Modi’s volte-face?

Though to some it is heartening to see Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserting that Indian Muslims live for India and would die in the country there is no change in the substance of his opinion of the minority. His perseverance in not wearing the round white cap of Muslims is also minimal because it is symbolic. His wearing his heart on his sleeve now is too small a character in a play, a cameo; you cannot discern him or decipher him against a whole museum wall of previous utterances. His decade long rule in Gujarat has churned up a Saragossa sea of hieroglyphics telling spasmodic relationship with the minority community. There is a whole body of his thoughts that he will find unable to disavow. Some of which he uttered to foreign journalists and media. To the Reuter news agency interviewer he called Muslim puppies being killed in accident by a fast moving car! Does the car successfully translate into Gujarat making rapid development worthy of emulating by the rest of the country despite the incidental collateral damage? Three days after 9/11 Modi was not Chief Minister but was waiting in the wing to be. On Star television he remarked what is the defining feature of right wing Hindutva view craftily well prepared in advance for all the time to come: “when one community says that my community is different from yours, it is higher than yours, and that until you take refuge in mine you cannot get Moksha [liberation or salvation], you cannot get Allah, you cannot get Jesus – then conflict starts”. [1]There is no substance in it, neither was it on February 27, 2002 because Muslims did not shout from the rooftop anything against the Hindus. On the contrary the Hindu extremists on the Sabarmati Express forced Muslims to shout Jai Shri Ram and attacked them when they demurred. The poor Muslims were overwhelmed by the aggressive and violent approach of the karsevaks returning from Ayodhya. This premeditated excuse to go in for the Muslims is the bric-a-brac of the organization that has nurtured Modi since his childhood, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Muslim participants from all over India were returning from a conference in London when they were arrested at the Ahmadabad airport on arrival on January 1, 2002 even when they had not said anything against any religion nor asserted the superiority of any religion let alone their own. [2] The above remark of Modi regarding 9/11 attack shows his intrepidity of what he believed and still holds it to be the view of his own and his organization. One who spoke along with Modi, Dr Rafiq Zakaria, G Parthasarthy, and the anchor Rajsardeep Desai was John Elliott who observed: “Unlike most politicians, he (Modi) argued passionately and powerfully for what he believed in, not for some short-term personal gain far removed from policy, but out of conviction. He was a strong public speaker and was standing his ground, presenting his case with rare confidence and élan.” Therefore Modi played a pioneering role in getting India on the bandwagon of the US in the so called “war on terrorism.” More than the PM AB Vajpayee it was he who buttressed the Huntington thesis of clash of civilization. Pronouncing the word religion (meaning Islam) he accented the third syllable because instead of using the small vowel sound he used a diphthong. He outright called 9/11 as Islamic terrorism. Later in February 2002 he again came back to his damnation of the Mian Musharraf, meaning the Pakistan president or the generic use for Muslims. He maintained the same vein when he spoke of Sohrabuddin Shakh in 2007 election. Sohrabuddin was not a terrorist in common parlance but because of his religion Modi made him one. Interestingly, Modi was home minister and his deputy Amit Shah and others in the government and police used Sohrabuddin in extortion racket and the murder of Haren Pandya. Tulsiram Prajapati was a friend and partner of Soharabuddin but he was spared the noun terrorist by Modi and everyone else. The statement made to CNN on September 19, 2014 is no watershed in the career of Modi viewed in the backdrop stretching back to the aftermath of 9/11 Star television debate and hence it is sycophantic of MJ Akbar, BJP spokesman and a new acolyte of Modi, to says: “It is a powerful testament of his (Modi’s) faith and conviction on the Muslim community.” [3] Fareed Zakaria: Ayman-al- Zawahiri the head of Al Qaida has issued a video and an appeal trying to create an Al Qaida in India. In south Asia he says but the message was really directed towards India and he says he wants to free Muslims from the oppression they face in Gujarat, in Kashmir. Do you think, do you worry that something like this could succeed? Prime Minister Narendra Modi: My understanding is that they are doing injustice towards the Muslims of our country. If anyone thinks Indian Muslims will dance to their tune, they are delusional. Indian Muslims will live for India. They will die for India. They will not want anything bad for India. Fareed Zakaria: Why do you think it is that there is this remarkable phenomenon that you have a 170 million Muslims and they seem to be almost no or very few members of Al-Qaeda. Even though Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan and of course the many in Pakistan. What is it that has made this community not as susceptible? Prime Minister Narendra Modi: Firstly, I am not the authority for doing a psychological and religious analysis on this ... But the question is, whether or not humanity should be defended in the world? Whether or not believers in humanity should unite? This is a crisis against humanity, not a crisis against one country or one race. So we have to frame this as a fight between humanity and inhumanity. Nothing else. What he is saying here is a repeat of what he had told Farid Zakaria’s father and others a decade and almost half earlier. [4] In the same 2001 debate Modi had made it clear at the onset that it was Islamic terrorism and then he tried to qualify that he meant some Muslims who use Islam and Islam per se terrorist. But the explanation he gave and his illustration was basically from Islam though in his own slant on it. He had said that there are three stages, one where Muslims ruled was darul Islam, where they did not was darul Harb against which they fight and darul Aman where they live with others in peace because otherwise they would be at mortal risk. He did not use exactly the parenthesis but the 3 categories were on his mind. What is most puzzling: there is a selected list of his statements available under the title of Narendra Modi's Little Saffron Book "Hindus of Gujarat, unite and defeat the Mussalmaan Mullahs and all their four wives! Hindus of Gujarat, be courageous, and dare to fight, be brave, and defy decency and humanity; advance wave upon wave like Ravan's rakshasas. Then the whole Gujarat will belong to Hindus. Mussalmaans of all kinds shall be destroyed." Statement Supporting the Municipality of the Vadodara City Against the Muslim Aggression (May 5, 2006). "The richest source of power to wage war lies in the masses of Hindus. It is mainly because of the submissive state of the Hindus that Mussalmaans dare to bully us. When this defect is remedied, then the Mullah aggressor, like a mad bull crashing into a ring of flames, will be surrounded by hundreds of millions of our people standing upright, the mere sound of their voices will strike terror into him, and the Mullah will be burned to death." On Planned Riots (May 2003), Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 186. "What is a true bastion of Shakti? It is the Indian masses, the millions upon millions of people who genuinely and sincerely support Hindutva. That is the real Shakti, which is impossible for any force on earth to smash. The Aamir Khans of the world cannot smash us; on the contrary, we shall smash them. Rallying millions upon millions of people round my government and expanding our holy war, we shall wipe out all the pseudo-secularists and take over the whole of India." Excerpt of a Speech Made on the Successful, Complete and Absolute Conclusion of a Ban on the Film Fanaa in the Theatres of Gujarat (May 28, 2006). "The secularists are bullying us in such a way that we will have to deal with them seriously. Not only must we have a powerful, regular and a more violent Bajrang Dal, we must also organize contingents of the ladies-only Durga Vahini on a big scale. This will make it difficult for the secularists to move a single inch in our Gujarat in case of an anti-Mussalmaan genocide, an event which is not very far." Interview with the Saamna Newspaper (September 29, 2004). "Without preparedness, a communal riot is not a real pogrom and there can be no final solution either. Having grasped this point, it is good to remember that while making a list of Mians and their Begums in their across-the-'border' Pakistani mohallas, care must be taken to accomplish the task without attracting much notice. The dogs must not be warned of their terrible ends." Strategies for Genocides and Other Experiments in Rwanda (May 1938), Selected Works, Vol. II, pp. 165-66. "The communal riot is a war of the Hindus; it can be successfully waged only after enlisting the support of the police force and relying on them to wage it." Be Concerned with the Manipulation of the Masses, Pay Attention to Methods of Murder (January 27, 2002), Selected Works, Vol. I. p. 147. "Democracy is one of the ways to be cleverly employed and manipulated to struggle for a just, absolute, pure Mussalmaan-less society." Talk with Prabhu Chawala in Seedhi Baat, Aaj Tak TV Channel (August 2004). "The Bhartiya Janata Party of Gujarat, having made a clear-headed appraisal of the national and state-level situation on the basis of the science of Nazism-Fascism, recognized that all attacks on the non-Hindus in Gujarat have to be launched in the shortest possible time. If some Mussalmaans still have guts to live here with their countless hordes, we only have to stop doing any dealings with them." The Present Situation and Our Tasks (December 25, 1997), Selected Shakha Writings, 2nd ed., p. 347. "If a single Mussalmaan attack us and if the conditions are favorable for battle, we will certainly act in self-defense to wipe him off and all the people of his wretched community resolutely, thoroughly, wholly and completely (we do not strike rashly, but when we do strike, we must win). We must never be cowed by the bluster of English-speaking secularists.." On Peace Negotiations with Pakistan - Circular of the Central Committee of the Bhartiya Janata Party of Gujarat (August 26, 2001) "As far as the massacre of Hindus by terrorists in Kashmir is concerned, those Islamic militants, in spite of belonging to the enemy civilization, are like our brothers-in-arms. They provide us an opportunity, reason, and excuse to kill the Maulavis of Ahmedabad." Talk with the Harvard University Proffessor Samuel Phillips Huntington (August 1946), Foreign Affairs Magazine [5] Even if anyone of the above statements is true that statement is too revolting in its essence. Moving fast forward to the pre US visit statement of Modi, it is puerile that the Muslims would be fooled by it for they have been what they have always been born and brought up in India, have shared sorrow and happiness of the land of their birth. Why should anyone rake up his statement full 67 years after the freedom? Testing their loyalty now will raise the nightmare of the shibboleth that they must sing vande matrum and that would put the situation back to square one! Furthermore the US had co opted India in its so called “war on terrorism” post 9/11. Why would the new man in PM’s office want to register their loyalty to the land and not to Al Qaida for they had no truck with the fanatics before, so why now. Muslims have learned well from their thinkers and poets: khake vatan ka mujhko har zarra devta haiy!“Every particle of land of my motherland is god for me to worship.” “To kill one man is to kill humanity.” Expecting Muslims to again pass through another shibboleth is asking for the impossible. The martyrs like Brigadier Usman and Abdul Hamid and poets like Wali Gujarati/Dakhni were Indians lived and died defending and upholding the honour of the mother land. It was Modi’s pogroms of 2002that engineered the demolition of Wali’s grave and paving a concrete road over it overnight so that there would be no eye sore on the road to development that passes through Ahmadabad. The annals of Gujarat are blank over either the demolition or even a cursory mention of the death of former Member of Parliament Ahsan Jafri who had spoken to Sonia Gandhi as well as the chief minister of Gujarat for rescue before he was brutally murdered. Or is Modi placating the Indian Americans born in Islamic faith and others like minded who protested against his genocide and opposed his attempt to get a visa and visit US? Why did not Modi take the opportunity of Independence Day and proclaim the unity of the country where Muslims are equal partners in shaping the destiny of the country? Why did he break new ground and shout and exhort his audience to shout vande matrum at the end of his speech? He tested the water and Shiv Sena knew it and hence its president Udhav Thackeray brought another nationality test called cricket test into the loyalty of Muslims as his father Bal Thackeray was wont to do. In Saamna editorial of September 22, 2014 Thackeray let the cat out by warning Muslims not to let down Modi on the current issue and “sing 'Vande Mataram' in tandem with the rest of the country, (and) put a halt to the alleged anti-national teachings imparted in 'madrassas'” [6] Ordinary Muslims are resigned to their lot which includes wear and tear of daily struggle to meet both the ends meet. They would prefer to be left to themselves. So any enforced shibboleth is unwelcome. Former chief minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar knew it all too well when he refused to take custody of Abu Jundal, real name Ansari Zabiuddin, a police informer who helped India unearth the greatest arms seizure and whom the police framed in all kinds of terrorism cases later in their “war on terror.” Kumar also dismissed the penchant of India security agency and police for the “Darbhanga module”. Gujarat under Modi on the other hand demanded to interrogate him like in most other terror attacks giving the impression that it was besieged by terrorists. In fact many Hindutva terror cases had their source in Gujarat where Swami Asimanand was based and where Modi had donated huge sums of money to his Ashram. So the words of Modi are to quote Polly Toynbee on Labour party convention that took place as Modi made the above speech: How easy to call for political fizz. How tough to deliver it! [7] --- [1] http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2014/06/29/modi-spoke-good-english-in-2001-and-looked-like-a-future-leader/ [2]http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com//india/SIMI-men-in-Surat-had-US-UK-links/articleshow/867319468.cms [3] www.aa.com.tr/en [4] http://ibnlive.in.com/news/cnn-world-exclusive-full-transcript-of-prime-minister-narendra-modis-interview/500760-3.html [5] http://hindumuslimindia.blogspot.in/2006/09/narendra-modis-little-saffron-book.html [http://ibnlive.in.com/news/cnn-world-exclusive-full-transcript-of-prime-minister-narendra-modis-interview/500760-3.html] [6] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Shiv-Sena-to-Muslims-Dont-let-down-Narendra-Modi/articleshow/43136303.cms [7] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/22/labour-discovering-how-tough-deliver-political-fizz-miliband-fragmented-groups

The new conspiracy of polarizing India

“If any amongst the Mushriks (i.e. the enemies) ask thee for asylum, grant it to him so that he may hear the word of Allah and then escort him to where he can be secure”. (Al Qur’an 9:6) As if the hectic war on terrorism undertaken by the US and piggy ridden by India under AB Vajpayee government was not enough in producing a decade and about half of false terror charges framed against Muslims we now have a bolder adventure on the anvil. Ajit Doval like his predecessor MK Narayan has gone a step further. Narayanan wanted to pay back in the same coin for any terrorist attack in India or in Afghanistan. Thus he broadened the arena of the so called war on terror. Doval known for first kill and then inquire policy dealing with terrorists has now reached into the theological base of terror through the agencies which have been his provenance, IB, R&AW, CBI, etc. One officer of the agencies has come out with the new phenomenon of Ayman Zawahiri video: “The Indian subcontinent, with India, Pakistan and Bangladesh together has the highest Muslim population, concentrated closely as a unit. Due to this reason, al-Qaeda wants to have its domination on this subcontinent and execute its ideological goal of Ghazwa-e-Hind, which it thinks would catapult the group above IS. For this al-Qaeda may use local terror modules and sleeper cells to unleash attacks within India quite like 26/11 to register a strong presence, and we’re keeping a vigil on it.” [1] Such kind of generating input on terror is a signal for beginning afresh the hunting game that put Indian Muslims in a siege mentality and more ghettoization. But this time the intelligence agencies have for the first time succeeded in co opting Muslims of different persuasions in their war on terror. This is another feather in the royal turban that PM Narendra Modi is fond of wearing in his penchant for photogenic appearance. There is also self contradiction in the agencies for 26/11 was not the work of a local sleeper module. Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin were not involved in the attacks on Mumbai landmarks. They were framed. Those who arrived by boat had stayed in the house of someone in oil business. Or else how could they start the operation no sooner than landing? They were only six according to Anita Udaiyya and they did not include Ajmal Kasab. Second, if Al Qaeda has no base in India till today how could it be assumed that the local sleeper module would initiate a comprehensive movement like Ghazwa-e-Hind? There are think tanks officious to chip in. “The al-Qaeda wants to explore the possibility of recruiting youths as jihadis from India, which is very significant for the group, so that they make the ideology of Ghazwa-e-Hind true. According to the belief, there are many Muslims waiting for this ideology to happen on ground. And al-Qaeda wants to tap this opportunity in India and Pakistan. It’s trying to bring jihadis close to it and show IS that it’s bigger,” said Alok Bansal director of Centre for Security and Strategy, India Foundation. Here, too, the think tank is in the dark. Indian Muslims have never been recruited by any foreign based terror group. Their involvement in 1993 (Bomybay blasts) and 1998 Coimbatore blasts was indigenous in its entirety as they were pushed to the wall. Students Islamic Movement for India has openly challenged the government to prove that they are terrorists. After years of incarceration its chief Safdar Nagrori was released in July 2014. Saying that to begin the fight against Al Qaeda by again focusing on SIMI or even IM is beating the dead horse. Both the agencies and the think tanks are taking very seriously what is based on hearsay. For the Prophet to have said to Abu Horaira that he felt that the territory in the subcontinent of India was favourable for Islam to spread in was to say the least, conjectural. India was and is much older than the birth of Islam. India was a geographical entity and not a political unit then. Even more revealing of the tectonic shift (that surely means more terrorist attacks in which again Muslims will suffer as more charges would be leveled against them) is that this new phenomenon will encompass all the Muslims irrespective of whether they are prone to violence or not. It would be repeat of “either you are with us or against us”. So why this hype as seen in the Shias offering 5 crore for the head of the IS chief Abu Bakr Baghdadi [2]. The Sunni Markazi Sirat Committee of Nasik on September 5, 2014 had given memorandum to the police commissioner of Nasik that they would declare any India joining the call of Zawahiri a traitor to the country. This is “National Muslims of Nasik’s declaration of war against Al Qaida.” [3] In the editorial of Saamna there is also a warning that when India is vehemently taking off [bhrari, Marathi] on the development front “Islamist be warned.” The editorial then shows true colour by change of words to “Hindustan’s enemies be warned!” Caution in such issues is a must. First the Quran does not use the word jihad at all. Surah Tawba verse 5 goes like this: “fight and slay the Mushriks (i.e. the enemies from Makkah) wherever you find them and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war.” Therefore targeting Indian Muslims is far off the mark. They have had nothing to meddle with what is taking place in Afghanistan or Pakistan. When Quran uses the word slay it is in the context of a battle envisaged that the followers of Islam were engaged in against the polytheists of Mecca. What is even more they were not in the midst of the battle per se but this was a warning that in 4 months time the battle would begin if the polytheists did not stop their aggression! In Arabic jihad means struggle so if there is any danger against Islam/Muslims there must struggle against it. The followers of the Prophet had made a peace treaty with the polytheists of Mecca. But when the polytheists broke it the Prophet issued them warning. In India there is no such condition in actual existence. The Muslims of mainland India out of free will chose India as their country. They did not make any bone about their allegiance. In opposition to it the agencies and the think tank along with the right wing groups like Shiv Sena represented by Saamna want to fight a perceived terror threat that has not even taken place. There is no presence of Al Qaida in India. Therefore this uproar in the media is insidious and sinister. Indian intelligence agencies are wont to generate bogus terror reports involving Indian Muslims. One of the most ludicrous was that Jalgaon in Maharashtra was emerging as a university of terrorism: A Marathi paper Punya Nagri in its Jalgaon edition of Tuesday March 30, 2010 carries banner headline: “Jalgaon as the target of Indian Mujahideen.” The report says that “the Indian Mujahideen is busy (magan) training suicide squads which care a tuppence (befikar) for spewing deaths. The terrorists of IM are immersed (gark) in the training. The squad is named “Bullet 313”. The intelligence agency that has prepared the report for the government says that “Bullet 313” has first preference for Jalgaon as the target of attack. IM is recruiting students of mechanical and chemical engineering, students of computer science, as well as the usual collegians. The students of higher education are grouped in modules which would create terror in all the parts of the country. Thus, Jalgaon is the University of Terrorism in India. Delhi and Vangni near Badlapur are other such places. In the last named place the training is going on in a housing colony. The first batch has admitted 200 students and 113 will join soon. That would make it 313. The expense is covered by the fund generated in the Middle East and sent through hawala from Indonesia. It is spent on buying arms. Even if one ‘bullet’ succeeds in destroying its target the country would be in turmoil, the report adds.”[5] As the intelligence agencies have prepared fabricated inputs and kidnapped and killed Ishrat Jahan, Sohrabuddin Sheikh etc, they have their link in the police who collaborate in the conspiracy. In the case of Jalgaon too it followed the same pattern. The agencies have their handmaids in the police. ATS office NH Dhabi had kidnapped Sohrabuddin from Andhra Pradesh and Narayanan Singh along with others had killed him. One bullet from Singh’s gun was found in the thigh of the sheikh. “Bullet 313”was a conspiracy that did not take off while others did so what proof is there that the new conspiracy in Modi raj is genuine? Mere, the video? If the video is virtual reality what is reality itself in India. A consulting editor writes in DNA trying to catch in graphic description the subtext of violence of the Hindutva right in 100 days of Modi sarkar: “The passport office [in Delhi] was crowded as usual and the 14-year old was waiting patiently, his file in hand when a young man looked at it and asked if he was a Muslim. The schoolboy said ‘yes’, the youth looked at him and said flatly, “Ek din sab Musallman khatam ho jayenge.” (“One day all the Muslims would be exterminated.”) “People listened on, as of course they would in any public space. There was interest but no outrage to the bland assertion that the entire Community would be finished. Another man joined in only declare [d]. “Bahut bada jang hone wala hai.” (A big war is in the offing.)”, before going on to ask the child if he would go with India or Pakistan. The quick-witted teen said he would watch from the sidelines.”[5] If this is in the public domain instead of the so called jihad there is the Armageddon waiting for the Muslims. After the holocaust of Muslims in Gujarat 2002 that visited upon them as a result of the instruction of Modi on February 27, 2002, now they have a bigger calamity coming to them, their sure extinction! What for is the self imposed taciturnity of Modi, otherwise? His silence is screaming loudly that something is amiss for he let the genie out knowing well what imminently is in store! 1. Debobrat Ghosh, Al-Qaeda threat: Not just J&K, Kerala could be a terror hot-spot too http://www.firstpost.com/india/al-qaeda-threat-not-just-jk-kerala-could-be-a-terror-hot-spot-too-1700487.html 2 Asian Age, “Shia outfit puts Rs 5 cr bounty on IS chief, September 8, 2014 3 Saamna September 6, 2014 4 Jalgaon On The Itinerary Of David Headley!!! Mustafa Khan 02 April, 2010. Countercurrents.org] 5 http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column-everyday-vignettes-of-a-communal-capital-2015991

Dubious terrorism

India has a rare phenomenon of most publicized events of terrorist attacks which have generated highest amount of doubt. In the general public, of course; but for the cultural nationalists there is firm conviction of the evil originating across the border. This is so much in vogue even after a decade that the terrorists are invariably the Pakis behind all terrorist attacks. In sharp contrast March 12 1993 serial bomb attacks in Bombay ascribed to the fugitive Dawood Ibrahim had all natives of India to the last man caught and tried and convicted. Since then the Pakis have become the wandering Jew for all acts of terrorism within India. Only the rarest rare exception is Ajmal Kasab, tried, convicted and quickly hanged. Even this case is fraught with many doubts. The Hindu extremist fringe includes RSS and all the other organizations under its umbrella. They had initiated bomb attacks as is clear from Saharanpur bomb attacks of May 14, 2002 and before that the Bhopal Ijtema target of the previous year. Bhopal has the largest mosque in India. There was going to be a bomb attack but it could not be carried out. The Hindutva group under Sunil Joshi was behind it. Had it been effective it would have produced very large casualties. In Saharanpur a bomb went off at the roof of the mosque and another near the gate. A third failed to blow up at the end of the prayer early morning. Luckily the third was defused. There was no dubiety regarding these three. Nor was there any such in the four bombing incidents between 2003 and April 2006 in Parbhani, Purna, Jalna and Nanded when when RSS-Bajrang Dal-VHP activists targeted mosques. The fourth incident happened in Nanded when the bomb meant for Aurangabad railway station mosque accidentally blew up and killed several terrorist busy making the bomb. The most spectacular cases of dubiety are the Parliament attack on December 13, 2001 and Malegaon September 8, 2006 and September 29, 2008. In the first Prime Minister AB Vajpayee had warned on December 12, 2001of impending attack on the Parliament and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had warned on September 5, 2006 and again on September 17, 2008 that there would be terror attacks. [1]A caller on phone had warned the office of Malegaon Marathi Daily Dinkar on September 5 2006 that within a day or two there would be attack and when it was realized he again called to remind that they had carried out the September 8th attack and would carry out another because the people have not taken it seriously.[2 ] That India is for Hindus and Muslims must leave. On September 13 there was a bomb found at Mohammadiya shopping complex. The phone call was also corroborated by a letter to the same effect which was sent to the Jamiatul Ulema-e-Hind office. It was signed by “Sangh Parivar.” Regarding the Parliament attack Arundhati Roy figuratively speaks of the foot prints of the dragon. The letter and phone calls are prosaic illustration of what it was that was not named: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh [RSS]. There is no organization that can choose time and place with such confidence and carry out terrorist attacks with impunity. What Mohan Bhagwat told Swami Asimanand that Sangh was doing it and he should concentrate on tribal development, much later is a confirmation of the truth, dotting the line. If there is involvement of police it is not compartmental but infiltration of the Hindutva ideology in the police force as well as the army. The Congress government had been baulking from naming it fearing backlash in election. When the Home Minister Susdhilkumar Shinde named RSS he recanted the next day. The reach of RSS is beyond computing. Its most remarkable pracharak Sunil Joshi was involved in activities in Jammu and Kashmir. He was also hiding/hibernating in Jammu in a facility that was run by RSS. That was on account of his direct involvement in the murder of a Congress leader and his son. It was again Dyanand Pandey known as Shankaracharya who had his ashram in Jammu. Lt Col Prasad Purohit had close contact with him and in this way J&K, Madhya Pardesh, Maharashtra got linked together. Furthermore Amit Chauhan aka Hakla from Nanded also lived in JK and was trained there. He had exploded the first bomb of the Hindutva laboratory in Parbhany mosque in 2003. His base was Maharashtra but he moved into the Madhya Pardesh module of Sunil Joshi and also worked for Abhinav Bharat. Purohit had provided RDX for Samjhauta Express in 2007 attack in which Hakla was very much involved and is absconding since the truth came in the open. Hakla went by another name in the Madhya Pardesh module: Ramesh Veyankat Mahalkar. He was quite active in the MP module which was behind Malegaon 2006 blasts, Ajmer blasts 2007 and Samjhauta Express blasts 2007. Thus Hakla’s link is established between two sets of attacks, one in which he figured in Marathwada region of Maharashtra and the other in which Haryana(Panipat), Malegaon in Maharshtra and Rajasthan (Ajmer) figure prominently. [3] RSS works in different guises: as VHP in the case of Hakla’s role for he and his family were members of VHP; as Bajrang Dal in the case of Malegaon 2006 attack (Former DGP Dr Pasricha had remarked that it was Bajrang Dal behind Malegaon 2006 blasts.) [4] Thus until Swami Asimanand admitted involvement of Hindutva terrorists in 2006 Malegaon blasts as well the dubiety was hidden. There are many ramifications of what Purohit remarked when he admitted his role in Malegaon blast 2008: "I am the mastermind of the blast. I arranged for the RDX and weapons but I can't understand how the weapons reached Abhinav Bharat members."[5] One, that Purohit was associated with Abhinav Bharat so if he did not know how the RDX was transferred does he mean that the RDX and weapons supplied by him caused the 2008 attack in Malegaon as well as the same consignment of explosives and arms were used by the ATS to frame innocent Muslims in the Arms haul case of Aurangabad-Malegaon-Ankai 2006? If that were true then it would mean that that was also the provenance for 7/11 attack on local trains in Mumbai. The inference is clear that all these sundry cases were dubious terrorist attacks engineered by Hindutva and their sympathizers in police and army but blamed on Muslims. The minority had to bear the cross for years on end. They were the handiwork of Hindutva! Further to note here is that source of RDX is only one way, the army. It is not easy to get it within India. Who else could do it so well than Purohit? If Zabiuddin and others transferred RDX the consignment was certainly not from Pakistan but from army source. It could also mean that it was sourced from Ahmedanagar artillery camp from the where Shanker Shelke got it in his scrap yard. The police commission of Thane SM Sangari had identified one of the attackers on Parliament as Mohammad Yasin Fateh Mohammad aksAbu Hamza arrested in November 2000 and he was handed over to JK. Did the JK special task force use him to attack the Parliament as the same agency used Afzal Guru to escort one Mohammad to Delhi for the attack? Much later Sangari also said that the lead to the attack in Malegaon 2006 is in the mysterious death of the scrap monger Shankar Shelke of Ahmadnagar on September 9, 2006. Some days ago 195 kg of RDX was seized from his scrap yard. He absconded from the police but after Malegaon blast of September 8, 2006 he was arrested. The attack on the Parliament is all the more dubious because member of Parliament Priyaranjan Dashmunshi saw 6 attackers come out of the car while the police say only five had come. The difference in counting the attackers is insidious. Anita Udaiyya had counted 6 landing on the shore from a boat on 26/11 and she had said that Ajmal Kasab was not one of them. So where did the other four come from? The Marathi speakers who attacked Cama hospital were believed to be Pakis but after the arrest of Zabiuddin Ansari aka abu Jindal it is believed that they were Muslims speaking fluent Marathi.[6] The hallmark of dubiety is covered in two books one on 26/11 by SM Mushrif universally known as who killed Who killed Karkare? the other on Parliament attack called 13 December , A Reader. Unfortunately the Establishment has failed to rise to the challenge thrown by such texts. What kind of democratic set up is this! --- [1] 13December : A Reader. Penguin India 2006 [2] Inquilab August 30, 2008 [3] http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-06-17/bhopal/40027296_1_himanshu-panse-samjhauta-express-blast-maharashtra-blasts [4] Punyanagri September 11, 2006 [5] I was Malegaon mastermind, admits Lt-Col 7 Nov 2008, TNN [6] Vikram Bhave, Malegaon bomb blasts, the invisible hand (Marathi) Grukrupa Praisthan. 2013. p 108

Torture in Arthur road Jail in Mumbai

Arthur Road Jail was established in 1925. Never before were there inmates in such a large number as 80% Muslim as now. The worst torture meted out was never before as barbaric as now as far as the Muslim community is targeted in false war on terror. But even Hindus have tons of difficulties to pass through mental and physical torture although when they are arrested not on terror charges but land dealings. One of them wrote “If you want to see hell on earth you should visit Arthur Road Jail.”[1] Matching the notoriety of General Dyer of Jaliana wala bag in Amritsar is the jail superintendent Swati Sathe. During her tenure there were three terror cases in which innocent Muslims were accused and incarcerated there, the May 2006 arms haul case of Aurangabad- Malegaon-Ankai, the Mumbai serial attacks on local trains of July 2006 and Malegaon blasts of 2006. These cases were based on the false argument that the innocent accused had committed organized crimes. Lawyer Shahid Azmi had argued against the arrest. He had argued that MCOCA can be applied in cases of organized crimes but not terror. This ultimately became instrumental in SC staying the three cases of 2006. The section 2 (1)(e) of MCOCA focuses on "causing insurgency" could not be justified just on the basis of confession unless corroborated by circumstantial and hard evidence. India had unthinkingly joined the war on terror in the popular feeling generated after 9/11 despite the fact that no Indian had anything to do with the attack on America. Too officious to please the Americas and too reluctant to condemn American attacks in Iraq or Israelis attacking Palestinians during the same period. What the Americans were doing in Guantanamo, Abu Gharib and Bagram prisons was also going on in the Arthur Road prison under the supervision and direct involvement of the jail superintendent Swathi Sathe. The accused were brutally assaulted in the prison with Sathe taking part in it. One had his arm broken and another had his head broken. A son of one of the accused saw his father being taken away in police van with blood still oozing as he waited with a tiffin box he was carrying for his father. The madam wanted them to confess to the crimes the police alleged they had committed. She claimed that they had created insurgency there while they were being transferred to other prisons. Even the transfer of the prisoners was illegal and violated the norms. The judges found it very unbecoming of her and passed stricture against her and she was transferred. Her 'transfer' was without loss of pay or blood while theirs was so sanguinary. So willful was the whole conduct of transfer. Here it is contemporaneously relevant to note that Lt Col Prasad Purohit in his letter of May 30, 2014 to PM Narendra Modi delineated his own torture at the hands of the ATS telescoping blame on Hemant Karkare and Colonel RK Srivastava who arrested him on November 5, 2008. The obvious but shrewd calculation is that Purohit does not mention Karkare but targets Bagade. Karkare being proved a hero but is dead. Bagade arrested him personally. Srivastava did not flinch and take sides or subscribe to the majoritarian prejudice. Despite video proof and phone conversation and corroborated by many items seized from his house in Pune the army found Purohit a patriot and the army court of inquiry reposed faith in his work rather than focus on the crimes he committed under law of the land. He had a reconstructed knee while in service, now he blames it upon the ATS of damaging the reconstructed knee! [2] Aurangabad-Malegaon-Ankai arms haul case of May 2006, July 2006 case of serial bomb blasts in local trains of Mumbai and Malegaon blasts of September 8, 2006 were woven around innocent Muslims. Their confessions were the blank papers on which their signatures were extracted after weeks and months of unremitting torture. The focus of torture was: (a) The police wanted the accused to turn approver. (b) Their relatives were falsely implicated in terror charges when the arrested accused did not sign false statement prepared by the police. Dr Salman Farsi reveals how the accused were pressurized to confess in the 2006 blasts case: “They blindfolded me and left me in a room for three hours and used to beat me on the sole of my foot with sticks and on the insides of my fingers so that there were no evident signs of torture when I was produced in court.” [3] His negihbour was Mohammad Ali and both lived in Govandi. After the arrest the police would visit Mohammad Ali’s house and take out the children and thrashed them in public. Another hallmark of Arthur Road torture is sarcasm and irony as a weapon of mental torture after physical abuse. Noorulhoda another accused in the same case articulates it as it happened: ‘On Eid, ATS officers thrashed me saying that they were celebrating. They beat me mercilessly and ‘celebrated’ all the while saying it was their Eid gift’ “They used to strip us naked and tie our hands and legs together and beat my legs and penis with a stick. Then they used to tie a cloth on the sticks and strike hard on my head. All in a bid to force me to sign a confession statement that they had prepared! They told me that they would frame my family members in criminal cases and threatened to sexually assault my sister. When I could not take the physical and mental agony anymore, I signed that statement and my fate was sealed. I didn’t even know the statement’s contents. “They arrested me during Ramzan and tortured me by refusing to allow me to break my fast every evening. They threatened to force-feed me during the day. On Eid, ATS officers came in and thrashed me saying that they were celebrating Eid. They beat me mercilessly and ‘celebrated’ all the while saying it was an Eid gift. “Initially I was kept in solitary confinement. Then they kept me with really hardened criminals to instil fear in me. Once they targeted me in what is known in jail parlance as an ‘alarm’. They just ring an alarm and start attacking the inmates. Total mayhem ensues. I was among the 40 men who were picked up for the alarm. This happened in June 2008 when Swati Sathe was the jail superintendent.” In the serial blasts in local trains 37 people were arrested and tortured to own up what they had not done. They showed the judge their blood stained clothes and fractured hands of how the police had beaten them in the worst case of animality. The police carried out the order of Swati Sathe and bled them profusely. This was done against a premeditated design. First they were herded into one single room two weeks before their transfer to other prisons in Maharashtra. Their fate was sealed as their transfer to other jails was predetermined. But two weeks of beating became a daily routine. All this for one purpose to coerce them into confessing a crime of terror they had not committed but had been subjected to inhuman cruel treatment so that they would sign the prepared statement. [4] Abdul Azeem underwent the torturous ordeal so that he would confess his involvement in 7/11 and another fellow inmate of Arthur Road jail Adbul Samat had to go through the same so that he would self incriminate in the Aurangabad arms haul case. Some of the accused had come from educated parents who had known of how inhuman is the treatment given to the minority community members. Even before the ban of Students Islamic Movement of India came into effect they were wary of waywardness their children may fall victims of. Abdul Majid a primary school teacher and father of Zahid accused in 2006 blasts and Javed accused in 2006 arms haul case. “I always told him(Javed) not to keep the company of people who always think of exploding bombs as a way of opposing un-Islamic practices. He used to remove posters of un-Islamic films and other obscene elements that have corrupted Muslim youth. He spoke against Islamic outfits that are killing people in the name of God. And it just so happens that my innocent son found himself accused of being branded a terrorist — the same kind of people whose violent ways he was opposed to.” [5] Indeed the real life in Arthur Road jail is beyond decent limit and borders on the filthy and immoral routine life of a backward country of Africa. A builder had a civil case filed against another builder. But the police in Mumbai made it a Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime ACT (MCOCA) case. He was arrested on July 5th 2006 within two days it became clear that it was not a matter of organized crime and nor was it a case of terrorism. But he had to spend minimum one month according to MCOCA, though an innocent person. He spent 7 lakh rupees to avoid physical torture. His experience in the Arthur Road jail made him experience hell on earth as quoted earlier. He had to sleep on bare floor with many hundreds in the so called barrack. The barrack was meant for about 70 but actually more than 300 would sleep every night. The jail was meant for 820 but actually there were 3000 of them there. If anyone spread his arm it would touch the feet of another and if he spread his feet they would touch the head of someone. This would produce loud cursing by the one touched. The police had slapped MCOCA against him for their personal benefits. Even his brother was threatened to be implicated. There were 30 friends and relatives of his who were forced to give false witness against him for they were mentally tortured. If anyone complains against the jailer then there are influential prisoners who beat up the complainant. “A warden is a ruthless criminal serving life term for murder and has to manage 300 prisoners inside the barrack once the door closes from 6pm in the evening to 6am next morning, even the jail police does not enter the barrack at the time given above.” A report titled, "Torture in India 2009", by the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) says that since April 1, 2001 to March 30, 2009 there were 1, 184 deaths in custody of which 191 were from Maharashtra (Khwaja Yunu was one such). Most of them were tortured and died within 48 hours of arrest. [6] [1] http://www.ispsquash.com/MCOCA_Jail.HTM [2] http://www.manushi.in/articles.php?articleId=1803#.U_K3NqPVyt8 [3] http://www.tehelka.com/how-do-you-keep-the-faith/ [4] http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-711-blasts-accused-alleges-torture-by-police-1176247 [5]ibid. [6] Hindustan Times 12/9/09

Portends of May 2014

After Muzaffarnagar and Pune in Maharahstra, Rajendra nagar police station area under Cyberabad Commission rate in Kishanbaugh area of old city of Hyderabad saw what was planted polarization. Next was Saharanpur in UP. They had the atmosphere that sustains and worsens communalism, the hallmark of Amit Shah-Narendra Modi ascent in the national politics. The method and selection of place was deliberately chosen to plant communalism that was obviously alien to the place. On Wednesday May 14, 2014 there was burning incident of the Sikh flag which led to communal violence that was first of its kind in the region of Hyderabad. The Sikhs went armed and entered in the houses of Muslim who were sleeping and started slashing them with their swords. The two communities have had no history of such rioting before. In all the above mentioned places there was no report of previous such attacks. This was purposely started to divide communities. The Muslims bore the brunt. Three of them were killed in Hyderabad and 17 injured. [1] The governor ESL Narsimhan ordered inquiry into the incident and also issued order to pay six lakh rupees to the family of each killed and 50,000 to the injured. The reaction of the government was prompt and showed that they were surprised by the swift change in the otherwise peaceful life and determined to prevent it. The polarization in Hyderabad comes within a week of pogroms in Assam and the proximity to election may not be obvious but the issue is related to the purpose of the Sangh ideology. It also shares the efforts of Pravin Togadia’s attempt to turn Hyderabad into a communal cauldron. Modi and Togadia are two sides of the same coin which can use any non Muslim community against the Muslims but not vice versa. [Pogroms in Assam: the Modi effect]. Since then Modi is stepping up the incidence of communalism of the far right. Two days before the Independence Day August 15, 2014 he visited Ladakh and donned the apparel of the people of Ladakh and sent symbolic note that he is the same old self who would wear the traditional headwear of every religion but Islam. In substance he also let it be known that his impromptu speech on the Independence Day would include highlighting Savarkar, Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas Bose, Jagannath Azad and Bhagat Singh. [2]The deliberate leaving out the name of Maulana Azad speaks volumes. It was the Maulana who had opposed the partition of the country and was highly critical of Gandhi, Nehru and Patel accepting the partition of the country. It is pertinent to quote what the tactics of the Hindutva is: “Sanghis are masters of lies and deception, the “Gujarat Experiment” has sharpened these skills even more. They use sectarian violence as a means to polarise the atmosphere, misguide innocent voters and grab power. Once in power anti-Muslim pogroms are replaced by oppression of minorities and Hinduization of schools and offices. Gujarat and other states where they have ruled in the past are glaring examples of it.”[3] The election 2014 will one day reveal what went wrong with the polity because it also keeps what a perceptive writer called “the worst kept secret of India” that is the slaughter of Muslims in Muzaffarnagar like what transpired at the Modi official residence in the night of February 27, 2002.[4] The prognostics have come home to roost. There are issues that would come haunting us even beyond the election. The Jats had affinity with Muslims until Amit Shah and Modi put the seed of hatred in the sugar bowl of western UP. Jats and Muslims had relations. They worked together as masters and servants, or as service providers to the Jats. There were also interreligious marriages. Against the backdrop of “love jihad” there was no acrimony in that part of India where code of honour had terrible hold on the populace. In one such incident Jats had gone to the house of a boy and killed him for self gotra marriage around the time Sachin and Gaurav had killed Shanawaz. The extremists under Amit Shah and Modi had formed Narendra Modi Army and chose the pretext of Muslims teasing Jat girls and hence reaction dividing the people on religion based politics. When Narendra Modi addressed a rally in Agra on November 21, 2013 after the pogroms Kalyan Singh of the notoriety of Babri mosque demolition also spoke and reminded this: "There is a reaction to every action. Only dead bodies don't react.. If Azam Khan had not shielded murderers, this would not have happened.” [1]Modi also had justified the pogroms of 2002 as based on the Newtonian 3rd law of gravitation. Modi also shielded Babu Bajrangi and yet the fad of clean chits had eclipsed it, though Bajrangi is sentenced to life imprisonment and Modi who housed him in Gujatat guest house at Mr Abu was left untouched. The action and reaction works selectively and choosers are the well organized and armed VHP, BD, RSS and now Narendra Modi Army. The Economist has officially kept itself at a distance and not joined the mad race of the corporate and mainstream papers toeing the line of those singing hosanna of Modi. The paper described Indian politics as feckless and venal. The futile attempt of getting justice for victims of the pogroms, like the widow Jakia who approached Director General of Police of Gujarat Chakravarty. He refused to accept her complaint. Then she approached the courts they also did not heed her petition. Finally the Supreme Court ordered Gujarat High Court to take her appeal and make inquiry into the murder of her husband and nearly sixty others who had sought refuge in her house. In the meantime the Home Minister of India LK Advani continued giving clean chits to Modi. This is why the Economist calls it fecklessness of Indian politics. The paper gives an illustration of venality of Modi and his government: “One reason why the inquiries into the riots were inconclusive is that a great deal of evidence was lost or willfully destroyed.” Modi openly accepted that he had Soharbuddin killed and dared Sonia Gandh’s government at centre to hang him! Praveen Togadia justified the pogroms of Muzaffarnagar by saying that this is what would happen if Muslims demand another Pakistan. In the first place Muslims did not want any Pakistan and had no thought of the neighboring country. The Jats were organized and armed to teeth and started their revenge. When Amit Shah visited Muzaffarnagar a couple of days before election on April 10 he still talked of taking revenge. Will the revenge stop anywhere in near future? But a much more serious indictment of Modi according to the Economist is “Mr Modi might start well in Delhi but sooner or later he will have to cope with a sectarian slaughter or a crisis with Pakistan—and nobody, least of all the modernisers praising him now, knows what he will do nor how Muslims, in turn, will react to such a divisive man. “If Mr Modi were to explain his role in the violence and show genuine remorse, we would consider backing him, but he never has; it would be wrong for a man who has thrived on division to become prime minister of a country as fissile as India. We do not find the prospect of a government led by Congress under Mr Gandhi an inspiring one. But we have to recommend it to Indians as the less disturbing option.” “And if they still choose Mr Modi? We would wish him well, and we would be delighted for him to prove us wrong by governing India in a modern, honest and fair way. But for now he should be judged on his record—which is that of a man who is still associated with sectarian hatred. There is nothing modern, honest or fair about that. India deserves better.”[5] Since then Modi has risen higher and higher in power and as PM he unfurled the tricolor and in his impromptu speech he forgot what the papers said would be highlights of the Independence Speech. But he spoke of how he was awakened to the warfare that was the standard practice between departments of government in the Delhi durbar of new Modi Sarkar. Now his legacy from Gujarat has churned up such warfare between Intelligence Bureau and Central Bureau of Investigation. On Thursday August 21, 2014 IB appealed to the Supreme Court to intervene in CBI filing a charge sheet against 4 of IB officers Rajendra Kumar, P Mittal, M K Sinha and Rajeev Wankhede)

who were behind fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan and three others. This if we have to believe GL Singhal who participated in shooting the four was carried out by the order of Chief Minister Modi. Another legacy of Modi is of recent vintage. His lieutenant Amit Shah was behind the pogroms in Muzaffarnagar. They have so worsened the communal atmosphere that a Muslim trader from West Bengal was thrown out of the running train on Friday August 22, 2014. Sheikh Rahmatulla died of his wounds. What is their in the make of Modi that cannot let him change is his being determined by RSS ethos. Ashish Nandy diagnosed it so long ago: “It left me in no doubt that here was a classic, clinical case of a fascist. I never use the term ‘fascist’ as a term of abuse; to me it is a diagnostic category comprising not only one’s ideological posture but also the personality traits and motivational patterns contextualising the ideology. “Modi, it gives me no pleasure to tell the readers, met virtually all the criteria that psychiatrists, psycho-analysts and psychologists had set up after years of empirical work on the authoritarian personality. He had the same mix of puritanical rigidity, narrowing of emotional life, massive use of the ego defence of projection, denial and fear of his own passions combined with fantasies of violence—all set within the matrix of clear paranoid and obsessive personality traits. I still remember the cool, measured tone in which he elaborated a theory of cosmic conspiracy against India that painted every Muslim as a suspected traitor and a potential terrorist”. [7] Instead of proving us wrong Modi has proved us right. [1]http://www.niticentral.com/2014/05/14/communal-clash-in-hyderabad-claims-3-lives-223327.html http://www.niticentral.com/2014/05/15/communal-clash-curfew-continues-in-trouble-hit-areas-223601.html [2] Asian Age August 12, 2014. [3] http://caravandaily.com/portal/waiting-for-the-apocalypse/ [4]“the worst kept secret of India” http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/32386477.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst [5] http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21600106-he-will-probably-become-indias-next-prime-minister-does-not-mean-he-should-be-can-anyone?zid=309&ah=80dcf288b8561b012f603b9fd9577f0e [6] http://news.oneindia.in/india/muzaffarnagar-trader-thrown-out-of-train-dies-1507123.html [7] Seminar 2002 August 23, 2014

Shades of Hindutva terror, a dioramic contrast in framing innocent accused

No religion justifies terrorism. Nor can all the followers of any religion be terrorists. When the phenomenon of Hindutva terrorism surfaced at the time of arrest of Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur, Shankaracharya Swami Amrutanand Deoteerth [Dyanand Pandy] in October-November 2008there was some confusion in perception. Some of those arrested in Malegaon 2008 blasts like Lt Col Prasad Purohit, and some others like RP Singh, and still some others like absconding Ramji Kalsangra are extremists. They spite the Muslims in extremity. They would make bombs to blow and attack the minority or buy guns to spew death in crowds of Muslims. There are people like Himani Savarkar and Swami Asimanand that itch for bomb-for-bomb retaliation. It is in this context that India’s definition of terrorism got muddled. For, the Newtonian third law that the present prime minister of the country used when he let the Hindus vent their anger for three days against the Muslims in the late night meeting on February 27, 2002 that he was unleashing terrorism on the minority. He was the chief minister of the state of Gujarat. Instead of taking precaution of law and order situation of his state and having been sworn to protect the life of every citizen he let the Hindus kill Muslims. In the same meeting he instructed the police not to come in the way of the Hindu irate retaliation. He even subverted judiciary by all foul means to remain overtly clear of the blame of genocide. Who has the guts to call this terrorism? However, there are nuances of reaction. Such reaction is indeed terrorism. VD Savarkar supplied guns to kill the collector of Nasik and much later Mahatma Gandhi. If that was pre Independence history, contemporary situation is even more serious as extreme Hindutva groups under the aegis of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, like Bajrand Dal, Abhinav Bharat, is crystal clear. Its top leaders and second rung workers are clearly involved in terror. Mohan Bhagwat, Indresh Kumar, Swami Asimanand, Pravin Togadia, Narendra Modi have dossiers against them on their involvement in terror. There are such details in two recordings of Captain Nitin Joshi, one of 14-1(1)-2008 and another of 18-11-2008 as submitted to Deputy Commissioner of Police: 1. A certain Dr Dav had given affidavit to the Deputy Commissioner of Police against a man called Bhagwan who had been given RDX for attack on Samjhauta Express in February 2007. It was from the consignment that Purohit had stolen from the army when he was on duty in the Kashmir valley. Captain Nitin Joshi had seen the RDX in a room of Purohit’s bungalow in Pune. 2. Indresh Kumar had advised Hindutva terrorists to target Muslims and kill them in larger number and hide in temples. Kumar and Mohan Bhagwat had received 21 crore rupees from the Inter Services Intelligence of Pakistan. Joshi had heard a man say this when he was with Purohit in Purohit’s bungalow. Joshi is witness no. 55 in Malegaon 2008 attack case. Bhagwat now chief of RSS, Kumar and Ramji Kalsangra and many others are members of RSS. Their involvement in terrorism is direct. Witness no. 61 is Sham Apte in 2008 Malegaon attack case. He says that he had seen a secret dossier mentioning that ISI had given 21 crore to Kumar as head of the Muslim National Front, a sub group of RSS. “I consider this treachery to the nation,” asserts RSS leader Sham Apte. “I was so overwhelmed by shock that I said that we must arrange to kill Bhagwat and Kumar.” [1]However he also claimed in self defense that he did not really intend to kill them. This so upset Samir Kulkarni another accused in 2008 case that he appealed to the high court that there should be a case filed against Nitin Joshi for taking part in conspiracy to kill. It is clearly an attempt by an accused in support of another. There are other accused inside and outside jail or on parole that are doing the same work. In this Vikram Bhave figures prominently as does Amit Shah. Bhave was accused in the bomb blast on February 20, 2008, in Cineraj cinema in Panvel, Vashi theatre Vishnudas Bhave on May 31, 2008 and in the same week another attack in Gadkari Rangayatan theatre. He was arrested on June 16, 2008 and sentenced to ten years in prison. He wrote his book Malegaon bomb explosion, the invisible hand behind it. He has reproduced certain documents verbatim of which Sham Apte’s needs serious attention to know the shades of Hindutva terror. Purohit was a more diehard terrorist than is known and yet the army Court of Inquiry supported him. Sham Apte noted ambiguity as hall mark of his character. He had introduced himself as a major when he was just Lieutenant Colonel. When he went to meet Apte he did not make it clear as to who had recommended him to meet Apte. He introduced Apte to Swami Amrutanand Deoteerth, aka Shankaracharya whose real name is Dyanand Pandey. In July 2008 Shankaracharya of Peeth came to Pune and Apte arranged for his stay in Sarda’s house where industrialist Jindal donated ten lakh rupees of which 5 lakh went to the treasury of Abhinav Bharat and the remaining to the Shankaracharya. When the Shankaracharya visited Indore on August 1, 2008 Purohit arranged for travel of Apte and Ajay Rahirkar to fly in to visit the Shankaracharya. In the hotel Apte overheard Purohit asking for one lakh rupees from the holy man. There were greater frequency of meeting of Abhinav Bharat and RSS functionaries in August and September 2008 and so was more funding of money to AB and Purohit. Parallel to this was the growing and to an extent worked up concern for the displaced Pandit community. All this led to the blast of 2008 in Malegaon. Some of these details are in chapter 13 of Bhave’s book. His titling the chapter “RSS and Bomb Blast” confirms the South Virginia US think tank Terrorism Research Centre naming RSS as a terrorist organization. It is still a persisted belief in the establishment that neither the RSS nor Narendra Modi can be called terrorist. Even Bhave is ambiguous as is Apte. Apte has been an adherent of RSS. Apte had spent a long time in the US and when he returned India he found that RSS chey purvee vichar aani aata chey vichar yaant barchshi farkat aahe. “There is a sea of change in the mindset of RSS of yore and of today”.[2] It was a reference to how the so called patriotic organization had accepted money from Pakistan’s ISI to fund RSS run Rashtriya Muslim Manch. This he had read in the dossier that Purohit had handed him when the army man visited Apte at his house. He was shocked by the acceptance of huge amount by Sangh which in its inception was devoted to the moral development of the Hindus for the nation and its culture, he had believed till then. In one stroke the bribery had brought the RSS to the level of ISI. ISI kadun ghetlele paise munzhe deshase gaddari aahe. “Taking money from the ISI is a high treason against the country.” Next great shock for Apte was when he mentioned this moral turpitude to Mohan Bhagwat, he turned a deaf ear to it! Interestingly the chief of RSS at that time was K Sudarshan a staunch believer in the right wing ideology who of course ignored it. From the afore mentioned episode Bhave concludes that as the 9 accused in Malegaon 2006blasts were innocent though some were members of Students Islamic Movement of India. In the same way those accused in 2008 were Hindus though some were members of RSS and the law of parity should apply in the latter case, also. An affidavit is a court document submitted by one stating some truth he swears to put on record in a case of law. Courts in India have shown a tendency of not taking even very crucial affidavits on record. Judges have scanty regard for them when it comes to cases of terrorism. The affidavit of witness number 379 Atif in Malegaon 2006 blast case was the turning point in the investigation for the National Investigation Agency [NIA]. It showed beyond doubt that the nine accused were innocent because Atif was tortured 25 days to implicate the nine on the merit of his being a servant of the main accused Shabbir Masiullah in whose go down the bombs were said to have been assembled. ATS of Maharashtra and CBI had taken inordinate time to mull over the case because they had depended on Atif’s confessional statement which wrongfully played in the hands of the investigators when they framed the nine Muslims. Judge YD Shinde of the designated MCOCA court did not bother about the affidavits of others like Irfan Akeel and Shakeel Ahmad, Hamid Iqbal. If Atif’s statement is crucial then how did the police frame him? Abrar was a police informer who is alleged to have taken money to plant one of the bombs in 2006. Did he help in framing of Atif? His affidavit is even more controversial. He has revealed that he was used by the ATS and betrayed by them when he refused to be an approver. He has alleged in his statement that those who investigated 2006 blasts case had misled the inquiry and when Hemant Karkare became chief of ATS he came to know the truth and started investigation in the right direction. And most crucially the first group under KP Raghuvanshi wanted to liquidate those who were now reinvestigation in the right direction. What is the import of this? It is banal these days to say that the new Prime Minister from Hindu right has started saffronizing the government, education, perspective on terror and investigation therein and a host of other matters. It was already there when he was the chief minister of Gujarat for more than a decade and even beyond. When Savarkar supplied guns to kill the English it was an act of terrorism despite his being devoted to India. Those who shielded him from prosecution in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi case or were concealing the role of the RSS activist Nathuram Godse as a cadet and member of RSS were also attempting to subvert the judiciary. Godse was a pracharak like Narendra Modi or Ramji Kalsangra. They are product of hate ideology and propagators of it. In the curious case of the first military officer in service accused of terrorism, Lt Col Prasad Purohit, it is not merely judicial subversion but infiltration of the hate ideology in the army and its extent that is worrisome. It can be seen in the affidavit of Captain [retired] Nitin Darratray Joshi submitted to the metropolitan magistrate at the court 18 in Girgaon, Mumbai on November 18, 2008. He was working at the Bhonsla Military School in Nasik when Purohit was stationed there. Purohit had given his room to Sudhakar Chaturvedi to assemble the bomb that blew up in Bhiku Chowk Malegaon on September 29, 2008. Joshi says that Purohit was excessively revengeful against Muslim and was extremely scornful to them. To take revenge he had bought two pistols and a revolver and ammunition to use on them in March/April 2006. Joshi had also seen ten kilograms of RDX in a room at the Pune bungalow of Purohit. Purohit had told Joshi that he had supplied RDX for the attack on Samjhauta Express for which innocent Muslims had to languish in prison. On 5th or 6th of July 2008 Purohit had told Joshi that in August or September there would be big action in Nasik which is the district place of Malegaon town. Joshi also mentions that Purohit had told him after the blast had taken place on September 29, 2008that he was behind the Malegaon blast. [3] Afterward Joshi retracted. This has become the standard practice in all such cases such as Swami Asimanand’s. Zahira Sheikh and a host of others and mostly and quinessentially under Modi rule in Gujrarat. This is on account of pressure and lure of money and promotion. RSS works in such devious manner. Another is intrigue. There was a standing enmity between Purohit and Colonel RK Srivastava. The colonel was jealous of the popularity of Purhot for his outstanding performance in army in killing many terrorists. He was also seriously injured and given option to go on pension but chose to serve the country by joining intelligence wing of the army in counter insurgency. Srivastava could not stomach this. So when the ATS contacted him regarding arrest of Purohit, he assaulted him. He even reported the matter to his superior through official means. [4] No officer opposed Srivastava when he sent the army men to arrest Purohit and handed him over Purohit to ATS. But strangely when the Court of Inquiry of the Army met the senior officers overwhelmingly supported Purohit. Furthermore, Vikram Bhave writes in his book what he as an accused and convicted is legally not supposed to write. But he praised the 9 accused because he found them good people falsely accused. He found them in vyatha or affliction. Their suffering and distress in jail is poignant because they were not involved in more than two organized crimes against which Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime ACT [MCOCA] was applied against them. In fact most of them were not having any previous record of crime. Bhave finds that the police had extracted confession from them under torture and threat that they would also be named as co accused in other terrorism cases. He found the Malegaon 2006 cases accused as industrious in jail as they kept to study of law and religion. They would inquire him and others after court hearing and suggest the Hindu accused how to make their lawyers argue on some points. It was Dr Farog Mugdumi who told NIA facts which the agency used against the case made up by the Maharashtra ATSAfter the confession of Swami Asimanand the media and human rights activists said that the confessions given by the nine accused in Malegaon 2006 were bogus. The point was that Raghuvansi had invited Purohit to train ATS in counter terrorism and hence the ATS was biased. On this ground the CBI was called to inquire but it simply rubber stamped the findings of ATS. After Asimanand retracted NIA continued to believe in the Muslims accused and held no objection to their bail. (a)Five days after the September 8, 2008 blasts, there was the discovery of a bomb at Mohammadiya mosque. The panchas or witness who gave witness to the clothes of the injured and dead of September 8 also gave witness to September 13 affair. How could these witnesses give on the same day witness in two different incidents of which the second happened on September 13, the day of the recording of evidence of the witness! (b) Witness 379 gave confession claiming that he had seen the 9 accused assembling bombs. ATS relied on him. CBI simply toed the line taken by ATS although it could not find 379. But NIA found him and interrogated. He told NIA that the ATS had extracted his confession by torturing him and obtained his signature. There is uniformity of being derelict in duty and very prompt or alert in the case of CBI and NIA. [5] (C) Mohammad Zahid Abdul Majid Ansari was one of the planters of the bomb ATS and CBI maintained. But NIA found him 400 kilometers away in Yawatmal at the time of the blasts. Nine witnesses gave evidence in support of the fact. Why did not ATS and CBI try to find the truth which Zahid must have told before NIA took over the case? In contrast to this is the claim of Pandit Chatuvedi accused in Malegaon 2008 blast that he had gone to Mirzapur his native place in UP when the blast took place on September 29, 2008. But nobody bothered about it. It would be decades when the witness that Chaturvedi had in his village would be traced and presented in the court. This believes Bhave would prove that accused no. one Pragyasingh Thakur to accused no.12 Praveen Takkali to be innocent. Therefore the NIA is delaying the charge sheet in 2008 case. [1] Vikram Vinay Bhave. Malegaon bombsphotmageel adrushy haat. Mumbai: Grukurpa Paristhan (2013) p. 92 [2] ibid p.88 [3] ibid. p 85 [4] ibid p. 56 [5] see Chapter 8

Torture of innocent accused of terrorism in Indian jails

Much of the concern of the common people is about the torture the innocent accused is subjected through. That is exacerbated by the letters the accused write from their jail. Fahim Ansari accused in 26/11 and Noorulhoda accused in Malegaon 2006 blasts have given description of their ordeal including cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. That is against the UNO convention against torture. The torture also comes out when the members of the family of the accused pay visit or have phone conversation with their inmates. In the case of the innocent accused in bomb blasts the feeling is acute. Communication in such cases is almost nil in the initial period of arrest. Muzammil Akhtar was arrested in 2003 in local train blasts case in Mumbai and until he was brought to court he did not know why he was arrested. He is now in the twelfth year of imprisonment. When his father went to see him in May 2003 even his father was detained and put in prison cell at the Crawford Market police station in Mumbai. The torture he went through was most excruciating when his father was undressed and he was told that the same will be the fate of his mother if he did not confess. He was so overwhelmed that he simply put his signature on the blank paper shoved before him to sign. For nearly 12 years in Thane Central Jail there has been no visit by any independent body, either the Red Cross or the Human Rights Commissions either state or national. This is against the first protocol of the Conventions against Torture of UNO. Article 1 of the general principles says: The objective of the present Protocol is to establish a system of regular visits undertaken by independent international and national bodies to places where people are deprived of their liberty, in order to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. [1]The same was true of Fahim and Qateel Siddiquy, Shakeel Ahmad (Delhi). Shakeel was arrested in 1996 and for 14 years there was no fact finding visit and the world knew nothing of how he was treated. This produces utter dependence of the innocent accused at the mercy of the state. The more absolute is the dependency the worse is the torture. Protection of the citizens from custodial abuse is the moral and legal duty of the state where democracy is in practice. However, what is happening in Indian prison is unspeakable barbarity. For example after inhuman beating of Faheem the police blindfolded him and ordered him to run for his life. His senses told him that he would be killed in fake encounter and burst out weeping loudly and begged for their mercy in the darkness of the night in a lonely field where the police had taken him for torture. His letter from his cell is graphic about it. As Nitya Ramakrishnan writer of In Custody: Law, Impunity and Prisoner Abuse in South Asia remarks about why the protection from judicial abuse is important: “Because I think it is the quintessential exposition of power. The notion of freedom is accountability for restrictions of that freedom. No power is more absolute than that being held over a person in custody. You have no access to anything in a custodial cell, and over there if you can ensure accountability, then I would assume that your system is working.”[2] What has gone wrong in India in matters of torture is that though India signed the convention it has turned blind eye on it even when the matter involved a minister like Haren Pandya and a suspect chief minister Narendra Modi. Article 21 of the convention spells out the matter: 1. No authority or official shall order, apply, permit or tolerate any sanction against any person or organization for having communicated to the national preventive mechanism any information, whether true or false, and no such person or organization shall be otherwise prejudiced in any way. Pandya was tortured and killed because he went to the People’s Tribunal and revealed how Modi had allowed Hindus to vent their anger in the three days of February28, 2002 to March 2. Pandya’s torture included his testicle shot at by gun of the torturer believed to be Tulsiram Prajapati. This was gravest matter as 11 innocent people had suffered long term imprisonment and tortured including the leading accused Asghar Ali. Had India taken care of national preventive mechanism against torture the case would have been resolved long back! Not ratifying the protocol does not mean that police or private individuals of India enjoy immunity according to our national laws. Conscious of this Noorulhoda writes from jail: “New methods of torture: The police in Malegaon use the thick and hard belt that moves the electric motor and powerloom and hit at the palm, soles, back, private parts, etc. As a consequence the prisoners including him could not sit or sleep. The ATS also has a particular machine by which electric current shock is given to the body of the victim. There are two wire strands which are tied to the ears or big toes of the feet and then current is turned on which gives traumatic shock to the prisoner. Sometimes the police go beyond all humanity and use the same method on the sex organ. “In another method the police tie the arms and feet of the accused on their back and then the police man stands between the arms of the accused and they are stretched straight and they do the same to legs. As the accused has his arms and legs tied the torture produces maximum pain. Sometimes the stretching of the limbs is more than 180 degrees. The accused screams with pain very loudly. But as it is sound proof room the sound does not go out. The result is that he urinates blood for some days. “Another method: sometimes a gas is leaked to the masked accused. It leads to the swelling of the body parts. Then the police press any part of the body of the victim who shrieks with pain. Then particular oil called SuryaPrakash Oil is dropped into his nostrils which produces acute burning pain for hours together. Sometimes the oil is injected through the penis which produces spasmodic shivering or violent convulsion of the body on the floor. “Malegaon blasts accused were subjected to all these methods of torture and then they were told that if they do not confess their family members would also be brought and subjected through the same torture.” Noorulhoda had sent this note in his own handwriting from the prison a year after the blasts of 2006. [3,see facsimile ] Fahim was not only tortured till he was acquitted in 26/11 case but was returned to the detention in the Rampur attack on CRPF camp. All these happened because no national prevention mechanism is in place. In his own words he describes some of the torture. (1) There is a torture cell in prison. The police use such filthy abuses against the prisoners’ mother, sister, wife, etc in such volume that causes mental distress. (2) If he does not confess after physical and mental torture then they take him out in the open with eyes covered with cloth and force him to run masquerading it as a fake encounter to frighten him into confession. (3) The police beat the accused with grinding stone belt used in the flour mill. They rain blows with it and also with baton on the head, soles, arms and back. If the victim passes out they revive him to consciousness, if he sleeps they awaken him. They did not let him sleep for full 5 days and nights continuously. When extreme exhaustion made the eye lips close and the victim dozes off they make him stand up and walk. (4)They removed all my clothes and then tied black piece of cloth on my eyes and made me lie on a table. They tied both of my hands and feet and applied current to the lobs of my ears and performed the same on the nipples of my chest and my penis through Hoydoseen wire. Blood started oozing through my penis.[4] Of numerous officers of police who practice torture is the present commissioner of police Rakesh Maria. He was much junior in 1993 when serendipity led to the arrest of a man and that is how he discovered the trace of the serial bomb blasts in Bombay. This made him a hero known for his braggadocio. Thanks to the self interested ministers they let him rise and rise in office. He was also known for his anti minority stance being of Jewish descent. In fact Adriann levy and Cathy Scott-Clark say that he was so impetuous that he would have killed Ajmal Kasab[5]. He was known for his torture of the minority prisoners so much so that in Black Friday Kay Kay Menon made him celebrated for torturing Muslim accused. But a Muslim youth writing a letter from prison, Muzammil Akhtar has this to say: “I would like to further clarity that, on-record investigating officer of the 3 cases are different, but the cases were investigated by Shri Rakesh Maria, now the ATS Chief of the ATS of Maharashtra. That Shri Rakesh Maria and other persons connected with the investigation of the cases are very influential and resourceful in Maharashtra Govt and secretariat. These people may thwart the reinvestigation of case to save [hide] their own misdeeds.” [6]. Muzammil was accused in the Mulund train blast which Maria investigated along with the Ghatkoper bus blast case in which all other accused are acquitted. Another case known as Aurangabad arms haul is on the verge of collapse in the trial court. Its source is traced to Maharashtra MLA hostel in Mumbai, a ‘province’ of Maria where so called Abu Jundal or Zabiuddin Ansari started his journey on a Sumo Tata used in carrying arms to Aurangabad, Malegaon and Ankai near Manmad. Such is the bogus nature of the case that on July 26, 2007 four deputy commissioners of police who arrested the accused failed to identify the persons they had accused of gunrunning. A fifth DCP refused to identify because that had happened in the ancient time of May 2006![7] The logical inference is that the so called proof was cooked up by the ATS. The accused were made scapegoat for the crimes which others had committed. All the confessions verbally the same by five DCP had the drama scripted beforehand. Torture can be full of so much animality in it that Khwaja Yunus accused in December 2, 2002 died of vomiting blood. Another accused Dr Mateen Ansari had seen and heard the cries and gave his medical counsel that he would not survive. ATS officer Sachin Vaze disposed of the body on the false pretext that he escaped when the van overturned on the way to Aurangabad! This case too was practically handled by Maria although name of another officer is on the paper. In the matter of arresting Ajmal Kasab, Maria was so much angered that he thundered his assistants: “Bring him here even if you have to put a fucking gun against the doctor’s head.” [8]When Kasab was discharged so peremptorily at the behest of Maria and against the order of commissioner of police Hasan Gafoor the doctor wrote in the patient record note on Kasab “Discharged against the medical advice.” However the inspector who took the discharge warned Maria only to hear the retort “This is no time for the fucking Geneva Conventions.” Another instance of the same animal nature of Maria: “My heart is telling me I should strangle this guy, here and now.” All the assistants of Maria there proposed two sources of torture, one, let Kasab run so a bullet would reach him and finish him, two, hang him in the prison and make it look suicide. These are tried and tested methods of torture as proven by the murder of Mohammad Shakeel of Delhi in another case. Maria showed his blunt knuckles to Kasab when he told him that he would prevent him from death so that he would not become a martyr and go to heaven. Kasab was finally hanged and where he went no one knows. However the perplexities continue like why Maria was itching to undertake operational duty of taking control of Kasab when he was stationed at the Control Room to do coordination in which he behaved suspiciously for why should he direct Ashok Kamte and Karkare to go to him while Gafoor had required them elsewhere. Why Maria did not send reinforcement when he was sitting in the Control Room just on the back of the lane where the action was taking place. For forty minutes the three injured officers lay on the lane of Rangbhavan while three police vans passed them and no notice was taken! The FBI can visit our prisons and abduct Anita Uddaiya to the US to verify that six landed at Cuffe Parade while ten were killed in 26/11. But surprisingly except FBI no national prevention of cruelty mechanism was even remotely considered though Kasab was in prison for several years. One of the innocent accused having spent 12 years in prison had his hand bone broken even when he was innocent and had nothing to do with the Akshardham temple attack. Why this inconsistency? Is the US more important than the indigenous people? [1]http://www.ohchr.org/en/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/OPCAT.aspx Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Adopted on 18 December 2002 [2] [ http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/interview/torture-is-a-public-secret-expose-the-hypocrisy/article5097338.ece#.UimXwmejJSU.gmail [3] facsimile [4] Urdu Times, March 8, 2010 [5] Adrian Levy and Cathy-Scott Clark, The Siege: the attack on Taj Mahal Hotel Penguin India 2013 p.232 [6] Letter to Member of Parliament Shri Mohammad Adeeb [7] Asian Age, July 27, 2014 [8] op cit.