The feeling and expectations of the people of Malegaon regarding their grievance over the arrest of innocent people in Malegaon blasts of September 8, 2006 has been given short shrift on account of the shoddy investigation by the police, ATS and CBI.
Despite the assurance of the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh that no person or organization howsoever influential would be left out of investigation and every material proof would be included in the investigation of Malegaon bomb blasts of 2006, the real state of the investigation is far from satisfactory.
On September 1st 2006 itself the Nasik control room received actionable intelligence that terrorist attack would take place within a short period. The ASP of Malegaon Mr. Kumbhare had informed the SP (Rural) Mr. Rajwardhan that there was imminent threat. The ASP had gone to the trustees of Hamidiya mosque at the grave yard a day before the bomb blasts and apprised them of the danger. He mentioned that police would be deployed within and outside the graveyard and beggars would not be allowed within the vicinity of the mosque and the graveyard. Even then there were no police men in sight when the blasts occurred and many beggars were injured and killed within the premises of the mosque. Why were there no police men at the mosque?
The police charged Noorulhuda as the principal accused although he was under surveillance of the police who had made it mandatory for him to report them on daily basis and not to leave the town without their permission. His case stands out as the most moving picture of bias of the police and the administration. Coming from an indigent family taken up with providing food and shelter to the members, he could hardly even imagine committing crime. For every sensitive occasion in the town the police would harass him although he was never involved in any criminal activity. He was forcibly and illegally subjected to narco analysis test at Bangalore where nothing incriminating was found against him. Nay, because of this impeccable record the laboratory in charge Ms Malini beat him repeatedly and told him to confess to the crimes the police had wanted him to confess. For such unscientific and unprofessional behaviour she was sacked. There was in fact no prima facie evidence against Noorulhuda. The Lord Magistrate of Malegaon had rejected the police application seeking for brain mapping, lie-detector and narco analysis tests, Even so the police made him go through the tests.
Coming in the year of the Nanded blast, the Malegaon Hamidiya mosque blasts fall into a pattern. The bomb blasts at Purna mosque, Parbhani mosque, Jalna mosque, Mecca mosque Hyderabad, Jama Masjid Delhi and Malegaon have all occurred between 1.35 PM and 1.45 PM on Friday midday prayer when the crowd of Muslims is fullest. Even the Nanded bomb was scheduled to explode at the railway station mosque in Aurangabad on April 6 2006 at 1.35 PM but because of the mistake in setting instead of 1.35 PM it exploded at 1.35 AM in the house of the Bajrang Dal activist Naresh before he and his accomplice could travel to Aurangabad. In most cases Hindutva extremists were involved. But without rhyme and reason the police booked Muslims in Malegaon blasts!
This is very bizarre because none of the accused in Malegaon 2006 blasts resemble the police sketches of the suspects even remotely. Most of the accused are bearded while the sketches are of country youths of rather Hindu origin as they are clean shaved. The police in fact believed one to be a Bajrang Dal activist, Dashrath Pawar.(cited, Tehelka) One of the most poignantly left out aspects is the abandoning of police search for the prototypes of the sketches. One of them had tried to keep a black bag with a tea vendor who recognized him when the sketches were telecast. He volunteered to go to the police and help them. Nothing came out of this.
Rejoinder
There is urgent need to thoroughly vet the record in the public domain as well as the reports of police and intelligence agencies regarding Lt Col Shrikant Purohit and the Abhinav Bharat. They along with their accomplices had trained more than 500 Hindu youths to target Muslims through bomb attacks. There is strong possibility that important clues can still be found of the Malegaon blasts of 2006 and 2008 in tracking their whereabouts. Such as the mystery that still shrouds the organizational link of the following accused.
In a raid to the basement of private hospital pathology laboratory in April 2008 the police had recovered five live and three used RDX explosives. Among other seized items were a laptop, a scanner, a pistol, two mobile phones and four fake currency notes of Rs 1000 each as well as Rs 5000 in cash. Those arrested from the site were Nitish Ashire, Sahebao Dhurve, and Jitendra Khema. They were members of some organization whose identity is not known.
This is another area which the local police and ATS and CBI did not follow up and must be included in investigation.
The most crucial part of the two bomb blast incidents of 2006 and 2008 is that ATS has deliberately overlooked the broader significance of the blasts of 2006. After the arrest of Lt Col Purohit and Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thackur and their statements they emerge as the principal actors involved in the blasts of 2006 as well. Quintesstially, the 60 kg RDX that Purohit had given to Bhagwan requires to be accounted for. Did a part of it go in the making of the bombs that exploded in 2006? This hindsight revelation necessitates a thorough probe which the CBI and ATS have not done and have thrown innocents in prison!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Different styles of investigating terror
Imtiyaz Dharkar’s “the terrorist at my dining table” must be amused by the storm in the cup of tea before him. The chacha who served the tea chose to leave his trail there this time. Who could be this chacha that has turned the morning tea into a cause a bellie between the central government and the Maharashtra ATS chief Krish Pal Raghuvanshi?
For quite sometimes now the people were much agitated over the loose talk of KPR. In the case of Nanded blast he referred in his persiflage flavor that the bombs that blew up killing Himanshu Panse and Naresh Rajkondwar could not be meant for pooja. What his tongue in cheek interaction with media did was to lift the veil of secrecy a little. That the bombs the Hindu extremists of RSS and Bajang Dal were handling were destined to blow up in mosques. (In the subsequent narco test analysis of Sanjay Chaudhai and Rahul Pande it came out that the bombs were destined to explode in the Aurangabad railway station mosque.)They were not to be taken to temple to perform pooja there.
That was April 5, 2006. On September 8, 2006 four bombs exploded in Malegaon killing 31 people and injuring more than two hundred. In the initial stage of investigation the police questioned some twenty Hindus and then suddenly this was abandoned in favour of hunting the SIMI involvement. (In the current terminology of the duo and the ‘chacha, the trail in the Malegaon case went cold.) KPR and his sleuths made arrests. In the meantime Hemant Karkare took over the reign of ATS and till the middle of August 2008 he could not find the trace of SIMI anywhere. The very next month Malegaon was visited by another terrorist attack at Bhiku chowk that changed the history of investigation. Or was it a detour, a brief interruption, a tragic peripeteia?
In his letter from prison Fahim Ansari also claims that Karkare had given him clean chit regarding 11/7. (Urdu Times, March 8, 2010). But ATS has also accused him for his involvement in 26/11. He says that the police tortured him excessively, took him out in the middle of the night and threatened him to shoot in a fake encounter. Therefore he did what they told him to do, draw map of important strategic places in Mumbai. Truth can be established by the court of law and the circumstantial proofs. The FBI also interrogated Fahim for three days but could not find any incriminating role for him. He does not figure in their charge sheet for 26/11 while David Headley and Tawwaru Rana do. Another circumstantial evidence is that Ajmal Kasab does not know him. That really astonished Judge Tahilyani. Then judge personally questioned him and he maintained that he did not know either Fahim or Saba. The judge did not take it on record! Fahim has also revealed that his lawyer Shahid Azmi stopped meeting him because the crime branch police threatened him with dire consequence if he pleaded Fahim’s case. Judge Tahilyani, of course, rejected his bail application. He wanted to come out on bail to search a lawyer to defend him.
In this insistence on local connection in the investigation of ATS at times we smell a rat.
Among the most seminal changes during this recent upheaval was the exit of Shivraj Patil and the induction of P Chidambum as the Home Minister. With more equanimity of mind than many others, Chidambrum showed objective involvement. When the terrorists bought 50 hand gliders from Europe to attack us from the air, Chidambrum ordered urgent inquiry. The truth came out that only three hand gliders were bought from China. This prompt finding indicates the direction in which the home minister wishes to go, rather than toeing the line that concocted reports intelligence agencies prepare for reason best known to them.
Karkare too was objective. He like Chidambrum was not captive to ideology. In his last interview to Indian Express he exclaimed, “I don’t know why this case has become so political.” He was talking about Malegaon blast of 2008 and was constrained to admit the difficulty created by the Hindutva groups including BJP, RSS, Shiv Sena, etc. “The pressure is tremendous and I am wondering how to extricate it from all the politics.” The situation in Pune also veered towards that kind of imbroglio. First, the police thought it was gas cylinder burst and asked the firefighter to wash the German bakery for about ninety minutes. What clues could remain there? Then came the bungle over the arrest of Arif Pathan whom the police grilled him three days without proper arrest. There were indications that the accusing finger had started pointing towards Sanathan Sanstha and Abhinau Bharat. The spokespersons of these went all out to browbeat the investigation agencies. The intimidatory tactics worked.
The Home Minister was already in a huff when KPR and his men went for the duo in Mumbai to stave off the situation or divert attention? Then, the usual practice of connecting the arrest of “Uncle” Bashir Khan in Gujarat with the duo in their alleged incendiary intent. Rehan and Latif would rot in jail for years when it would be at long last found that it was not this Pepsi bomber but after all the other “Uncel”, Dawood Ibrahim. Their youth would have lapsed into old age by then.
Now that David Headley’s involvement in 26/11 is on record in courts of America, the suffering and incarceration caused to Fahim Ansari by the IB and ATS and others including courts have come home to roost. In contrast, no one from Abhinav Bharat or Sanatan Sansthan has been arrested although their roles are evolving and are not just restricted to Goa, Vashi, Thane and Malegaon 2008 cases. Has the state home ministry’s inability to sack KPR anything to do with this? Some aspects of terror are too overwhelming to find one’s way through while investigating. Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit had organized training of Abhinav Bharat activists at Nasik Bhonsla Military School with the help of the commandant of the school, retired Colonel SS Raikar( a former intelligence officer, Purohit was serving intelligence officer) and retired General Ramesh Upadhya. Karkare was a man of sterling qualities and saw his way even in the hour of moral threat to his life! Karkare, thou shouldst be living now, India hast need of thee!
For quite sometimes now the people were much agitated over the loose talk of KPR. In the case of Nanded blast he referred in his persiflage flavor that the bombs that blew up killing Himanshu Panse and Naresh Rajkondwar could not be meant for pooja. What his tongue in cheek interaction with media did was to lift the veil of secrecy a little. That the bombs the Hindu extremists of RSS and Bajang Dal were handling were destined to blow up in mosques. (In the subsequent narco test analysis of Sanjay Chaudhai and Rahul Pande it came out that the bombs were destined to explode in the Aurangabad railway station mosque.)They were not to be taken to temple to perform pooja there.
That was April 5, 2006. On September 8, 2006 four bombs exploded in Malegaon killing 31 people and injuring more than two hundred. In the initial stage of investigation the police questioned some twenty Hindus and then suddenly this was abandoned in favour of hunting the SIMI involvement. (In the current terminology of the duo and the ‘chacha, the trail in the Malegaon case went cold.) KPR and his sleuths made arrests. In the meantime Hemant Karkare took over the reign of ATS and till the middle of August 2008 he could not find the trace of SIMI anywhere. The very next month Malegaon was visited by another terrorist attack at Bhiku chowk that changed the history of investigation. Or was it a detour, a brief interruption, a tragic peripeteia?
In his letter from prison Fahim Ansari also claims that Karkare had given him clean chit regarding 11/7. (Urdu Times, March 8, 2010). But ATS has also accused him for his involvement in 26/11. He says that the police tortured him excessively, took him out in the middle of the night and threatened him to shoot in a fake encounter. Therefore he did what they told him to do, draw map of important strategic places in Mumbai. Truth can be established by the court of law and the circumstantial proofs. The FBI also interrogated Fahim for three days but could not find any incriminating role for him. He does not figure in their charge sheet for 26/11 while David Headley and Tawwaru Rana do. Another circumstantial evidence is that Ajmal Kasab does not know him. That really astonished Judge Tahilyani. Then judge personally questioned him and he maintained that he did not know either Fahim or Saba. The judge did not take it on record! Fahim has also revealed that his lawyer Shahid Azmi stopped meeting him because the crime branch police threatened him with dire consequence if he pleaded Fahim’s case. Judge Tahilyani, of course, rejected his bail application. He wanted to come out on bail to search a lawyer to defend him.
In this insistence on local connection in the investigation of ATS at times we smell a rat.
Among the most seminal changes during this recent upheaval was the exit of Shivraj Patil and the induction of P Chidambum as the Home Minister. With more equanimity of mind than many others, Chidambrum showed objective involvement. When the terrorists bought 50 hand gliders from Europe to attack us from the air, Chidambrum ordered urgent inquiry. The truth came out that only three hand gliders were bought from China. This prompt finding indicates the direction in which the home minister wishes to go, rather than toeing the line that concocted reports intelligence agencies prepare for reason best known to them.
Karkare too was objective. He like Chidambrum was not captive to ideology. In his last interview to Indian Express he exclaimed, “I don’t know why this case has become so political.” He was talking about Malegaon blast of 2008 and was constrained to admit the difficulty created by the Hindutva groups including BJP, RSS, Shiv Sena, etc. “The pressure is tremendous and I am wondering how to extricate it from all the politics.” The situation in Pune also veered towards that kind of imbroglio. First, the police thought it was gas cylinder burst and asked the firefighter to wash the German bakery for about ninety minutes. What clues could remain there? Then came the bungle over the arrest of Arif Pathan whom the police grilled him three days without proper arrest. There were indications that the accusing finger had started pointing towards Sanathan Sanstha and Abhinau Bharat. The spokespersons of these went all out to browbeat the investigation agencies. The intimidatory tactics worked.
The Home Minister was already in a huff when KPR and his men went for the duo in Mumbai to stave off the situation or divert attention? Then, the usual practice of connecting the arrest of “Uncle” Bashir Khan in Gujarat with the duo in their alleged incendiary intent. Rehan and Latif would rot in jail for years when it would be at long last found that it was not this Pepsi bomber but after all the other “Uncel”, Dawood Ibrahim. Their youth would have lapsed into old age by then.
Now that David Headley’s involvement in 26/11 is on record in courts of America, the suffering and incarceration caused to Fahim Ansari by the IB and ATS and others including courts have come home to roost. In contrast, no one from Abhinav Bharat or Sanatan Sansthan has been arrested although their roles are evolving and are not just restricted to Goa, Vashi, Thane and Malegaon 2008 cases. Has the state home ministry’s inability to sack KPR anything to do with this? Some aspects of terror are too overwhelming to find one’s way through while investigating. Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit had organized training of Abhinav Bharat activists at Nasik Bhonsla Military School with the help of the commandant of the school, retired Colonel SS Raikar( a former intelligence officer, Purohit was serving intelligence officer) and retired General Ramesh Upadhya. Karkare was a man of sterling qualities and saw his way even in the hour of moral threat to his life! Karkare, thou shouldst be living now, India hast need of thee!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
“Sir, don’t..I am not a terrorist”: Déjà Vu Terrorism
What is happening in the country is nothing short of déjà vu terrorism. The kind of opinion that the police and investigation agencies create by sensationalizing leaks released to the media and how the media people fall over each other to scoop it will make Muslims en mass look as terrorists. As in the case of every other shining brand, Muslim terrorism is also a commodified brand for marketing.
The duo Riyaz @Rehan and Abdul Latif@Guddu were arrested in Mumbai under the ruse that they were about to burn a cloth market, an office of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. Their weapon was a match box to set the target on fire as getting RDX had become so difficult. How could it be so difficult for them in Mumbai and at the same time so easy for Indian Mujahideen in Pune is something only ATS under KP Raghuvanshi knows very well or their higher ups in Intelligence Bureau.
But the theory fell on its face when it came out that the reason behind this façade was that Rehan was in love with a Gujarati Jain girl. Her father reportedly used police influence to forestall the affair from climaxing into marriage. The kind of work that Babu Bajrangi is also doing for a higher premium, of course. The police are also far past in doing the same kind of social engineering is proven in the case of Priyanka Todi and Rizwanur Rehman. The police got him crushed under train. It is ironic that Shah Rukh Khan chose his cricket team to put on the sports-wear of Ashok Todi’s Lux Cosy. The People in Kokata would not have this badge of shame. In their mind Rizwan Khan and Rizwan Rehman are the same. The assertion of the film dialogue also militates against it, My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist.
Rehan too was credit worthy as a merchant Panit Prajapati told the people about steady service and noble character of Rehan. The police (read KP Raghuvanshi) were carried off their feet by the new brand in vogue in the market. How could these two burn so much of property and area by simple match box is the Aristotelian thesis of impossible probability being more effective theme of tragedy.
The supposed “uncle” has to be based in Karachi as the “Karachi project” is currently in fashion. That we are fighting shy of joint investigation with Pakistan is convenient to assert anything and say the other side is not cooperating. What harm is there in calling a mastermind “uncle”. This uncle has been deciphered to be, of course, you are right. He’s Dawood Ibrahim. The tall and study man in Pune who has been described as Mithun Chakraborty and who has handed over bombs to Nanded accused of bombing mosques in Parbhani, Purna, Jalna and also others has been called as “sir”. Within the homeland we have not been able to decipher this “sir” let alone arrest him. He must be the true mastermind based in Pune.
It is no mere coincidence that a rickshaw driver was shown on a popular TV channel on the day when blasts rocked Malegaon on September 8, 2006. He carried two people who had alighted from a bus from Malegaon. They had reached Pune from Malegaon and were wondering how (the blasts) had taken place in the mid day for they were set to go off in the night when the crowd in graveyard in Malegaon would be mammoth. The rickshaw driver told the anchor that he overheard their conversation. This footage was shown in the evening as well as at night. Till today the ATS has not bothered to trace out the rickshaw driver. On the contrary, Raghuvanshi has gone on air, on radio, exhorting rickshaw drivers to help investigate the Pune blast. So it is easier to locate an uncle in Karachi and IM in Pune. aghuvanshi personally conducted the raid and arrest of the duo in Mumbai. Then, went public with the finding. Of course, he did not say anything about la affair de amour. Thus it is facile to conceptualize terror and terrorists as former RAW chief Vikram Sood said: “Concepts are always good but the devil is in the detail”. Our agencies are finding it easier to do it and pocket the bonanza of promotion and be cavalier with providing evidence.
So much depends on a phone call! The erstwhile approve Abrar Ahmed says that SP Rajwardhan gave him the cell phone no. 9823436801. He gave him a paper on which he had written “Mader chod, jitna bolna that tu bol chuka ab sun ham log ko jitna saman gayab karna tha kar chuke mager ham is ko gaon main nahi la sake”(mother fucker, whatever you wanted to say you have said, now listen whatever material we want to remove we have done it, but we could not bring it into the town.) He instructed to Abrar to have the sentence uttered from a public phone booth as the SP wanted it recorded on the phone Abrar had got from him. Abrar claims that the sentence was uttered by Hamid Hussain Javid Iqbal from Pahelwan restaurant on Kidwai road, Malegaon. But the police along with ATS and CBI maintain that the sentence was uttered by Jahid who they say planted one of the bombs on September 8, 2006. As a matter of truth Jahid had led Friday prayer at Phool sngvi in Yawatmal district five hundred miles away from Malegaon. As compared to this the phone call the duo in Mumabai made to the “uncle” is to Karachi much longer distance and hence the need for a more cogent proof.
In the Malegaon case the ATS has failed to obtain the phone transcript of 9823436801 although by the order of the Chief Assistant Secretary (Home) they were duty bound to do so. Till February 12, 2010 they had not done so. Therefore it would be in the fitness of things that in the case of three weeks of phone conversation with the “uncle” of the duo should be made public lest the stipulated period of one year given to the phone company passes and they destroy the evidence.
The shooting of ATS inspector Shabbir ali Sayyad of Gujarat is another déjà vu terrorism. He was playing the role of observer in a mock rehearsal of terrorist attack at an airport in Surat. DCP Subhash Trivedi shot him twice in his stomach from a close range. Trivedi was role acting as a doctor. The popular conceptualizing of Muslims as terrorists seemed to have spawned this culture in the mind set of everyone.
The duo Riyaz @Rehan and Abdul Latif@Guddu were arrested in Mumbai under the ruse that they were about to burn a cloth market, an office of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. Their weapon was a match box to set the target on fire as getting RDX had become so difficult. How could it be so difficult for them in Mumbai and at the same time so easy for Indian Mujahideen in Pune is something only ATS under KP Raghuvanshi knows very well or their higher ups in Intelligence Bureau.
But the theory fell on its face when it came out that the reason behind this façade was that Rehan was in love with a Gujarati Jain girl. Her father reportedly used police influence to forestall the affair from climaxing into marriage. The kind of work that Babu Bajrangi is also doing for a higher premium, of course. The police are also far past in doing the same kind of social engineering is proven in the case of Priyanka Todi and Rizwanur Rehman. The police got him crushed under train. It is ironic that Shah Rukh Khan chose his cricket team to put on the sports-wear of Ashok Todi’s Lux Cosy. The People in Kokata would not have this badge of shame. In their mind Rizwan Khan and Rizwan Rehman are the same. The assertion of the film dialogue also militates against it, My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist.
Rehan too was credit worthy as a merchant Panit Prajapati told the people about steady service and noble character of Rehan. The police (read KP Raghuvanshi) were carried off their feet by the new brand in vogue in the market. How could these two burn so much of property and area by simple match box is the Aristotelian thesis of impossible probability being more effective theme of tragedy.
The supposed “uncle” has to be based in Karachi as the “Karachi project” is currently in fashion. That we are fighting shy of joint investigation with Pakistan is convenient to assert anything and say the other side is not cooperating. What harm is there in calling a mastermind “uncle”. This uncle has been deciphered to be, of course, you are right. He’s Dawood Ibrahim. The tall and study man in Pune who has been described as Mithun Chakraborty and who has handed over bombs to Nanded accused of bombing mosques in Parbhani, Purna, Jalna and also others has been called as “sir”. Within the homeland we have not been able to decipher this “sir” let alone arrest him. He must be the true mastermind based in Pune.
It is no mere coincidence that a rickshaw driver was shown on a popular TV channel on the day when blasts rocked Malegaon on September 8, 2006. He carried two people who had alighted from a bus from Malegaon. They had reached Pune from Malegaon and were wondering how (the blasts) had taken place in the mid day for they were set to go off in the night when the crowd in graveyard in Malegaon would be mammoth. The rickshaw driver told the anchor that he overheard their conversation. This footage was shown in the evening as well as at night. Till today the ATS has not bothered to trace out the rickshaw driver. On the contrary, Raghuvanshi has gone on air, on radio, exhorting rickshaw drivers to help investigate the Pune blast. So it is easier to locate an uncle in Karachi and IM in Pune. aghuvanshi personally conducted the raid and arrest of the duo in Mumbai. Then, went public with the finding. Of course, he did not say anything about la affair de amour. Thus it is facile to conceptualize terror and terrorists as former RAW chief Vikram Sood said: “Concepts are always good but the devil is in the detail”. Our agencies are finding it easier to do it and pocket the bonanza of promotion and be cavalier with providing evidence.
So much depends on a phone call! The erstwhile approve Abrar Ahmed says that SP Rajwardhan gave him the cell phone no. 9823436801. He gave him a paper on which he had written “Mader chod, jitna bolna that tu bol chuka ab sun ham log ko jitna saman gayab karna tha kar chuke mager ham is ko gaon main nahi la sake”(mother fucker, whatever you wanted to say you have said, now listen whatever material we want to remove we have done it, but we could not bring it into the town.) He instructed to Abrar to have the sentence uttered from a public phone booth as the SP wanted it recorded on the phone Abrar had got from him. Abrar claims that the sentence was uttered by Hamid Hussain Javid Iqbal from Pahelwan restaurant on Kidwai road, Malegaon. But the police along with ATS and CBI maintain that the sentence was uttered by Jahid who they say planted one of the bombs on September 8, 2006. As a matter of truth Jahid had led Friday prayer at Phool sngvi in Yawatmal district five hundred miles away from Malegaon. As compared to this the phone call the duo in Mumabai made to the “uncle” is to Karachi much longer distance and hence the need for a more cogent proof.
In the Malegaon case the ATS has failed to obtain the phone transcript of 9823436801 although by the order of the Chief Assistant Secretary (Home) they were duty bound to do so. Till February 12, 2010 they had not done so. Therefore it would be in the fitness of things that in the case of three weeks of phone conversation with the “uncle” of the duo should be made public lest the stipulated period of one year given to the phone company passes and they destroy the evidence.
The shooting of ATS inspector Shabbir ali Sayyad of Gujarat is another déjà vu terrorism. He was playing the role of observer in a mock rehearsal of terrorist attack at an airport in Surat. DCP Subhash Trivedi shot him twice in his stomach from a close range. Trivedi was role acting as a doctor. The popular conceptualizing of Muslims as terrorists seemed to have spawned this culture in the mind set of everyone.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
CBI Charge Sheet in Malegaon blasts 2006, a Dereliction of Duty--A Review
The CBI charge sheet in the case of Malegaon 2006 bomb blasts is a faint lackadaisical attempt in 75 odd pages to show that the so called top agency has done investigation according to the letter of the mandate of the government and not the spirit. It belies all the expectations of the people and smacks of half hearted filling the dots. It mentions that Abrar Ahmad had got his mobile number 9823436801 activated on June 29, 2006. It was deactivated on February 27, 2007. The Vodafone agency Jaimala Trading in Somgaon (Soygaon) and its head office in Pune do not have any other detail than copies of his ration card and national ID. The company has not been able to retrieve the conversation on the phone which Abrar carried on among others with the police including SP Rajwardhan. In fact the name of Rajwardhan does not appear anywhere in the charge sheet.
All this is far from the truth. Rajwardhan is the first respondent in a petition case currently heard by the Bombay high court. The petitioners are the accused in 2006 Malegaon blast. One of them is Abrar whose CAF (Customer Application Form) shows that the above mentioned phone was activated on September 18, 2006. This information is cryptically super scribed on the top of the page as “Act” and below it the date “18/9”. There is also another mention of date as 18/9/06.It is very queer that CAF has not been filled in properly. How could the company accept the form in the first place unless it was forwarded by some influential person? If this were so why did that person do it?
The CBI has disingenuously not touched upon the main issue. It has not investigated such crucial fact that the ATS had transgressed its bounds and had been handling the 2006 case which was formally being investigated by the Malegaon police then. Rajwardhan was the rural SP of Malegaon at that time. The DCP of ATS had submitted a report to the government on the basis of which the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) AP Sinha had issued an order to intercept the phone 9823436801. The order does not mention the subscriber. Does it mean that the name of the subscriber was deliberately planted later on? Is the name added by the same influential person? If so then it would amount to framing the subscriber in the blast case.
The CAF does not have the signature of Abrar at two places and activation is not mentioned at the specified space left blank. No agency would accept such anomaly unless overwhelming powerful influence is brought to coerce the agent to comply with the authority. The phone number is entered in handwriting rather than the sticker of number pasted!
The incriminating sentence of Zahid A Majid Ansari of Phulsangvi, Yawatmal, cannot stand scrutiny in the court of law. Analyzing only six words (haan, mader chod, us ke baad, Bolna, pandrah, nikal) according to acoustic and linguistic features need to be corroborated with circumstantial evidence.
According to Malegaon City PS II 3088/06 there were four bombs planted on September 8 and one fake bomb on September 13 2006 at 11.50 hours. The charge sheet strangely says about the last bomb: “some unknown persons planted bomb like object, knowing that it was not a bomb, at Mohammadiya masjid at communally sensitive Perry chowk with the object of causing disharmony between Hindus and Muslims in Malegaon with the object to cause riots.” This has been proved to be wrong as no Hindu-Muslim riots have taken place anywhere let alone in Malegaon following a blast. How do the police claim to know that the bombers knew that of the five bombs planted the last one would not kill anyone? This does not square with the claim that Perry chowk is communally very sensitive. The other blast sites at Hamidiya mosque and Mushawarat chowk are in Muslim ghettos which are not communally sensitive at all. Moreover, violence erupted at Azadnager police station when the irate mob went berserk and police opened fire at the protesters.
If the bomb at the mosque in Perry chowk was planted by the same accused why would they not like to kill more people when they had already killed 31 and injured 312 others? If the police claimed that the terrorist attacks were aimed at creating enmity between Hindus and Muslims and causing communal riots why did the same accused suddenly change their heinous design and played a hoax on the people of the town? Why did they choose 11.50 peak traffic hours to create a tamasha a the chowk? Would this have helped them? Something is definitely fishy about the fake bomb.
A few pages of the charge sheet deal with Amin Chowdhary’s refuting what Abrar has said about how he came to know about the involvement of the Hindus in the blasts. The CBI did not care to look at what Amin had said in his earlier affidavit of October 20, 2006. In this he told those things that corroborate what Abrar had said. Therefore, the later statement of Amin is a clear attempt to protect Rajwardhan as Amin, as well as Abar’s wife and her father Iqbal Chowdhary, was under pressure from Rajwardhan. Abrar alleges in his affidavit submitted to special MOCOCA court of Judge YD Shinde on April 18,2009 that Rajwardhan had distributed more than twenty five lakh rupees among his in laws in addition to flats given to them in places like Mumbai and Bhiwandi.
As a matter of fact CBI has simply supported the charges framed by Malegaon police under Rajwardhan and ATS under Raghuvanshi against the accused without carrying out a proper investigation as it is obliged under section 169 and section 173(8) of CrPC.
CBI report is in defiance of and in disregard to the popular feeling of discontent over Police/ATS performance prompted by the police sketch of two bombers who had bought the new cycles, the disappearance of a body with fake beard and torso missing, the mysterious suicide of Pervez Azhar who had reportedly seen the bomb planted and talked to the planter which the police failed to account for, etc.
Amin's disavowal of Abrar's claim is bizarre. It is human curiosity to know "who done it." Sherlock Holmes would smirk at the puerile police and detectives of our agencies. When Abrar knew the persons responsible for the blasts would Amin not like to hear the names, like one of the monkeys closing its ear so that it does not hear evil? Amin says: "Abrar came to me around 20 hours (8 PM) and said that he knew who were behind the incident. But he did not give any name." Amin then says, "main ne kaha ya to naam batao mujhe ya to police ko naam batao". "Then Abrar remarked that he would talk about the matter later." Amin also denied what Abrar said about Vardha. He says that his sons did not donate blood for the injured in the blasts. They did not go with Abrar on 8-9-2006 anywhere. He also says that it is white lie "srasar jhoot" that Abrar gave out the names of the men behind the bombing on the night of 8-9-2006 at the house of his father in law Iqbal Chowdhary. Such vehement disavowal or "srasar jhoot" would make one recall what Albert Camus said about his book The Outsider. "Lying is not only saying what isn't true. It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true and, in the case of the human heart, saying more than one feels."
The case is sub judice and the court would better find out the truth, especially how could the phone company not keep the caller data record (CDR) when the Additional Chief Secretary had ordered the interception of the phone 9823436801, which the ATS were already monitoring.
The local police had investigated the case until October 23 2006 when it was entrusted to ATS. CBI took over on December 21 only one day after ATS submitted its charge sheet. The order of the Additional Chief Secretary dated September 20, 2006 comes forty eight hours after the activation of mobile given to Abrar. Did the government wait for or connive at this switch back movement in investigation?
All this is far from the truth. Rajwardhan is the first respondent in a petition case currently heard by the Bombay high court. The petitioners are the accused in 2006 Malegaon blast. One of them is Abrar whose CAF (Customer Application Form) shows that the above mentioned phone was activated on September 18, 2006. This information is cryptically super scribed on the top of the page as “Act” and below it the date “18/9”. There is also another mention of date as 18/9/06.It is very queer that CAF has not been filled in properly. How could the company accept the form in the first place unless it was forwarded by some influential person? If this were so why did that person do it?
The CBI has disingenuously not touched upon the main issue. It has not investigated such crucial fact that the ATS had transgressed its bounds and had been handling the 2006 case which was formally being investigated by the Malegaon police then. Rajwardhan was the rural SP of Malegaon at that time. The DCP of ATS had submitted a report to the government on the basis of which the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) AP Sinha had issued an order to intercept the phone 9823436801. The order does not mention the subscriber. Does it mean that the name of the subscriber was deliberately planted later on? Is the name added by the same influential person? If so then it would amount to framing the subscriber in the blast case.
The CAF does not have the signature of Abrar at two places and activation is not mentioned at the specified space left blank. No agency would accept such anomaly unless overwhelming powerful influence is brought to coerce the agent to comply with the authority. The phone number is entered in handwriting rather than the sticker of number pasted!
The incriminating sentence of Zahid A Majid Ansari of Phulsangvi, Yawatmal, cannot stand scrutiny in the court of law. Analyzing only six words (haan, mader chod, us ke baad, Bolna, pandrah, nikal) according to acoustic and linguistic features need to be corroborated with circumstantial evidence.
According to Malegaon City PS II 3088/06 there were four bombs planted on September 8 and one fake bomb on September 13 2006 at 11.50 hours. The charge sheet strangely says about the last bomb: “some unknown persons planted bomb like object, knowing that it was not a bomb, at Mohammadiya masjid at communally sensitive Perry chowk with the object of causing disharmony between Hindus and Muslims in Malegaon with the object to cause riots.” This has been proved to be wrong as no Hindu-Muslim riots have taken place anywhere let alone in Malegaon following a blast. How do the police claim to know that the bombers knew that of the five bombs planted the last one would not kill anyone? This does not square with the claim that Perry chowk is communally very sensitive. The other blast sites at Hamidiya mosque and Mushawarat chowk are in Muslim ghettos which are not communally sensitive at all. Moreover, violence erupted at Azadnager police station when the irate mob went berserk and police opened fire at the protesters.
If the bomb at the mosque in Perry chowk was planted by the same accused why would they not like to kill more people when they had already killed 31 and injured 312 others? If the police claimed that the terrorist attacks were aimed at creating enmity between Hindus and Muslims and causing communal riots why did the same accused suddenly change their heinous design and played a hoax on the people of the town? Why did they choose 11.50 peak traffic hours to create a tamasha a the chowk? Would this have helped them? Something is definitely fishy about the fake bomb.
A few pages of the charge sheet deal with Amin Chowdhary’s refuting what Abrar has said about how he came to know about the involvement of the Hindus in the blasts. The CBI did not care to look at what Amin had said in his earlier affidavit of October 20, 2006. In this he told those things that corroborate what Abrar had said. Therefore, the later statement of Amin is a clear attempt to protect Rajwardhan as Amin, as well as Abar’s wife and her father Iqbal Chowdhary, was under pressure from Rajwardhan. Abrar alleges in his affidavit submitted to special MOCOCA court of Judge YD Shinde on April 18,2009 that Rajwardhan had distributed more than twenty five lakh rupees among his in laws in addition to flats given to them in places like Mumbai and Bhiwandi.
As a matter of fact CBI has simply supported the charges framed by Malegaon police under Rajwardhan and ATS under Raghuvanshi against the accused without carrying out a proper investigation as it is obliged under section 169 and section 173(8) of CrPC.
CBI report is in defiance of and in disregard to the popular feeling of discontent over Police/ATS performance prompted by the police sketch of two bombers who had bought the new cycles, the disappearance of a body with fake beard and torso missing, the mysterious suicide of Pervez Azhar who had reportedly seen the bomb planted and talked to the planter which the police failed to account for, etc.
Amin's disavowal of Abrar's claim is bizarre. It is human curiosity to know "who done it." Sherlock Holmes would smirk at the puerile police and detectives of our agencies. When Abrar knew the persons responsible for the blasts would Amin not like to hear the names, like one of the monkeys closing its ear so that it does not hear evil? Amin says: "Abrar came to me around 20 hours (8 PM) and said that he knew who were behind the incident. But he did not give any name." Amin then says, "main ne kaha ya to naam batao mujhe ya to police ko naam batao". "Then Abrar remarked that he would talk about the matter later." Amin also denied what Abrar said about Vardha. He says that his sons did not donate blood for the injured in the blasts. They did not go with Abrar on 8-9-2006 anywhere. He also says that it is white lie "srasar jhoot" that Abrar gave out the names of the men behind the bombing on the night of 8-9-2006 at the house of his father in law Iqbal Chowdhary. Such vehement disavowal or "srasar jhoot" would make one recall what Albert Camus said about his book The Outsider. "Lying is not only saying what isn't true. It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true and, in the case of the human heart, saying more than one feels."
The case is sub judice and the court would better find out the truth, especially how could the phone company not keep the caller data record (CDR) when the Additional Chief Secretary had ordered the interception of the phone 9823436801, which the ATS were already monitoring.
The local police had investigated the case until October 23 2006 when it was entrusted to ATS. CBI took over on December 21 only one day after ATS submitted its charge sheet. The order of the Additional Chief Secretary dated September 20, 2006 comes forty eight hours after the activation of mobile given to Abrar. Did the government wait for or connive at this switch back movement in investigation?
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Investigation agencies washing dirty linen in the public!
Will the modern day Neros now in Delhi fiddle away precious time as the country is inching towards disaster one after another? The same kind of handling of investigation by the local police and then the ATS and then the CBI that leads to prolonging the agony of the innocents rubbing their heels away in gruel pain and ad absurdum waiting in prisons across the country. The classic example of Samjhauta express blast 2007investigation has become a kind of archetype pattern. It has made us the laughing stock of the world in our so much vaunted fight against terror a la USA.
It is common knowledge that the Haryana police had almost come to a breakthrough in their investigation when the National Security Advisor MK Narayanan stepped in and told the government that it would expose army involvement (Lt Col Shrikant Prasad Purohit!) and expose our Achilles' heel to Pakistan. That produced what can be understood by changing horses in mid flooded stream. The insensate horses of ATS, IB, and the Special Cells of police have been swept away by powerful under currents. The undercurrents are of ideology, stereotyping, and the juggernaut of office promotion, racketeering, bias and partiality.
It is strange that India should be following USA in tandem. As the Americans are fighting information war through their war on terror, India is doing that in copy cat manner. Their latest fight in Marja in Afghanistan made the cluster of farm houses there into a big city with 80,000 people under the sway of the Talibans. When the journalists lifted the veil of secrecy of the government agencies they discovered Marja to be nothing even like a small town, let alone a city. The fertile agricultural land is busy with farmers producing food for stomach and not fodder for cannons. The secret agencies in America know how gullible the people are to believe how heroic work their soldiers are engaged in while fighting in that far away god forsaken world of Afghanistan.
In India also we are fighting information war. If the bravado of the right wing groups is indicative of anything, it surely has enough steam to propel the police and the investigation agencies to continue their charge like that of Don Quixote against the windmill.
Why did Home Secretary GK Pillai suggest that the probe in Pune blast would be conducted by the ATS? Did he not get the wind that ATS was not competent enough under KP Raghuvanshi to move an inch in the investigation of Malegaon blast of 2008 after the assassination of Hemant Karkare? In fact whatever Karkare had fearlessly and fairly discovered through his inquiry has been brushed under the carpet of the new dispensation of KP Raghuvanshi. The letter of Fahim Ansari (Urdu Times March 8, 2010) from prison rings in stentorian voice with truth of his assertion and claim that Karkare had found him innocent in the case of the serial blasts of 2007 in the Mumbai local trains. Karkare had remarked to the police and the ATS subordinates to see that Fahim is set free. It is also on record that Karkare did not find any SIMI involvement in the 2006 Malegaon blast. He was most professional and objective in his attitude and work.
Pune bomb blast and Bhiku chowk (Malegaon) bomb blast of 2008 are alike. In both the cases the police mischievously gave out that it was gas cylinder explosion. Tiny iron balls had pierced walls, shop shutters and human bodies at Bhiku chowk and yet willfully the police persisted for quite some times in claiming that it was cylinder blast. The people were so angered that they started violent protest and the police had to shoot the protesters to bring the situation under control. Luckily, sadhvi Pragyasingh's motorcycle revealed the truth. In Pune the fire fighters washed the German bakery as if they were engaged in the Herculean task of washing the Augean stables. They left no stone unturned to wipe out the traces. At whose behest?
For quite some times nobody had claimed responsibility for Malegaon 2008 blast, just like in the Pune case. The police were agog with their inability to apprehend anyone in both the cases. Unlike Malegaon, in Pune they dug out an old phone call to Arif Pathan: "An officer who identified himself as 'Tayde' alog with three others took me to Pune and I was constantly asked about a particular phone number from which I must have received calls two years back." Pathan said. "The police did not tell me whose number it was nor the context in which it had been tracked."(Yahoo, Sunday 7, 2010). For three days he was interrogated at an unknown place where there were also four youths held whom the police wanted him to identify. All this reminds one of the almost extraordinary renditions that the Hyderabad police were engaged in sometimes back.
Arif's fate would still be shrouded in mystery of disappearance had not his family created a stir and his connection to such a well known figure like Sanjay Dutt created yet another enigma. But then the million dollar question is: Is ATS ingenuous enough to say that it was really sidelined and the fiasco over Arif Pathan planted to discredit it?
It is common knowledge that the Haryana police had almost come to a breakthrough in their investigation when the National Security Advisor MK Narayanan stepped in and told the government that it would expose army involvement (Lt Col Shrikant Prasad Purohit!) and expose our Achilles' heel to Pakistan. That produced what can be understood by changing horses in mid flooded stream. The insensate horses of ATS, IB, and the Special Cells of police have been swept away by powerful under currents. The undercurrents are of ideology, stereotyping, and the juggernaut of office promotion, racketeering, bias and partiality.
It is strange that India should be following USA in tandem. As the Americans are fighting information war through their war on terror, India is doing that in copy cat manner. Their latest fight in Marja in Afghanistan made the cluster of farm houses there into a big city with 80,000 people under the sway of the Talibans. When the journalists lifted the veil of secrecy of the government agencies they discovered Marja to be nothing even like a small town, let alone a city. The fertile agricultural land is busy with farmers producing food for stomach and not fodder for cannons. The secret agencies in America know how gullible the people are to believe how heroic work their soldiers are engaged in while fighting in that far away god forsaken world of Afghanistan.
In India also we are fighting information war. If the bravado of the right wing groups is indicative of anything, it surely has enough steam to propel the police and the investigation agencies to continue their charge like that of Don Quixote against the windmill.
Why did Home Secretary GK Pillai suggest that the probe in Pune blast would be conducted by the ATS? Did he not get the wind that ATS was not competent enough under KP Raghuvanshi to move an inch in the investigation of Malegaon blast of 2008 after the assassination of Hemant Karkare? In fact whatever Karkare had fearlessly and fairly discovered through his inquiry has been brushed under the carpet of the new dispensation of KP Raghuvanshi. The letter of Fahim Ansari (Urdu Times March 8, 2010) from prison rings in stentorian voice with truth of his assertion and claim that Karkare had found him innocent in the case of the serial blasts of 2007 in the Mumbai local trains. Karkare had remarked to the police and the ATS subordinates to see that Fahim is set free. It is also on record that Karkare did not find any SIMI involvement in the 2006 Malegaon blast. He was most professional and objective in his attitude and work.
Pune bomb blast and Bhiku chowk (Malegaon) bomb blast of 2008 are alike. In both the cases the police mischievously gave out that it was gas cylinder explosion. Tiny iron balls had pierced walls, shop shutters and human bodies at Bhiku chowk and yet willfully the police persisted for quite some times in claiming that it was cylinder blast. The people were so angered that they started violent protest and the police had to shoot the protesters to bring the situation under control. Luckily, sadhvi Pragyasingh's motorcycle revealed the truth. In Pune the fire fighters washed the German bakery as if they were engaged in the Herculean task of washing the Augean stables. They left no stone unturned to wipe out the traces. At whose behest?
For quite some times nobody had claimed responsibility for Malegaon 2008 blast, just like in the Pune case. The police were agog with their inability to apprehend anyone in both the cases. Unlike Malegaon, in Pune they dug out an old phone call to Arif Pathan: "An officer who identified himself as 'Tayde' alog with three others took me to Pune and I was constantly asked about a particular phone number from which I must have received calls two years back." Pathan said. "The police did not tell me whose number it was nor the context in which it had been tracked."(Yahoo, Sunday 7, 2010). For three days he was interrogated at an unknown place where there were also four youths held whom the police wanted him to identify. All this reminds one of the almost extraordinary renditions that the Hyderabad police were engaged in sometimes back.
Arif's fate would still be shrouded in mystery of disappearance had not his family created a stir and his connection to such a well known figure like Sanjay Dutt created yet another enigma. But then the million dollar question is: Is ATS ingenuous enough to say that it was really sidelined and the fiasco over Arif Pathan planted to discredit it?
Saturday, March 6, 2010
“Where is the Indian director?” Terrorists’ Search for a Target
During the guesthouse attacks in Kabul the blood curdling cry of the Lashkar-e-Toiba or Afghan Taliban was not sectarian but national. They were hunting to kill Indians irrespective of their religion or caste. They would not have lowered the pants of their victims as is the wont within India to identify the hapless victims in communal riots or otherwise. Their hunting cry whether in Urdu or Pashtu was the blood thirsty baying for blood like that of the hordes who descend upon their quarry beyond the Khyber pass in the long past. Their precursors in Ajmal Kasab and Ismail Khan also did not discriminate the forty plus Muslim men and women and their children killed at the CST on 11/26.
Of the eighteen people killed in the targeted bombing in Kabul nine were Indians. Richard Holbrooke may not agree as to the nationality issue of the target but given the situation in the three south Asian neighbours there is little doubt left. The 27 odd Mossad terrorists who had descended on the Dubai hotel to kill Hamas leader Mohammad al Madhou on January 19 also included a couple of Palestinians. The killers in Dubai had stolen identities, what mattered to them was their quarry.
In Pune blast the victims were of different religions and nationality but the target was transnational as in the case of the Kabul attack. However different people read different significance in the two events. Holbrooke remarked: “I don’t accept the fact that this was an attack on an Indian facility like the (Indian) embassy. They were foreigners, non-Indian foreigners hurt.” (Hindustan Times March 6, 2010).The US envoy views it as a region-problem of political nature which has no religious dimension. Eight Afghans along with an Italian diplomat and a French film maker were also killed. But in the case of Pune blast the Intelligence Bureau would have us believe that it was the work of Indian Mujahiddeen. This is what can be termed in a different register as congenital. No sooner does a blast take place than the agencies at the behest of the mother of all agencies, IB, declare IM or yet another avatar of it behind the attack. IM is itself the transformation of LeT.
After mulling over for more than a fortnight the police have taken away Arif Pathan as one connected to the blast in Pune. He went missing since March 3. The police have confirmed that he was interrogated but he is not arrested. The lawyer of this personal assistant of MLC Sanjay Dutt termed it as illegal detention. (Indian Express March 6, 2010) There is widespread apprehension that this might turn out to be another framing of the Muslims a la Gulzar Ahmed Ganai and Mohammad Amin Hajam. These two were arrested by Mohan Chand Sharma (“martyred” in Batla house) with doctored bus record and faked photo. The two innocents languished three years in Tihar until justice Dharmesh Sharma acquitted them and ordered their release on December 12, 2009.
Those behind the targeting of Indians in Kabul are dioramic in personal and collective appearance. The border region between India’s two neighbours is the hotbed of multilingual groups with a common target. They belong to a movement rather than a terrorist group that is hell bent in their fight to get rid of the Americans. These days they perceive that Indians are toeing the lines drawn by the Yankees.
Of the eighteen people killed in the targeted bombing in Kabul nine were Indians. Richard Holbrooke may not agree as to the nationality issue of the target but given the situation in the three south Asian neighbours there is little doubt left. The 27 odd Mossad terrorists who had descended on the Dubai hotel to kill Hamas leader Mohammad al Madhou on January 19 also included a couple of Palestinians. The killers in Dubai had stolen identities, what mattered to them was their quarry.
In Pune blast the victims were of different religions and nationality but the target was transnational as in the case of the Kabul attack. However different people read different significance in the two events. Holbrooke remarked: “I don’t accept the fact that this was an attack on an Indian facility like the (Indian) embassy. They were foreigners, non-Indian foreigners hurt.” (Hindustan Times March 6, 2010).The US envoy views it as a region-problem of political nature which has no religious dimension. Eight Afghans along with an Italian diplomat and a French film maker were also killed. But in the case of Pune blast the Intelligence Bureau would have us believe that it was the work of Indian Mujahiddeen. This is what can be termed in a different register as congenital. No sooner does a blast take place than the agencies at the behest of the mother of all agencies, IB, declare IM or yet another avatar of it behind the attack. IM is itself the transformation of LeT.
After mulling over for more than a fortnight the police have taken away Arif Pathan as one connected to the blast in Pune. He went missing since March 3. The police have confirmed that he was interrogated but he is not arrested. The lawyer of this personal assistant of MLC Sanjay Dutt termed it as illegal detention. (Indian Express March 6, 2010) There is widespread apprehension that this might turn out to be another framing of the Muslims a la Gulzar Ahmed Ganai and Mohammad Amin Hajam. These two were arrested by Mohan Chand Sharma (“martyred” in Batla house) with doctored bus record and faked photo. The two innocents languished three years in Tihar until justice Dharmesh Sharma acquitted them and ordered their release on December 12, 2009.
Those behind the targeting of Indians in Kabul are dioramic in personal and collective appearance. The border region between India’s two neighbours is the hotbed of multilingual groups with a common target. They belong to a movement rather than a terrorist group that is hell bent in their fight to get rid of the Americans. These days they perceive that Indians are toeing the lines drawn by the Yankees.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Tasleema Nasreen and the Four Pillars of Learning
The Dissembling Repentant
Ten years have passed since UNESCO published its report on education for the 21st century, The Treasure Within, which among other things emphasizes learning to live together. Ten years into the new century and our education seems to be where it was at the turn of the last century. This is quintessentially true in one of the four pillars of learning, learning to live together. In the other three, viz., learning to know, to do and to be, there is some change in the contour.
We and particularly young learners inherit a complex world. If the world has not made us learn to live with others better what is the remedy? The remedy is surely education itself which Jacques Delors describes as a necessary utopia; “humankind sees in education an indispensable asset in its attempt to attain the ideals of peace, freedom and social justice.” It is “a principal means available to foster a deeper and more harmonious form of human development and thereby to reduce poverty, exclusion, ignorance, depression and war.”
Failure to educate so results in violence and disruption. On March 1, 2010 violence broke out on account of what Tasleema Nasreen had purportedly written much earlier. "If the Quran advises women to use purdah, should they do so? My answer is No. Irrespective of which book says it, which person advises, whoever commands, women should not have purdah. No veil, no chador, no hijab, no burqa, no headscarf. Women should not use any of these things because all these are instruments of disrespect". She denied that the words ascribed to her are hers. Why did the violence break out, then?
Doing anything on the spur of the moment reveals lack of education. Only when you know all the aspects of a case you can respond, if at all you choose to do so. Since the Quran shows other ways of responding, have the protesters gone through them? Have they tried some of them and exhausted them? Keeping patience in the face of provocation would have paid better dividends.
Similarly you are given right of expression, but should you twist the words of a writer who did not intend it and then publish them? Or would you put words of your own in her mouth?
In the same way why did the Kannada papers wait until she was granted her last extension of visa only last week and republish her article to coincide with it? Of course, there is a tactical move which would bring political gains to one party but would not have the moral justification of communities living together. Harmonious peaceful coexistence rather than political skullduggery should have weighed in republishing that article, “Let’s Think Again About the Burqa”.
However, two people have been killed and scores of others injured. Hundreds of vehicles vandalized. That does not seem to go down so easily.
Learning to know should have helped learning to do better. The first incident took place in Shimoga the constituency of Chief Minister BS Yeddyuappa and then it spread to Hassan, the constituency of former Prime Minister HD Devi Gowda. From there to Gokak in Belgaum district. Then, entered Shri Ram Sene. It shows that those who maneuvered this or chose to act did not learn to be better informed and enlightened citizens. As a result of the failure in varying degree of the four pillars of learning the society suffered. If the executive, legislative and administrative wings fail, the onus is on the teachers. Will they take on the daunting task of education for a brighter India?
They have to when they renovate themselves to the task. On their shoulders more rather than on any others’ lies the responsibility that the media has played havoc with the society. It has sensationalized issues which have disfigured our streets with hundreds of shops and vehicles burnt. Bringing panels of ‘experts’ who are die hard politicians and ideologues to discuss and thrash ad absurdum the latest incidents of violence and thereby making people more entrenched in their petty biases and prejudices!
The teachers have to make the young generation to discover “the treasure within” rather than come out on the streets with their hidden treasure of stones, bars, sticks, knives and swords to confront the other.
It is time for the teachers to sensitize the youths and children that we have common purposes to struggle together for. That, we must strive to avoid our slow collective suicide that is the degradation of our environment. That, equitable distribution of the wealth accumulating from our more than 8% growth of our gross national products reaches to all. Given these common goals of all the people of the country the violence in Karnataka is puerile. Is Tasleema Nasreen, a foreigner, such a powerful visiting planet that can pull us out of the gravitation of the orbit of our noble national endeavour for a better life?
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