The apathy of Muslims in confronting genocide in Gujarat 2002 Ominous parallels

Most meticulously preplanned genocide of Muslims in Gujarat 2002 passed into history by sheer apathy of Muslims of India. Their benighted leadership and self indulgent ignorant community made no headway. They could not make Sonia Gandhi, president of Congress party, to even privately meet the Ahsan Jafri family in their despair and loss. The slain Member of Parliament was from her party. The BJP despicably ignored him by refusing any mention any regret let alone a motion of mourning on his death. All this happened due to the rudderless community floating in stormy sea of communalism. What was more aggravating: the defiant and cruel rule in the state of Gujarat which used its state machinery to conduct the genocide thanks to the brazen and complicit role of the chief Minister, Narender Modi, was left unbridled by the central government. Furthermore, Modi had the temerity to muster hard core elements in his party to virtually brow beat the prime minister in the Goa conclave into toeing their line of let alone sacking him as chief minister but applauding him and retorting Muslims for their wont for not living with their neighbours in peace and tolerance. This kind of Nazi like behavior along with the pogroms of 2002 needs an exhaustive analysis of what caused the genocide and what really happened, the guilty and how the evil deeds have continued as examples pile up from post Modi scenario in the state of Gujarat, confirming Shakespeare’s dictum that the evil men do lives after them and continues to cast ominous shadows hereafter. There has been enough genocide in the world. They corroborate what the victims suffered at whose hands and for what. Writing on one such Leonard Peikoff observes in his book The Ominous Parallels “We dare not brush aside un-explained a horror such as Nazism.” Unfortunately against the background of the ascendance of Modi as PM writing about the genocide is not in “today’s mainstream. They will be part of tomorrow’s”. These words of Ayn Rand are part of the parallel to the rise of neo Nazism of after the World War Second but holds truth for Gujarat and the country under Modi. [1] There have been two genocides in India, Sikh genocide of 1984 and that of Gujarat 2002. The second was modeled on the first among the most corroborative evidence is the stipulated three days of the second in emulation of the first. The Muslims were entrenched in terrorism cases ascribed to them while it was the work of the Hindutva. Implicating innocent Muslims in such cases including the notorious fake encounters of Gujarat overwhelmed the minority community. In contrast the Sikhs were not besieged after the genocide of 1984. They retaliated more martially in the Khalistan movement of Sant Bhindranwale. But their resources were intact and there was no boycott against them. After lapse of 30 years they have not left the matter to oblivion by reaching the august portals of the UNO by their report covering: “pre-planned and deliberate killings of the Sikh community in 19 States of India, eyewash investigations by the successive governments, zero convictions and the failure of the Supreme Court to take cognisance of thousands of deaths during the first week of November 1984.” [2] Ominous parallels between the gas chambers of Auschwitz and the black hole of Naroda Patia or the inferno of Sardarpura are comparable. In the gas chambers of Nazis there were mushroom-shaped lids of vents through which they poured the amethyst-blue crystals of hydrogen cyanide upon the 2000 victims packed like sardines in the chamber. The fatal gas slowly started “delousing” them or “bathing” them. They were lured into believing that they would be bathed and cleaned and freshened. The Jews “piled up in one blue clammy blood-spattered pyramid, clawing and mauling each other even in death.” [3] But there are obvious differences. In the dry well of Naroda Patia the Muslims were forced to gather at the dry well at the point of gun by Babu Bajrangi-Maya Kodnani gangs of murderers. Then the petrol they had obtained from the State Transport Bus Workshop was poured on them. The Muslims hugged each other and then raised their arms to heaven for His mercy and knowing that their extinction was at hand they embraced each other and had a fiery funeral. There were some 800 of them. There were so many killed at Naroda Patia that the Commissioner of Police PC Pandey ordered the corps to be scattered to other places to lessen the casualty figure. In Sardarpura Muslims were decoyed by the Patels into believing that they would be sheltered. They were then locked into a single hall and a live electric wire attached to a rod was thrown into it. More than 30 were burnt alive. There was no electricity pole or connection there earlier. It was procured urgently on February 27, 2002 specifically for what would happen on the following day. In the case of the Sikhs in 1984 they were caught and their turbans and hair were doused with petrol and then burnt killing the hapless gruesomely. The militant Sikhs assassinated Indira Gandhi and General Vaidya. The Muslims did nothing of the sort. The allegation that the Muslims in the refugee camps like Juhapura would turn to terrorism proved to be false. It was this stasis in one sided suffering that generated the anguish of Akrabuddin Oweisi of AIMIM when he spoke of his helplessness in the face of untold suffering in his own Hyderbad. “I was hit by three bullets. One of them is still in my body. I was stabbed 70 times on my stomach; I was struck 40 times on my hand. My liver was punctured. My intestine came out of the stomach, 15 feet in length was cut to only 5 feet. I have trouble in eating. There is no iron in my blood. As a result there is dark before my eyes and I have instances of fit occasionally and I faint and fall.” All this happened to him in communal violence. Referring to violence perpetrated on Muslims and the boycott against them is enforced, he says “my heart feels it, it is disturbed and I feel anger at it and want to take it out on those who cause this. But when will the time come when we can avenge this?” Twenty five cror Muslims of the country are unsuccessful to sensitize the others about their plight. [4]This is placed in the context of Modi calling Muslims as puppies who come under the car and get killed and Praveen Togadia calling Akbaruddeen Oweisi as a dog of Hyderabad as well as how Muslims were targeted by bomb attacks in Malegaon and they alone were blamed for what they suffered. Like Slobodan Milosevic, Modi in April aroused the passions of extremists in Assam by threatening to expel the ‘illegal’ Bengali Muslims settled there while he did not bother about the Hindu refugees settled there. In 2011 the then chief minister Tarun Gogoi of Assam won election in Barak valley by declaring refugee status to Bangladeshi Hindus. Modi went beyond in his speech when he accused Mamta Banerjee and Congress: “You are concerned about infiltrators and not your own people ... they must go back, they are robbing the youths of India of their livelihood.” [5] That was on May 4, 2014 when Modi justified killing of 50 Muslims in Assam that started on May 1. This was in sequence to his speeches in April. The so called ‘illegal’ migrant Muslims have their valid papers and even then the pogroms were carried out. The NDFB militants slaughtered Muslims for supporting a non Bodo candidate in Lok Sabha election. In Kokrajhar, Chirag, Baksa and Udalguri. The other districts of Assam have also been witness to killing of Muslims: Dhubri, Barpeta, Bongaigaon 698 rioting in 2013 in Dhubri, 236 cases of rioting in Barpeta in February and August 2013, in Cachar 226, etc. In the May 2014 election according to Bhavdev Goswai had remarked that the NDFB rebels had supported BJP. The Congress leader Piush Hazarika had said that BJP “ will now use other terror outfits to execute its communal agenda in the state.”[6] In India the distinction between riots and genocide and terrorist attack is slurred for those involved in genocide are also terrorists known for their role and have been also involved in riots. For those involved in terrorist attacks on Ajmer shrine were also behind the attack on the Best Bakery in Baroda in 2002. It is due to the hate ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh which is committed to terminate all the Muslims unless they accept Hindu religion. During the genocide Modi had visited Naroda Patia and exhorted the Charra community that they should continue their extermination juggernaut the next day and the day after that. His lieutenants like Bajrangi and others averred that they ceased their work of mass massacre on the stipulated third day. [7]Naroda Patia too had its hermetically sealed gas chamber. The killers had busy action at the dry well and around. In the evening they returned to their areas where they discovered that some Muslims had hidden in the sewer. They rolled heavy boulders on the gutter and sealed it so that they would be suffocated by the poisonous gases. Next day their corpses were recovered. Samantha Power was very active in the first election campaign of President Barak Obama. She had seriously criticized America for supporting those regimes that were tainted with crimes against humanity and genocide. Power was slated to take a very important portfolio after election but she stood by her belief and left the campaign. Her grouse was that the US policy was for safeguarding the right to life and other human rights across the world and yet next day the US representative would vote for the countries and their rulers who were involved in genocide. India was against the genocide of the refugee camps of Palestinians in Sabra and Chatilla in Lebanon where defense minister Ariel Sharon had allowed the Israeli army to encircle the camps and slaughter the Palestinians. But after LK Advani let Moshe Dayan visit India and open its embassy things took a dramatic turn. In the aftermath of 9/11 the US made no efforts to criticize the genocide in Gujarat. During Modi’s three day visit President Barak Obama met him three times and even issued a joint editorial of Washington Post which reads: "The true potential of our relationship has yet to be fully realized. The advent of a new government in India is a natural opportunity to broaden and deepen our relationship. With a reinvigorated level of ambition and greater confidence, we can go beyond modest and conventional goals. It is time to set a new agenda, one that realizes concrete benefits for our citizens." “While our shared efforts will benefit our own people, our partnership aspires to be larger than merely the sum of its parts. As nations, as people, we aspire to a better future for all; one in which our strategic partnership also produces benefits for the world at large.” The new catch phrase: “Chalein Saath Saath” enshrined in the vision statement has become a repeated election slogan all over India with the addition of Modi’s name: Chalo chalein Moid key saath.” Such bonding of the two administrations is a slap in the face of Samantha Power. Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff were alarmed by the neo Nazism. It would be rather incorrect to say that Americans are not. Their refusal to visa to Modi was in right direction but there are other trends. One is that the US is a close ally of Israel and the Jewry in America has enormous control of the government. Furthermore the events of West Asia have repercussion on India. The concern for the Islamic States of Iraq and Syria is current theatre of war. Modi and his national security advisor Ajit Doval do not want the Americans to leave Afghanistan for the obvious reason that it would fall into the hands of the Talibans. So the Jewish lobby and the financial clout of the Gujarati diaspora have much in common to gain. Sonal Shah was also closely associated with the incoming administration of Obama in the first election campaign. She was dropped from an important post because of the huge amount of cash sent to India in 2002which had financed the genocide through VHP. The growing collaboration between Modi and Obama administration is ominous because they may produce weapons, export missile technology and other such joint ventures including sharing of nuclear technology which would make existing conflicts sustained for profit motive. Muslim countries do not figure in this let alone the Indian Muslims. However Modi is attempting too much. In the midst of this the refrain of protest in America cannot let the ghost of Modi rest: "Modi, Modi, you can't hide, you committed genocide!"[8] As India has chosen to align with the US it will now have the acquired syndrome of interpreting its own acts as has the US and other rich countries been doing. Noarm Chomsky in the 2002 Introduction of his book Pirates and Emperors, International Terrorism in the World remarks that the interpretation of 9/11 will “depend substantially on how the rich and powerful interpret this dramatic demonstration that they are no longer immune from atrocities of the kind they routinely inflict on others, and how they choose to react.” India was already doing it in 2002. It refused to consider 2002 genocide either as act of terrorism or genocide or holocaust. Till today it does not consider 1984 to be either just that. Modi is anyway fond of the crown of an emperor and always holding swords in his hands. A man is known by not only the company he keeps but the things he surrounds himself with. The failure of Muslims is that they could not gather enough support within or outside the country to have the UNO of International Criminal Court take cognizance of that. Two US citizens of Muslim origin in America lost their mother and grandmother in the genocide in Gujarat 2002. They have filed a case against Modi in the US courts. There is no sign that they would have the clouts to get the case heard at international fora. On the other hand VHP (America) has had enough to fund genocide and also resources to defend it and whitewash the pogroms.(9) Chilean President Augusto Pinochet and Slobodan Milosevic belong to other spheres of influence. [1] The Ominous Parallels, Leonard Piekoff Meridian 1993. Introduction. [2] http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/us-group-to-submit-1984-riots-report-to-un/article6amid489935.ece [3] William Shirer The Rise and Fall of the third Reich New York: Simeon and Shuster 1960 pp969-70 [4] Daily Tajuman –e- Urdu September 27, 2014 [5] http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/05/04/modi-assam-muslims-immigrant-congress-idINKBN0DK0FQ20140504 Modi rails against illegal immigrants after Muslim killings [6] India Today September 29, 2014 [7] Tehelka November 3, 2007 [8]http://www.asiantribune.com/node/85631 [9] http://stopfundinghate.org/

Ambiguous Prime Minister and “exported terrorism”

The basic premise of investigation in bomb blasts within the mainland India is to blame it on foreign involvement and it is of course Pakistan. Within this broad frame comes the local involvement and that is Indian Mujahideen. The calculated effect is that Indian Muslims bear the brunt of the accusation and serious consequences. Innocent members of the community are arrested including women and children. Having stigmatized the whole community is forced to wear the cross of ignominy and suffer untold misery and insult and violence. In most if not all cases the truth comes out much later that Muslims were not involved or the blast was not executed by them or it was some kind of accident which was made out to be a terrorist attack. In Brundwan, West Bengal, the crude explosive device that went off was made out to be a bomb blast in which the deadly RDX was used. Reacting to the attempt to turn it a big event and hunt and hound Muslim the Government Home Secretary Basudeb Banerjee made it clear: “We recovered a large amount of chemicals used in bomb making and crude bombs along with some SIM cards and phones. No IED or RDX was recovered.” [1] There is a premeditated attempt to turn it against the Muslims and BJP goes for it in full swing. This queers the pitch for the Muslims who may ultimately come out as innocent. So right at the beginning the Home Secretary squashed the sinister design when he said further: “The standard rule is to defuse bombs if they are recovered. The bombs were defused by the bomb disposal squad of CID following all the rules. An assistant director of the Central Forensic Laboratory was present and his team had already visited the spot. Moreover, senior officers of central agencies are in touch,” Therefore, this incident does not fit in the description of the event being exported from or imported in from across the borders. So in nutshell there are attempts to manufacture false accusation to pillory the minority community. It is as indigenous as the wherewithal that went in causing/producing explosion. In short stories or novelettes famed Urdu writer Sadat Hasan Mantoo often showed the absurdity of violence and terrorism of a bygone era, partition. Though, it was not a fashion to talk terrorism then even when terrorism was in full swing. After knifing to death the crowd in Mumbai and elsewhere discovered the victims to be of their same faith! How terrifying it was for determining the faith by unzipping the pants and often even not bothering that! That were hardly few days of new nations of Pakistan and India when the people were discovering and trying their new identity and the pen drawn line dividing what was one unified nationality. Toba Tek Singh of Mantoo had it right, a mad man in jail indecisive of which country to shift. If terrorism was ubiquitous then how have the borders changed our perception of it? It has suddenly become exported! With a new PM in office India is again switched back to the hazy partition. There have been many people including media persons who have questioned PM Narendra Modi’s grasp on facts of history. Still there are others who questioned him on recent history and contemporary events. When he addressed the Council for Foreign Relations in US he said that all terrorism in India is exported. There is no home grown terrorism. It was in the context of Al Qaida chief Ayman Alzawahiri’s video released early in September 2014. Modi’s observation does not square with the facts on ground for there is no Al Qaid branch in India. However, India has always blamed Pakistan for all acts of terrorism within the country! The only one Pakistani caught and hanged so far was Ajmal Kasab. How could it be exported then? Another context of his remark is Taliban in Pakistan-Afghanistan regions. That can pose problem Talibans have not crossed into India so far, may be because they are too much enmeshed in the two neighbouring countries. When there was an attack on Indian embassy in Kabul our national security advisor MK Narayanan had remarked that India would pay back in the same coin meaning thereby India also would retaliate. That India was involved in Waziristan, Pakistan, was acknowledged by PM Dr Manmohan Singh in a meeting at Sharm al Sheikh, Egypt. While still in the US Modi tweeted: ✔ @PMOIndia Follow We need to take the issue of terrorism very seriously. Sadly several nations never understood the real menace of terrorism: PM @narendramodi 11:22 PM - 29 Sep 2014 [2] Does Modi still really understand terrorism? He had held out threat to journalists who wanted to cover Gujarat genocide by saying that they would meet the fate of Daniel Pearl! Why did he have it witness in the US tour, it was very much there when he had not left for the US tour. Or did he not realize that Ahsan Jarfi had spoken to him to save the life of the people who had sought refuge there from the marauding extremist Hindus? They had encircled the housing society since nine in the morning of February 28, 2002. There was a striking police force at hand and yet it was shifted to another place. That the besieged Muslims were under imminent threat to their existence was clear as they were continuously firebombed, water supply was cut off, etc. This was terrorism. It was indigenized terrorism. Even the guns and rockets used there were manufactured in Gujarat and some by BJP, VHP, Bajrang Dal and RSS leaders cum business men. Tehelka of November 3, 2007 is full of the details. This is what Jaffrette Christoff means when he calls it emulating and stigmatizing. Emulating whom? (But) Stigmatizing whom? In our zeal to see the export of terrorism from across the border we never bothered why MK Narayanan was instrumental in preventing investigation in Samjhauta Express train attack on February 18, 2007. The Haryana police were on the right track. He said it would earn bad name for India and so he stopped the investigation. Why did the Punjab High Court grant Swami Asimanand bail in the Samjhauta Express when he had confessed that he was involved in it? And that this bail order was passed in September after Modi had already become the PM! Those who have proven record of terror are given bail whereas the overwhelming numbers of Muslims have no time from their daily life to plan and execute any blast and yet they are stigmatized. This is borne out by the record that no Muslim from India had taken part in 9/11 nor in any Al Qaeda attack anywhere else in India or overseas. So Modi’s expectation "Muslims of India will fail al-Qaeda" is hollow. The prime minister is like many from his state who are solely engaged in business and trade and hence his use of exporting terror is as if it was like cotton that Gujarat produced and exported to other countries over the centuries. Delhi has acquired sort of notoriety over killing innocent North Eastern Indians like the Nagas, Manipuris, etc. The incidents of terrorism here are not exported from any negihbouring country, Bangladesh or Pakistan. However, there is a proviso that terror events in Nigeria may have been partly the cause of the attack on three ‘Nigerians’ on September 28, 2014 in New Delhi. Mapaga (22) and Yohan (22) from Gabon and Guira (20) from Burkina Faso were brutally attacked by the mob of Hindus and almost lynched at Rajiv chowk metro station. Towards the end of the attack the three survivors took refuge in religion and shouted Nare takbeer, Allah-ho-Akbar and were countered by a splutter of Bharat Mata ki jai and a lone cry of Vande Matrum. The attackers beat them in groups and then took turn one by one as the beleaguered foreign nationals tried to climb the enclosure of the police station. One police man was there who initially tried to intervene and there were others who stood cheek by jowl from the police post as silent spectators. [3] This too was act of terrorism. The cause of the terror attack was imported from Nigeria. This sheer inhumanity belies the traditional belief that we Indians are traditionally hospitable to strangers and foreigners. Even so the victims were not from Nigeria but from Gabon and Burkina Faso. This is a travesty of terrorism that in the aftermath of 9/11 Sikhs were attacked and killed and now the mistaken identity played havoc in our own land. But because they were Muslims is what clinched the issue. Terrorism is neither good nor bad in kind says the PM but why some even in mistaken identity are not allowed to prove their innocence? The global dimension of terrorism is very much there but India has exclusively blamed terrorism from across the border, Pakistan. So why this Nigerian extension? Despite our protestation that we are a peace loving country and alien to terrorism we cannot pretend to be ignorant of the fact that the West has categorized Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh as a terrorist organization. We can hardly ignore it as no other than the Terrorism Research Centre based in East Virginia, US, has taken it on its record. It is a research centre and a think tank. Dr Subramniyam Swami has often cited the centre selectively to show how India has been subjected to terrorism as no other country only to hide the other side that we too have terrorist organizations of our own, RSS, ULFA, etc. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat saying on Doordarshan on October 3, 2014 Dussera day that it is the West behind terrorism is complements Modi. However, Bhagwat like Modi is deeply ambiguous because he speaks of new incarnation of terrorism which is the product of the selfish interest of the West. Modi speaking from the US and Bhagwat speaking from Nagpur, India, have deliberately obfuscated the reference or geography of west. Do they have in mind West Asia in mind which includes the IS or Islamic States of Iraq and Syria or the West in the sense of what Samuel Huntington means when he refers to Islam and the West? Which is the west then? Has the West exported terrorism to the West Asia as a geopolitical strategy and is Al Qaida’s desire to open a branch in India to deal with Kashmir, Gujarat and Assam as an extension of it? And what is more ominous does Modi want to join arms production with the US to claim for its share in the profit in arms sale? Does Modi’s India want to emulate Israel and be in East but be like the West? Self interest is motivating factor for exporting terrorism and Bahgwat hints at it when he speaks of globalization and if any Indian leader who is more for globalization, it is a Gujarat born one for he knows how to power development. The Americans are obliged in the case of Israel and won’t mind to repeat it for India for Yankee profiteering knows no limit, moral or geographical. Lesson to learn: In terrorism call a spade a spade. If beheading by IS or Taliban is terrorism so is the beheading in the US Moore Farm where a cashiered employee tried to force a fellow worker to convert to Islam. When the victim resisted he beheaded him. This could not be jihad. This is indigenous and not exported. Terrorism is hatred for the other The Rajive chowk metro station terrorists hated Muslims, be they black or Asian. [5] Blaming others but never inspecting leads to blind alley. BJP has not learnt it and signs are it would never and hence preventive measure to ban terrorists who are terrorists and not patriots. Police failing to take action against are complicit in terrorism and hence need to be defined as terrorists. DG Vanzara had arrested the extremists who killed hundereds at Naroda Patia. He let them off without registering crime. Maya Kodnani and Vanzara need to be defined as terrorists. At Yakutpura in Vadodra the police assaulted women and children and burnt cars on during the last four days of September 2014.[6] The city has had many such incidents of arms planted by Vanzara to cause riot in favour of Modi and BJP around election. Modi as CM refused to learn can he refuse it now that he is PM? The violence and terror in 2002 and 2014 was home product and not imported from Pak. Or exported from their either. The four days were no love jihad period although it was Navratri. Viral Desai, VHP president in Bharuch threatening to perform dance before mosque is extension of terrorism but not e [1]http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/bjp-on-offensive-bengal-says-no-terror-link-found-in-burdwan-blast/ [2]http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-09-30/news/54475386_1_prime-minister-narendra-modi-terrorism-global-challenge http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Terrorism-is-a-threat-to-humanity-there-is-no-good-or-bad-terrorist-Narendra-Modi/articleshow/43830312.cms [3] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/they-kept-calling-us-nigerians-took-turns-to-hit-us/99/ ‘They kept calling us Nigerians… took turns to hit us’ http://youtu.be/0XHBOE93Oks [4] http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-rss-chief-mohan-bhagwat-claims-western-selfish-interests-leading-to-spread-of-terrorism-praises-india-s-mars-mission-2023237 [5] http://www.news9.com/story/26671662/your-2-cents-debate-over-workplace-violence-terrorism [6] http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-otherstates/90-arrested-for-vadodara-violence/article6467472.ece

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