Update
On Malegaon
By Subhash Gatade
19 September, 2006
Countercurrents.org
The
final word is yet to be out.
The intelligence people alongwith
other branches of internal security seem to be burning mid-night oil
to reach a definitive conclusion. The mystery surrounding the bomb blasts
in Malegaon, which saw deaths of 31 innocents and 250 people wounded,
has not yet been revealed. Ofcourse there are enough clues to reach
the final answer. But now it is becoming clear that for the powers that
be what ultimately matters is not truth but the political costs to be
paid to sustain it. As of now the formal position vis-à-vis the
identity of the perpetrators is still unchanged. It could be Lashkar
or Bajrang Dal. It just means the roots and the perpetrators of the
bomb blasts in Malegaon on Shab-e-Barat could be traced to either the
Lashkar-ISI nexus or to the Bajrang Dal-Mossad connection.
It may be one’s wishful
thinking that ‘secular polity’ should not appear one sided
at this crucial juncture, but one’s experience in this case is
not very encouraging. We have all been witness to the blanket targeting
of the Muslims in Bombay, in the immediate aftermath of the recent Mumbai
blasts.
In the meanwhile the only
silver-lining to the otherwise gloomy scenario is the way people in
Malegaon have exhibited tremendous zeal in maintaining communal harmony.
The holding of communal harmony rallies has rather become a regular
feature of this post-blast period. It is said that ‘adversity
unites’ and perhaps ordinary citizens of the ‘communally
sensitive’ town have realized in their hours of crisis the motivations
of the fanatics who peddle their hate project in the language of the
believers.
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The first official confirmation
of sorts that the Sangh Parivar organizations could have a role in the
blast came from the Prime Minister himself. Emphasising the need to
investigate the functioning of the Hindu Rightwing formations he clearly
stated that he could not confirm or rule out the possibility of the
involvement of Bajrang Dal in the bloody act at Malegaon. He made this
calibrated statement en route to Havana, while going for the NAM summit.
“ Bajrang Dal continues
to be under the scanner. “There is no reason to rule them out.
We still haven’t found anything to prove that Bajrang Dal is not
involved,” a senior officer said. The Hindu fringe group is under
investigation in Malegaon because of the role of its activists in various
bomb blasts. “ (PM doesn’t rule out Bajrang role, Josy Joseph,
Wednesday, September 13, 2006 00:50 IST, DNA India) Forget the radical
media, even a conservative newspaper like Times of India, instead of
unleashing its usual tirade against the ‘omnipresent Jihadi terrorists’,
carefully captioned its writeup ‘Bajrang Dal or Lashkar’
(9 th September, Updated at 12.311 jrs. IST) while discussing the bomb
blasts in Malegaon. In the particular write-up it specifically mentioned
the modus operandi adopted by the Bajrang Dal in blasts at Parbhani’s
Mohammadi Masjid and mosques at Purna and Jalna earlier this year. Of
course it did not rule out the possibity of the involvement of Lashkar
in this particular case.
The scepticism writ large
among the wider populace about the pace of investigations is understandable.
Compared to the alacrity with which the needle of susupicion was pointed
towards Lashkar-e-Toiba, in the immediate aftermath of the Mumbai train
blasts on 11 th July, the investigations here appear to be moving at
snail’s pace.
Of late the impartiality
of the state police force in Maharashtra has also come under cloud.
People know that it is the same police force, which was found to be
wanting when bomb blasts occured in Nanded at a RSS workers house (6
th April 2006) which saw deaths of four of its activists. In this particular
case despite finding evidence that the Bajrang Dal-RSS workers had hatched
a big conspiracy to create 'communal disturbance' in the whole area
on the eve of the Advani's Suraksha Yatra, it was not followed up with
diligence.
Discussing the Malegaon blasts
Indian Express in its 18 th September edition makes a point which needs
careful scrutiny “…[I]slamic militant groups in India from
the days insurgency began in Kashmir in the 1990s have not attacked
mosques or shops where religious books are sold’ Ofcourse it is
also of the opinion that ‘Chances of Hindu fundamentalists being
involved also seem remote as, sources pointed out, they do not have
the capability to make sophisticated devices..”
While the newspaper has every
right to include/ exclude formations from its ambit of investigations,
the state and its machinery need to be impartial. And Radhika Koppikar
of the ‘Outlook’ (13 September 2006, Web Only) was shocked
to learn the opposite:
“That the investigators
should so blatantly rule out involvement of any Hindutva outfit is cause
for concern. …. the fact remains that the cops are not chasing
some clues. Take the case of "fake beard" as it has come to
be known here. A tailor Aqeel Ahmed Ansari who works near the Bada Kabristan
told cops and bystanders that he had picked up a body from near one
of the bicycles and handed it over to volunteers in the ambulance, that
this body did not have the lower part of the torso and it's beard had
come off in the ambulance. The suggestion being that it was a fake beard
and therefore the body of a perpetrator. Coincidentally, the two hospitals
that conducted post-mortems said that they had together handled 30 bodies
and none was without the lower half. “
People who are familiar with
the recent communal situation in Maharahstra very well know the significance
of a ‘fake beard’. It was in Nanded only, where the police
had discovered fake beards as well as dresses and caps normally worn
by Muslims, in a raid on a deceased Bajrang Dal-RSS activists house
in the aftermath of the bomb blast in April.
-SUBHASH GATADE,writer
and social activist, edits a Hindi journal 'Sandhan', regularly writes
for English, Hindi and Urdu publications. Can be contacted at [email protected]