RSS stance against the floodgate of startling revelations: prevarication
Prevarication is dodging facing the truth. Prevaricating in matters of national interest where the unity and integrity of the country is involved is even worse treachery. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has hallmark of this prevarication. The RSS has spawned numerous organizations as a tactic in their strategy to have India as a Hindu Rashtra with minorities existing, if at all, at their sufferance.
This latter fact is the governing thought of the pre-partition ethos of the communal politics vis-à-vis Muslim League’s determination to have a separate country, Pakistan. Muslims raping Hindu women and girls or parading them naked in Lahore was as much terror as Hindus and Sikhs raping or parading of Muslim women and girls naked in Amritsar. Terrorism was not born on 9/11 2001. History is replete with uncountable such events showing how men have behaved with fellow human beings. But politics of terrorism—the co called ‘war on terrorism’ and its hideous adjunct that ‘either you are with us or against us’—was born at the onset of 21st century in the US and India. This is true, though not all the people of India know it or support it.
K K Mysorewala was in charge of Naroda Patiya 2002 where horrendous murder, rape and burning human beings alive took place. When Muslim women pleaded with him to shelter them from the rampaging mob he had famously said that he had orders from above that that day they had to let the Hindu mobs wreak havoc on the Muslims. Come September 29, 2008 a bomb exploded near a mosque in Modasa killing a fifteen year old and injuring many others in the Ramadan crowd of Muslims, just like what happened exactly at the same time in Malegaon. Now that National Investigation Agency is taking over the investigation there is need for a more comprehensive inquiry into the kind of prevarication that Mysorewala was engaged in at both the occasions as both are instances of terror. As RSS keeps no record of its members and the central government has no appetite to ban any Hindu organizations there is no need to find out whether the duo, Mysorewala and Narendra Modi, belong to the same organization. Modi had blessed the chhara community women for having given birth to men who had performed the pogroms. Why should he or anyone prevaricate on the conduct of a pogrom? Transparency is the best way to assure justice and, what is more: guarantee that this nation survives with honour despite bouts of murder and mayhem. There is no sophistry of ‘cultural nationalism’ here.
The virus of prevarication, telling half truth or lie, is spread all through and up to the top. The retired deputy director of Intelligence Bureau Ashok Karnik who should know the kind of society we have ‘created’ says “On a few occasions when extremists are traced and arrested, there is clamour from civil libertarians to ensure that they get fair trial. This is a just demand in a society which takes pride in its adherence to the rule of law. However it runs counter to the outraged feelings in the society which is not prepared to listen to any defence of terrorism.” Why is it lost on this IB official that defence of terrorism is one thing and defence of an accused is another? How in the heavens can he equate defence of accused as defence of terrorism? Unless the court has proved a person guilty beyond doubt he is an honourable citizen of this country. That is how the so called “society which takes pride in its adherence to the rule of law” should look at what has happened in all incidents of terrorism including Gujarat 2002 and Modasa 2008. Unfortunately the government set-up and the society are not up to the ideals of any sort or else Vinita Kamte would not have the misgivings she had. She says:”There was a time when I was so desperate for the truth that I felt that I should go and meet Kasab and ask him what happened? Can you imagine my situation—should I feel the need to ask a terrorist what happened that night—do you feel the situation has changed! I felt it was important to speak one’s mind. I just thought we would expose the system and people would take it forward. I still feel that people must ask questions and hold those in power responsible.” Why shouldn’t people ask Mysorewala and Modi questions that disturb us, the ordinary citizens of this great country? Do the questions of the widow of slain deputy commissioner of police Ashok Kamte disturb Rakesh Maria, a colleague and of the same batch of IPS and now a successor of the angelic Hemant Karkare?
The kind of sophistry that RSS and its ‘cultural nationalism’ have woven around makes it difficult if not impossible to know the truth. However, the times have changed. The floodgate of information opening up on the involvement of RSS is staggering. Devendra Gupta was what Ram Madhav calls vibagh pramukh of three districts. He had procured sim cards used in Ajmer, Mecca mosque and Samjhauta express attacks and it does not stop with him. Ramji Kalsangrah, Himanshu Panse, Sandeep Dange, Sunil Joshi, etc are all from RSS. They are the progeny of Nathuram Godse and Madanlal Pawa.
Despite the overwhelming nature of evidence does “a society which takes pride in its adherence to the rule of law” unequivocally say that they, above mentioned RSS functionaries, are terrorists? Ram Madhav is the epitome of prevarication: “We don't know the charges yet. When we know about it, then we will certainly think about it. But beyond that there is nothing.
“Let me talk about the other part of your question. This vicarious satisfaction of people like you is amazing. The event (arrests of Hindus) doesn't mitigate the fact that there exists something called Islamic terrorism in this world, not just in India.
“There is something called global terrorism that is inspired by the ideology of jihad. It exists.
“Just because someone associated with the RSS or Bajrang Dal or any organisation gets arrested, it doesn't mean there is no Islamic terrorism. How can you say that?
I am saying that there is no Hindu terrorism. For a simple reason -- at the most some Hindus have indulged in such acts which have to be condemned by everyone.
“At the most you can call these people's action as counter-Islamic terrorism. It is not at all Hindu terrorism.”
This is what Madhav told Sheilla Bhatt. But Modi had been asserting the third law of Newton ad absurdum. Suresh Joshi has also chipped in “Its counter-Islamic terrorism, not Hindu terror”. So, Islamic terrorism or jihadist terrorism is all right but not Hindu terrorism (the kind of terror that Ramji Kalsangrah unleashed at Bhiku chowk in Malegaon! How could countering terror through terror be justified? Rajiv Gandhi had sent Indian peace keeping force to Sri Lanka where Indian soldiers suffered heavy casualties. LTTE also countered by terror that took the life of the former prime minister of India and many others. Could India accept that counter terrorism is no terror?
Or, the current crucible test of Samjhauta express (and contrast it with Maoists blowing trains!) where Abhinav Bharat has claimed responsibility, its founding member Lt Col Purohit supplied RDX and the Haryana police have already identified the shops from where the bags were bought and even some of the explosives in Indore. Now comes the news that Kalsangra, Devenda Gupte were also connected with the event. Interestingly some new statements of Purohit were added to distance himself and his Abhinav Bharat from RSS. He plotted to kill Mohan Bhagwat and Indrashkumar. The mystery of the white powder that could wipe out the trail of the murder! These brain children of RSS also include Ashok Singhal who sees in the arrest of Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur the myth of Mary Magdalane and the attempt of the Roman Catholic Church to destroy her line of descent. The mystery surrounding RSS is much thicker because it involves highly educated and well placed executives of all levels. We will require many volumes thicker than Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code to unravel everything.
Suffice to say for the present that we have reached the capital of terrorism, Indore. Lokesh Sharma had bought a cell phone from this town of his birth. The phone was hanging in a bag with the bomb outside on the grill of Mecca mosque. However, the sim card was bought by Devendra Gupta! But then these are individuals who do not make up the RSS, says Ram Madhav. He knows the truth for he is an honourable man!
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Communalism is terrorism: Shiv Sena at 45 does not know terrorism!
Malegaon bomb blasts of 2006 and 2008 a reflection
Malegaon bomb blasts of 2006 and 2008 have created an upheaval in the country and sharply crystallized the political parties. Never before was the town mentioned so often as since when ATS chief Hemant Karkare started arresting Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit of the army, Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur and others and facts of extremist Hindus responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 29, 2008 started making headlines.
The earliest straw in the wind was the complete silence over who did it. Nobody had claimed responsibility for either of the two terrorist incidents of 2006 and 2008. Both of them took place in September and initially were sought out to be explained away as sequel to September 11, 2001 attack on World Trade Centre twin towers and the Pentagon, jihadist attacks. Immediately, Lashkare-toiba or al Badre were blamed and even al Qaida. In the aftermath of 2006 explosions some twenty Hindus were interrogated by the police and a well known yarn trader Mahesh Patodiya was called by the police for questioning. In the latter case a huge Hindu crowd encircled the killa police station. The police released him soon. But from the third week of the October they started arresting Muslim youths on suspicion. Many of them are still behind the bars with hardly any evidence against them than their own confession under duress. But then happened 2008 and as most of the arrested in 2006 were accused to be members of SIMI who else was left to be arrested now?
But more than the residual situation was the coming of the new ATS chief Hemant Kakare on the scene. He began investigation objectively from ground zero and came upon the motor cycle of Pragyasingh Thakur.
When Purohit and Pragya were brought to the court in Nasik a mammoth gathering that included Shiv Sainks showered petals on the Hindu accused. They made it into a gala event of celebration and jubilation. Never before had this happened in India. Bal Thackeray and his party assured tickets for the accused to fight the election that was round the corner.
LK Advani was swept away by the overwhelming revelations that these times round the terrorists were Hindus. He like Thackeray was so much inveterate that his reaction was also schizophrenic. He wanted to change the composition of the investigation team altogether. Thackeray thundered that the names of the investigation officers would be directly revealed to the public who would naturally mete out justice or punishment to the investigators as they deemed necessary. List of lawyers who would defend grew in three digits. All these left no doubt to the public that the Hindus could not take to terrorism and they were superior to their fellow countrymen from the Islamic faith. It was much like the Hasidim Lubavitch orthodox Jews.
This creation of reality of the situation of bombing is reminiscent of the Godhra train burning. It did not stop there even nationalism was ascribed to those who accepted the created reality.
That is the persistent problem with terrorism. Those who have appropriated nationalism in this way create the reality which they enforce on others. Inadvertently it is deepening the gulf between communities and that might become unbridgeable. Within a week of September 2008 bombing neighbouring town Dhulia had its first ever wide spread communal riot. Eerie and fraught with dangerous consequences, the Hindu Raksha Samiti wanted to protect Hindus from the fall out of the bomb blast in Malegaon! Their pamphlet makes it clear. The occasion was well chosen. Shabbir Bhangarwala was returning from haj and notice boards were set up announcing a welcome programme. There was another board of the Samiti. Who damaged one such board is difficult to say but the riots ensued. Bhangarwala was detained and the police made an appeal for his remand in which the superintendent of the police said that it was an established fact that Muslims are the masterminds behind all terrorist attacks in India. Hindu Rakshak Samiti only retaliated. Here also the created reality is made out to be even the police version! Later the DGP AN Roy ordered an inquiry into the affair.
The created reality and the appropriation of nationalism based on this skewed perception have gone so deep into the psyche of the Hindu right and in the case of many others that 45th anniversary of Shiv Sena is illustrative of it. In its editorial of Saturday June19, 2010 Saamna says that “such is the vote bank politics of the Congress party that when bombs are exploded by Islamic extremists, Hindus are blamed for the bombs and the explosions. That is how the Hindus have been blamed in the Malegaon bomb blasts. Now that the police have no lead on Pune German bakery bomb blast (of February 19, 2010) they want to hide their impotence by blaming the Hindus only.” The editorial shows how schizophrenia has seized Hindu extremist political outfits like Shiv Sena and BJP.
Many especially in the minority see no scope or hope for justice or fair play for Muslims who are often not only themselves killed in terrorist attacks but also their youths are falsely implicated into such crimes and languish decades of their life in prison. That is what has happened in Delhi, Hyderabad and is true of the Malegaon 2006.
The party mouthpiece says: “We are brave macho Marathas. But when there is danger to the country we are primarily and foremost Hindus who would descend to the battlefield with our weapons.”
Thus full four years after the first bomb incidents in Malegaon and two years after the second attack Shiv Sena refuses to accept that Hindus could plant bombs. Their enemy within the homeland is the Muslim.
As there is no perceptible dissidence against this one feels amazed whether the Marathi speaking Hindus fully comprehend and understand ‘”aata islami atirekyani phodlele bomb aani sfotanche gunhe hindun chya nawawar dakhan kele jat aahet malegaon sfotantasech hinduvana badnam kele.” (Now the bombs exploded by Muslim extremists and explosion crimes are blamed on the Hindus. In Malegaon bomb explosions Hindus have been blamed.)?
This is clear insinuation that only Muslims are terrorists for which Hindus have to wear the cross. What is worse the party and its mouthpiece have sworn to inspire and instigate the Hindus. History is replete with innumerable instances of how the Shiv Sena and its supreme leader have incited violence. Again, what is cocking a snook at the authorities and the government: “teyana petvineyanche kaam aamhi karat rahu” (We will continue to fire or instigate them,” the Hindus. ) Does not this aim at creating hatred between communities? In other words the Malegaon blasts have come to be tools in the hands of the Hindu parties to continue their fight against the Muslims for just being Muslims. Terrorism has fully succeeded superseding communalism. Communal violence of yore is terrorist violence, murder and mayhem of today.
Why there is no hope for justice under the right wing Hindu parties coming to power is again enshrined in the editorial as the Shiv Sena does not publish a manifesto its manifesto is what Thackeray says and writes in the editorials. Look at a seminal thought of Thackeray. “I want in Mumbai goondas, hooch distillers, smugglers and all Marathi people.” His nephew followed him. They unleashed violence on the North Indians which was pure terror. They went further and declared if this makes them terrorists they are proud to declare that they are terrorists! This part of history is caught on camera by the electronic media and there is no need to look into the archives for evidence. The situation boils down to this: the Muslim youths must perish in prison but the Hindus (not all certainly but even the extremists among them) cannot be terrorists. Malegaon blasts have gone into history proving this.
Why have we reached this stage? Communalism, that too aggressive one, played havoc. Its first casualty is not the unsuspecting knifed in the street. But what is within us, our power of discerning right and wrong and doing the right. Terrorism must not be allowed to atrophy introspection. Even those who fight for human rights must introspect as well as those who indulge in violating the human rights. Did the Shiv Sena activists and the Bajrang Dal musclemen introspect how small children in the Malegaon graveyard mosque had their limbs blown up by explosion? Many had their necks pierced and broken by deadly missiles of small balls and nails of the bombs. Most were either beggars or children. Shiv Sena and Uma Bharti who offered tickets to fight election to the Sadhvi and Purohit or the fake encounter cop Sachin Vaze had no introspection.
Given the communal polarization it will become perhaps inevitable that communities like their leaders will very soon come to justify terrorism. Bal Thackeray had occasionally remarked that he wished Tamil Tigers or the Naxalites would help Hindus retaliate what Himani Savarkar (true to her name, sharp edge weapon) calls bomb for bomb revenge against the Muslims whom they view as just terrorists. Will the claiming of responsibility be far behind? Or, has it begun. Shiv Sena and MNS activists who unleashed terror on North Indians have made no bones of it. When it comes to sons of the soil ideology they would use force call what you may, if this is terrorism they are happy to be terrorists.
------
Dhule police’s Muslim remark raises eyebrows
Kartikeya & Nitasha Natu, TNN, Nov 18, 2008 it is an established fact that Muslims are the masterminds behind all terrorist attacks in India, pernicious remand appeal for Shabbir Bhangarwala, which also includes the assertion that Hindu Raksha Samiti only retaliated. Two HRS members are also under detention.
Fresh charges on Purohit; Cong, BJP trade charges
Tue Nov 18 2008, IE Advani demanded change in the investigation team
Malegaon bomb blasts of 2006 and 2008 have created an upheaval in the country and sharply crystallized the political parties. Never before was the town mentioned so often as since when ATS chief Hemant Karkare started arresting Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit of the army, Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur and others and facts of extremist Hindus responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 29, 2008 started making headlines.
The earliest straw in the wind was the complete silence over who did it. Nobody had claimed responsibility for either of the two terrorist incidents of 2006 and 2008. Both of them took place in September and initially were sought out to be explained away as sequel to September 11, 2001 attack on World Trade Centre twin towers and the Pentagon, jihadist attacks. Immediately, Lashkare-toiba or al Badre were blamed and even al Qaida. In the aftermath of 2006 explosions some twenty Hindus were interrogated by the police and a well known yarn trader Mahesh Patodiya was called by the police for questioning. In the latter case a huge Hindu crowd encircled the killa police station. The police released him soon. But from the third week of the October they started arresting Muslim youths on suspicion. Many of them are still behind the bars with hardly any evidence against them than their own confession under duress. But then happened 2008 and as most of the arrested in 2006 were accused to be members of SIMI who else was left to be arrested now?
But more than the residual situation was the coming of the new ATS chief Hemant Kakare on the scene. He began investigation objectively from ground zero and came upon the motor cycle of Pragyasingh Thakur.
When Purohit and Pragya were brought to the court in Nasik a mammoth gathering that included Shiv Sainks showered petals on the Hindu accused. They made it into a gala event of celebration and jubilation. Never before had this happened in India. Bal Thackeray and his party assured tickets for the accused to fight the election that was round the corner.
LK Advani was swept away by the overwhelming revelations that these times round the terrorists were Hindus. He like Thackeray was so much inveterate that his reaction was also schizophrenic. He wanted to change the composition of the investigation team altogether. Thackeray thundered that the names of the investigation officers would be directly revealed to the public who would naturally mete out justice or punishment to the investigators as they deemed necessary. List of lawyers who would defend grew in three digits. All these left no doubt to the public that the Hindus could not take to terrorism and they were superior to their fellow countrymen from the Islamic faith. It was much like the Hasidim Lubavitch orthodox Jews.
This creation of reality of the situation of bombing is reminiscent of the Godhra train burning. It did not stop there even nationalism was ascribed to those who accepted the created reality.
That is the persistent problem with terrorism. Those who have appropriated nationalism in this way create the reality which they enforce on others. Inadvertently it is deepening the gulf between communities and that might become unbridgeable. Within a week of September 2008 bombing neighbouring town Dhulia had its first ever wide spread communal riot. Eerie and fraught with dangerous consequences, the Hindu Raksha Samiti wanted to protect Hindus from the fall out of the bomb blast in Malegaon! Their pamphlet makes it clear. The occasion was well chosen. Shabbir Bhangarwala was returning from haj and notice boards were set up announcing a welcome programme. There was another board of the Samiti. Who damaged one such board is difficult to say but the riots ensued. Bhangarwala was detained and the police made an appeal for his remand in which the superintendent of the police said that it was an established fact that Muslims are the masterminds behind all terrorist attacks in India. Hindu Rakshak Samiti only retaliated. Here also the created reality is made out to be even the police version! Later the DGP AN Roy ordered an inquiry into the affair.
The created reality and the appropriation of nationalism based on this skewed perception have gone so deep into the psyche of the Hindu right and in the case of many others that 45th anniversary of Shiv Sena is illustrative of it. In its editorial of Saturday June19, 2010 Saamna says that “such is the vote bank politics of the Congress party that when bombs are exploded by Islamic extremists, Hindus are blamed for the bombs and the explosions. That is how the Hindus have been blamed in the Malegaon bomb blasts. Now that the police have no lead on Pune German bakery bomb blast (of February 19, 2010) they want to hide their impotence by blaming the Hindus only.” The editorial shows how schizophrenia has seized Hindu extremist political outfits like Shiv Sena and BJP.
Many especially in the minority see no scope or hope for justice or fair play for Muslims who are often not only themselves killed in terrorist attacks but also their youths are falsely implicated into such crimes and languish decades of their life in prison. That is what has happened in Delhi, Hyderabad and is true of the Malegaon 2006.
The party mouthpiece says: “We are brave macho Marathas. But when there is danger to the country we are primarily and foremost Hindus who would descend to the battlefield with our weapons.”
Thus full four years after the first bomb incidents in Malegaon and two years after the second attack Shiv Sena refuses to accept that Hindus could plant bombs. Their enemy within the homeland is the Muslim.
As there is no perceptible dissidence against this one feels amazed whether the Marathi speaking Hindus fully comprehend and understand ‘”aata islami atirekyani phodlele bomb aani sfotanche gunhe hindun chya nawawar dakhan kele jat aahet malegaon sfotantasech hinduvana badnam kele.” (Now the bombs exploded by Muslim extremists and explosion crimes are blamed on the Hindus. In Malegaon bomb explosions Hindus have been blamed.)?
This is clear insinuation that only Muslims are terrorists for which Hindus have to wear the cross. What is worse the party and its mouthpiece have sworn to inspire and instigate the Hindus. History is replete with innumerable instances of how the Shiv Sena and its supreme leader have incited violence. Again, what is cocking a snook at the authorities and the government: “teyana petvineyanche kaam aamhi karat rahu” (We will continue to fire or instigate them,” the Hindus. ) Does not this aim at creating hatred between communities? In other words the Malegaon blasts have come to be tools in the hands of the Hindu parties to continue their fight against the Muslims for just being Muslims. Terrorism has fully succeeded superseding communalism. Communal violence of yore is terrorist violence, murder and mayhem of today.
Why there is no hope for justice under the right wing Hindu parties coming to power is again enshrined in the editorial as the Shiv Sena does not publish a manifesto its manifesto is what Thackeray says and writes in the editorials. Look at a seminal thought of Thackeray. “I want in Mumbai goondas, hooch distillers, smugglers and all Marathi people.” His nephew followed him. They unleashed violence on the North Indians which was pure terror. They went further and declared if this makes them terrorists they are proud to declare that they are terrorists! This part of history is caught on camera by the electronic media and there is no need to look into the archives for evidence. The situation boils down to this: the Muslim youths must perish in prison but the Hindus (not all certainly but even the extremists among them) cannot be terrorists. Malegaon blasts have gone into history proving this.
Why have we reached this stage? Communalism, that too aggressive one, played havoc. Its first casualty is not the unsuspecting knifed in the street. But what is within us, our power of discerning right and wrong and doing the right. Terrorism must not be allowed to atrophy introspection. Even those who fight for human rights must introspect as well as those who indulge in violating the human rights. Did the Shiv Sena activists and the Bajrang Dal musclemen introspect how small children in the Malegaon graveyard mosque had their limbs blown up by explosion? Many had their necks pierced and broken by deadly missiles of small balls and nails of the bombs. Most were either beggars or children. Shiv Sena and Uma Bharti who offered tickets to fight election to the Sadhvi and Purohit or the fake encounter cop Sachin Vaze had no introspection.
Given the communal polarization it will become perhaps inevitable that communities like their leaders will very soon come to justify terrorism. Bal Thackeray had occasionally remarked that he wished Tamil Tigers or the Naxalites would help Hindus retaliate what Himani Savarkar (true to her name, sharp edge weapon) calls bomb for bomb revenge against the Muslims whom they view as just terrorists. Will the claiming of responsibility be far behind? Or, has it begun. Shiv Sena and MNS activists who unleashed terror on North Indians have made no bones of it. When it comes to sons of the soil ideology they would use force call what you may, if this is terrorism they are happy to be terrorists.
------
Dhule police’s Muslim remark raises eyebrows
Kartikeya & Nitasha Natu, TNN, Nov 18, 2008 it is an established fact that Muslims are the masterminds behind all terrorist attacks in India, pernicious remand appeal for Shabbir Bhangarwala, which also includes the assertion that Hindu Raksha Samiti only retaliated. Two HRS members are also under detention.
Fresh charges on Purohit; Cong, BJP trade charges
Tue Nov 18 2008, IE Advani demanded change in the investigation team
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Advertisement of those who shun publicity: RSS and its catch22
The hallmark of the RSS functioning style is secrecy, spreading rumour and insinuation. The RSS has so insidiously developed cultural nationalism based on communalism that it would take a couple of decades to counter their ideological onslaught on our constitutional democracy and plain national spirit sans religious and caste colours. The same holds true for the growth of the rule of law and thwarting of waywardness of the rule of jungle on opportune times. This could be done if there is public support and will power in the rulers of India.
It is illogical to simply say what the apologists say with qualifications about 2002 genocide in Gujarat that “Gujarat investigators are now getting cops involved in fake encounters mounted on non-terrorists merely to curry favour with Narendra Modi.” There was no currying favour, as Narendra Modi has acknowledged that he was himself responsible for the fate of Sohrabuddin and dared Sonia Gandhi to hang him! This is only the tip of the iceberg. He was equally responsible for the pogroms of Muslims which preceded the fake encounters. The fake encounters simply stopped with the advance in investigation into the murder of the Sohabuddin and his wife Kauser. Moreover the fake encounters in Gujarat were a by-product of the pogroms. The atmosphere created by the pogroms made everything viable what with the Prime Minister and Home Minister not only from the ruling BJP alliance but willing to connive through sophistry of words. They chose to throw to the winds what the president of India KR Narayanan would write to advise or warn them Buying over through inducement and threat is stamped on the face of Zahira Sheikh in the Best bakery case. Babu Bajrangi’s free movement is at the sufferance of Modi and Advani.
Vanzara had called the victims as traitors to the country and cleansing them from the country was his patriotic duty, he said. How could the traitors turn tail and leave Gujarat for good?
It gives away the canard. They were not traitors and DG Vanzara and other cops were indeed not doing what they boasted as deshbhakti or patriotism in hunting and killing the victims. They had taken the law of the land in their own hands for which they were assured impunity by the kind of administration Modi had ushered in after he was inducted in office. The RSS had prepared the experiment that he was conducting in his ‘laboratory’—the selected areas of Gujarat state.
The apologists of Modi need to look at it in a holistic manner. That the RSS roped in the Chhara community in conducting the pogroms. They had mobilized the backward communities as they had done in Surat and other places during and after the demolition of the Babri mosque in the 90s. What they had sown then they would reap in the succeeding years. In the first decade of the twenty first century most of the terrorist attacks have the dubious distinction of indigenized terrorism. The vanar sena according to Pritish Nandi had taken over the juggernaut of blowing up bombs in what they made out as ‘retaliation’. In this home grown terrorism people actively engaged or involved in RSS training and works were complicit. Simply removing Devendra Gupta or Chandershekhar Patidar from responsibility RSS cannot wipe out the guilt, it sticks and now it stinks far and wide. Sunil Joshi was killed but like the corps in the French absurd drama his dead body is enlarging and spreading out so much from the bed room that it has grown into the sitting room and the kitchen!
Others outside India also were attentive to this. A research institute in North Carolina had named RSS as a terrorist organization. The US denied visa to Modi and very recently the German delegation of parliamentarians called a spade a spade and refused to accept the genocide as anything but just that.
Therefore, the need for perspicuity was never felt so much as in today’s hurly burly world of Indian politics. As we move away from moral certainty to relativity of market based ethics there is a slide over values and entrenching of self justification and self interest.
Far too long many never felt as much outraged as normal human beings should over the manufactured ‘reality’ of the burning of Sabarmati express, the state sponsored genocide in Gujarat 2002 and were taken in by the fake encounters. The élan of India shining is grinding down into bathos as the moral turpitude is coming home to roost.
The allies of BJP did not feel outraged in 2002. In fact George Fernandes justified as usual the murder, mayhem, rape and arson of Muslims of Gujarat and their homes and commercial establishment. Many chose to hobnob with Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi.
Why does Nitish Kumar want to dissociate from the Gujarat’s Modi? Is it only his self interest? Political stake of a party does matter but the nefarious vendetta that Narendra Modi is wantonly pursuing despite adversity shows how die hard communalism has become so fixated thanks to the ideology of the RSS nurtured as a culture for decades. BJP is the political organizational configuration of RSS as is Modi its personified ideological essence. BJP has brazenly put up a hoarding in Vadodra showing Sohrabuddin( as a proclaimed offender) insinuating that Congress was also involved. There has also been protest against the arrest of deputy police commissioner Abhay Chaudasma directly involved in the fake encounter of Sohabuddin and his wife and fried.
Photographs in advertisement can be as much revealing as the ones taken in hot action. How could the photos of two girls from Azamgarh be used to advertise how Muslims have a secure financial future and brighter prospects in Gujarat? The eager and smiling faces of the girls from Azamgarh cannot be used as a camouflage to represent how the much physically abused and socially and economically boycotted survivors of pogroms as economically safe and secure in Gujarat? This is after all the standard of RSS secrecy of blaming the Muslims for having caused the demolition of Babri mosque and caused all the violence! In the aftermath of the demolition the RSS chief even remarked that the Muslims had it coming to them!
RSS is essentially a divisive ideology. It has greatest potential to divide India again. If Gupta and Patidar are its functionaries and now removed from responsibilities, it still leaves them free to attend the shakhas. If Intelligence Bureau is itself involved along with the army in Malegaon blast of 2008 it is because RSS ideology has succeeded in contaminating government servants so well that they are capable of playing different roles, government servants as well as cadres ready to undertake terrorist tasks as protecting India from Muslims who they deem as terrorists.
This has been confirmed by what the ATS official has just revealed to India Today: “The conversations recorded in Dayanand Pandey’s laptop clearly show that on one instance, there was an IB officer who was present in one of the meetings. On seeing this officer, others were told to keep quiet and not to discuss their plans. We had passed this information to other agencies concerned. They should have found out who this IB officer was and why he didn’t reveal the conspiracy to the police.”
Government servants in civil or police uniform are so much biased under the influence of the RSS ideology that the police have arrested and put in prison nine innocent Muslims since 2006 Malegaon blasts. (True, some of the accused could have violated some rules which have no connection with terrorism, qua terrorism.) Most of them have no criminal record. In fact they have written letters from prison that it was SP Mr Rajwardhan of Nashik (rual) police who framed them. One of them happens to be an informer of police turned approver, Abrar Ahmed, who now claims in his affidavit of April 18, 2009 that Rajwadhan gave more than 25 lakh rupees to his father in law and had arranged for him to meet Sadhvi Pragyasingh and Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit in September- October 2006.
In contrast to these nine imprisoned, Swami Asimanand was found to have attended the meetings of Abhinav Bharat when the conspiracy was hatched and arranged for training in arms and bomb making in his ashram in Gujarat but he was not declared even as absconder! Doctored phone conversations of the accused Muslims can withstand court scrutiny but not Asimanand’s attendance! Trailing Sandeep Dange, Ram Kalsangrah or Pravin Mutalik may take ages so should the Muslim accused languish in jail until the three are caught and more details are ‘advertised’ about Asimanand. Even the bail they had legitimate right to is denied. What stronger evidence did the investigating agencies need to have than the phone of his driver that Asimanand used and the ATS knew it? His disappearance itself is valid enough reason to declare him an offender absconding from law. On the contrary Abdul Samad was in Bhatkal and not in Pune during the bomb blast in the German bakery on February 13, 2010. He had gone to Dubai to meet his father and when his visa expired he returned to Mangalore when the Maharashtra ATS in a melodramatic manner whisked him away by plane to Mumbai. His mother pleaded with the authorities that he was not Yasin Bhatkal whom the police suspect to have planted bomb in the bakery. He appealed for bail and the judge granted it saying that the police had not even mentioned him as “wanted accused” in the Mumbai arms smuggling case of 2009.
What great service RSS has done to the country is making government departments and agencies dysfunctional. Even the home ministry is floundering. Chidambrum praised the police when they arrested Abdul Samad. The police detained Maulvi Noorulhoda of a madrasa in Faizabad moments before the plane he was in was about to take off. A lady overheard and called the police when he talked to his family and told folks at home that the plane was about to take off ('jahaz udane wala hai). Of course, Chidambrum intervened and the maulvi was allowed to travel, but the question remains: who has created this atmosphere of distrust against the Muslims?
----
Hindutva terror probe wallows in official lethargy. India Today June 15, 2010.
Let the cops do their job. Sujata Anandan. Hindustant Times, June 11, 2010.
Sniffing opportunity, Congress asks Nitish Kumar to dump BJP
TNN, Jun 13, 2010
It is illogical to simply say what the apologists say with qualifications about 2002 genocide in Gujarat that “Gujarat investigators are now getting cops involved in fake encounters mounted on non-terrorists merely to curry favour with Narendra Modi.” There was no currying favour, as Narendra Modi has acknowledged that he was himself responsible for the fate of Sohrabuddin and dared Sonia Gandhi to hang him! This is only the tip of the iceberg. He was equally responsible for the pogroms of Muslims which preceded the fake encounters. The fake encounters simply stopped with the advance in investigation into the murder of the Sohabuddin and his wife Kauser. Moreover the fake encounters in Gujarat were a by-product of the pogroms. The atmosphere created by the pogroms made everything viable what with the Prime Minister and Home Minister not only from the ruling BJP alliance but willing to connive through sophistry of words. They chose to throw to the winds what the president of India KR Narayanan would write to advise or warn them Buying over through inducement and threat is stamped on the face of Zahira Sheikh in the Best bakery case. Babu Bajrangi’s free movement is at the sufferance of Modi and Advani.
Vanzara had called the victims as traitors to the country and cleansing them from the country was his patriotic duty, he said. How could the traitors turn tail and leave Gujarat for good?
It gives away the canard. They were not traitors and DG Vanzara and other cops were indeed not doing what they boasted as deshbhakti or patriotism in hunting and killing the victims. They had taken the law of the land in their own hands for which they were assured impunity by the kind of administration Modi had ushered in after he was inducted in office. The RSS had prepared the experiment that he was conducting in his ‘laboratory’—the selected areas of Gujarat state.
The apologists of Modi need to look at it in a holistic manner. That the RSS roped in the Chhara community in conducting the pogroms. They had mobilized the backward communities as they had done in Surat and other places during and after the demolition of the Babri mosque in the 90s. What they had sown then they would reap in the succeeding years. In the first decade of the twenty first century most of the terrorist attacks have the dubious distinction of indigenized terrorism. The vanar sena according to Pritish Nandi had taken over the juggernaut of blowing up bombs in what they made out as ‘retaliation’. In this home grown terrorism people actively engaged or involved in RSS training and works were complicit. Simply removing Devendra Gupta or Chandershekhar Patidar from responsibility RSS cannot wipe out the guilt, it sticks and now it stinks far and wide. Sunil Joshi was killed but like the corps in the French absurd drama his dead body is enlarging and spreading out so much from the bed room that it has grown into the sitting room and the kitchen!
Others outside India also were attentive to this. A research institute in North Carolina had named RSS as a terrorist organization. The US denied visa to Modi and very recently the German delegation of parliamentarians called a spade a spade and refused to accept the genocide as anything but just that.
Therefore, the need for perspicuity was never felt so much as in today’s hurly burly world of Indian politics. As we move away from moral certainty to relativity of market based ethics there is a slide over values and entrenching of self justification and self interest.
Far too long many never felt as much outraged as normal human beings should over the manufactured ‘reality’ of the burning of Sabarmati express, the state sponsored genocide in Gujarat 2002 and were taken in by the fake encounters. The élan of India shining is grinding down into bathos as the moral turpitude is coming home to roost.
The allies of BJP did not feel outraged in 2002. In fact George Fernandes justified as usual the murder, mayhem, rape and arson of Muslims of Gujarat and their homes and commercial establishment. Many chose to hobnob with Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi.
Why does Nitish Kumar want to dissociate from the Gujarat’s Modi? Is it only his self interest? Political stake of a party does matter but the nefarious vendetta that Narendra Modi is wantonly pursuing despite adversity shows how die hard communalism has become so fixated thanks to the ideology of the RSS nurtured as a culture for decades. BJP is the political organizational configuration of RSS as is Modi its personified ideological essence. BJP has brazenly put up a hoarding in Vadodra showing Sohrabuddin( as a proclaimed offender) insinuating that Congress was also involved. There has also been protest against the arrest of deputy police commissioner Abhay Chaudasma directly involved in the fake encounter of Sohabuddin and his wife and fried.
Photographs in advertisement can be as much revealing as the ones taken in hot action. How could the photos of two girls from Azamgarh be used to advertise how Muslims have a secure financial future and brighter prospects in Gujarat? The eager and smiling faces of the girls from Azamgarh cannot be used as a camouflage to represent how the much physically abused and socially and economically boycotted survivors of pogroms as economically safe and secure in Gujarat? This is after all the standard of RSS secrecy of blaming the Muslims for having caused the demolition of Babri mosque and caused all the violence! In the aftermath of the demolition the RSS chief even remarked that the Muslims had it coming to them!
RSS is essentially a divisive ideology. It has greatest potential to divide India again. If Gupta and Patidar are its functionaries and now removed from responsibilities, it still leaves them free to attend the shakhas. If Intelligence Bureau is itself involved along with the army in Malegaon blast of 2008 it is because RSS ideology has succeeded in contaminating government servants so well that they are capable of playing different roles, government servants as well as cadres ready to undertake terrorist tasks as protecting India from Muslims who they deem as terrorists.
This has been confirmed by what the ATS official has just revealed to India Today: “The conversations recorded in Dayanand Pandey’s laptop clearly show that on one instance, there was an IB officer who was present in one of the meetings. On seeing this officer, others were told to keep quiet and not to discuss their plans. We had passed this information to other agencies concerned. They should have found out who this IB officer was and why he didn’t reveal the conspiracy to the police.”
Government servants in civil or police uniform are so much biased under the influence of the RSS ideology that the police have arrested and put in prison nine innocent Muslims since 2006 Malegaon blasts. (True, some of the accused could have violated some rules which have no connection with terrorism, qua terrorism.) Most of them have no criminal record. In fact they have written letters from prison that it was SP Mr Rajwardhan of Nashik (rual) police who framed them. One of them happens to be an informer of police turned approver, Abrar Ahmed, who now claims in his affidavit of April 18, 2009 that Rajwadhan gave more than 25 lakh rupees to his father in law and had arranged for him to meet Sadhvi Pragyasingh and Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit in September- October 2006.
In contrast to these nine imprisoned, Swami Asimanand was found to have attended the meetings of Abhinav Bharat when the conspiracy was hatched and arranged for training in arms and bomb making in his ashram in Gujarat but he was not declared even as absconder! Doctored phone conversations of the accused Muslims can withstand court scrutiny but not Asimanand’s attendance! Trailing Sandeep Dange, Ram Kalsangrah or Pravin Mutalik may take ages so should the Muslim accused languish in jail until the three are caught and more details are ‘advertised’ about Asimanand. Even the bail they had legitimate right to is denied. What stronger evidence did the investigating agencies need to have than the phone of his driver that Asimanand used and the ATS knew it? His disappearance itself is valid enough reason to declare him an offender absconding from law. On the contrary Abdul Samad was in Bhatkal and not in Pune during the bomb blast in the German bakery on February 13, 2010. He had gone to Dubai to meet his father and when his visa expired he returned to Mangalore when the Maharashtra ATS in a melodramatic manner whisked him away by plane to Mumbai. His mother pleaded with the authorities that he was not Yasin Bhatkal whom the police suspect to have planted bomb in the bakery. He appealed for bail and the judge granted it saying that the police had not even mentioned him as “wanted accused” in the Mumbai arms smuggling case of 2009.
What great service RSS has done to the country is making government departments and agencies dysfunctional. Even the home ministry is floundering. Chidambrum praised the police when they arrested Abdul Samad. The police detained Maulvi Noorulhoda of a madrasa in Faizabad moments before the plane he was in was about to take off. A lady overheard and called the police when he talked to his family and told folks at home that the plane was about to take off ('jahaz udane wala hai). Of course, Chidambrum intervened and the maulvi was allowed to travel, but the question remains: who has created this atmosphere of distrust against the Muslims?
----
Hindutva terror probe wallows in official lethargy. India Today June 15, 2010.
Let the cops do their job. Sujata Anandan. Hindustant Times, June 11, 2010.
Sniffing opportunity, Congress asks Nitish Kumar to dump BJP
TNN, Jun 13, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Malegaon bomb blasts of 2006 and 2008, a reflelction (6)
Chapter: Case studies (1) Praveen Togadia
The principal characters in the tragedy of terrorism post-Babri era or better 21st century are not Dawood Ibrahim or Nasir Madni but Praveen Togadia and his ilk like Swami Dyanand Pande, Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit.
Togadia is the international president of Vishwa Hindu Parishad and thus has access to fabulous amount of money to not only cause terrific events but has the clout to deter arrest. His involvement in the bomb blasts is so enormous that he should have been behind bars but such is the torpid law and order situation in the country that even the Prime Minister of India cannot dream of it. Intelligence Bureau and the National Security Advisor must have stopped the investigation in terrorism events from going to their logical conclusion when Togadia was likely to be handcuffed. His take-on stance vis-à-vis Muslims and other minorities sends chill of apprehension down the spinal cord of the governments. Through funds collected abroad and routed through Sonal Shah and others he is in a position to finance pogroms of which even the Nazis would go agog. It was not Purohit who stole RDX from the army all by himself. It must have been Togadia whom the rabid elements in the army would be willing to genuflect as many in the army of Shah of Iran did to the ayatollah Khomeni.
Purohit himself acknowledges Togadia’s supremacy when he reportedly told investigators “Praveen Togadia was responsible for the Samjhauta Express blasts. He asked me to find out from Dr Dev, how much RDX was remaining after the blast.” (Pune Mirror, November 19, 2008) Prof Dev and Prof Sharad Kunte are from Nowrosjee Wadia college in Pune. They gave training in bomb making and arms to those whom Purohit also trained along with retired IB officers. The police have not arrested them either, one of them, Kunte, had been president of VHP of Pune.
Togadia is based in Gujarat, the richest state in India, a state which had used its power to carry out the pogroms of Muslims in 2002 and whose chief minister has gifted huge amount of money to Swami Asimanand also based and harboured there.
As all these matters are sub judice and the courts are in a better position to judge but facts remain potentially relevant to the ordinary man in the street. Togadia et al are high stature men of today and have been tangentially connected to the two incidents of bomb blasts in Malegaon of 2006 and 2008. Thanks to their money power they could have used some Muslim youths who might not have fully grasped the enormity of the crimes they were implicated in. They had played into the hands of the Greek tragic heroes of India’s modern drama of terrorism.
The elusive Mithun Chakarborty of bomb blasts in Maharashtra could ultimately be Praveen Togadia who has the traits of his cinematic counterpart of beating to pulp his enemies even after they are finished.
Case studies: (2) Dr Farogh Makhdumi
Sometimes the police come out candid due to the bothersome task of dehumanizing the accused innocents. As they are also human beings they may feel it is awesomely difficult stretch their victims indefinitely on the medieval rack. How long can the human spirit cope with the accused with wrists and ankles tightly locked and joints excruciatingly stretched or increasing of doses of water adding to the suffocation of the hapless tied on the reclining table in water boarding!
Somewhere the human in the police uniform asserts himself and lays aside the enforce personae of the cop. That is what must have been the case with the police men interrogating Dr Farogh Makhdumi. They told him as they failed to extract what lies they were told to extract. “We know that you are innocent. You don’t know anything about the bomb explosions. Even your narco test is clear about this. But we are ordered to arrest such Muslims who are educated, who talk about the progress of their community, who follow the Quan and offer namaz and practice hadish. We are ordered to arrest Muslims to please the Hindus and incite the Muslims against the government. (Italics added for emphasis).” ( Malegaon bomb dhamakon ki janch men CBI ki sust raftari, Urdu Times, August 25, 2008)
Blaming the police for all the wrongs in the society has a break here. What the police told the doctor is certainly a chink in the amour that does not pose a danger to the country but it is a ray of hope of saving the country. Those italicized words hold the brief not of the country but the odious ideology of the Hindutva which has spread its tentacles in all the organs of the government.
Muslims in the mainland India cannot be incited to rise against the government. To expect anyone to do so is sheer stupidity like the expectation of any section of Muslims dreaming that khilafat can be ever established of all places in the world, in India! Regarding pleasing the Hindus, it is a viable proposition since there are Hindu parties like Shiv Sena and BJP who survive on communalism and riots. The whole farce at Mohammadiya mosque was carefully choreographed to produce a riot which thanks to the forbearance of the people did not happen. They did not rise to the bait.
If Farogh feels that the 2006 bomb blasts and the unexploded bombs at Mohammadiya mosque on September 13 could be the work of extremist Hindus, it is worth noting that the police had not made any headway in the case and yet the Additional Commissioner of Police, ATS, Subodh Jaiswal, asserted as if he was cocksure: 'The aim was to unleash panic.’ 'They were planted by the same terror outfit that triggered the Friday blasts.' The planters wanted to create anger against the Hindus and the police and incite the Muslim to violence according to Jaiswal. From a distance in time it looks that Jaiswal was right indeed at hinting the motive but he was wrong in attributing it to the jihadists. In this case the jihadists were from the Hindutva group to which Naresh Rajkondwar and Himanshu Phanse belonged, Bajrang Dal.
Farogh’s contention against the police (SP Rajwadhan) lends further credence in what the SP asserted on September 16:'There seems to be a deliberate attempt in a section of the media to pressurise the police into taking a line of investigation — of Hindu fanatics being involved — but we will go by the ground reality and the rule book, and explore all the possibilities.' 'But it seems to be the handwork of organised terrorists who want to destabilise the country and incite communal violence.' Farogh, leave alone whether he is a member of SIMI or not, is more truly devout Indian than many others. For he felt the truth and its exposure would be in the larger interest of the country. Precisely this was the robust sense the police men also had when they unknowingly gave away in what they told him that they were asked to arrest Muslims to please Hindus and incite Muslims to violence against the Hindus and the government.
But the home minister RR Patil under whom the police work did not have this horse sense when he said that the police were not at the scene because Shab-e-barat prayers begin after evening prayers and so no bandobast was made! Where do you find, to use a local phrase, a speck in the beard of the thief?
The principal characters in the tragedy of terrorism post-Babri era or better 21st century are not Dawood Ibrahim or Nasir Madni but Praveen Togadia and his ilk like Swami Dyanand Pande, Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit.
Togadia is the international president of Vishwa Hindu Parishad and thus has access to fabulous amount of money to not only cause terrific events but has the clout to deter arrest. His involvement in the bomb blasts is so enormous that he should have been behind bars but such is the torpid law and order situation in the country that even the Prime Minister of India cannot dream of it. Intelligence Bureau and the National Security Advisor must have stopped the investigation in terrorism events from going to their logical conclusion when Togadia was likely to be handcuffed. His take-on stance vis-à-vis Muslims and other minorities sends chill of apprehension down the spinal cord of the governments. Through funds collected abroad and routed through Sonal Shah and others he is in a position to finance pogroms of which even the Nazis would go agog. It was not Purohit who stole RDX from the army all by himself. It must have been Togadia whom the rabid elements in the army would be willing to genuflect as many in the army of Shah of Iran did to the ayatollah Khomeni.
Purohit himself acknowledges Togadia’s supremacy when he reportedly told investigators “Praveen Togadia was responsible for the Samjhauta Express blasts. He asked me to find out from Dr Dev, how much RDX was remaining after the blast.” (Pune Mirror, November 19, 2008) Prof Dev and Prof Sharad Kunte are from Nowrosjee Wadia college in Pune. They gave training in bomb making and arms to those whom Purohit also trained along with retired IB officers. The police have not arrested them either, one of them, Kunte, had been president of VHP of Pune.
Togadia is based in Gujarat, the richest state in India, a state which had used its power to carry out the pogroms of Muslims in 2002 and whose chief minister has gifted huge amount of money to Swami Asimanand also based and harboured there.
As all these matters are sub judice and the courts are in a better position to judge but facts remain potentially relevant to the ordinary man in the street. Togadia et al are high stature men of today and have been tangentially connected to the two incidents of bomb blasts in Malegaon of 2006 and 2008. Thanks to their money power they could have used some Muslim youths who might not have fully grasped the enormity of the crimes they were implicated in. They had played into the hands of the Greek tragic heroes of India’s modern drama of terrorism.
The elusive Mithun Chakarborty of bomb blasts in Maharashtra could ultimately be Praveen Togadia who has the traits of his cinematic counterpart of beating to pulp his enemies even after they are finished.
Case studies: (2) Dr Farogh Makhdumi
Sometimes the police come out candid due to the bothersome task of dehumanizing the accused innocents. As they are also human beings they may feel it is awesomely difficult stretch their victims indefinitely on the medieval rack. How long can the human spirit cope with the accused with wrists and ankles tightly locked and joints excruciatingly stretched or increasing of doses of water adding to the suffocation of the hapless tied on the reclining table in water boarding!
Somewhere the human in the police uniform asserts himself and lays aside the enforce personae of the cop. That is what must have been the case with the police men interrogating Dr Farogh Makhdumi. They told him as they failed to extract what lies they were told to extract. “We know that you are innocent. You don’t know anything about the bomb explosions. Even your narco test is clear about this. But we are ordered to arrest such Muslims who are educated, who talk about the progress of their community, who follow the Quan and offer namaz and practice hadish. We are ordered to arrest Muslims to please the Hindus and incite the Muslims against the government. (Italics added for emphasis).” ( Malegaon bomb dhamakon ki janch men CBI ki sust raftari, Urdu Times, August 25, 2008)
Blaming the police for all the wrongs in the society has a break here. What the police told the doctor is certainly a chink in the amour that does not pose a danger to the country but it is a ray of hope of saving the country. Those italicized words hold the brief not of the country but the odious ideology of the Hindutva which has spread its tentacles in all the organs of the government.
Muslims in the mainland India cannot be incited to rise against the government. To expect anyone to do so is sheer stupidity like the expectation of any section of Muslims dreaming that khilafat can be ever established of all places in the world, in India! Regarding pleasing the Hindus, it is a viable proposition since there are Hindu parties like Shiv Sena and BJP who survive on communalism and riots. The whole farce at Mohammadiya mosque was carefully choreographed to produce a riot which thanks to the forbearance of the people did not happen. They did not rise to the bait.
If Farogh feels that the 2006 bomb blasts and the unexploded bombs at Mohammadiya mosque on September 13 could be the work of extremist Hindus, it is worth noting that the police had not made any headway in the case and yet the Additional Commissioner of Police, ATS, Subodh Jaiswal, asserted as if he was cocksure: 'The aim was to unleash panic.’ 'They were planted by the same terror outfit that triggered the Friday blasts.' The planters wanted to create anger against the Hindus and the police and incite the Muslim to violence according to Jaiswal. From a distance in time it looks that Jaiswal was right indeed at hinting the motive but he was wrong in attributing it to the jihadists. In this case the jihadists were from the Hindutva group to which Naresh Rajkondwar and Himanshu Phanse belonged, Bajrang Dal.
Farogh’s contention against the police (SP Rajwadhan) lends further credence in what the SP asserted on September 16:'There seems to be a deliberate attempt in a section of the media to pressurise the police into taking a line of investigation — of Hindu fanatics being involved — but we will go by the ground reality and the rule book, and explore all the possibilities.' 'But it seems to be the handwork of organised terrorists who want to destabilise the country and incite communal violence.' Farogh, leave alone whether he is a member of SIMI or not, is more truly devout Indian than many others. For he felt the truth and its exposure would be in the larger interest of the country. Precisely this was the robust sense the police men also had when they unknowingly gave away in what they told him that they were asked to arrest Muslims to please Hindus and incite Muslims to violence against the Hindus and the government.
But the home minister RR Patil under whom the police work did not have this horse sense when he said that the police were not at the scene because Shab-e-barat prayers begin after evening prayers and so no bandobast was made! Where do you find, to use a local phrase, a speck in the beard of the thief?
Monday, June 7, 2010
Malegaon bomb blasts of 2006 and 2008, a reflection (5)
Chapter
Case studies: Dr Farogh Makhdumi
Sometimes the police come out candid due to the bothersome task of dehumanizing the accused innocents. As they are also human beings they may feel it is awesomely difficult to stretch their victims on the medieval rack. How long can the human spirit cope with the accused with wrists and ankles tightly locked and joints stretched or increasing doses of water adding to the suffocation of the hapless tied on the reclining table in water boarding!
Somewhere the human in the police uniform surrenders before enforce personae of the cop. That is what must have been the case with the police men interrogating Farogh Makhdumi. They told him as they failed to extract what lies they were told to extract. “We know that you are innocent. You don’t know anything about the bomb explosions. Even your narco test is clear about this. But we are ordered to arrest such Muslims who are educated, who talk about the progress of their community, who follow the Quan and offer namaz and hadish. We are ordered to arrest Muslims to please the Hindus and incite the Muslims against the government. (Italics added for emphasis).” ( Malegaon bomb dhamakon ki janch men CBI ki sust raftari, Urdu Times, August 25, 2008)
Blaming the police for all the wrongs in the society has a break here. What the police told the doctor here is certainly a chink in the amour that does not pose a danger to the country but it is a ray of hope of saving the country. Those italicized words hold the brief not of the country but the odious ideology of the Hindutva which has spread its tentacles in all the organs of the government.
Muslims in the mainland India cannot be incited to rise against the government. To expect anyone to do so is sheer stupidity like the expectation of any section of Muslims dreaming that khilafat can be ever established of all places in India! Regarding pleasing the Hindus, it is a viable proposition since there are Hindu parties like Shiv Sena and BJP who survive on communalism and riots. The whole farce at Mohammadiya mosque was carefully choreographed to produce a riot which thanks to the forbearance of the people did not happen. They did not rise to the bait.
Farogh’s arrest is a testimony to the ideological design behind the so called ‘terrorism’ attributed to Muslims.
He was a follower of Wahabi Islam. He had refused to pay contribution for a ceremony that Sunni Muslims observe. It led to a fracas with his fellow Muslim neighbours and the police came to know it. His crime was that he had a piece of paper on which he had drawn a map of his house during some construction work and that paper was torn from a pamphlet of SIMI. Excepting this there is no indication of his involvement in any work that can be called rebellion against authority of the state or insurgency. But as the following incident shows he was the wrong man at the wrong place.
During the Ganesh immersion procession on Wednesday September 6, 2006 he requested the superintendent of police of Malegaon Anil Kumbhare to lift the blockade of the road so that patients could cross the road and buy medicine from the Kidwai road where most of the pharmaceutical stores are located. He also told the officials to consult leaders of both Hindus and Muslims over this or providing a by- pass route for the procession. The SP became furious and told him not to point out law and order mistakes here. This is as plain as it could be. But the doctor alleges that Kumbhare told him darkly that he (Farogh) would find out on Friday what would happen. What happened on that day were the blasts.
However, there is another twist to his case. On September 4, some police men called on him in the evening. They gave different names but much afterwards when he was arrested he recognized one of them to be from ATS as Sanjay Khaire. The others included Sayyed Imdad Ali and Khan Baba.
Case studies: Dr Farogh Makhdumi
Sometimes the police come out candid due to the bothersome task of dehumanizing the accused innocents. As they are also human beings they may feel it is awesomely difficult to stretch their victims on the medieval rack. How long can the human spirit cope with the accused with wrists and ankles tightly locked and joints stretched or increasing doses of water adding to the suffocation of the hapless tied on the reclining table in water boarding!
Somewhere the human in the police uniform surrenders before enforce personae of the cop. That is what must have been the case with the police men interrogating Farogh Makhdumi. They told him as they failed to extract what lies they were told to extract. “We know that you are innocent. You don’t know anything about the bomb explosions. Even your narco test is clear about this. But we are ordered to arrest such Muslims who are educated, who talk about the progress of their community, who follow the Quan and offer namaz and hadish. We are ordered to arrest Muslims to please the Hindus and incite the Muslims against the government. (Italics added for emphasis).” ( Malegaon bomb dhamakon ki janch men CBI ki sust raftari, Urdu Times, August 25, 2008)
Blaming the police for all the wrongs in the society has a break here. What the police told the doctor here is certainly a chink in the amour that does not pose a danger to the country but it is a ray of hope of saving the country. Those italicized words hold the brief not of the country but the odious ideology of the Hindutva which has spread its tentacles in all the organs of the government.
Muslims in the mainland India cannot be incited to rise against the government. To expect anyone to do so is sheer stupidity like the expectation of any section of Muslims dreaming that khilafat can be ever established of all places in India! Regarding pleasing the Hindus, it is a viable proposition since there are Hindu parties like Shiv Sena and BJP who survive on communalism and riots. The whole farce at Mohammadiya mosque was carefully choreographed to produce a riot which thanks to the forbearance of the people did not happen. They did not rise to the bait.
Farogh’s arrest is a testimony to the ideological design behind the so called ‘terrorism’ attributed to Muslims.
He was a follower of Wahabi Islam. He had refused to pay contribution for a ceremony that Sunni Muslims observe. It led to a fracas with his fellow Muslim neighbours and the police came to know it. His crime was that he had a piece of paper on which he had drawn a map of his house during some construction work and that paper was torn from a pamphlet of SIMI. Excepting this there is no indication of his involvement in any work that can be called rebellion against authority of the state or insurgency. But as the following incident shows he was the wrong man at the wrong place.
During the Ganesh immersion procession on Wednesday September 6, 2006 he requested the superintendent of police of Malegaon Anil Kumbhare to lift the blockade of the road so that patients could cross the road and buy medicine from the Kidwai road where most of the pharmaceutical stores are located. He also told the officials to consult leaders of both Hindus and Muslims over this or providing a by- pass route for the procession. The SP became furious and told him not to point out law and order mistakes here. This is as plain as it could be. But the doctor alleges that Kumbhare told him darkly that he (Farogh) would find out on Friday what would happen. What happened on that day were the blasts.
However, there is another twist to his case. On September 4, some police men called on him in the evening. They gave different names but much afterwards when he was arrested he recognized one of them to be from ATS as Sanjay Khaire. The others included Sayyed Imdad Ali and Khan Baba.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Malegaon bomb blasts of 2006 and 2008, a reflection (4)
Chapter: International implications of Malegaon blasts
Unfortunately Indian foreign policy and much that goes in matters of internal security vis-à-vis terrorism in MHA is captive to the partition of the country. If this were not so the sleuths of Haryana would have cracked the Samjhauta express attack of 2007 and carried it to its logical end. The national security advisor MK Narayanan would not have to advise the government to reverse the investigation in order to not stand in the rank of ISI over Samjahuta. However unpalatable this may be but we have got stuck in the rut of retaliation.
One fact of this is that we are closer to Israel today than we ever were. In the early seventies Pune had a poster pasted at public places asking Indians to know who is causing hardship to them due to the oil embargo and petrol crunch. This kind of insinuation has not stopped.
Israel has a bearing on the bomb blasts in Malegaon in 2006 and 2008. Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit worked in his capacity as liaison officer of the military intelligence of the Indian army dealing with counter terrorism. He was also a member of Abhinav Bharat and had established contact with the Jewish state officials. It is difficult to say without official confirmation if he acted as a military officer when he interacted with the Israelis. Indian police and army have very close contact with the Jewish state ever since 1993 and particularly after the visit of Moshe Dayan and the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries. DGP of Maharashtra Shivanand and former SP of Nashik (rural) Rajwardhan have visited Israel. Like them Purohit must have also visited Israel and met Mossad agents and other officials. They had told him to prove two incidents on the ground for which they vouchsafed support for the proposed Hindu Rashtra which Abhinav Bharat wanted to establish.
Purohit averred in his confession and in the narco test that he had given RDX for Samjhauta express attack and had used non Wahabi or Salafi Muslims earlier (the 2006 blasts). When this writer wrote “Malegaon: the Israeli connection” emails poured in Hebrew, a sure sign how sensitive and tangent is the matter. Protests or support show the extent of involvement. Until Nehru and Indira Gandhi our foreign policy was clear cut type of the non-alignment movement of which India was a leading founder member. But since the induction of the BJP into government at centre a kind of relativity has come in our diplomatic relationship. The perception that Israel besieged by hostile Islamic countries is worthy of emulation has led to our security agencies dispatching officials to the new Mecca of security in the Middle East for training.
A particular tactic in our so called war on terror is to use informers of the target community in a place in acts of espionage and acts of violence deemed as efficacious in counter-terrorism. The Israelis have used it during the Intifada movement of the Palestinians to counter the protests as well as in their war on ‘terror.’ They have brainwashed Indian security agencies into adopting this. As most of the Indian officials visiting Israel are RSS tainted the strategy works on the assumption that your enemy’s enemy is your friend. It is not for nothing that Moshe Dayan( Israeli Defence and Foreign minister) entered India in the garb of a dhoti clad Hindu!
The other acquired tactic in our strategy of fighting ‘terror’ is what national security advisor MK Narayanan spoke in the aftermath of the bombing of our embassy in Kabul, paying Pakistan in the same coin. When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Sharm al Sheikh accepted our involvement in the troubled regions of Pakistan many were shocked and disturbed. India is now viewed as making a concerted effort in league with the US and Israel in fight on ‘terror.’ This new, but not so ‘shining’ India, stands in contrast with the non-alignment movement India of yore.
Thus much of what happened in Malegaon since the dawn of the twenty first century is on account of what we have inherited: a complex world. Street protests with banners showing pictures of Osama bin Laden and slogans in support of Iraq and in condemnation of the US and Israel, handbills calling on the people to “be Indian and buy Indian” and boycott Jewish owned companies’ products led to riots of October 2001 and cast shadow on the blasts of 2006 and 2008. Those who were sighted in the protest march were hounded and arrested as members of SIMI and framed in the bomb attacks. This meets the overall strategic requirement of the war on ‘terror’. That is, involve the members of the target community in crimes, blame them for what happens and shrug off your shoulder saying: your people conspired, you bombed, your people died, your people were injured and your people were caught and your people are convicted.
It was inevitable that this would not work in India. We are a different democracy than either the US in the stranglehold of the Zionists, or Israelis pampered and sustained by the US.
This resurfaced in the first week of June 2010 as the deputy prime minister and foreign minister of Israel Avigdor Lieberman told the UN General Secretary that the international community ignored 500 people killed in the last one month of May in Thailand, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Iraq. Nobody bothered about that. But Israel is condemned for “unmistakably defensive action” in which nine died(Gaza aid flotilla raid). Israeli ambassador Mark Sofer tried to salvage the situation saying Israeil doe not see India in the same light as it does its enemies. (AA June 3, 2010). This shows how far we have strayed from the earlier era.
Nonetheless there are individuals sans constraints of diplomacy. There was a boy Adam David Foley from Washington in Malegaon who saw the bomb blasts on September 8, 2008 and found it similar to 9/11 in devastation and casualties. Similarly there are individuals in India even in uniform who viewed the matters differently. Maeker PI, Vijay Salaskar and other officers of ATS at the Kurla ATS office were glued to the TV as it switched on to blasts scenes from Malegaon cemetery shortly after the prayer. Instantaneously they clapped hands, expressed great happiness, congratulated each other, and shook hands with each other. There was a prisoner Mohammad Ali Sheikh whom the PI addressed: “Look! Our activists of Bajrang Dal have avenged the 1993 serial bomb blasts of Bombay!”(Inquilab August 17, 2008). Worthy of note here is the participation of Vijay Salaskar who fell as a victim of terrorism on 26/11 at Cama hospital. His widow reacted to the conviction of Ajmal Kasab saying that she was happy he would be hanged but before that Faheem Ansari and Sabauddin should he hanged in public because they were Indians! It raises question whether we can fight terrorism in the same stereotyped fashion as we have been fighting communal riots?
Advani would like to. He even asked the prime minister to change the investigation team of Karkare who was doing the right job. Bal Thackeray would do so for he was ready to publish the names of the investigation officers who were allegedly handling roughly Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur.
Malegaon blasts crystallize implications which people were watching live television coverage as were we.
Dimensions of Malegaon blasts: Samjhauta Express
Malegaon blast cases of 2006 and 2008 have many more dimensions than we have been able to see. Soon after the arrest of Lt Col Shrikant Purohit on the night of November 5, 2008 disturbing news started coming out through his interrogation. It is doubtful that such an army official like him or Colonel (retired) SS Raikar commandant of Bhonsla military school would be subjected to third degree torture but reports of Purohit’s arrest suggest that he was tortured. His relative Vilas Anand Dalvi submitted an affidavit describing specific instances of torture: so badly beaten that his left hand was paralyzed, fingers of right hand fractured, knees injured. (Purohit tortured, family tells court Indian Express Fri Nov 14 2008). Raiker like Purohit was in the capacity of liaison officer with the military intelligence before retirement. On November 14, 2008 ADG VN Rai of Haryana police was in Mumbai investigating Samjhauta link. Raikar said that the trail went to Indore and then became cold. DGP Ranjiv Dalal also remarked that Indore was an important link in the plot of Malegaon and Samjhauta train explosions, a town where the Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur and Purohit had met to hatch the conspiracy and from where things were procured.
Because of the intervention of National Security Advisor MK Narayanan in the process of investigation the Indore connection even when very strong was not thoroughly vetted and searched. He felt that it would dramatically change the world opinion that India had created by blaming every terrorist attack within India on Pakistan. India was in a fix. Then followed: the tergiversation. The Haryana police officers were stalled from proceeding further. The whole world was watching and perhaps that would not have been that material had not the Pakistanis been keeping a tab on this matter. For, they raised Samjhauta train blasts issue at every conference to brow beat us. Though 68 Pakistani passengers lost lives and many more were seriously injured in the devastating inferno caused by the two explosions it was also a symbolic terrorism aiming at dismantling the rapprochement between the two South Asian neighbours. The jihadists would not countenance it but there are desi jihadists who not only view Pakistan as enemy but a part of ancient India sawed off through ballot based on religious strength of different communities. They never hide their aspiration to regain the whole of ancient India into one integral land. Purohit’s constitution matches the articles of faith of the RSS.
To cover up one lie man tells many others. This simple human folly was lost on the NSA as well as the Intelligence Bureau and RAW. As a result of this the cooked up lame excuse that in 2006 a Pakistani had a fracas on the train and jumped off it when it was about to start. India gave details of this agent provocateur to Pakistan calling him as one of the two responsible for the twin blasts on the friendship train. As the Pakistanis tried to ascertain who this national of theirs jumping out was when the train would be going into Pakistan soon in the middle of the night they could not find anyone of that name among the passengers on record as well as in their country. There was also no plausible reason why should he be jumping out of the train and why should he be quarreling with fellow Muslims and fellow Pakistanis on a foreign soil that, too, was hostile despite the fact that the special train was maintained as a friendly gesture to improve bilateral relations between India and Pakistan.
Three years ago the Haryana sleuth were doing a commendable work that matched what their counterpart in Hemant Karkare was doing for the Malegaon blast. They found the leads that led to Indore and went cold as in Malegaon 2006 case, too. But then they did the wisest thing people thoroughly professional do: disseminate knowledge (like Kunta Kinte to his daughter in Alex Haley’s epoch making “Roots”). They gave information of what they had found that the bags used for explosion on Samjhauta express were bought from the Abhinandan Bag Centre in Indore’s Kothari Market and they also identified the tailor who sewed the suitcases for that purpose. They even had found out that the other ingredients of the explosives like pipe, Super Saurabh plastic boxes, etc. were procured from there within a radius of a mile and half. The cat was out of the bag but Narayanan and the Madhya Pardesh BJP government put it back into the bag.
How come India could allow this to happen? It must now be history that the US and Israel have become so brazen to defy world opinion that come what may even the most publicized event cannot dent their strategic interest in the middle east or elsewhere. This is particularly true of the Palestinian problem. India has chosen to side with them in the so called ‘war on terrorism’. By closely associating with the Israelis we have also veered to disregarding public misgivings at home and international concern abroad. In the case of Gujarat genocide and Samjhauta express attack we have come a cropper! Even so our newly strategic allies had responded in measure. The US state department had refused to call the attack on the American consulate library in Kokata at the beginning of the 21st century as terrorist attack. It called it revenge mounted by private individuals to settle score with the police for having killed their relatives somewhere in Gujarat. But in the case of Samjhauta express the response and concern is not so candid!
Unfortunately Indian foreign policy and much that goes in matters of internal security vis-à-vis terrorism in MHA is captive to the partition of the country. If this were not so the sleuths of Haryana would have cracked the Samjhauta express attack of 2007 and carried it to its logical end. The national security advisor MK Narayanan would not have to advise the government to reverse the investigation in order to not stand in the rank of ISI over Samjahuta. However unpalatable this may be but we have got stuck in the rut of retaliation.
One fact of this is that we are closer to Israel today than we ever were. In the early seventies Pune had a poster pasted at public places asking Indians to know who is causing hardship to them due to the oil embargo and petrol crunch. This kind of insinuation has not stopped.
Israel has a bearing on the bomb blasts in Malegaon in 2006 and 2008. Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit worked in his capacity as liaison officer of the military intelligence of the Indian army dealing with counter terrorism. He was also a member of Abhinav Bharat and had established contact with the Jewish state officials. It is difficult to say without official confirmation if he acted as a military officer when he interacted with the Israelis. Indian police and army have very close contact with the Jewish state ever since 1993 and particularly after the visit of Moshe Dayan and the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries. DGP of Maharashtra Shivanand and former SP of Nashik (rural) Rajwardhan have visited Israel. Like them Purohit must have also visited Israel and met Mossad agents and other officials. They had told him to prove two incidents on the ground for which they vouchsafed support for the proposed Hindu Rashtra which Abhinav Bharat wanted to establish.
Purohit averred in his confession and in the narco test that he had given RDX for Samjhauta express attack and had used non Wahabi or Salafi Muslims earlier (the 2006 blasts). When this writer wrote “Malegaon: the Israeli connection” emails poured in Hebrew, a sure sign how sensitive and tangent is the matter. Protests or support show the extent of involvement. Until Nehru and Indira Gandhi our foreign policy was clear cut type of the non-alignment movement of which India was a leading founder member. But since the induction of the BJP into government at centre a kind of relativity has come in our diplomatic relationship. The perception that Israel besieged by hostile Islamic countries is worthy of emulation has led to our security agencies dispatching officials to the new Mecca of security in the Middle East for training.
A particular tactic in our so called war on terror is to use informers of the target community in a place in acts of espionage and acts of violence deemed as efficacious in counter-terrorism. The Israelis have used it during the Intifada movement of the Palestinians to counter the protests as well as in their war on ‘terror.’ They have brainwashed Indian security agencies into adopting this. As most of the Indian officials visiting Israel are RSS tainted the strategy works on the assumption that your enemy’s enemy is your friend. It is not for nothing that Moshe Dayan( Israeli Defence and Foreign minister) entered India in the garb of a dhoti clad Hindu!
The other acquired tactic in our strategy of fighting ‘terror’ is what national security advisor MK Narayanan spoke in the aftermath of the bombing of our embassy in Kabul, paying Pakistan in the same coin. When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Sharm al Sheikh accepted our involvement in the troubled regions of Pakistan many were shocked and disturbed. India is now viewed as making a concerted effort in league with the US and Israel in fight on ‘terror.’ This new, but not so ‘shining’ India, stands in contrast with the non-alignment movement India of yore.
Thus much of what happened in Malegaon since the dawn of the twenty first century is on account of what we have inherited: a complex world. Street protests with banners showing pictures of Osama bin Laden and slogans in support of Iraq and in condemnation of the US and Israel, handbills calling on the people to “be Indian and buy Indian” and boycott Jewish owned companies’ products led to riots of October 2001 and cast shadow on the blasts of 2006 and 2008. Those who were sighted in the protest march were hounded and arrested as members of SIMI and framed in the bomb attacks. This meets the overall strategic requirement of the war on ‘terror’. That is, involve the members of the target community in crimes, blame them for what happens and shrug off your shoulder saying: your people conspired, you bombed, your people died, your people were injured and your people were caught and your people are convicted.
It was inevitable that this would not work in India. We are a different democracy than either the US in the stranglehold of the Zionists, or Israelis pampered and sustained by the US.
This resurfaced in the first week of June 2010 as the deputy prime minister and foreign minister of Israel Avigdor Lieberman told the UN General Secretary that the international community ignored 500 people killed in the last one month of May in Thailand, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Iraq. Nobody bothered about that. But Israel is condemned for “unmistakably defensive action” in which nine died(Gaza aid flotilla raid). Israeli ambassador Mark Sofer tried to salvage the situation saying Israeil doe not see India in the same light as it does its enemies. (AA June 3, 2010). This shows how far we have strayed from the earlier era.
Nonetheless there are individuals sans constraints of diplomacy. There was a boy Adam David Foley from Washington in Malegaon who saw the bomb blasts on September 8, 2008 and found it similar to 9/11 in devastation and casualties. Similarly there are individuals in India even in uniform who viewed the matters differently. Maeker PI, Vijay Salaskar and other officers of ATS at the Kurla ATS office were glued to the TV as it switched on to blasts scenes from Malegaon cemetery shortly after the prayer. Instantaneously they clapped hands, expressed great happiness, congratulated each other, and shook hands with each other. There was a prisoner Mohammad Ali Sheikh whom the PI addressed: “Look! Our activists of Bajrang Dal have avenged the 1993 serial bomb blasts of Bombay!”(Inquilab August 17, 2008). Worthy of note here is the participation of Vijay Salaskar who fell as a victim of terrorism on 26/11 at Cama hospital. His widow reacted to the conviction of Ajmal Kasab saying that she was happy he would be hanged but before that Faheem Ansari and Sabauddin should he hanged in public because they were Indians! It raises question whether we can fight terrorism in the same stereotyped fashion as we have been fighting communal riots?
Advani would like to. He even asked the prime minister to change the investigation team of Karkare who was doing the right job. Bal Thackeray would do so for he was ready to publish the names of the investigation officers who were allegedly handling roughly Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur.
Malegaon blasts crystallize implications which people were watching live television coverage as were we.
Dimensions of Malegaon blasts: Samjhauta Express
Malegaon blast cases of 2006 and 2008 have many more dimensions than we have been able to see. Soon after the arrest of Lt Col Shrikant Purohit on the night of November 5, 2008 disturbing news started coming out through his interrogation. It is doubtful that such an army official like him or Colonel (retired) SS Raikar commandant of Bhonsla military school would be subjected to third degree torture but reports of Purohit’s arrest suggest that he was tortured. His relative Vilas Anand Dalvi submitted an affidavit describing specific instances of torture: so badly beaten that his left hand was paralyzed, fingers of right hand fractured, knees injured. (Purohit tortured, family tells court Indian Express Fri Nov 14 2008). Raiker like Purohit was in the capacity of liaison officer with the military intelligence before retirement. On November 14, 2008 ADG VN Rai of Haryana police was in Mumbai investigating Samjhauta link. Raikar said that the trail went to Indore and then became cold. DGP Ranjiv Dalal also remarked that Indore was an important link in the plot of Malegaon and Samjhauta train explosions, a town where the Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur and Purohit had met to hatch the conspiracy and from where things were procured.
Because of the intervention of National Security Advisor MK Narayanan in the process of investigation the Indore connection even when very strong was not thoroughly vetted and searched. He felt that it would dramatically change the world opinion that India had created by blaming every terrorist attack within India on Pakistan. India was in a fix. Then followed: the tergiversation. The Haryana police officers were stalled from proceeding further. The whole world was watching and perhaps that would not have been that material had not the Pakistanis been keeping a tab on this matter. For, they raised Samjhauta train blasts issue at every conference to brow beat us. Though 68 Pakistani passengers lost lives and many more were seriously injured in the devastating inferno caused by the two explosions it was also a symbolic terrorism aiming at dismantling the rapprochement between the two South Asian neighbours. The jihadists would not countenance it but there are desi jihadists who not only view Pakistan as enemy but a part of ancient India sawed off through ballot based on religious strength of different communities. They never hide their aspiration to regain the whole of ancient India into one integral land. Purohit’s constitution matches the articles of faith of the RSS.
To cover up one lie man tells many others. This simple human folly was lost on the NSA as well as the Intelligence Bureau and RAW. As a result of this the cooked up lame excuse that in 2006 a Pakistani had a fracas on the train and jumped off it when it was about to start. India gave details of this agent provocateur to Pakistan calling him as one of the two responsible for the twin blasts on the friendship train. As the Pakistanis tried to ascertain who this national of theirs jumping out was when the train would be going into Pakistan soon in the middle of the night they could not find anyone of that name among the passengers on record as well as in their country. There was also no plausible reason why should he be jumping out of the train and why should he be quarreling with fellow Muslims and fellow Pakistanis on a foreign soil that, too, was hostile despite the fact that the special train was maintained as a friendly gesture to improve bilateral relations between India and Pakistan.
Three years ago the Haryana sleuth were doing a commendable work that matched what their counterpart in Hemant Karkare was doing for the Malegaon blast. They found the leads that led to Indore and went cold as in Malegaon 2006 case, too. But then they did the wisest thing people thoroughly professional do: disseminate knowledge (like Kunta Kinte to his daughter in Alex Haley’s epoch making “Roots”). They gave information of what they had found that the bags used for explosion on Samjhauta express were bought from the Abhinandan Bag Centre in Indore’s Kothari Market and they also identified the tailor who sewed the suitcases for that purpose. They even had found out that the other ingredients of the explosives like pipe, Super Saurabh plastic boxes, etc. were procured from there within a radius of a mile and half. The cat was out of the bag but Narayanan and the Madhya Pardesh BJP government put it back into the bag.
How come India could allow this to happen? It must now be history that the US and Israel have become so brazen to defy world opinion that come what may even the most publicized event cannot dent their strategic interest in the middle east or elsewhere. This is particularly true of the Palestinian problem. India has chosen to side with them in the so called ‘war on terrorism’. By closely associating with the Israelis we have also veered to disregarding public misgivings at home and international concern abroad. In the case of Gujarat genocide and Samjhauta express attack we have come a cropper! Even so our newly strategic allies had responded in measure. The US state department had refused to call the attack on the American consulate library in Kokata at the beginning of the 21st century as terrorist attack. It called it revenge mounted by private individuals to settle score with the police for having killed their relatives somewhere in Gujarat. But in the case of Samjhauta express the response and concern is not so candid!
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Malegaon bomb blasts of 2006 and 2008, a reflection (3)
Chapter: the police
The hangover of communalism from the past among the police men is reinvigorated by the surge in terrorist acts. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks twice in Malegaon and once in Hyderabad the police became target of angry crowd. Their anger is based on the perception that there is police complicity in the bomb blasts. The cops catch Muslim youths who have nothing to do with terror and torture them all the same. Hence the ire of the crowds at mosques or places where Muslims fall victims of bomb attacks. In Hyderabad the police shot and killed five Muslims who protested outside the Mecca mosque. This was heralded by Malegaon 2006 bombings. Not far from the graveyard in Malegaon where three bombs exploded there is Azad nager police chowki. The crowd attacked the police who opened fire and killed one. Right adjacent to the graveyard the crowd overturned a police jeep and manhandled a police officer. He had reached there much after the explosion then he moved to the close vicinity of the door of the graveyard where the youths obstructed him and then turned him back and manhandled him.
The youths go berserk at such times since their intense awareness of bias finds easy outlet at such times. The Indian Express reporter reported on September 10, 2006 that the police officials in private admit that they hesitate to enter Muslim dominated areas. “There have been bomb blasts in other cities but you never see people attacking police. Here their first targets are police men” said a senior police officer. There is no easy way either side can exonerate itself from blame of partiality and complicity or outlawry.
There was Ganesh immersion on September 6th; the police arrangement was phenomenal to say the least. Within forty eight hours bombs exploded killing Muslims at the festival occasion. The police had promised to be in large number to tackle the crowd and very eerily there was no cop at the cemetery or the Mushawarat chowk where the bombs exploded. The police came much after the explosions.
The 2008 blast also coincided a much larger festivity in Malegaon. The National transport company owner noticed the LML Freedom of Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur parked outside his shop he went to the cops across the chowk hardly twenty meters away. He requested them to remove it. The cops ignored his request to remove the vehicle. An hour later the deadly motorcycle spewed death and mayhem there. Even with this in the background the police declared that the explosion was caused by the gas cylinder in the hotel in front of the transport company. The crowd became furious and confronted the police. They opened fire and people were injured. One such was a youth who received a bullet wound in the leg. Dr Vaidya took out the bullet and refused to let the police have the bullet unless they did panchnama or registering of the event. The police then hushed up the matter. But then Urdu paper Inquilab carried the report which created a furor in the assembly hall in Mumbai when the legislators questioned the government about it which of course it denied the firing in the first place. At a subsequent press briefing police officer Nikhil Gupta was furious at the Urdu paper reporters. He menacingly told them in the meeting that he would not let any cartages be wasted. He would prefer the cartages to find their target! This kind of blatant cussed attitude of the police makes the Muslim restive at times of violence.
Even so there is an interesting turn of events in the town. The SP of Malegaon Mr Rajwadhan from Patna achieved almost what is otherwise impossible, rapport with the people. This went on so much that he was hailed as the messiah. What went wrong with Rajwardhan was the realization dawning upon the Muslim that he was himself responsible for what was happening in the city. The accused in the blasts of 2006 filed a case in which he was respondent number one. Unfortunately the High Court dismissed the petition but the feeling persists. Abrar Ahmed whom Rajwardhan made approver turned against the cop and filed an affidavit in the court of judge YD Shinde blaming Rajwardhan for framing him in the case. Among other things he also wrote that Rajwardhan had given more than 25 lakh rupees to his father in law, Chowdhary and his wife and his brother in law. All this to make Abrar toe the police line that the bombs were the handiwork of the Muslims, essentially SIMI.
For some months Abrar did what Rajwardhan instructed him to do. But then he discovered that he was set up against the Muslims whom he had trapped in false accusation at the instance of the cop.
The hangover of communalism from the past among the police men is reinvigorated by the surge in terrorist acts. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks twice in Malegaon and once in Hyderabad the police became target of angry crowd. Their anger is based on the perception that there is police complicity in the bomb blasts. The cops catch Muslim youths who have nothing to do with terror and torture them all the same. Hence the ire of the crowds at mosques or places where Muslims fall victims of bomb attacks. In Hyderabad the police shot and killed five Muslims who protested outside the Mecca mosque. This was heralded by Malegaon 2006 bombings. Not far from the graveyard in Malegaon where three bombs exploded there is Azad nager police chowki. The crowd attacked the police who opened fire and killed one. Right adjacent to the graveyard the crowd overturned a police jeep and manhandled a police officer. He had reached there much after the explosion then he moved to the close vicinity of the door of the graveyard where the youths obstructed him and then turned him back and manhandled him.
The youths go berserk at such times since their intense awareness of bias finds easy outlet at such times. The Indian Express reporter reported on September 10, 2006 that the police officials in private admit that they hesitate to enter Muslim dominated areas. “There have been bomb blasts in other cities but you never see people attacking police. Here their first targets are police men” said a senior police officer. There is no easy way either side can exonerate itself from blame of partiality and complicity or outlawry.
There was Ganesh immersion on September 6th; the police arrangement was phenomenal to say the least. Within forty eight hours bombs exploded killing Muslims at the festival occasion. The police had promised to be in large number to tackle the crowd and very eerily there was no cop at the cemetery or the Mushawarat chowk where the bombs exploded. The police came much after the explosions.
The 2008 blast also coincided a much larger festivity in Malegaon. The National transport company owner noticed the LML Freedom of Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur parked outside his shop he went to the cops across the chowk hardly twenty meters away. He requested them to remove it. The cops ignored his request to remove the vehicle. An hour later the deadly motorcycle spewed death and mayhem there. Even with this in the background the police declared that the explosion was caused by the gas cylinder in the hotel in front of the transport company. The crowd became furious and confronted the police. They opened fire and people were injured. One such was a youth who received a bullet wound in the leg. Dr Vaidya took out the bullet and refused to let the police have the bullet unless they did panchnama or registering of the event. The police then hushed up the matter. But then Urdu paper Inquilab carried the report which created a furor in the assembly hall in Mumbai when the legislators questioned the government about it which of course it denied the firing in the first place. At a subsequent press briefing police officer Nikhil Gupta was furious at the Urdu paper reporters. He menacingly told them in the meeting that he would not let any cartages be wasted. He would prefer the cartages to find their target! This kind of blatant cussed attitude of the police makes the Muslim restive at times of violence.
Even so there is an interesting turn of events in the town. The SP of Malegaon Mr Rajwadhan from Patna achieved almost what is otherwise impossible, rapport with the people. This went on so much that he was hailed as the messiah. What went wrong with Rajwardhan was the realization dawning upon the Muslim that he was himself responsible for what was happening in the city. The accused in the blasts of 2006 filed a case in which he was respondent number one. Unfortunately the High Court dismissed the petition but the feeling persists. Abrar Ahmed whom Rajwardhan made approver turned against the cop and filed an affidavit in the court of judge YD Shinde blaming Rajwardhan for framing him in the case. Among other things he also wrote that Rajwardhan had given more than 25 lakh rupees to his father in law, Chowdhary and his wife and his brother in law. All this to make Abrar toe the police line that the bombs were the handiwork of the Muslims, essentially SIMI.
For some months Abrar did what Rajwardhan instructed him to do. But then he discovered that he was set up against the Muslims whom he had trapped in false accusation at the instance of the cop.
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