the police came here to file complaints, but only after camp organizers
called them. Human Rights Watch April 2002, Vol. 14, No. 3 (C) .
If Modi is really fighting terrorism and the Chinese know it how come he
escaped their notice so far? He never tires repeating blaming Pakistan for all
acts of terrorism why even then the people in India not question bombing
against minority Muslim community in Delhi February 2020? Why will not then the
specter of banquo visit him! Or is it a matter of psychic mass murderer? He has failed to respond what Karan Thapar
asked him to change his image of mass killer.
Justice Arun Mishra, former chief
secretary of CM Narendra Modi and later Governor of J&K Murmu, Tushar
Mehta, etc. contributed in sanitizing the charges of crimes committed by Modi
regime in which the chief minister of Gujarat was directly and indirectly
involved. This book only records what was available to open intelligence or in
tuition. It does not pretend to provoke anyone or malign anyone. It is self
imposed duty to salvage the country from internal discord and turmoil while we
are focused on fighting the worst pandemic of corona virus that is ravaging the
country. We must endeavour to assuage hurt feelings and work for the recovery of
the victims of the virus and ease the burden of the corona warriors and reach
the needy, the unemployed and the hungry.
Despite all this there is legitimate
concern that Modi took revenge against Sajive Bhatt and Haren Pandya and he did
not let the court go through to the full extent in the case of Amit Shah who
had spent time in jail, that Judge Loya died not a natural death, Sohrabuddin
and wife were murdered and raped. There has been what Haren Pandya’s father
said political murder. This does not exonerate Modi because he had sheltered
Babu Bajrangi, donated money to Swami Asimanand, his police let him abscond, he
let Sadhvi Pragyasingh move freely despite her deep involvement in terror, that
Haren Pandya’s wife visited Asghar Ali and found out that he was not the killer
of her husband, that Bhatt had come to know that those arrested or killed in
Akshardham temple attack were framed, that the accused Mufti Sufiyan was allowed
to leave the country and sneak to Pakistan, etc.
This book is based on open intelligence.
The man who became sarkari gwah was AbrarAhman Saeed Ahmad popularly known as
khabri. He gave a statement from prison on April 18,2009. In the opening
paragraph he weaves a false narrative keeping him in the safest position with
hindsight. His lawyer brother Jalil helped in composing the affidavit. He says
he was in Baghe Mehmud with his wife Jannatunnisa, when the bombs exploded and
his brother in law Farooq Verdha, who enjoyed Z security which included a gun
given to him to protect him, was in Bhiwandi. After quite sometimes that is
much after 1.40 pm he and his wife came to know of the blast that Friday. There
are incorrect items: his wife was in her father Iqbal Chowdhary’s house in Fort
area. Much before 1.30 pm she was leaving her house when the neighbourers
accosted her where was she going. She told cursorily that she was on way to
witness some show of cracker bursts. This is reminiscent of what Sadhvi
Pragyasingh Thakur scoffed at the blast of 2008 at Bhiku chowk said that was
only cracker burst. She had toured with the Sadhvi in diverse places, like
Nasik, Indore, Ujjain, etc. This junket was undertaken at the instance of ATS
chief KP Raghvanshi. She was also seen in a hotel at Dader where Hemant Karkare
used to go.
-------
--------
4.
Chapter 1
The Land was ours before we were of the
land.
The inordinate delay in
solving the pending cases on terror attack in Malegaon owes its origin in deliberate
attempt in filibustering: a long and slow judicial process so that the courts
cannot take any decision against the guilty. It would go against the Hindutva
juggernaut to establish a Hindu rashtra. Among many other reasons in April
2016, addressing the annual Conference of Chief Justices and Chief Ministers in
the presence of PM Modi, then CJI T S Thakur broke down, saying that the Indian
judiciary was too understaffed to fulfill its obligations. In both the terror
attack cases it is the extremists of right wing Hindutva groups who are
terrorists, have no less aim than overthrow government in favour of a Hindu
rashtra. The first was the case of graveyard mosque known as Hamidiay mosque.
The Muslim community of momins/weavers had bought the land on June 1, 1920 for
burying their dead, meant for all the groups of Muslims. Even then the Congress
MLA Sheikh Rasheed said that there was attempt to prevent Muslims going to pray
at their grave on Shabe barat in 2006. This was contemptible attempt at dividing
the Muslims on ideological niceties of grave worshippers as sunnis pitted
against Deobandies. The trustees of juna Kabrastan might have been queasy about
Deobandies being given space there but the original trustees in 1920 had no
such schism in mind. This was non bonafied reason of the terrorist attack in
2006. The other reason was to cause maximum casualties on all groups of Muslim
because of the communal politics of the Hindutva righ and their ultimate aim.
Maulvi HajiAbdul Hamid Haji Khuda Bax
bought 10 acres and 16 gunta for the graveyard and paid rupees 4000 and stamp
duty rupees 40 in hard currency of the
King Edward VIII. He also built two wrestling centres known Khuda Baksh akhada
for public health.
Malegaon graveyard was a deed of gift
after many wars like that of 1857 whose consequence as migration of weavers and
peasants not only from UP but also subsequently from Khandesh, Gujarat, etc.
went in their mutual endeavour to become an emporium and be proud of their
achievement. It opened their instinct of philanthropy. There was not any iota
of communalism. The king was a Hindu raja whose soldiers were mercenaries of
Arab origin:
A cripple beggar is besmeared by the blood
of innocent children, the paraplegic Tamil in Gujarat 2002
Mahatma Gandhi, PM Pandit Jawaharlal
Nehru, President Rajender Prasad also acknowledged the singular nature of the
people and visited the town and paid rich tribute to the secular bent of mind
of the local populace and called it the Manchester of India. This was the
reason Swami Asimanand chose Malegaon as the target to bomb just months before
the first blasts of September 8, 2006. This cultural reason and not just
because it was Muslim majority motivated the Hindutva group Abinav Bharat to
target it with bombs. The bombing of Sankat Mochan Mandir, Varanasi, 2006, was
also not relevant because Muslims and Hindus together not only condemned the
attack but also distanced themselves from Abhinav Bharat and its ideology. AB
is Maharashtrian dominated terrorist group which was presided over by Himani
Savarkar, daughter of Gopal Godse, married into the Savarkars. Both Chitpawan
Brahmins. Other Brahmans involved include Lieutenant Colonel Purohit, Major
Ramesh Upadhya (a womanizer like Gandhi assassin Narayan Apte who was hanged
along with Nathuram Godse, Sudhakar Pandey the self styled Shankaracharya based in Jammu but Kanpur
born. Sameer Kulkarni, another Brahaman who is accused of living in a room at
the Deolali Artillery cantonment near Nasik. The head of the Bhonsla military
school Rahirkar was also Brahman. They have monopolized education and are in
government services and have landed and gifted property.
After
the beggars and children killed and injured the grown ups, the empty chair
where every other Friday midday prayer the police sat. the author brought this
to the notice of NIA
Terrorism visits Malegaoon
I.
Malegaon
In the US the events of attacks, on the
Pentagon and the twin towers (the World Trade Centre) otherwise popular by its
calendar date as 9/11, made the Americans sit up, realize and read of the
Muslim world. What happened on September 8, 2006 and subsequently on September
29, 2008 put Malegaon on the world map. Even the locally shot film Malegaon ka
Superman piggy rode to world acclaim on the back of the terrorist attacks.
Once a sleepy town of weavers settled at
the confluence of the Mosom and the Girna and its tributary Londha the town
grew around the ground fort called Bhoikut killa. Its ruler employed Arab
soldiers. They settled there and their families grew in number. Like Urdu the
language of groups of mixed origin, a dialect typical of the people took birth
here. It has Arabic and Persian words widely interspersed with the vernacular
Marathi.
The British in their haughty indifference
of the natives were forced to take note of the town when some locals found the
police persecution intolerable in 1921.
They were angered by the cruelty of the police officer Bhaskar Rao and
wanted to punish him. Mahatma Gandhi had called for the boycott of foreign
goods and closing down of distillery making wine and its sale. These were
located in the outlying areas of the small town. They were known as Bhilaties (where
Bheels live), one at the North West edge of Islampura, another at Avadi nallah,
another near chota matan slaughter house and another near Londha. (The Bheels
are the derelicts of the society even today; but most wretched in their poverty
and backwardness. The periphery of the towns and villages remain their habitat
always on the threshold of threats of existence. The distilleries sustain them
in their struggle for survival. ) All the natives were obedient to the call of
Gandhi. They picketed at the distilleries and shops. At one such place there
was some trouble and inspector of police Bhaskar Rao repressed the people and
violently put down the protesters agitating against the sale of liquor. He was
pro British. His attitude made the locals angry. Hindus and Muslims alike were
outraged by this. They chased him. He took shelter in the house of the Pophale
family whose head (VHP chief and whom RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat vistis when
passing through the town.)
The crowd became restive and demanded
Bhsker Rao to come out. The crowd became more insistent as he hid into the
adjacent mandir. Some protestors climbed the wall of the temple to catch him.
He opened fire and killed two people.
The crowd set the temple on fire. He tried to hoodwink the angry riotous
mobs by dressing as a Hindu woman returning from arti pooja clad in a long
saree. He forgot to take off his police boots and that proved a fatal mistake.
They chased him to the Royal theatre alley and killed him. This shows that
there was no enmity between the Muslims and Hindus. A Pathan soldier in the
service of the Pophale family worked as the gate keeper cum watchman
there. He risked his life and climbed
into the temple from the terrace of a neihgbouring house. The Pophales had
rushed out of the house in panic and had forgtten to lift a baby from the
cradle( the future VHP chief in the town). They had asked Hyder Pathan to save
the child and get him out. He saved the child and brought him to the wailing
mother. The family had a five coloured or pachrangi parrot. Hyder tried to save
it too but could not. The Muslim neighbours crowding there conducted the Hindu
women to safety in the adjoining Panchkandil area. This is another instance of
the town being free from communalism. It prompted a recent historian Ilya
Siddiqui to remark that if the Muslims could risk their life to save the life
of a parrot why would they harm any human being!1
Among the accused were half a dozen Hindus
and two Bohra Muslims. They too were sentenced to three years prison term. No
other than Barrister Mohammad Ali Jinnah had fought the case of one of the
Bohra to no avail.
Five men accused of killing Bhaskar Rao
were hanged:
1. Mohammad Suleiman Shah Saheb,
2. Israel wald Allah Rakhu,
3. Shoban wald Bhikari,
4. Bhudhu wald Faridan.
They were hanged on July 6, 1922.
5. Pahelwan Gafoor Chandi was hanged on
January 18, 1923.
Babu Imam Baksh Gat (Bhat?)rakuwalla and
Babu wald Alladin were sentence to life imprisonment. Of the 118 accused and
tried in the case Krishn Raut, Balchander Hirachander aka Baluchand Shah, Suran
Chander Raipat, Mahadeo Vithal Khare Wakil Brahmin, Sakhar Chand Magan Das
Gujarti, Kisan Das Bhikan Dass, Bhikan Das were also given 3 years
imprisonment. The two Muslims shot and killed by Bhaskar were buried on April
26, 1921; Bhaskar was killed on the previous day.
The Khilafat Committee ruled Malegaon for
two days under the leadership of Shah Suleiman Mian. But a servant in the post
office Postman Sheikh Gafoor Jaffer Patel betrayed the committee by running to
Manmad and informing the government two days later on 28/29.
In his book Malegaon men Jang e Azadi “The War of Independence in Malegaon” (1966) Mohammad Hasan
Ahsan Malegaonwee remarks that Malegaon men bhi khilafat ka perchar kisi na kisi surat men hone laga tha.
Yahan key mujahideen e azadi bhi chot khaey huwai sher ki tarah angdaiyan ley
kar dushmanon par lapakne key liya tayar ho rahey the. (p13) “In Malegaon the
people were also preparing for the khilafat rule. The freedom fighters here
were getting ready to be wounded and killed. They were like the wounded lion
roaring before attacking their enemy.” Maulana Shakat Ali visited Bombay,
Malegaon sent Munshi Shaban to talk with him. After the Congress convention in
Amritsar and Nagpur the people of the Khilafat movement joined Congress to
fight for the freedom of the country. Congress party members Shekhu Mian,
Mehboob Khan, Balu Shah Gujarati, and Tatya sahib Khare wakil and Moti Lal Vir
Chand Shah invited the people to join Congress. Inspector Bhaskar called Munshi
Shaban and threatened him but he remained intrepid in the boycott movement. He
was the one most active in joining Congress and calling for freedom of the
country. Chun key Malegaon men azadi ki tahrek ek khalis mazhabi masla khilafat
se shuru hui thi is liyey shru sey hi is
ka rujhan dindari ki taraf tha. Aur phir insdad may noshi ki taherik bhi mazhab
ki ek pakiza jazba ke hi aks thi. Is liye mazhab ka aser be sath sath chala.) “Because struggle for independence in
Malegaon began with a religious issue of khilafat so its trend was religious
right from the beginning. Similarly the anti alcoholism movement in Malegaon
was also a pious religious thought so the religious element was always
present.”(p.19) 2. Jazia collected by
Hindu traderson saree in compensation for burning temple was anomaly.
The first Prime Minister of the country,
Jrawaharlal Nehru, held out Malegaon as the ideal of communal harmony. But
trouble started in the late sixties when some extremists among Hindus purposely
started beating drum and playing music at the central Mosque. That gave birth
to what is called in modern terminology, tension. The town never had had it in
its history. In the wake of the independence of the country there was the
festival of sacrifice. Muslims were not allowed to openly sacrifice animals as
was their tradition and a Sikh regiment entered the town that sent shock waves
through the lanes and by lanes of the town. The Sikh would even strike their
batons sacrificial goats as they moved around. This was the earliest example of
military, paramilitary and police marching through the streets of the town. A
feature that would mark the arrival of festivals at sensitive times in the town
ever after that. Thus the town became a sensitive spot on the map of the
country. But the bonhomie between the Muslims and Hindus persisted and
ultimately prevailed after every sporadic bouts of communal frenzy that was
engineered by the fanatics.
The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi
virtually clamped an undeclared curfew as rumour spread that a circumcised
person, a Muslim, had killed Gandhi. On his arm was tattooed “Rashid” though he
was a fanatic and a member of the RSS. 3
But in the evening the Prime Minister
clarified that it was a Brahmin, Nathuram Godse, who was behind the
assassination. A local leader of the erstwhile Socialist Party Shivaji Patil
attacked Brahmins in retaliation. Godse was hanged in jail but his brother
Gopal, father of Himani Savarkar, was released from jail. The RSS and other
extremist Hindus gave him a public welcome. On the Tilak Road and in the
adjoining Mamledar Galli. The
octogenarian Bashir Adib of Malegaon has written of the town. In his opinion
the overwhelming Hindu citizens of the town did not allow communalism to grow, logon ne Panapne nahin diya. Till then Malegaon was not what later
Praveen Swami found it to be an “apartheid nation”, “a road to perdition”.4
But the sixties began to change the
chemistry of the town when playing music before the central mosque in the
bazaar led to the first riot in the town which otherwise was peaceful till then
and even during the partition period.
The town fell in a pattern of rioting like the rest of the country as
Hindutva acquired ascendance in the eighties and the nineties of the twentieth
century. 5
A month after 9/11 a serious and most
ominous rioting, arson and loot started and went on over almost a month when a
police constable tore a pamphlet calling for the boycott of the American and
Jewish companies as a reaction to American bombings in Afghanistan, Iraq and
other places. For the first time the riot that started on October 25, 2001
spread to other towns and villages and districts. Over a hundred villages came
under its pale. A pall of gloom fell on the minority. Muslims started migrating
to Malegaon from villages and towns in the district of Nasik and around other
districts. Riots had never touched such levels of tension and violence. For the
first time also a Muslim woman was raped by Hindus (never heard of such till
then) and the first woman, a Muslim, was shot dead by the police when she had
in fact got on the balcony of her house to spread washed clothes on the line
for drying.
Time passed. For the first time the town
lulled into a cozy sleep when no untoward incident happened for nearly five
years, only to wake up from this interlude in shock and disbelief that bombs
had exploded in the graveyard mosque. In the charge sheet that the local police
prepared in the wake of September 8, 2006 terrorist attack they claimed that
the Muslims had exploded bombs to take revenge of the heavy casualties they
suffered in 2001 riot! This became the first pretext to the extremists and
their sympathizers in police that Muslim planted bombs to avenge 2001 violence
In 2002 Genocide of Muslim in Gujarat the
most familiar face of it was of a Malegoan native Qutbuddin Ansari.
Reducing the minority to grueling
second class citizenship
He
was a tailor from Malegaon who survived it and sought refuge in Malegaon. After two incidents of bomb blasts of 2006
and 2008, an army jawan Aftab Khan in the October, 2008 riot in Dhulia was set
upon by the Hindu extremists who wanted to kill him and his family. He was
visiting Dhulia on leave from duty for the Id festival. He also took shelter in
Malegaon.6As the town fell a victim to terrorism victims of terror outside sought
refuge in the town. The riot in Dhulia was initiated by the Hindu fanatics in
retaliation to the bomb explosion on September 29, 2008 in Malegaon. It was a
tactical move to divert attention from Malegaon where the Abhinav Bharat had
struck only five days ago.
Ultimately the misnomer jihadi terrorism
would prove to be wrong. Even in the 1993 Mumbai, 1998 Coimbatore and August
25, 2003 the local Muslims driven to the wall in riots and acts of terrorism
against them chose not to retaliate. In all other cases as a new terrorism
outfit was now emerging the situation was quite different. The new thing was
aggressiveness of the Hindutva which wanted not just reaction but establishment
of the Hindutva Rasthra with the corollary of elimination of the minorities. It
would be far more terrifying given the extent of its power and reach and
penetration in army and police forces. It would have what ATS chief KP
Raghuvanshi told Communal Combat a “frightening repercussion” because the bombs
were not meant for Puja. This identification of bomb making capacity of the
Bajrang Dal pinned down the arrival of the Hindutva terror that Bal Thackeray
had been advocating in the early years of the 21st century. On January 2, 2003
Thackeray remarked "Though the BJP and VHP had now and again spoken in
different voices on the subject, the Sena's stand on its chosen path of
Hindutva had always been constant." 7 When the terrorists struck in the
local trains on July 11, 2006 the Director General of Police Dr PS Pasricha had
said that a Mahrashtrian leader was behind it. The most dominant Hindutva
leader in Mahrashtra then was Bal Thackeray and Sharad Pawar was his
confidante. Both of them had played crucial role in the 1992-93 riots in which
mostly Muslims were victims. Even the terrorist attack on the Parliament on
December 13, 2001 is shrouded in a thick cloud of suspicion. Afzal Guru was
working for the Special Task Force and Prof Shaukat Ali Geelani was framed in
the case. Abhinav Bharat activist had attempted to kill him. When Ram Jethmalani
wished to defend Geelani, Thackeray put down his foot: "Sena had decided
to back Jethmalani (for membership in Rajya Sabha) only due to the intervention
by both Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani. However, if Jethmalani
wished to fight on the side of the accused, he should first resign from his
post. After that he is free to act as he wishes." After twin blasts of
August 25, 2003 Thackeray openly called Hindutva extremists to retaliate and
wanted even the Maoists to train them.
In another example he said on the fortieth
anniversary of Shiv Sena on June 19, 2006 that:
“I am ready to seek cooperation of the
Naxalites to fight Islamic terrorism in the country. They are Hindus. They have
some social economic issues for which they have taken to arms. When separatists
are invited for talks in Delhi, why do (sic) the government ignore Naxalites?
The country faced bigger threats from the Islamic separatist not only in Jammu
and Kashmir what (but?) elsewhere in India.”8
However there were those who paved the
ground as they were the blind leading the blinds. One of them was B Raman of
Research and Analysis Wing. He describes
jihadi terrorism when it was not there altogether: “There is a huge jihadi
iceberg which has been moving from state to state spreading death and
destruction.” 9 ( However, the new ATS chief Hemant Karkare rubbished him when
he told correspondents that he had not come across the hand of Students Islamic
Movement of India in the 2006 and other blasts of the time, ab tak SIMI key
role ka pata nahin lag saka. 10
Another pressure was built by the popular
media which made the ruling party Congress and NCP dither. The most notable
example is that of the PUNYA NAGRI Marathi paper editorial of
September 11, 2006 which condemned Dr PS Pasricha for forthright speaking that
it was Bajrang Dal that was behind the 2006 bomb explosions in Malegaon. The
mainstream media did not carry the news story and the paper feels that this
saved the country from communal disturbance that was sure to ensue because of
his irresponsible blame on Bajrang Dal. Unwittingly the paper also reminds its
reader how the DGP had mentioned a Maharashtra political leader (Bal
Thackeray?) as responsible for 7/11 serial bomb blasts in the local trains in
Mumbai. (See the full quote in Marathi below). 11 Thus the media snipped the
truth in the bud and instead of Hindu extremists of Bajrang Dal exchangeably Abhinav
Bharat group of Swami Asimanand and Sunil Joshi and Purohit, the hunt started
for the so called SIMI activists, the nine innocent Muslim accused. Except one
or two the rest were not even members or activist of the banned organization.
Even Justice Geeta Mittal of the special
tribune reviewing ban on SIMI in the first week of August 2008 did not find
enough evidence to continue the ban and ordered it to be lifted. But the next
day the government sent its advocate general to the court and the ban was
reimposed. However what she observed is pertinent as the sign of times India
was passing through. She told the government “You say that SIMI is connected to
bomb blasts, riots, (and) destructive activities. Place specific material
before me, you cannot presume their involvement.”
So the moot question is why did Karkare
not see the huge iceberg?
The weltanschauung created in the
aftermath of 9/11 that Muslims are terrorists had its Indian version that all
the Muslims are not terrorists but why all those accused of terrorism are
Muslims? Under this catch generated by the RSS and its sympathizers and
activists in government agencies including police and the army misled the
majority of the people in India. The Hindu extremists of all the hues, Abhinav
Bharat, Jai Vande Matrum, Hindu Jagran Samiti, Sanatan Sansthan, Bajrang Dal,
etc had RSS activists in large number in their ranks and file. They were busy
with their allies like Shiv Sena to mount a concerted effort to have what
Purohit and his associates wanted, a Hindu Rashtra.
-------
1. Siddiqui, Ilyas. Malegaon ki siyasi and
samaji tareekh 2005.
2. Hasan Ahsan. Malegaon men Jang e Azadi.
1966. Ansar publication House Nayapura, Malegaon.
3. Rehmani, Dr Peer Mohammad. Faizane
Rehmani (2005) AMTEC Campus
4. Malegaon: The Road to Perdition.
Praveen Swami and Anupama Katakam
http://www.hindu.com/2006/09/09/stories/2006090907431100.htm
5. Ascent of Communalism in Malegaon
http://commonalty.blogspot.com/2009/01/ascent-of-communalism-in-malegaon.html
6. See Mumbai edition of Hindustan Times
of October 7, 2008 for details of Aftab Khan’s traumatic and humiliating plight
as a jawan of Muslim origin.
7.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2003-01-02/india/27278434_1_shiv-sena-sena-supremo-bal-thackeray-hindutva
Sena never deviated from Hindutva:
Thackeray
8. Terrorism in India page 924 of chapter
“Naxalite tit for Islamic tat” Thackeray 2006
9. 25/8, MUMBAI: The Jihadi Iceberg
Paper No. 773 28/08/2003
10. Urdu Times August 16, 2008.
.
11. bejababdar policepramukh Irresponsible
Police Chief Punaya nagri September 11, 2006
Malegaon chya bomb sphotanter Maharashtra
policeani hathadle prasthithi nisschithi gairovas patra aahe; prantu rjyache
police mahasanchalak DrPS Pasricha yani matra ya wedi pounha ek da bejababdari chey pradarshan ghadwiley.
Bomb sphotanchi kuthlihi those mahiti nastana tey gondhadleleya sthithit
patrkarana mahiti purowat hotey.tyat anek vasangati aadhun yet hoteya.
Teyatachteyani bombsphotamagey Bajrang Daly ya Hindu katarpanthi sanghatnecha hath asneya chi shakeyate
wartawun khadbadh udwun dili. Sudewane
tyanchya ya vyatwala wurutwahinay athwa wurutpatrani thadak
prasidhi dili nahin, ayatha
durdevane deshala mothya jatiy wodjwamsa;a samor jawey lagley aste.
..mumbait 11 july la local tailway gadyanmdhy jhaleleya bomsphot malikenenter
dekhi Dr Pasricha asekch bejabdar pane wagley hotey. Bomb sphotat ek a rajiey
netya cha hat asleya che aadharheen waktoy karun teyani khadbad udwun dili
hote.
II. Malegaon Bomb Blasts September 8, 2006
Swami Asimanand Haj House Imam
Baksh
The authentic account of the bomb blasts
in Malegaon also begins in Gujarat. Swami Asimanand organized the Shabri Kumb
Mela near Pumpa pond of Shabri Dham on February 11, 12, and 13, 2006. A much
publicized part of the mammoth gathering was to welcome Tadwi Bhil Muslim back
to the Hindu fold. The Muslims in the Dangs Districts of Gujarat, the negihbouring
districts of Nandurbar, Dhule and Malegaon town saw red in this. On February 5,
they organized a move to make their fellow religionists from attending the
ceremonies at the Shabri Kumbh Mela. Ahmad Burhan Khand Tadwi of Haripura,
Yawal Gujarat, Masoom Rahim Tadwi of Maharad, Chopra and Ramzan Sardar Tadwi of
Palan Taluka, Rawer, all from Gujarat issued a pamphlet calling for abstaining
Muslims from joining Asimanand. This angered Asimanand who visited the rural
areas of Dhulia in the vicinity of Malegaon. Within eight days of the attack on
the Sankat Mochan Temple of Allahabad he called a meeting and asked the
Hindutva groups primarily Abhinav Bharat, Jai Vande Matrum, etc to explode
bombs in Malegaon in retaliation. Malegaon was the first target as it had a
huge population of Muslims. It is worth note that Akkaljuwan and Navapur areas
are in Maharashtra where Tadwis are in large numbers living as primitive life
as their fellow tribal natives there. But Akkalkuwan also has the best
education campus of Islamic seminary and educational hub, an eye sore of
Hindutiva groups.
A nondescript Muslim youth police informer
visited the Dangs and the headquarters of Swami Aseemanand at Shabri Dham
before the bomb blasts. He is reported to have been a member of the Rashtriya
Muslim Manch of Indresh Kumar and has allegedly been used in the conspiracy to
bomb on the fateful day of September 8, 2006. He was already a police informer
and was paid for it. Abrar Saeed Ahmed becomes approver in the case.
The strangest part of it is that the town
was eerily abuzz with apprehension that bombs would explode and lo, they did!
The additional superintendant of police Rajwardhan had called a meeting in the
house of Abrar Ahmad’s father about a fortnight ago. He had sought permission
from the family and they gave it, according to Jalil, lawyer brother of the
accused Abrar. In this particular meeting the ASP wanted cooperation of the
people in fear of the likely attacks. There was another meeting held in the house
of Abrar’s father Ahmad Saeed in the night of September 6, 2006 distinguished
citizens of the town attended a meeting. Their agenda was that conspiracy was
afoot to implicate Muslim youths in acts of terrorism. To counter this they
formed “Milli mehaz” a defense council of Muslims. Subsequently the local Urdu
daily Shamnama carried a report on
it. Abdul Hamid Azhari was chosen as president of it, for the vice president
they chose Abrar’s uncle Nawaz Ashrafi, Shafiq Rana (another police informer)
became its secretary, treasurer was Dr Pervez Faizee. Among two members were
Shafiq Nagwala and Ashfaq Nandi who were uncles of Azhar Pervez. Azhar is
alleged to have seen the bomb planted or was the other Muslim who planted the
bomb and in fear of this involvement he killed himself or was killed.
Another development was the visit of SP
Anil Kumbhare to the graveyard. The lawyer says that this was a case of recce made by the police. This
was done on September 3, five days before the blasts. On two strategic accounts
this proved fatal. One, Kumbhare as SP assured greater security arrangement and
more police on duty and barricading of beggars and shop keepers from the
vicinity of the graveyard. In both the police betrayed the trust of not only
the trustees of the mosque and the graveyard but also the people. The police
were altogether absent from the scene. Not a single one was present and the
usual police van parked overlooking the main gate was not to be seen anywhere.
Zahoor Khan of Sahara channel TV was
making a feature video and caught the scenes showing the main gate of the
graveyard without any police man or police van. This is ominous because on
every Friday the van and the cops are there so why were they withdrawn on that
day, especially on that most solemn day, one of the most sacred days for the
entire Muslim community. Second, why were the beggars allowed into the mosque
and the graveyard? Many of them were cut down with the nails and balls that
became deadly missiles that ended their life or crippled them for life. One
beggar woman was cut into half because the bomb was in her begging kamandal or
pot. The police claim that they had posted 16 police men whom the chief of the
Madrasa next to the mosque Maulana Bari shut in a room to shield from the
public anger. Bari calls it a white lie.
Many things had happened prior to the
blasts which make a macabre reading of the blasts which visited upon the Muslim
people at their graveyard mosque and nearby Mushwarat chowk. On first of
September the police control room received warning of possible threat to peace
and security. The police put up check points and warned the populace and
conducted checking of On the second there was a flag march by the security
forces. On the third, police in Ahmednager arrested Shanker Shelke along with
195 kilos of RDX. The superintendent of police Anil Kumbhare arrived within the
cemetery and called a meeting and warned the people of possible danger on the
occasion of Shabe Barat which was to be observed four days later. He assured of
more police deployment. The trustees asked him to keep the beggars and vendors
out of the vicinity of the graveyard. On the fifth, the Prime Minister of India
Manmohan Singh warned of terrorist attacks at certain places. On the same day the former MLA Nihal Ahmad
phoned the additional police superintendent Rajwardhan that he had received
information that a man with bomb materials in large quantity was arriving in
Malegaon on September 8 and that he was travelling from Jhansi in UP to Manmad
near Malegaon. On the sixth, the festival of Ganesh immersion went ahead
without any incident but under tight security. After the procession passed away
Dr Farog Magdumi asked SPAnil Kumbare to lift the barricade and allow the
people to buy medicine. The police officer became angry with him and asked him
not to be smart with him or else he would know on Friday (September 8) what was
in store for them, for the likes of Faorog. This ominous threat held out to the
doctor shows police complicity in the blasts. What Kumbhare told the people at
the cemetery meeting on September 4, he made it into a real threat on September
6th. September 6th was celebrated as the second centennial anniversary of Vande
Matrum nationalist song, so dear to the Hindu extremists.
Much before all these precedents of the
blasts even more eerie was how a leading lawyer Shaikh Shamsuddoha had warned
Shabbir Masiullah. He had called Shabbir to repair his inverter. While the work
was in progress the lawyer according to Shabbir told him what would happen to
him.
Thus the atmosphere was charged with
premonition of what was to happen soon. The film producers and actors of
Mollywood wore secular credentials on their sleeves and were duly disturbed by
what happened on the fateful day. The heroes who made themselves so popular as
house names included the familiar chums, Shafiq “Bachchan” Ansari, Rafique
“Johnny” Sheikh and Mahindra Bairagi Even the local filmmakers of Mollywood had
inkling. Aleem Tahil, one of them says “My film Chanbeen is going to send out a
message of peace and is a protest against any kind of terror. It is about a
policeman’s search for the truth. In the process the whole Hindu-Muslim unity
aspect is explored.” Bairagi sates: “We are a very secular industry. Contrary
to popular belief, Hindus and Muslims together make these wonderfully
entertaining movies. And with the two new films, we hope to strengthen that
bond.” Another producer Akram Khan says about his Malegaon key sher: “My film
is a tribute to the children who died in the blasts. My four heroes are young
children who help their friends in trouble. The underlying message is that even
a determined child can thwart terrorism.” The tragic irony of the blasts in
Malegaon 2006 is that despite these warnings and premonition neither the Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh, nor the police, nor the home minister of Maharashtra,
nor the ASP, the SP, or the former MLA, all of whom had warnings, could thwart
the pending blasts!
Even as the man who boarded train at
Jhansi with the explosives and reached Malegaon on September 8, 2006 to blow
bombs succeeded in his work,
The bombs killed 37 people:
1. Laeek Ahmed Shamsuddoha 35,
2. Abdul Jabbar Usmangani,
3. Raees Ahmad Mohammad Mustafa,
4. Mohammad Amin Mustak Ahmad,
5. Tariq Akhtar Jamilur Rehman 25,
6. Mohammad Javid Md Sharif 26,
7. Shaikh Rihan Raja Shaikh Yacub 5,
8. Navid Akhtar Md Yusuf 13,
9. Abdul Majeed Abdul Wahab Pahelwan 29,
10 .Shahid akhtar Sajid Akhtar 5,
11 Shaikh Iqbal Shaikh Ismail 43,
12 Rafeek ahmad Md Ayub 41,
13 Saad Amir Arif Qureshi 6,
14 Masood Ahmad Md Haroon 28,
15 Shafik Ahmad Md Rauf 30,
16 Shahebaz Anjum Shakeel Ahmad 17,
17 Sajid Ahmad Shakeel Ahmad 23,
18 Saeed Ahmad Khaleel Ahmad 10,
19 Nababai Shivaji More 35,
20 Mohammad Ansab Masood Ahmad 3,
21 . Mohammad Azhar wald Mohammad 11,
22 Ashhar Malik Salman Arif 11,
23 Mohammad Iqbal Pinjari Abdul Karim 25,
24 Mehmuda mard Shaikh Mehmud 70,
25 Ashraf bi mard Shaikh Sattar 40,
26 Anis Ahmad Abdul Gani Bagwan 35,
27 Sajda bi Mohammad Rizwan 12,
28 Hyat bi Shaikh Kader 45,
29 Noor bi Majid Mansoori 45,
30 . Shaukat Shah Bhikan Shah,
31 . Unidentified woman of above 50 with a
begging bowl whose bottom is missing believed to have been blown away by the
bomb.
One of the earliest visitors of the site
of bombing in the graveyard Hamidya mosque and Mushawart chowk was a retired
army officer who had fought in the Kargil war.
Lt Col Suresh Patil saw eyes, fingers, ears and flesh of the blasts
victims sticking to the walls of the mosque as well as in the branches and
stems of trees in graveyard when he visited the site with his fellow retired
army officers. He along with his group
was so much shocked that he went to the police station and told ATS officers
that it could not be the work of Muslims. The senior officer was dismayed by
his remark. Pagal ho gaye ho. Inka taaluk Pakistan aur ISI se hai. “You must be
mad. These people (Muslims) have contacts with ISI and Pakistan.”
Synchronizing with the blasts was the
withdrawal of a huge amount of money from the Perry chowk Mamco bank. Grapevine
has it that Mahesh Patodia withdrew one crore and 65 lakh. While the
transaction was on there was a quarrel between him and the cashier or someone
who was not paid for the blasts sufficiently and had a grouse and the result a
noisy dispute. A police van drove to the point in dead fast speed and a man
(Patodia) was taken away with head covered.
There was a riotoua scene at the Azadnager
police station. People poured their anger at the police failure to provide
protection. There was also incident of police shooting at the mob. People
attacked police vans at the front of the graveyard gate as well as the
Azadnager police station. People in Hindu areas were apprehensive of possible
reaction but when the truth dawned they also came forward to help the wounded.
There was no enmity in evidence as the Hindus in large numbers were out at the
hospitals and roads and helped whatever they could and also provide blood
donation. The Hindus and Muslims of their native town shouldered their
responsibility and showed exemplary fortitude and unity rarely seen in a
disturbed time of such nature.
Correspondent of Sahara News channel
Zahoor Khan was at the site of the cemetery gate ready with his Sony camera to
make video feature footage. After the explosions the news channels played it
for the rest of the day and night. Most
of the victims were rushed to the two hospitals of the corporation, NN Wadia
and Satana Naka. These hospitals were grossly inadequate to meet the challenge
of such magnitude. So Faran Hospital, Dr Vaidya’s hospital and others provided
the best service they had in treating the wounded. Wherever the case was very
serious they let the patients be rushed to Dhulia (fifty kilometers away) or
Mumbai hospitals (300 km away).
The Accused
Within hours of the blasts the police
swung into action and questioned fifty suspects, three of them from Dhulia.
Noorulhoda Shamshudoha (AccusedA/1) was
arrested on October 8th 2006 under
section 10 and 13 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention)Act of 1967 on the ground
that he belongs to Students Islamic Movement of India, a banned organization.
Earlier he was arrested and held in illegal detention till May 14, 2006 in the
Aurangabad arms haul case. He was released on May 23. But he was taken in
detention on August 4, 2006 for Mumbai serial bomb explosions on July 7, 2006.
On October 10, 2006 the police applied for Narco Test and Brain Mapping of
Noorulhoda. It is clear violation that he was booked under UAP Act but was made
to undergo these tests for the bomb blasts of 2006 for which he was not
arrested. The judge rejected this application of the police on October 12. The
police nevertheless took him to Bangalore and subjected him to Brain Mapping
and Polygraph examination. Dr Malini conducted these tests and gave her report
in her covering letter dated October 12. This was done in violation of the
order of the judge. The police was so proactive in framing that on the very
same day they applied to the Session Judge Malegaon, vide Criminal Revision
Application No. 133 of 2006 challenging the order of the magistrate. The
application was allowed on October 16.. Noorulhoda sought to challenge the
order but his writ petition was rejected at Mumbai. However his scientific
tests were already done and hence his writ petition became infractuous. The
proactive and even complicity of the police is seen here in the way the police
acted in haste in conducting all the tests when he was not involved in the
blasts and was in fact booked under UAPAct. There was no evidence found that he
was involved in unlawful activities. Even the books which police claimed to
have seized from his house were not his or his of family; the police had
supplied them as evidence. Despite all this he was then booked and arrested on
October 22, in Cr No. 3088/2006 of City Police station for having planted the
bomb at Mohammadiya masjid shoppg complex on September 13. The police in their
wont said that as no riot had resulted in the aftermath of September 8 blasts
he wanted to ignite one on September 13. When eight hours of the façade of the
show of detecting of the bomb at Mohammadiya the sniffer dog failed to make
headway, Rajwardhan declared that it was fake and Noorulhoda was involved in
the graveyard explosion.
A meeting in Jaipur on October 25, 2005 in
which the conspiracy for the Ajmer blast was drawn up. The meeting was
allegedly attended by Indresh, Pragya Thakur, Sunil Joshi, Ramji Kalsangra,
Devendra Gupta, Lokesh Sharma and Sandeep Dange.
Those behind the blasts
The first suspects were the ones named by
Dr Pasrica, Director General of Police. When he remarked that Bajrang Dal was
behind the blasts he was ignored except raves against him in a Marathi
Newspaper Punny Nagri. But people had noted the graffiti on a college building that
Bajrang Dal had arrived in the town. Did those whose sketches were drawn stay
in the gymkhana guest house there?
Even the chief of ATS KP Raguvanshi came
very near in his implicit remark on April 6 2006 explosion in Nanded when he
feared the “frightening repercussions” of it. How much the Bajrang Dal had
advanced in making bombs they proved in Marathwada mosques of Parbhani, Purna,
Jalna, Nanded through Malegaon 2006! The accused in Nanded were from Bajrang
Dal Naresh Raj Kondwar and Himanshu Phanse were killed while attempting to
fabricate an improvised explosive device along with their fellow extremists
Maruti Wagh, Rahul Pande, and Ramraj Guptewar whom Lt Col Prasad Purohit had
trained in bomb making. Unwittingly, Pasricha and Raghuvanshi would prove
themselves correct in their judgment. After Swami Asimanand’s confession it
became evident that the Hindutva groups were behind the blasts in Malegaon on
September 8, 2006. The RSS is multiheaded monstrosity that has different names
like Bajrang Dal, Abhnav Bharat. These last two are specifically relevant.
Puohit had trained both Bajrang Dal and Abhnav Bhat, it is not clear as to how
many of one group and how many of the other group/s were present in the
training in what strength. Most of the accused like Swami Asimanand, Purohit,
Sunil Joshi, Ramsingh Kalsangra, Sadhvi Pragyasing Thakur, Rajendra Chowdhary,
Dwemdra Gupta, Lokesh Sharma, Ramesh Upadhya, Dange Phanse, Tuptewar are
members of one or more of the Hindutva groups and interchangeable, The RSS is
adept in playing cat’s cradle game.
Like the child’s game they are
interrelated and yet come apart when you want to play tricks.
When did then the game of cat’s cradle
begin? It began when the local police called 20 Hindu youths including Shiv
Sena activist Mistry and Mahesh Patodia to question and then allowed them go
free of any blame. “Despite police concerns, the Maharashtra Government has
been reluctant to take on the Bajrang Dal for fear of providing political
capital to organisations such as the Shiv Sena.”
The state government and the central
government played foul in the game. “Politics underpins this paralysis. Both
the Congress and the NCP have run a successful campaign of poaching directed at
middle level Shiv Sena leaders, and believe that action which might be
considered `anti-Hindu' would give the religious Right a new lease of life”.
One specific example is that of Purohit who generated information about
Noorulhoda Shamshiudoha as the planter of the bomb. Strangely enough he was not
authorized to snoop into what was happening in Malegaon and yet his report was
the basis of the Central Government’s instance of Noorhodha’s involvement. This
shows that the army and the police were in league and the depth of the
involvement of the RSS into the government agencies (the police and the army.)
Praveen Swami says of 2006: :As early as
2001, Nurulhoda Shamsudoha, president of the Malegaon unit of the Students
Islamic Movement of India, was arrested on charges of planning bombings on the
Lashkar's behalf. Five other Malegaon-based SIMI operatives, Waqar-ul-Hassan,
Sheikh Rashid, Sheikh Siddiq, Sheikh Hassan, and Sharif Khan were also
arrested, on the basis of intelligence provided by the Delhi Police.”
-------
Lt Col Suresh Patil told the writer on
January 7, 2013 the above mentioned when he invited him to the forthcoming
meeting in Sindhkhed to be held on
January 12, 2013.
Tehelka Magazine, Vol 7, Issue 52, Dated
January 01, 201T1
Shamnama September 4, 2006.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/malegaon-bomb-blast-purohit-had-no-orders-to-infiltrate-abhinav-bharat-finds-army-probe/970073/0
http://www.hindu.com/2006/09/09/stories/2006090907431100.htm
Malegaon: the road to perdition
Malegaon blast of September 29, 2008
.
Purohit had so much confidence born out of the support that he had
negotiated with the Israeli secret agency seeking support, recognition and
asylum as he was planning to overthrow the government and abrogate the constitution
of India. All this with “a national flag, that is, a solo-themed saffron flag
with a golden border...with an ancient golden torch” National Investigation
Agency probing into the Samjhauta express attack of 2007have sought a
production warrant against Asimanand at a fast track court at Panchkula,
Haryana because they had sufficient proof against him. There is more to the
case than meets the eye. Purohit had given 8 kilos of RDX from his military
stock to one Bhagwan. This Bhagwan is no other than Swami Asimanand. That
consignment of explosives from the army ended up in the seven compartments of
the India-Pakistan shuttle train of friendship.
The Patil Commission that inquired into
the communal riots of October 25, 2001 in Malegaon had squarely blamed the
police for what had happened. A police constable had torn the handbill calling
for boycott of goods of American and Jewish companies. In most of riots and
their new version of terrorism the police have played a decidedly prominent
role. In the terrorist attacks in 2006 the police purposely remained absent
from the graveyard and Mushawarat chowk. The police deliberately abandoned
inquiring the suspected Hindus like the twenty youths from Hindu community
called for interrogation along with yarn merchant Mahesh Patodia
(a known sympathizer and financier of the
RSS who allegedly distributed one crore and sixty five lakh withdrawn from
Mamco bank to synchronize with the explosions ) or going after Bajrang Dal as
DGP Pasricha had said on September 9, 2006 that they were involved.
Their involvement is even more ominous in
the attack in Bhiku chowk on September 29, 2008. Of course, police advisory
always asks the public to report unclaimed or abandoned things. The otherwise
simple minded and forthright people of Malegaon did their job in reporting the
police. It is strange that the police did not call the anti terrorist squad to
search and defuse the device. To cover their shortcoming they allegedly gave
out that it was the gas cylinder that had caused the explosion. The splinter injuries
and hole marks belie this claim. The police should have known that in October
2001 a policeman had snatched a leaflet from a Muslim youth and then tore it up
which had set off a communal riot in which 15 people had lost life. It seems
the police lacks tact or is not fully trained, if not really biased. It is beyond doubt that the police were
Machiavellian in dealing with riots and bomb blasts. They had opened fire and
injured a Muslim near Bhiku chowk and then bribed him by including his name
among the injured in the blast by giving him government relief. Even the
district chief of police whispered into the ears of the home minister RR Patil
that no one was injured in police firing when people turned violent at the
negligence of the police. Dr Vaidya had refused to hand over the bullet he had
extracted from the leg of the injured until the police registered the incident,
or doing the panchnama. They also deliberately took up the matter of 2006
saying that they suspected MunawarAhmad, Riyaz Arsalan and Ishtiyaq Ahmad. The three had been declared
absconding after the 2006 blasts and therefore they were behind the 2008, too.
It was not so commonly realized at that time that this was a trick and a tactic
to frame Muslims. Since then the police have perfected it by naming the Bhatkal
brothers or the youths of Azamgarh although these have never been caught and
proved to be involved in terror.
Two bomb blasts in Malegaon and in Modasa
(Gujarat) had exploded soon after Ramzan prayer or travi at 9.35 pm as the
worshippers were coming out of the mosques and going for a cup of tea or
snacks. This was carefully chosen as the teeming crowd at such a time rushes to
replenish themselves with some kind of snack and tea in the fasting month. In
both the places bombs were fitted on a motor cycle. The notorious KK Mysorewala
as SP of Modasa was insincere in handling as he did in 2002 Gujarat genocide.
His counterpart in Malegaon did the same. When suspense persisted in Malegaon
case the police let a riot take place in Dhulia adjoining town of Malegaon on
October 5, 2008. The Hindu extremists who engineered it said that they wanted
to protect the people (Hindus) in Dhulia from terrorist attack of September 29
in Malegaon. A handbill to this effect was also distributed. In fact a police
officer of Dhulia went on record in saying that the Muslims were terrorists.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/malegaon-bomb-blast-purohit-had-no-orders-to-infiltrate-abhinav-bharat-finds-army-probe/970073/0
4-7-12Lt Col Shrikant Purohit, the
Military Intelligence (MI) officer who is a key accused in the September 2008
Malegaon bomb blast, was never authorised to infiltrate the right wing group
Abhinav Bharat which has been blamed for the attack, according to a probe by
the Army.
Purohit’s association with the group was
in fact a breach of service rules, the force is said to have determined.
Sources in the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said the Army’s findings on
the suspended officer would not impact the terror charges that it is
investigating.
Purohit has been claiming that he came in
contact with the masterminds of the blast when he was trying to infiltrate the
group as part of his job. However, the Army apparently did not find any ground
to substantiate his claim that he was part of a covert operation to gather
intelligence from the group.
This is also said to be backed by the
NIA’s investigation which has established that Purohit was “acting
independently” and never sought the permission of his seniors. He was also not
mandated to hold meetings in Kolkata, Faridabad and Indore while being
stationed in Deolali, sources said.
NIA sources said that contrary to
Purohit’s claims that he was secretly infiltrating Abhinav Bharat, he had
revealed his identity as an MI officer to Swami Aseemanand, another key accused
in the case. Citing a conversation between Purohit and Aseemanand after the
murder of RSS pracharak Sunil Joshi in Dewas, Madhya Pradesh, in December 2007,
NIA sources said Aseemanand clearly referred to Purohit as an MI officer and
asked him to find out who killed Joshi.
“If Purohit was acting covertly, why did
he reveal his identity to Swami Aseemanand? His cover, if any, was blown a long
time back,” said an officer.
Investigators also suspect that a report
by Purohit after the Malegaon blast naming Sadhvi Pragya and others — which is
being cited in his defence that he kept his seniors in the loop — was a ploy to
cover his tracks as he feared being linked to the blast after the Maharashtra
ATS identified Pragya as a suspect.
The Army inquiry, sources said, has also
found that Purohit violated other rules by procuring a bulletproof vest and a
bugging device from his personal funds, and helping an accused in the case get
a non-service pattern weapon.
Although the findings of the inquiry are
ready, they have to be reconfirmed by Army HQ before action can be taken
against the suspended officer. However, sources said there is enough ground to
court-martial the officer and he could be dismissed.
Sources said the Army’s inquiry did not go
into the terror charges against Purohit or the conspiracy to carry out the
Malegaon blast. “The terms of reference of the inquiry were very clear. The
Army’s mandate was to find out if he flouted service rules. Several such
instances were found,” said a senior officer. The NIA has also sought a report
of the Court of Inquiry from the Army.
The conspiracy will be investigated by the
NIA as the officer cannot be tried for the same charges by two different
organizations, one officer explained. The NIA had sought custody of Purohit
along with two others and the case was being heard in the Supreme Court where
Purohit had challenged the NIA’s right to seek his custody.
2
Paradigm Shifts by the RSS? Lessons from
Aseemanand's Confession
Vol - XLVI No. 06, February 05, 2011 |
Christophe Jaffrelot and Malvika Maheshwari
• Perspectives
In the long run, the ongoing developments
on the involvement of Hindu fundamentalists in terrorist acts are disastrous
not only for India but possibly for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh as well.
India, whose democratic image is still a key element of its soft power, will
have to restore the credibility of its rule of law and of its agencies which
were initially quick to identify the wrong men as guilty because of deep-rooted
prejudice and the growing ideology of majoritarianism.
http://www.epw.in/perspectives/paradigm-shifts-rss-lessons-aseemanands-confession.html
How the accused live with other accused and in the same city live with
the PC of Mumbai AN Roy who accused the Imam of receiving 40 lakh rupees
through hawal and harbourig the Kashmiris from whom arms were recovered. The
huge amount was allegedly collected by the Kashmisis for carrying out terror
attacks in Mumbai. Then the only charge that remained to convict them was the
cache of arms. If that was only a plant, then? Like what Sajid planted or Pius
Agarwal at the behest of SP Rajwardhan Sinha?
Sajid is from a slum of Malegaon and the arms haul case witness were
also from a famous slum known as central talkies Id gah. It is a notorious
place for brothels, dug trafficking and dens of gamblers. The police can easily
outsource witnesses in any case with no loss of time and urgently summon them
at the most unearthly times too. They seem to oblige the police for a quid pro
quo. The locals arrested in arms haul case had the inhabitants of that murky
place as their witnesses whom they had never even seen. One such accused was
the imam of another mosque 500 km away in Phool Sanghvai in Yawatmal district.
Zahid, the imam, and his brother Javed were arrested because of mistaken
identity. The police wanted one Mohammad and as the two were Mohammads the police
under Sinha exercised their discretion and put one (imam) in the 2006 blasts
case and another in 2006 arms haul. They remind you another divine Mufti Qayum
Mansuri of Godhra and asked him to choose in which case he would like himself
placed, Godhra train burning, Akshardham or Haren Pandya.
Is
anyone out there in Malegaon who can write his own Cry, the beloved country?
Haj House Imam
Baksh
The above photos are given here to
make the reader know that blasts did take place. They were not just crackers
that burst as Sadhvi Pragya claimed. There was no involvement of Pakistan. The
victims are true martyrs. The extremists
on the right never allowed a memorial of those who laid their life in 1921. The
PM had never found time for Malegaon, “I did not come to Sangli on my own, but
I was given orders by (Sambhaji) Bhide Guruji to visit his city, and here I am
here!”
“If someone talks about
equivalence with Pakistan, there is no need to take the person seriously and no
need to pay heed to such people,” Sharad Pawar said.
It is illogical that the first
blast case of September 8 2006 rather than what happened on September 29 2008
Malegaon should attract so much more attention.
Chapter 3
What was at Stake in the 2006/2008 Malegaon
Terror Attacks?
It was a colossal risk when the two
Malegaon terror attacks took place. Israel had asked the Abhinav Bharat of Lt
Col Purohit of the Indian Army to provide two such attacks to prove the bona
fide of seeking help from Israel for the Hindu Rashtra. India
would have ceased to be a secular democratic government. What is more, Israel
would have come to acquire control over the new government that was envisaged
by the conspirators. The conspirators would have established the Hindu Rashtra with red flag at the Indian embassy
in Tel Aviv and diplomatic recognition and supply of Israeli arms and
ammunition. The Israelis wanted the conspi-rators of Abhinav Bharat to give
just two examples. It was for ATS chief Hemant Karkare and his devoted team of
police officers that the treason in the high places went haywire, the
arrangement broke down, or ceased to function properly.
Soon after the bomb blew up at Bhiku Chowk, Sadhvi Pragyasingh
Thakur rang up Ramji Kalsangra.
Sadhvi: How many have died in the explosion?
Ramji: Two or three have died.
Sadhvi: You had calculated many would die when you went there.
Ramji: There was some mistake in the timing. We tried to park the
motor bike at two or three places but we were not allowed there. Then we parked
at one place and I left the spot. There was not a huge crowd then. There was so
much explosive material that the front part of the vehicle was blown to
smithereens.
Everything was planned meticulously by retired Army personnel and
a Lt-Col in service and others involved in it. Ramji and Sandeep Dange wanted
to place the motorcycle at the corner of Anjuman Chowk but the lady police
refused them. Had the bombs exploded there the casualties would have been in
hundreds, mostly women and children buying bangles or ear rings or boutique for
Ramzan Id a couple of days later. Another attempt to park the motorcycle of
Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur was in front of the transport company. They parked it
there. But the owner went to the police chowki across the road and asked the
police to remove it. They refused. A crowd gathered there and they tampered the
motorcycle in an attempt to move it away and unknowingly changed the focus of
the bomb in the dicky.
Ramji and Dange wanted maximum casualties. The pulling and pushing
of the vehicle disturbed the setting. Another delay was the devotees’ prayer
for their own sake and for the community. The hotels at the Bhiku Chowk missed
the crowds who remained inside the mosque and couldn’t reach the hotels and the
bomb went off.
Abhinav Bharat aimed to kill a mass number of people to meet the
Israeli condition.
There was a great risk involved even earlier in the 2006 attack.
ATS chief of Maharashtra K.P. Raghuvanshi had framed nine Muslim youths in
bogus terror charges; except one all the others were innocent. The explosion of
four bombs at the graveyard and Mushawarat Chowk had killed nearly 40 Muslims
at the prayer. However, there was a change. On September 1, 2008 Hemant Karkare
had taken over charge of the ATS from Raghuvanshi. His reasons for framing
charges were illogical. That Muslims had suffered heavily in the October 2001
communal riots in Malegaon. They wanted to avenge it. Another reason was that
those who do not go to the graveyard and pray for their dead on Shabe Barat
wanted to stop those who pray at the graves of their dear ones at night. The
bombs were meant to go off at night time when the crowd is very huge in the
cemetery. But the four bombs went off at 1.30 in noon time. The local police
used this argument and showed that the culprits were members of the Students
Islamic Movement of India. But the SIMI was hardly known to the youths in the
town. SP Rajverdhan Sinha and Raghuvanshi began investigating. This made up the
line of inquiry.
The blasts were linked to the smuggling of RDX into the town in
May 2006. The nine youths accused of the blasts had to languish in prison until
Swami Aseemanand accepted that the 2008 as well as 2006 blasts were the works
of Abhinav Bharat. Among the suspects were Rajender Choudhary, Lokesh Sharma,
Ramchand Kalsanghra, Sandeep Dange, Amit Chouhan, etc. Subsequently some were
arrested.
Some other accused/suspects also held
parleys with Yogi Aditynath and the Nepalese royal family for their
envisioned Hindu Rashtra.
Most of these details were recorded in the lap-tops of Purohit and
the so-called Shankaracharya aka Dyanand Pandey, Sudhakar Dwivedi. Hemant
Karkare was a decent gentleman and hid from public view how the Shankaracharya
had his private harem of women of repute. But his honest officers made
transcript of confessions, etc. That found place in the charge-sheets he was
preparing. The matter relating to the Lt Col Purohit, a serving officer of the
Army, was very serious. But it was trashed by no other persons than those in
the Army and M.K. Narayanan, the National Security Advisor. The meeting had
taken place in Delhi where Karkare laid bare before the Army officers and the
NSA the involvement of the Army. This happened a day before the attack in
Mumbai 26/11/2008 which also took his life. However, before that he had met the
US embassy officers who had offered asylum to him!
Arms seizure of May 2006 was linked to
both the attacks. Purohit had stolen 60 kg RDX from Army stock and kept it with
Dyanand Pandey. A part of it was given to one Bhaghwan to be used in the
Samjhauta train attack. Some of it ended up in the cantonment in Deolali near
Nashik. However the arrest of Pragyasingh, Purohit, Gen Ramesh Upadhya, and
others prevented the establishment of the Hindu Rashtra. That
was at stake. It should not be beyond the realm of possibility that there was a
hint of taking over of the country by Abhinav Bharat what with the theft of RDX
from Jammu by a serving officer of the Army and the huge explosion on August
24, 2008 at Kanpur in which Bajrang Dal activists Rajiv Mishra and Bhupender
Singh were killed. It was such a huge explosion that would have destroyed half
the city, according to the police there.
The new Hindutva is so
ebullient that striking the Pakistan bombs on their own soil is palpably at
hand. No wonder then there will be more concerted effort to cause heavy
casualties of Indian Muslims, the real target of new Hindutva.
If any Indian distinguished
himself by writing history by his sweat and while doing so made history by
writing it in his blood, it is this modest looking man. This Assistant
Commissioner Hemant Karkare in charge of the Anti-Terrorist Squad of
Maharashtra will be remembered for good. Those who were breathing down his neck
will breathe a sigh of relief but all others will be grief-stricken.
A
tribute to a Hero
If any Indian distinguished himself by writing history by his sweat
and while doing so made history by writing it in his blood, it is this modest
looking man. This assistant commissioner in charge of Anti Terrorist Squad of
Maharashtra will be remembered for good. Those who were breathing down his neck
will breathe a sigh of relief but all others will have grief.
LK Advani and Rajnathsingh had tried to run down one of the most
impeccable and distinguished men of probity. They were doing what the poet
Alexander Pope penned three centuries ago: ‘willing to wound but afraid to
strike.’ That hurt him deeply: "when allegations are made anyone (we) will
feel hurt.". Indeed the Pune ATS had received a telephonic message
threatening to kill Karkare and blow up his house ‘within a few days.’
It was painstaking work that he undertook when the bombs went off
in Gadkari auditorium in Thane and another theatre in Vashi, Mumbai, by vowing
to leave no stone unturned in search of clues. That paid off immediately. But
then came Malegaon September 29, 2008 blast. The crowd had gone berserk in
Bhiku chowk and had almost threatened to destroy the evidence by their over
reaction. But Karkare’s reaching the spot with his team salvaged the dreadful
proof of Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur’s motor bike, the LML Freedom. Then came the
forensic report and the number of the bike. Given the state of the political
situation and the communal fragility it was most dangerous to lay one’s hand on
a sadhu let alone a sadhvi.
That was like wearing the burning shirt of Hercules. But this
valiant man did it.
He worked in private companies including Hindustan Lever and the
National Productivity Council before joining IPS in 1985. He worked in Akola,
Bhiwandi, Thane and Mumbai. A most daring stint in very difficult district
infected by Naxalites, Chandrapur, was also in his lot. He had rich experience
with the ace intelligence agency of RAW by serving a stint in Austria and then
he took over in January this year as the chief of ATS.
The imprint of his sang froid manner is the subtext of what he said during
Malegaon investigation: "We should do our job and it is for the court to
decide."
Of course, under the tremendous tension and pressure he carried on
his work. Only the other day the court denied police custody of Lt Col Purohit,
Sadhvi Pragyasingh etc. Karkare did not feel brow beaten: “police custody would
have helped investigations to proceed faster but still we will see how best to
deal with it in a legal way". This is ironclad perseverance.
Karkare in his crisp blue shirt wore the helmet and took a call on his mobile
before he advanced towards the Metro cinema and the Cama hospital. The security
circle around him moved. His eyes shone brightly as he went to attend the call
of duty.
Kutch yad unheyn bhi karlo, jo laut
key ghar na aaye/ tum bhool na jao unko is liye kahi yeh kahani [remember something of them who did not return home/lest
you forget them ( and some others) their tale is narrated here. ]
Index
Abhinav
Bharat 4, 42, 110,
Abrar
Ahmad 12, 22,51,
Advani,
LK 114
Akkalkuwan
50
Akshardham
6, 22,
Alexander
Pope 114
American
Libray centre4
Amit
Chauhan 112
Amnesty
International 13
Anjuman
chowk 111
Asghar
Ali 22
Asimanand,
Swami 12, 22, 44, 50,112
Bajrang
Dal 44,
Basher
Adeeb39
Bhalchand
Hirachand Shah36
Bhatt,
Sanjiv 21
BhonslaMilitary
School 36l 5
Bohra
36
Budhu
Chand Bagh 3
Coimbatore
42
Dange,
Sandeep 21, 111
Deobandi
24
Deolai
Artillary Camp 5,
Dhulia
43
Duday,
Vikas 5
Faizee,
Dr Pervez 52
Farook
Verdha 22
Geelani,
Shaukat Ali 42
Godse,
Nathuram 39
Grover,
Vrianda 9
Gupta,
Shekhar 5
Haji
Imam Bakhs50
Hamidiya
mosque 24
Hindu
Jan Jagran 44,
Hindu
Rashtra 110
Hyder
Pathan 34
Indore,5
Indresh
Kumar 5
Iqbal
Chowdhary 22
Ishrat
Jahan 9
Israel
36, 110
Jai
Vande Matrum 44,
Jalil,
Advocate 22, 50,
Jannatun
Nisha 22
Jinnha,
Barrister Mohammad Ali35
Juna
Kabrasthhan 24
Karkare,
ATSchief Hemant 5, 22, 44,
Karwal
nagar 4
Khan,
Policeman Aftab 42
Khwaja
Yunus 14
Kisan
chand Das Bhikan Das36
Khilafat
Movement 36
Kumbhare,
SP Anil52, 53,
Magdumi,
DrFarog 53
Mahadeo
Vithal Khare vakil Brahman 36
Malegaon
4, 22,
Mamledar
galli 39
Maulvi
Haji Abdul Hameed Haji Khuda Baksh 24
Mehat,
Tushar 21
Mishra,
Arun 21
Mithun
Chakerwarti 12
Mittal
Justice Geeta 44
Modi,
PM Narendra 4
Mohan
Bhatwat 5,34
Mufti
Sufyan 22Murmur, Governor of JK 21
Mushawaat
chowk 112
Mustafa
Bagh 4
Narayanan,
NSA 112Nehru, PM Jawaharlal 38
Nihal
MLA 53Pandeya, Haren 6, 21, 22,
Pakistan
112
Pandy,
Sudhakar 112
Patel,
Sardar 7
Ode
11
Osaib
Akhtar Marazi 9
Pampa
50
Panch
Kandeel 34,
Pawar,
Sharad 42,
Postman
Shaikh Gafoor Patel 37
Raman
B 43, Panch kandeel 34
Purohit,
LetCol Prasad Srikant 4, 110, 111,
Qutbuddin,
Ansari 41,
Raghuvanshi,
ATS chief KP5, 42, 111,
RDX
112
Rajnath
Singh, Defens Minis 144
Ramsinghji Kalsangra 21, 110,
RSS
, 6,38, 44, 67,
Rasheed,
MLA Sheikh24
“Rashid”
38
Rashtriya
Muslim Manch51,
Riot
40
Royal
theatre 34
Sadhvi
Pragyasingh Thakur 12, 22, 110, 111,
Sakherchand
Mangal Das Gujrati 36
Sanatan
Sansthan 44,
Savarkar,
Himani 39
Shah,
HM Amit22,
Sherma,
IB officer Aniket 4,
Shoban
36
Sikhs
38
Sinha,
Sp Rajwardhan 51
SIMI
112,
Singh,
PM Dr Manmohn 53
Sohrabuddin
22
Sudhakar
Diwedi 112
Suleman
36
Surana
Chand Rajpat 36
Surat
7
Swami,
Praveen 40
Tadwi
Bheel Muslim50
Tahir
Hussein 4
Tel
Aviv 110
Thakeray,
Badasaheb43,
Thakur,
Chief Justice23
Thapar,
Karan 21
Tilak
road 39
Trump,
President Donald 4
Tulsi
Lodge 35
Ujjain
5
Umerji,
Maulana 6,7
Vajpayee,
PM AB 6
White
powder 5
Yogi,
CM Adityanath 4, 112
Zahoor Khan 52
Notice
1.All persons/organizations mentioned and discussed in the book are presumed to
be innocent unless proved guilty in the court of law. They are mentioned and
discussed here for “critical thinking, which has the potential to change your
established attitudes and beliefs.”
2.
I thought of creating a think tank “Even Keel” aimed at saving India from
communal divisive disaster which indeed is manmade disaster. Never before had
it posed such a serious challenge to our democracy by raising the ugly head of
exclusivist hidden agenda as of today. It is being propagated as ‘cultural
nationalism. It is absolutely legitimate task of all Indians to identify
persons and groups hell bent on keeping burning the communal cauldron. It could
be the Dawood gang or the Hindutva conglomerations of hate ideology. We have a
duty to our nation to save it from dangers of extremism. Towards this end
members of all communities are welcome to join hands in solidarity.
No comments:
Post a Comment