The Nanavati commission report has aroused extreme reaction of being eyewash, partisan, murder of democracy and even creation of Narendra Modi for his own justification. Some believe that the Godhra incidents were state sponsored terrorism to garner votes for the election that took place ten months later. What is even more troubling is that some think that Modi is the cause of youths taking to terrorism and being radicalized for the way he has handled his state in the massacre of Muslims in 2002 as is evident in the way the commission conducted the inquiry and its composition and conclusion. The Nanavati commission report is diametrically opposed to the Railway minister’s appointed CU Banerjee commission report 2005 on the burning of the two compartments of the Sabarmati express on February 27, 2002. What is rubbing salt in the wound is how Justice GT Nanavati accompanied no other than Justice Akshay Mehta to the office of the chief minister of Gujarat to present the report. Mehta is the justice who set notorious killer of Naroda Patia Babu Bajrangi free when several other judges wanted to punish him and were transferred for dissenting with the chief minister. In fact one such judge had remarked that Bajrangi should be punished many times for the crimes he had allegedly, and by his own confession on camera, committed.
As is the wont of the right wing sangh privar they view the report as an exposure of a preplanned conspiracy and would like even the court proceedings to follow this line. CU Banerjee had found that the burning of the compartments was by accident and was not caused by petrol. The Railway departments have their own experience and knowledge of fire accidents. As the sangh privar wanted to blame the Christians for the murder of Lakhsmanand Saraswaty Swamy in Orissa and not the Mao extremists who claimed it, the government of Narendra Modi also wanted to blame Muslims and not the fire accident. It was a strategy designed to win election then round the corner.
There were non-governmental organizations that also probed the pogroms and the burning of the compartments. The Report by the International Initiative for Justice (IIJ) titled “Threatened Existence: A Feminist Analysis of the Genocide in Gujarat” says about the meeting at the residence of Modi in the night of February 27: The purpose of the two-hour meeting was to direct officials not to take action against the VHP mobs, should anything happen. Modi apparently made it clear that there would be justice for Godhra during the bandh and ordered that the police should not come in the way of “the Hindu backlash”. The Director General of Police, K Chakravarthy, is said to have persisted against such instruction, but he was silenced by Modi. ..It clearly indicates that the head of a state government had, by his directives, promoted lawlessness from February 28 by directing the police chiefs to keep their force under leash.” The next day the bandh called by VHP started and the genocide of Muslims was in full swing for three consecutive days and there was resurgence of the same on March 15 the day of sheeladaan when the movement for building the temple at Ayodhya was scheduled. The resultant inferno engulfed many districts of the state leading to the torture and killing of more than 2000 Muslim, among them women and girls gang raped and burnt alive. 1150 hotels of Muslims were destroyed in Ahmedabad alone. The figure of looting and burning of other commercial establishments is astronomical.
Modi ala his party and the privar is extreme righ-wing authoritarian nationalist opposed to minorities. When he appointed the commission the single term of reference for inquiry was to unearth the conspiracy behind the burning of Sabarmati express. This by itself precludes the probability of any accident. Since the submission of the first part of the report the right-wing saffron groups have made it clear that they believe there was conspiracy and the courts must follow suit in dispensing justice in the light of this finding. Everything must fall into that line. First they blamed that it was petrol and when the truth came out that it was kerosene they just substituted. The witnesses were also manipulated by the investigating agencies to suit their purpose. Even the names of the victims had to be changed because there were some Muslim passengers of the fated compartment who perished along with their fellow Hindu compatriots. Even the forensic expert from Ahmedabad laboratory who opined that the fire could not have been started by any inflammable liquid thrown from outside, was ignored. It was also clear in the morning of February 27 that the train caught fire when it was stationary on a raised part of the track. It was quite raised above the ground level around both the sides to prevent a crowd from gathering there. Therefore it is improbable that there was any crowd as alleged by the government official line.
When will the full truth come out in the open? There is no hope of it as long as the BJP and Modi rule the state.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
Terrorism by the mobs
The Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh admitted in the governors’ meeting on September 17 2008 that there have been gaps in the intelligence collected by the intelligence agencies. This is nowhere as much a matter of concern than in the startling revelations of certain groups involved in bomb making. No one had bothered to keep a tab on the VHP or the armed wing of RSS, Bajrang Dal. Their involvement in the pogroms of Muslims in Gujarat is now history. But the activities of these have ramifications for the country as a whole. For what happened in Gujarat is happening in Orissa and Karnataka, not to speak of Dang district of Gujarat itself and Madhya Pradesh.
Now that the Nanavati Commission report is submitted to the Chief Minister Narendra Modi there is time to pause and think. Though much water has flowed down the Narmada much more has happened in the country that calls for a fresh look. The exhibited ability of bomb making by Bajrang Dal is truly more frightening than all the past violence. The amount of explosive material with them is awesome. In just one case out of probably many hundreds, which went undetected, it was enough to destroy half of the city of Kanpur!
This is hardly any secret that Bajrang Dal was actively involved in distribution of trishuls and organizing training camps in arms and ammunition in the run up to the havocs of the burning of the Sabarmati train compartments and the massacre that followed.
Of the two faces that will be etched on our national psyche and survive for our posterity are from Gujarat 2002. One is that of a man with folded hands marked with injury and bandage and bleary eyes with tears begging mercy for his life and of his family as others of the cornered and fated and frightened members of the family hide behind him. The other is that of the Bajrang Dal activist with red bandana tied around his head and terrifying eyes with virtual jaw of a tiger, swelling veins on the neck, blood marks of his victim on his hands along with traces of arson against the background of burning houses and shops. These are the faces of terror by mobs, the vanquished and the vanquisher, the terrified and the terrific.
The faces have multiplied since then. Much of what is going on in Orissa and Karnataka is the result of the ferocious unleashing of murder and mayhem on the terrified Christian minority there. The central government has woken up belatedly to apply article 355 of the constitution to check the situation going overboard. There was not even any mention of this article in 2002 when the BJP was in power both in Gujarat and also at the center with its allies. Though the then Prime Minister of India Mr Vajpayee had asked Modi to do his rajdharm, he himself did not observe his rajdharm by not resorting to article 355 of the constitution when scores of mosques were demolished or taken over and thousands of Muslims were killed and their properties and houses looted and burnt. All this continued despite the letter of the President Narayan asking Vajpayee to act. The subsequent boycott and ostracisation of Muslims was allowed by the state authorities to continue till our time.
Two crucial aspects have to come to light, the identity of the victims of the Sabarmati train and whether the train was burnt from outside or from within. Why was the advice of the collector of Godhra turned down also needs scrutiny if we want to curb terror by the mobs as it is unraveling in Orissa and Karnataka. What is transpiring in Gujarat or Delhi has important bearings for what is happening in the rest of our country. Why did we not make public the narco test on Safdar Nagori soon after it was done in Bangalore in April this year subsequent to his arrest in March? He had spilled the beans on7/11 and Samjhauta and yet the intelligence was perhaps not shared by the other investigating agencies. What else can you say that Justice Geeta Mittal asked the central government to put concrete proof of any individual incident before the court to continue the ban on SIMI. Perhaps it would have prevented some of the violent incidents that happened thereafter. Even so the need to isolate the few criminal members from the rest of the community is even more material in the fight against terrorism. As Subhan Qureshi’s [Tauqeer] mother Zubeida said that she is a Hindustani and would like her son punished before her eyes so that no one dare to do such evil against the country. But proof first.
Equally important is to bring to book the systematic training in arms and making bombs of an outfit whose branches spread out to all the parts of the country. They can wreak havoc on unprecedented scale jeopardizing the unity and integrity of the country. Enough explosive materials were recovered from Nanded, Kanpur and other places and yet no significant change has taken place that the government is serious in fighting terror of this kind. Those who are perpetrating this kind have left a trail of destruction and misery over several hundred miles across states of Orissa and Karnataka and that too over weeks on end. The huge size of the mobs indulging in this enjoys not just state government patronage but anonymity. Therefore we have the distinction of adding another clause in the definition of terror: organized marauding by armed mobs going after their quarry, people who choose another faith or are born in faith not that of the majority and build houses of prayer for themselves.
Now that the Nanavati Commission report is submitted to the Chief Minister Narendra Modi there is time to pause and think. Though much water has flowed down the Narmada much more has happened in the country that calls for a fresh look. The exhibited ability of bomb making by Bajrang Dal is truly more frightening than all the past violence. The amount of explosive material with them is awesome. In just one case out of probably many hundreds, which went undetected, it was enough to destroy half of the city of Kanpur!
This is hardly any secret that Bajrang Dal was actively involved in distribution of trishuls and organizing training camps in arms and ammunition in the run up to the havocs of the burning of the Sabarmati train compartments and the massacre that followed.
Of the two faces that will be etched on our national psyche and survive for our posterity are from Gujarat 2002. One is that of a man with folded hands marked with injury and bandage and bleary eyes with tears begging mercy for his life and of his family as others of the cornered and fated and frightened members of the family hide behind him. The other is that of the Bajrang Dal activist with red bandana tied around his head and terrifying eyes with virtual jaw of a tiger, swelling veins on the neck, blood marks of his victim on his hands along with traces of arson against the background of burning houses and shops. These are the faces of terror by mobs, the vanquished and the vanquisher, the terrified and the terrific.
The faces have multiplied since then. Much of what is going on in Orissa and Karnataka is the result of the ferocious unleashing of murder and mayhem on the terrified Christian minority there. The central government has woken up belatedly to apply article 355 of the constitution to check the situation going overboard. There was not even any mention of this article in 2002 when the BJP was in power both in Gujarat and also at the center with its allies. Though the then Prime Minister of India Mr Vajpayee had asked Modi to do his rajdharm, he himself did not observe his rajdharm by not resorting to article 355 of the constitution when scores of mosques were demolished or taken over and thousands of Muslims were killed and their properties and houses looted and burnt. All this continued despite the letter of the President Narayan asking Vajpayee to act. The subsequent boycott and ostracisation of Muslims was allowed by the state authorities to continue till our time.
Two crucial aspects have to come to light, the identity of the victims of the Sabarmati train and whether the train was burnt from outside or from within. Why was the advice of the collector of Godhra turned down also needs scrutiny if we want to curb terror by the mobs as it is unraveling in Orissa and Karnataka. What is transpiring in Gujarat or Delhi has important bearings for what is happening in the rest of our country. Why did we not make public the narco test on Safdar Nagori soon after it was done in Bangalore in April this year subsequent to his arrest in March? He had spilled the beans on7/11 and Samjhauta and yet the intelligence was perhaps not shared by the other investigating agencies. What else can you say that Justice Geeta Mittal asked the central government to put concrete proof of any individual incident before the court to continue the ban on SIMI. Perhaps it would have prevented some of the violent incidents that happened thereafter. Even so the need to isolate the few criminal members from the rest of the community is even more material in the fight against terrorism. As Subhan Qureshi’s [Tauqeer] mother Zubeida said that she is a Hindustani and would like her son punished before her eyes so that no one dare to do such evil against the country. But proof first.
Equally important is to bring to book the systematic training in arms and making bombs of an outfit whose branches spread out to all the parts of the country. They can wreak havoc on unprecedented scale jeopardizing the unity and integrity of the country. Enough explosive materials were recovered from Nanded, Kanpur and other places and yet no significant change has taken place that the government is serious in fighting terror of this kind. Those who are perpetrating this kind have left a trail of destruction and misery over several hundred miles across states of Orissa and Karnataka and that too over weeks on end. The huge size of the mobs indulging in this enjoys not just state government patronage but anonymity. Therefore we have the distinction of adding another clause in the definition of terror: organized marauding by armed mobs going after their quarry, people who choose another faith or are born in faith not that of the majority and build houses of prayer for themselves.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Suborning and Terrorism
We are passing through a most crucial time in our national history that calls for rigorous soul searching. The bombings in Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Delhi have added a new horizon to human ingenuity in enormity and the power of the dark. From this is derived the ability to suborn and to falsely implicate. While the former is getting a man through bribe or other means to tell falsehood or inducing him by secret and underhanded means to do something unlawful the latter is to ascribe crime to individuals or organizations that may be difficult to prove on bona fide grounds.
There is one angle that has not been explored due to the plethora of untrue assumptions among them involvement of just one community in terrorism and foreign funding. It is true that sourcing explosive material within the local market might have reduced cost but the planning and execution in the last few incidents shows enormous amount of money that must have changed hands. Malegaon blasts gave important leads, which the ATS and CBI as enigmatically ignored as had their country cousins headed by superintendent of Police Rajwardhan of Malegaon. Local papers carried reports of two men who had an altercation for not being paid enough for the task they had just finished. They had quarreled at Mamco bank around the time the blasts took place at 1.40 pm on September 8, 2006. Similarly the police had taken a rich textile merchant and RSS activist Mahesh Patodia for questioning in connection with the blasts. A mob had encircled the police station and got him released. Equally relevant is the sudden rise in fortune of the ironsmith Panchal who had his smithy in front of the Hamidiya mosque of the graveyard. There is another person known as Sonowne the farm tenant of Dr Riyaz who suddenly came in possession of land and left his job. He was connected with the discovery of rdx and was an associate of a suspect. Sourcing material and money is a matter to ponder over. Good that we are now talking less about cross border terrorism because it proved to be chimera.
Not just sourcing material and money. Even the human resource is local. There was a man who offered prayer on the roof of the water tank of Hamidya mosque. He saw a man in black looking suspiciously around and had no cap during the Friday prayer and did not offer prayer. This mysterious stranger scaled the compound wall lined with cement grille and jumped out of the graveyard and escaped in great hurry. The twelve-year-old boy at Karol bagh in Delhi said of what he saw on September 13, 2008: ‘The man was tall and wearing black clothes. They came and put a black plastic in the dust bin and went away.’ Then the blast happened. What is necessary here is to follow the leads and give what Shakespeare calls a local habitation and a name. But that requires imagination; the police and the investigating agencies are running short on that.
To make up deficit they rely mostly on confession extracted under duress and in most torturous condition. In the process they create more terror. One reason why the police take so much time to prepare charge sheet is, in the words of Arundhati Roy, how to find the glass slippers for the feet of Cinderella. Chief Minister Narendra Modi stepped out of the caution he had observed in the wake of the July 26 blasts in Ahemdabad and said in the aftermath of the Delhi blasts: "Ten days back when I met the prime minister and the NSA chief, I informed them that the people arrested in connection with the Gujarat blasts have told the police that plan is on for blasts in Delhi. Only location was not known." This from a CM who eloquently remained silent on the way Kenneth Heywood left the country! Unless he had himself interrogated Safder Nagori and Mufti Bahser, the two masterminds till that date, his police did not send any sensitive information to the Central government and agencies. Moreover he is suspect as any head of a state can be of knowing fully well how the police led the Hindu mobs in 2002 in killing hapless Muslims and yet ignored taking action against them. Nay, he even shielded them. If the weeping and wailing face of Quttubuddin Ansari finds a place in the email of Indian Mujahideen it must be noted that police officer KK Mysorewalla’s smirking face in denying refuge to Muslim women victims of the pogroms 2002 does not find a place even in Gujarati papers. Thanks to CM’s tight hold on his state. This gives only one option of suborning the accused.
That requires enormous amount of money and political power. The main accused in Malegaon blasts now turned approver, Abrar, had according to Niloo Damne in his book Bomb sphotananter “After Bomb Explosions” 65 lakh rupees, a hero Honda, expensive mobiles, and the service of Indica car at his disposal. Till the day of the explosion he hardly had money to buy a packet of cigarettes! His father and brothers allege that he is in the clutches of the police and especially SP Rajwardhan! Who has provided him all that? With that you can suborn anyone among poverty stricken wretched people.
There is one angle that has not been explored due to the plethora of untrue assumptions among them involvement of just one community in terrorism and foreign funding. It is true that sourcing explosive material within the local market might have reduced cost but the planning and execution in the last few incidents shows enormous amount of money that must have changed hands. Malegaon blasts gave important leads, which the ATS and CBI as enigmatically ignored as had their country cousins headed by superintendent of Police Rajwardhan of Malegaon. Local papers carried reports of two men who had an altercation for not being paid enough for the task they had just finished. They had quarreled at Mamco bank around the time the blasts took place at 1.40 pm on September 8, 2006. Similarly the police had taken a rich textile merchant and RSS activist Mahesh Patodia for questioning in connection with the blasts. A mob had encircled the police station and got him released. Equally relevant is the sudden rise in fortune of the ironsmith Panchal who had his smithy in front of the Hamidiya mosque of the graveyard. There is another person known as Sonowne the farm tenant of Dr Riyaz who suddenly came in possession of land and left his job. He was connected with the discovery of rdx and was an associate of a suspect. Sourcing material and money is a matter to ponder over. Good that we are now talking less about cross border terrorism because it proved to be chimera.
Not just sourcing material and money. Even the human resource is local. There was a man who offered prayer on the roof of the water tank of Hamidya mosque. He saw a man in black looking suspiciously around and had no cap during the Friday prayer and did not offer prayer. This mysterious stranger scaled the compound wall lined with cement grille and jumped out of the graveyard and escaped in great hurry. The twelve-year-old boy at Karol bagh in Delhi said of what he saw on September 13, 2008: ‘The man was tall and wearing black clothes. They came and put a black plastic in the dust bin and went away.’ Then the blast happened. What is necessary here is to follow the leads and give what Shakespeare calls a local habitation and a name. But that requires imagination; the police and the investigating agencies are running short on that.
To make up deficit they rely mostly on confession extracted under duress and in most torturous condition. In the process they create more terror. One reason why the police take so much time to prepare charge sheet is, in the words of Arundhati Roy, how to find the glass slippers for the feet of Cinderella. Chief Minister Narendra Modi stepped out of the caution he had observed in the wake of the July 26 blasts in Ahemdabad and said in the aftermath of the Delhi blasts: "Ten days back when I met the prime minister and the NSA chief, I informed them that the people arrested in connection with the Gujarat blasts have told the police that plan is on for blasts in Delhi. Only location was not known." This from a CM who eloquently remained silent on the way Kenneth Heywood left the country! Unless he had himself interrogated Safder Nagori and Mufti Bahser, the two masterminds till that date, his police did not send any sensitive information to the Central government and agencies. Moreover he is suspect as any head of a state can be of knowing fully well how the police led the Hindu mobs in 2002 in killing hapless Muslims and yet ignored taking action against them. Nay, he even shielded them. If the weeping and wailing face of Quttubuddin Ansari finds a place in the email of Indian Mujahideen it must be noted that police officer KK Mysorewalla’s smirking face in denying refuge to Muslim women victims of the pogroms 2002 does not find a place even in Gujarati papers. Thanks to CM’s tight hold on his state. This gives only one option of suborning the accused.
That requires enormous amount of money and political power. The main accused in Malegaon blasts now turned approver, Abrar, had according to Niloo Damne in his book Bomb sphotananter “After Bomb Explosions” 65 lakh rupees, a hero Honda, expensive mobiles, and the service of Indica car at his disposal. Till the day of the explosion he hardly had money to buy a packet of cigarettes! His father and brothers allege that he is in the clutches of the police and especially SP Rajwardhan! Who has provided him all that? With that you can suborn anyone among poverty stricken wretched people.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Desperate theories of terror
Among the absurd theories of terror is the odious and insidious assumptions of the wrong-headed security agencies that terrorist perpetrate terror to win sympathy and support. At its worse this approach is a spanner in the work of investigation of crime. It sabotages inquiry from within. People with a modicum of sanity would be outraged by any act of terrorism. Such an act invariably involves loss of life and limbs of ordinary people. From humanistic point of view it is excruciating pain and misery in an already woe begone world.
In the wake of the Malegaon blasts of September 2006 the security authorities jumped to the conclusion that it was a jihadi work. They gave it almost like a handout to a national mainstream paper two days after the events, that it was a jihadi work, its aim was ”to garner support and sanction for terror strike during the forthcoming festival season.” The bombs had exploded in the precincts of Hamidiya mosque situated at the entrance of the main graveyard of Malegaon. Another site was a place of junction teeming with people entering the cemetery from the other end of it. The bombs had a heavy toll with 37 killed and more than 200 injured. Most among them were children.
Within fifteen days from the Shabebarat when the bombs exploded would begin ramazan climaxing in the end of fasting on the Ed festival. According to the nefarious theory of the security and investigating agencies the jihadist would get support and sanction for bombing fellow Muslims. Do the authorities believe that in the 30 days of fasting the Muslims would be having the images of dead and injured fellow Muslims in their mind and would be working themselves up in a juggernaut of support and sanction for making such evil deeds of murder and mayhem?
Another misnomer is “desperate jehadis”. The adjective in the compound noun is used when the concerned people are facing very stiff resistance in their losing battle with odds and take great risk in resorting to a daredevil type of action as a desperate remedy.
This also is an erroneous supposition. Only two months ago the 7/11 serial bomb blasts in the local trains had killed nearly200 innocent people and injured a much larger number. How could the perpetrators of Malegaon blasts be desperate after their spectacular horrendous blast in Mumbai if they belonged to any jihad?
This brief deconstruction of the planted theory of the authorities also shows a chink, which reveals the communal bias. They call the jihadists desperate because the so-called jihadists have chosen to attack their own “shelter houses”. This would mean that they have “shelter houses” in the town. Taking their theory at its face, it is preposterous to believe that Muslims would harm themselves on the most pious and prayerful time when they would be beseeching Allah for better times and asking for their redemption.
In the wake of the Malegaon blasts of September 2006 the security authorities jumped to the conclusion that it was a jihadi work. They gave it almost like a handout to a national mainstream paper two days after the events, that it was a jihadi work, its aim was ”to garner support and sanction for terror strike during the forthcoming festival season.” The bombs had exploded in the precincts of Hamidiya mosque situated at the entrance of the main graveyard of Malegaon. Another site was a place of junction teeming with people entering the cemetery from the other end of it. The bombs had a heavy toll with 37 killed and more than 200 injured. Most among them were children.
Within fifteen days from the Shabebarat when the bombs exploded would begin ramazan climaxing in the end of fasting on the Ed festival. According to the nefarious theory of the security and investigating agencies the jihadist would get support and sanction for bombing fellow Muslims. Do the authorities believe that in the 30 days of fasting the Muslims would be having the images of dead and injured fellow Muslims in their mind and would be working themselves up in a juggernaut of support and sanction for making such evil deeds of murder and mayhem?
Another misnomer is “desperate jehadis”. The adjective in the compound noun is used when the concerned people are facing very stiff resistance in their losing battle with odds and take great risk in resorting to a daredevil type of action as a desperate remedy.
This also is an erroneous supposition. Only two months ago the 7/11 serial bomb blasts in the local trains had killed nearly200 innocent people and injured a much larger number. How could the perpetrators of Malegaon blasts be desperate after their spectacular horrendous blast in Mumbai if they belonged to any jihad?
This brief deconstruction of the planted theory of the authorities also shows a chink, which reveals the communal bias. They call the jihadists desperate because the so-called jihadists have chosen to attack their own “shelter houses”. This would mean that they have “shelter houses” in the town. Taking their theory at its face, it is preposterous to believe that Muslims would harm themselves on the most pious and prayerful time when they would be beseeching Allah for better times and asking for their redemption.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Light at the end of the tunnel: terrorism will wane
There may not be any immediate let up in terrorist attack around the country but there may not also be any stepping up in terrorist activity. The reason is two fold. One that people are waking up to the realization that some Hindus can also resort to terrorism as well as some Muslims do or Christians do. That has the potential of putting India on the map of terrorism that countries among others like Pakistan have had to live down with. As DNA reported that some intelligence operatives do not subscribe to claims by local investigators that the Students Islamic Movement of India was behind the blasts at the Malegaon mosque in September 2006 and the May 2007 blasts at the Mecca Masjid of Hyderabad. There is a complicity of a larger dimension and hence to throw the net much wider to catch. Second, the way Bilal Ahmed has reacted to his name mentioned in the email sent before Ahmedabad blasts of July 26 there is a fair chance that sanity would prevail. Just imagine this madrassa going stripling and skimpy youth beseeching people to eschew violence! His father like most of the Muslims living humdrum life bother more for their family and prospects in life than indulging in any destructive activity. Bilal wanted that people should not retaliate for how he was attacked in the local train between Jogeshwari and Andheri when there was a VHP sponsored bandh called in Mumbai in support of the Amarnath land sanction.
However having said that does not change the situation on the ground unless law and order situation is overhauled. For the way the police dilly dallied with registering his FIR shows deep rooted prejudice that is where we run to a roadblock.
People also have noted that any agitation hijacked in the name of communalism can lead to real terror and more threat to the unity and integrity of the country. The strike in the Kashmir valley was also witness to a surprising fact that Hindu pilgrims were stranded en rout to Jammu on their return journey. The Muslims in the valley treated them most humanely. They not only sheltered them in their own houses to pass the time during the strike and curfew but share meals with them whatever meager meal they could scrap together after weeks of economic blockade. Most importantly the pilgrims returned home safe and sound. This happened despite the fact that Muslim drivers from the valley had harrowing time in Jammu and Punjab and some of them suffered more than Bilal did. It is unimaginable that the valley Muslims who scrape a living out of the Hindu pilgrimage would like to endanger the pilgrimage. Therefore the need of the hour is to avoid communalizing every issue. The safe return of the pilgrims is a sign of good omen.
The real danger is in retaliating to the other community as a whole for the misdeeds of some of its members. The real danger is also in arming ourselves with more stringent laws so as to misusing them to the extent that communities are polarized on how the police apply the same laws to them. While induction of such draconian laws brings desperately needed votes to some it also wrecks the heath and hearth of others and kills the breadwinners of hundreds of families. What happened in Jammu and Kashmir was nothing short of turning the state into “a cockpit of communal intrigue”.
But what is happening in Orissa is also systematic and abysmally communal. The murder of Swami Lakshmanand Saraswati of VHP is no doubt an act of terror. But you cannot choose which terrorist you would like to name who would suit you for your organized campaign of hatred. Parvin Tagodia of VHP has given a clean chit to Naxalites just because the killers did not kill the two policemen guarding Lakshmanand Sraswati.
However the Naxalites have not only owned the responsibility of killing Saraswati but have also warned VHP and RSS that they must expect “more such punishments” if they continued violence against religious minorities in the country.
Such is the piquant situation prevailing in the country that the Naxalites have not been taken on as the biggest terrorist threat to the country. Their arsenal is far more deadly and awesome than all the cache of arms and ammunition caught from all the other known terrorists. Indeed, Bal Thackeray was so much impressed by them that he wanted them to help counter the Jihadi terrorism in the aftermath of the 7/11 serial bomb blasts in the locals in Mumbai! Good lessons we have learnt from outsourcing! Even the intelligence agencies have allegedly used Chhota Rajan in the attempted assassination of SAR Geelani in 2005 after he was acquitted by the Delhi high court in the case of December 13, 2001 attack on Parliament. Things were turning to worse. Lawyers themselves took the law unto their hands and assaulted those lawyers who chose to defend the alleged terrorists in courts of UP and Rajasthan. Even here there is a ray of hope as the human rights activists, ANHAD and People’s Tribunals held sessions in Hyderabad to record the travail of suffering of innocents imprisoned and Tehelka and Communalism Combat brought out special reports that mock our judicial system and investigative agencies. When we begin to unearth truth we have made a leap.
As the realization grows against all kinds of terrorism it would be wiser to do away partisan approach to fighting terrorism. As far as communalism is concerned, what else has brought us to this sorry pass than that?
However having said that does not change the situation on the ground unless law and order situation is overhauled. For the way the police dilly dallied with registering his FIR shows deep rooted prejudice that is where we run to a roadblock.
People also have noted that any agitation hijacked in the name of communalism can lead to real terror and more threat to the unity and integrity of the country. The strike in the Kashmir valley was also witness to a surprising fact that Hindu pilgrims were stranded en rout to Jammu on their return journey. The Muslims in the valley treated them most humanely. They not only sheltered them in their own houses to pass the time during the strike and curfew but share meals with them whatever meager meal they could scrap together after weeks of economic blockade. Most importantly the pilgrims returned home safe and sound. This happened despite the fact that Muslim drivers from the valley had harrowing time in Jammu and Punjab and some of them suffered more than Bilal did. It is unimaginable that the valley Muslims who scrape a living out of the Hindu pilgrimage would like to endanger the pilgrimage. Therefore the need of the hour is to avoid communalizing every issue. The safe return of the pilgrims is a sign of good omen.
The real danger is in retaliating to the other community as a whole for the misdeeds of some of its members. The real danger is also in arming ourselves with more stringent laws so as to misusing them to the extent that communities are polarized on how the police apply the same laws to them. While induction of such draconian laws brings desperately needed votes to some it also wrecks the heath and hearth of others and kills the breadwinners of hundreds of families. What happened in Jammu and Kashmir was nothing short of turning the state into “a cockpit of communal intrigue”.
But what is happening in Orissa is also systematic and abysmally communal. The murder of Swami Lakshmanand Saraswati of VHP is no doubt an act of terror. But you cannot choose which terrorist you would like to name who would suit you for your organized campaign of hatred. Parvin Tagodia of VHP has given a clean chit to Naxalites just because the killers did not kill the two policemen guarding Lakshmanand Sraswati.
However the Naxalites have not only owned the responsibility of killing Saraswati but have also warned VHP and RSS that they must expect “more such punishments” if they continued violence against religious minorities in the country.
Such is the piquant situation prevailing in the country that the Naxalites have not been taken on as the biggest terrorist threat to the country. Their arsenal is far more deadly and awesome than all the cache of arms and ammunition caught from all the other known terrorists. Indeed, Bal Thackeray was so much impressed by them that he wanted them to help counter the Jihadi terrorism in the aftermath of the 7/11 serial bomb blasts in the locals in Mumbai! Good lessons we have learnt from outsourcing! Even the intelligence agencies have allegedly used Chhota Rajan in the attempted assassination of SAR Geelani in 2005 after he was acquitted by the Delhi high court in the case of December 13, 2001 attack on Parliament. Things were turning to worse. Lawyers themselves took the law unto their hands and assaulted those lawyers who chose to defend the alleged terrorists in courts of UP and Rajasthan. Even here there is a ray of hope as the human rights activists, ANHAD and People’s Tribunals held sessions in Hyderabad to record the travail of suffering of innocents imprisoned and Tehelka and Communalism Combat brought out special reports that mock our judicial system and investigative agencies. When we begin to unearth truth we have made a leap.
As the realization grows against all kinds of terrorism it would be wiser to do away partisan approach to fighting terrorism. As far as communalism is concerned, what else has brought us to this sorry pass than that?
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Terror Bomb Blast of Kanpur: Tip of the Iceberg
For quite sometimes now Bajrang Dal, VHP and their bomb making have been in the news. Why is unintended explosion of bombs of Bajrang Dal or VHP not terrorism? Or the intended bomb blasts of Sanathan Sanstha and Hindu Janjagran Samiti, for that matter. The Centre has still not taken any decision regarding them.
In other words what is sauce to the goose is not sauce to the gander. These outfits of RSS and the parent body itself vaunt their extreme nationalism. How could we fight terror when one man’s terrorism is another man’s ‘nationalism’? Widespread distrust of Muslims for the current spate of bomb blasts has made people myopic towards those who profess to devote themselves in fraudulent schemes passed on as “nation building”. In fact they hardly build anything except creating hatred for Muslims.
The authorities using investigative agencies and police keep the bomb blast activities of such extreme nationalists [read, religious fanatics] sub rosa. They have a rich provenance to derive their sources. Indian Express had once front paged the theft of explosive material from the government ordnance factories. Even a scrap monger of Ahmednager had high grade explosive material in his scrap yard for sale around the time when serial bombs exploded in Malegaon, September 8 2008. No other than the police commissioner there had hinted the link between the two. The scrap monger’s associate in the business mysteriously committed suicide after absconding when the police raided the place. However the police swept all the evidence and doubts under the carpet of illicit hoarding for money and not terror.
Bajrang Dal activists Rajeev Mishra and Bhupender Singh Chopra [a convener of Bajrang Dal in Kanpur] died while they were making bombs on Sunday August 24 2008. The national convener of BJ Prakash Sherma has acknowledged that the two were members of BD and he knew them personally since he hails from Kanpur. They wanted to take revenge of the bombings in Ahmedabad on July 26 which were allegedly blamed on the revenge the SIMI wanted to take for the pogroms of Muslims in 2002. Nearly eight kilograms of bomb making material was recovered from the spot. According to the IG of police, Kanpur, “The recovery shows that a massive explosion was on the cards.” In fact one officer said even half of Kanpur could be destroyed by the cache. Grenades recovered resemble the ones used by the army. Indeed, the father of Rajeev Mishra, Shiv Saran Mishra has said that his son and Bhupender Singh had attended a camp of training at Lucknow run by Bajrang Dal on June 13 2001. This camp trained the BD activists in ammunition.
How can there be transparency when some experienced government servants and armed forces personnel after retirement choose to work for Bajrang Dal or VHP or RSS. They help not only making of bombs but provide logistical support if things take a different turn than expected. Teesta Setalvad says that the CBI did not find it necessary to probe the possible role of the Bhonsala Military School in the training meted out to young recruits of the sangh’s bomb-making brigade. Given this mindset of the officers of such agencies what hope is there for transparency and fairness? What is revealed by one agency is whittled down by the other. The ATS investigation is stymied by the CBI and therefore confusion prevails and suspicion against the Muslims deepens.
BS Moonje was not only the founder of RSS but also the founder of the Central Hindu Military Education Society at Nashik (1937). He founded the Bhonsla Military School, one at Nashik and the other at Nagpur. One must go back in history to know that the purpose of Moonje’s tour of Europe, particularly fascist Italy, was to find out ways of killing more than half a dozen people at one go. Naresh Rajkondwar, Himanshu Panse and their accomplices[Maroti Keshav Wagh, Yogesh Deshpande aka Vidulkar, Gururaj Jairam Tuptear and Rahul Mnohar Pande] who survived were trained at the Bhonsla Military School in Nagpur close to the headquarters of RSS. They had not only conducted research on the line of Moonje but had gone far beyond. They used the house of a retired executive engineer, Laxman Gundayya Rajkondwar, to make bombs. The government agencies did try to cover up as fire crackers worth Rs 1,20 000 were dumped in no time after the accidental explosion in Nanded. Who gave them this logistical support to face the difficulty of legal action if and when it comes? Similarly an advocate of Nanded district court Ekate helped Rahul Manohar Pande to abscond from the police and Dr Deshpande treated his wounds sustained in the explosion without informing the police. Both these professionals are free as they have the bail in their pocket. Imagine the hundreds of SIMI members languishing in jail even after obtaining bail but rearrested on all kinds of cooked up cases. This, not to mention the biggest of accomplices in absconding, Narender Modi harbouring absconder Babu Bajrangi in the Gujarat guest house at Mount Abu.
There are several known instances of accidental bomb blasts at the time of assembling the bombs. “In 1992there was a bomb blast in the VHP office in Madhya Pradesh, where one VHP member died and two were injured while making bombs. Then in 2002, there was a bomb blast in a temple in Mhow. When the police arrested the VHP activists after investigation, they confessed that they were even given training to manufacture bombs”. There was bomb blast in Nanded April 2006, Again there was bomb blast in Nanded February 2007 where a Shiv Sena pramukh died while allegedly handling liquid explosive material but pretension was that he was handling biscuit cartons. There were two bomb blasts at two places in Tamil Nadu in March 2008. Police arrested some VHP activists who confessed to the crime of making bombs. Kanpur August 24 2008 explosion is the latest in the series. These unintended or accidental blasts could be the very few instances of failure which eclipse the hundred other such bomb makings where the BD and VHP have succeeded. But as the governments in Delhi and in the states have chosen not to bother about these accidentals they remain sub rosa, off the screen of the investigative agencies. Hence the official line that they are not terrorist activities. May be, after all, the words of Maharashtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad former chief, KP Raghuvanshi are true that these bombs were meant for pooja.
False pretexts are in galore. In the first Nanded explosion, fire crackers, in the second, biscuits, in Kanpur the third criminal Piyus told the hostel mates to vacate SS Misra’s hostel as he was going to repair electricity and therefore short circuit causing explosion as in Nanded as a stand by probability. In such cases you can fool all the people all the time.
SIMI was banned without a shred of proof of its involvement in bomb blasts, at least till Justice Geeta Mittal decided the case last time August 2008. In contrast Bajrang Dal, Sanatan Sanstha, Hindu Janjagran Samiti, VHP and RSS have been treated with stark discrimination. . They are no where near even any wild suggestion of a ban.
Even so the latest incident in Kanpur flies in the face of the willful investigation of SIMI by the intelligence agencies and the police in the cases of Jama Masjid Delhi April 2006. Samjhota Express February 2007. Ajmer October 2007, and Malegaon September 2006. But who knows it could also be Bangalore and Ahmedabard July 2008.
In other words what is sauce to the goose is not sauce to the gander. These outfits of RSS and the parent body itself vaunt their extreme nationalism. How could we fight terror when one man’s terrorism is another man’s ‘nationalism’? Widespread distrust of Muslims for the current spate of bomb blasts has made people myopic towards those who profess to devote themselves in fraudulent schemes passed on as “nation building”. In fact they hardly build anything except creating hatred for Muslims.
The authorities using investigative agencies and police keep the bomb blast activities of such extreme nationalists [read, religious fanatics] sub rosa. They have a rich provenance to derive their sources. Indian Express had once front paged the theft of explosive material from the government ordnance factories. Even a scrap monger of Ahmednager had high grade explosive material in his scrap yard for sale around the time when serial bombs exploded in Malegaon, September 8 2008. No other than the police commissioner there had hinted the link between the two. The scrap monger’s associate in the business mysteriously committed suicide after absconding when the police raided the place. However the police swept all the evidence and doubts under the carpet of illicit hoarding for money and not terror.
Bajrang Dal activists Rajeev Mishra and Bhupender Singh Chopra [a convener of Bajrang Dal in Kanpur] died while they were making bombs on Sunday August 24 2008. The national convener of BJ Prakash Sherma has acknowledged that the two were members of BD and he knew them personally since he hails from Kanpur. They wanted to take revenge of the bombings in Ahmedabad on July 26 which were allegedly blamed on the revenge the SIMI wanted to take for the pogroms of Muslims in 2002. Nearly eight kilograms of bomb making material was recovered from the spot. According to the IG of police, Kanpur, “The recovery shows that a massive explosion was on the cards.” In fact one officer said even half of Kanpur could be destroyed by the cache. Grenades recovered resemble the ones used by the army. Indeed, the father of Rajeev Mishra, Shiv Saran Mishra has said that his son and Bhupender Singh had attended a camp of training at Lucknow run by Bajrang Dal on June 13 2001. This camp trained the BD activists in ammunition.
How can there be transparency when some experienced government servants and armed forces personnel after retirement choose to work for Bajrang Dal or VHP or RSS. They help not only making of bombs but provide logistical support if things take a different turn than expected. Teesta Setalvad says that the CBI did not find it necessary to probe the possible role of the Bhonsala Military School in the training meted out to young recruits of the sangh’s bomb-making brigade. Given this mindset of the officers of such agencies what hope is there for transparency and fairness? What is revealed by one agency is whittled down by the other. The ATS investigation is stymied by the CBI and therefore confusion prevails and suspicion against the Muslims deepens.
BS Moonje was not only the founder of RSS but also the founder of the Central Hindu Military Education Society at Nashik (1937). He founded the Bhonsla Military School, one at Nashik and the other at Nagpur. One must go back in history to know that the purpose of Moonje’s tour of Europe, particularly fascist Italy, was to find out ways of killing more than half a dozen people at one go. Naresh Rajkondwar, Himanshu Panse and their accomplices[Maroti Keshav Wagh, Yogesh Deshpande aka Vidulkar, Gururaj Jairam Tuptear and Rahul Mnohar Pande] who survived were trained at the Bhonsla Military School in Nagpur close to the headquarters of RSS. They had not only conducted research on the line of Moonje but had gone far beyond. They used the house of a retired executive engineer, Laxman Gundayya Rajkondwar, to make bombs. The government agencies did try to cover up as fire crackers worth Rs 1,20 000 were dumped in no time after the accidental explosion in Nanded. Who gave them this logistical support to face the difficulty of legal action if and when it comes? Similarly an advocate of Nanded district court Ekate helped Rahul Manohar Pande to abscond from the police and Dr Deshpande treated his wounds sustained in the explosion without informing the police. Both these professionals are free as they have the bail in their pocket. Imagine the hundreds of SIMI members languishing in jail even after obtaining bail but rearrested on all kinds of cooked up cases. This, not to mention the biggest of accomplices in absconding, Narender Modi harbouring absconder Babu Bajrangi in the Gujarat guest house at Mount Abu.
There are several known instances of accidental bomb blasts at the time of assembling the bombs. “In 1992there was a bomb blast in the VHP office in Madhya Pradesh, where one VHP member died and two were injured while making bombs. Then in 2002, there was a bomb blast in a temple in Mhow. When the police arrested the VHP activists after investigation, they confessed that they were even given training to manufacture bombs”. There was bomb blast in Nanded April 2006, Again there was bomb blast in Nanded February 2007 where a Shiv Sena pramukh died while allegedly handling liquid explosive material but pretension was that he was handling biscuit cartons. There were two bomb blasts at two places in Tamil Nadu in March 2008. Police arrested some VHP activists who confessed to the crime of making bombs. Kanpur August 24 2008 explosion is the latest in the series. These unintended or accidental blasts could be the very few instances of failure which eclipse the hundred other such bomb makings where the BD and VHP have succeeded. But as the governments in Delhi and in the states have chosen not to bother about these accidentals they remain sub rosa, off the screen of the investigative agencies. Hence the official line that they are not terrorist activities. May be, after all, the words of Maharashtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad former chief, KP Raghuvanshi are true that these bombs were meant for pooja.
False pretexts are in galore. In the first Nanded explosion, fire crackers, in the second, biscuits, in Kanpur the third criminal Piyus told the hostel mates to vacate SS Misra’s hostel as he was going to repair electricity and therefore short circuit causing explosion as in Nanded as a stand by probability. In such cases you can fool all the people all the time.
SIMI was banned without a shred of proof of its involvement in bomb blasts, at least till Justice Geeta Mittal decided the case last time August 2008. In contrast Bajrang Dal, Sanatan Sanstha, Hindu Janjagran Samiti, VHP and RSS have been treated with stark discrimination. . They are no where near even any wild suggestion of a ban.
Even so the latest incident in Kanpur flies in the face of the willful investigation of SIMI by the intelligence agencies and the police in the cases of Jama Masjid Delhi April 2006. Samjhota Express February 2007. Ajmer October 2007, and Malegaon September 2006. But who knows it could also be Bangalore and Ahmedabard July 2008.
Monday, August 18, 2008
SIMI and the Delusion of Khilafat
The modus operandi in blaming SIMI is catching an ordinary Muslim for a petty offence like breach of traffic regulation. Then the regular questioning and demand for bribe and a queer turn to blaming the victim for what he could not defend as he is already overawed by the situation of landing in the hands of the police. This surely fits in the arrest of Nawaz Sheikh from Kundapur north Karnataka. He had gone to marriage of a relative but was caught for breaking traffic regulation. The cop demanded money, 500 rupees. He couldn’t give it. Taken into custody and his house searched is what happened next. Among the things taken away from the house search: a laptop, CDs, etc. There was not even a remote connection between Sheikh and terror. The police somehow believe that every electronic savvy Muslim has something to do with terror. So they accused him to be involved in Bangalore blasts of July 25 2008. And the vibes that he in Karnataka of post blasts must belong to SIMI. This is carried in a report in an Urdu paper Aalmi Sahara. The report ends with the need to track such arrests and keep an eye as the police are highly prejudiced against the Muslims. The paper carries an editorial on SIMI where the writer says that there is a strategy of repeating a lie so many times that people come to believe in it, nay even those who know SIMI from close proximity also begin to suspect it.
There is nothing here that reveals any jubilation over the temporary lifting of the ban on SIMI by the high court in Delhi and there is no excoriation of either the government or the country itself. There is an air of caution rather. Therefore, it is time to obviate the generalization that the Urdu press does this or that. In fact if the English national dailies allow space, which of course, they do not, for Muslims, there would be a deluge of protest against canards so easily mouth and bandied these days. Among what they would write would be how the Police Commissioner PC Pandey of Ahemdabad in 2002 was in touch with Hindutva leaders engaged in the post Godhra violence against the Muslims. Not only that he even ordered his cops to disperse the dead bodies of hapless Muslims all over the city so that it should not appear that so many of them were killed at Nardoa Patia. DGP B.K Sreekumar had given a CD containing all the phone calls made to police during the massacre. But what the callers and their contacts talked is not available; the mobile company has purportedly destroyed that vital evidence.
The same PC Pandey, now DGP, called a press conference on August 16, 2008 and said that the police have solved the case of the serial bomb blasts of July 26 2008 in Ahmedabad. Mufti Bashir Islahi and his accomplices used mobile phones which only received calls from public booths till July 26 and then fell silent. Unless what actually transpired between the callers and the supposed mastermind Islahi is established by circumstantial proof and hard evidence this would fall into the pattern of DGP Pasricha’s press conference in Mumbai where he said the police had cracked the serial bomb blasts of September 8 2006 in Malegaon. In both the cases the accused are said to be members of SIMI.
Although the English national dailies carried the report on Pandy and Pasrisha there is no perceptible change in the manner of the investigative agencies as to how they go about hunting SIMI. But there is a difference. The English dailies are repeating the facts and figures of SIMI ad absurdum while Urdu papers are circumspect. This cannot be called shielding SIMI as no hard evidence is forthcoming except by way of confession under duress. But blaming the Urdu press in the same breath as SIMI is driving a wedge that has potential to become a gulf between sections of population.
Excesses committed in the name of fighting terror include the witch hunt going on now in the name of SIMI. Whoever of that organization is guilty of crime should no doubt be punished severely. The Urdu press also avers that. But the record so far does not support that qua terror is at the heart of the matter with the organization. As to establishing Islamic dispensation known otherwise as khilafat is a fool’s paradise in which no ordinary Muslim would like to live. However, there are signs that things might change for the better. On August 16 2008 the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh assured the All India Milli Council that he would address the issue soon. Addressing the issue in a right perspective would include recognizing the ring of truth in the letters written by the accused languishing in jails. Many of them (though not each one of them) are innocent. Such a one is Noorul Hoda Samsouz Zoha currently lodged in Arthur road prison of Mumbai. His letter translated from Urdu in The Milli Gazette ( August 1-15 2008) would surely awaken the conscience of the nation as to how the youths of this great democratic country are perishing because of having born to one faith rather than to the other.
How much could the PM address? He also expressed his concern much earlier to the Home Secretary of Maharashtra when the police did not probe the Nanded blasts which were linked to the blasts at mosques in Marathwada as well as Malegaon. The Urdu press unlike that of English or any regional language is sensitive to what happens that bears on the community. For example Inquilab headline of August 3, 2008 was Nanded bomb dhamaka mulzim ko clean chit diye jaane par jasn ka mahol kyon? But that news item was not covered by non Urdu print media.
The intelligence agencies, and the mother of them is IB, have always played into the hands of the ruling echelon for a political cause of which they have no locus standi per se as intelligence gathering organization. Once upon a time IB Chief BN Mallik played havoc from which we have still not recovered in Kashmir. Prime Minister Nehru used him and his agency through him for a political cause. He wanted to put Sheikh Abdullah in prison that would last almost eleven years from 1953. The game plan was that the intelligence agency would accuse Abdullah of going to Tanmarg to a Pakistan contact man and take Jammu and Kashmir into Pakistan. This was absolutely rubbish. IB chief prepared the in-put in which he remarked that the Sheikh suddenly decided to go to Tanmarg when actually the leader from the valley had well advertised his visit to Tanmarg weeks ahead of it. Moreover he was arrested at Gulmarg. Thus was the Sheikh betrayed by his friend Nehru. Not only the intelligence agency, Nehru used even the army to bring about his political coup as he passed word through Brigadier BM Kaul to the military commander of Srignager General Atal that there should be no problem cropping up in the event of the arrest of Abdullah. It was made to appear a local affair nothing to do with the centre.
The unfounded blame on Abdullah of perfidy is paralleled by the blame on SIMI, namely that with its supposed link to ISI it is hell bent on creating an international Islamic order or khilafat. But the crux of the matter is that the Muslims of India are better informed than what is thought of them. They would scoff at such an eventuality in any organization’s manifesto. You can build the character of youth, which is okay in the Constitutional frame of the country. We all have a place under the umbrella of the republic. But taking this humongous republic of India into Pakistan!!! Jumping into the fire from the frying pan!!!
There is nothing here that reveals any jubilation over the temporary lifting of the ban on SIMI by the high court in Delhi and there is no excoriation of either the government or the country itself. There is an air of caution rather. Therefore, it is time to obviate the generalization that the Urdu press does this or that. In fact if the English national dailies allow space, which of course, they do not, for Muslims, there would be a deluge of protest against canards so easily mouth and bandied these days. Among what they would write would be how the Police Commissioner PC Pandey of Ahemdabad in 2002 was in touch with Hindutva leaders engaged in the post Godhra violence against the Muslims. Not only that he even ordered his cops to disperse the dead bodies of hapless Muslims all over the city so that it should not appear that so many of them were killed at Nardoa Patia. DGP B.K Sreekumar had given a CD containing all the phone calls made to police during the massacre. But what the callers and their contacts talked is not available; the mobile company has purportedly destroyed that vital evidence.
The same PC Pandey, now DGP, called a press conference on August 16, 2008 and said that the police have solved the case of the serial bomb blasts of July 26 2008 in Ahmedabad. Mufti Bashir Islahi and his accomplices used mobile phones which only received calls from public booths till July 26 and then fell silent. Unless what actually transpired between the callers and the supposed mastermind Islahi is established by circumstantial proof and hard evidence this would fall into the pattern of DGP Pasricha’s press conference in Mumbai where he said the police had cracked the serial bomb blasts of September 8 2006 in Malegaon. In both the cases the accused are said to be members of SIMI.
Although the English national dailies carried the report on Pandy and Pasrisha there is no perceptible change in the manner of the investigative agencies as to how they go about hunting SIMI. But there is a difference. The English dailies are repeating the facts and figures of SIMI ad absurdum while Urdu papers are circumspect. This cannot be called shielding SIMI as no hard evidence is forthcoming except by way of confession under duress. But blaming the Urdu press in the same breath as SIMI is driving a wedge that has potential to become a gulf between sections of population.
Excesses committed in the name of fighting terror include the witch hunt going on now in the name of SIMI. Whoever of that organization is guilty of crime should no doubt be punished severely. The Urdu press also avers that. But the record so far does not support that qua terror is at the heart of the matter with the organization. As to establishing Islamic dispensation known otherwise as khilafat is a fool’s paradise in which no ordinary Muslim would like to live. However, there are signs that things might change for the better. On August 16 2008 the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh assured the All India Milli Council that he would address the issue soon. Addressing the issue in a right perspective would include recognizing the ring of truth in the letters written by the accused languishing in jails. Many of them (though not each one of them) are innocent. Such a one is Noorul Hoda Samsouz Zoha currently lodged in Arthur road prison of Mumbai. His letter translated from Urdu in The Milli Gazette ( August 1-15 2008) would surely awaken the conscience of the nation as to how the youths of this great democratic country are perishing because of having born to one faith rather than to the other.
How much could the PM address? He also expressed his concern much earlier to the Home Secretary of Maharashtra when the police did not probe the Nanded blasts which were linked to the blasts at mosques in Marathwada as well as Malegaon. The Urdu press unlike that of English or any regional language is sensitive to what happens that bears on the community. For example Inquilab headline of August 3, 2008 was Nanded bomb dhamaka mulzim ko clean chit diye jaane par jasn ka mahol kyon? But that news item was not covered by non Urdu print media.
The intelligence agencies, and the mother of them is IB, have always played into the hands of the ruling echelon for a political cause of which they have no locus standi per se as intelligence gathering organization. Once upon a time IB Chief BN Mallik played havoc from which we have still not recovered in Kashmir. Prime Minister Nehru used him and his agency through him for a political cause. He wanted to put Sheikh Abdullah in prison that would last almost eleven years from 1953. The game plan was that the intelligence agency would accuse Abdullah of going to Tanmarg to a Pakistan contact man and take Jammu and Kashmir into Pakistan. This was absolutely rubbish. IB chief prepared the in-put in which he remarked that the Sheikh suddenly decided to go to Tanmarg when actually the leader from the valley had well advertised his visit to Tanmarg weeks ahead of it. Moreover he was arrested at Gulmarg. Thus was the Sheikh betrayed by his friend Nehru. Not only the intelligence agency, Nehru used even the army to bring about his political coup as he passed word through Brigadier BM Kaul to the military commander of Srignager General Atal that there should be no problem cropping up in the event of the arrest of Abdullah. It was made to appear a local affair nothing to do with the centre.
The unfounded blame on Abdullah of perfidy is paralleled by the blame on SIMI, namely that with its supposed link to ISI it is hell bent on creating an international Islamic order or khilafat. But the crux of the matter is that the Muslims of India are better informed than what is thought of them. They would scoff at such an eventuality in any organization’s manifesto. You can build the character of youth, which is okay in the Constitutional frame of the country. We all have a place under the umbrella of the republic. But taking this humongous republic of India into Pakistan!!! Jumping into the fire from the frying pan!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
