Isn't This Hitler’s Tactic?
By Subhash Gatade
24 October,
2008
Combat
Law
We can never forget that everything that Hitler did in Germany
was ‘legal,’ and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters
did was ‘illegal.’ It was ‘illegal’ to aid
and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany, but I am sure that if
I lived in Germany during that time I would have comforted my Jewish
brothers even though it was illegal… we who engage in nonviolent
direct action are not creators of tension. We merely bring to the
surface the hidden tension that is already alive.
— Martin Luther King, Jr
Has anyone heard about Tariq Ahmad Batloo? This Kashmiri trader’s story is rather unbelievable. He is at present languishing in one of those 'high security prisons' in Kashmir meant for 'dreaded terrorists'. In fact, Batloo's arrest in Goa last year had made headlines where it was claimed that he was arrested while he was getting off the Mangala Express carrying a 'kilo of RDX, grenades and detonators in his suitcase' and planned to 'set off bomb blasts in Goa'.
There were many loopholes in the case and when it became evident that it was a frame-up and Batloo was picked up a full week before his 'official' arrest, he was acquitted by the judge.
But that was not the end of his tragic story. The 'Herald' a respected daily in Goa in its editorial 'Making of a Terrorist' had given details of aftermath of his acquittal (Panjim, July 15, 2008) and concluded :
'The strange case of Tariq Ahmed Batloo – the man who was released by a Goa Fast Track Court only to be seized by plain clothes policemen outside the New Delhi airport and whisked away in a car, after which Jammu & Kashmir policemen claimed he was arrested from a ‘hideout’ in Jammu – will probably come back to haunt us all.'
For anyone
who is a close watcher of the 'terrorism' scene in the country it
would be a mere cliche to say that the case of Tariq Ahmad Batloo
is not an exception. There is a growing list of innocent people from
minority community who have been apprehended on one pretext or other,
branded as 'terrorists', tortured for months together to extract some
confession from them and ultimately booked in some case to spend prime
time of their lives behind bars.
Of course, at times the plans by the police to 'criminalise' and 'terrorise'
the religious minorities prove unsuccessful.
It was the end of March that the Special Investigation Team from Tamilnadu discovered that the cases registered against five Muslim youths in Coimbatore were fabricated by the police. (The Milli Gazette, April 1-15, 2008) July 2007 had witnessed arrest of five youths Haroon Basha, Malik Basha, Ravi alias Tipu Sultan, Bolo Shankar alias Theequrrahman and Shamsudheen on the basis of "secret information". The police version of the story talked of a conspiracy by this group to plant bombs in various hospitals in Coimbatore supposedly to increase the influence of 'Manitha Neethi Pasarai' (MNP) a human rights organisation. It was also announced that the police have seized pipe bombs from the accused. As is always the case a section of the media carried stories based on the police version.
When MNP's claim that the whole episode were a fabrication by the police, gathered broader support then the government was also forced a start a fresh enquiry in the case by the SIT. The SIT officials even recommended action against the cops — namely Intelligence assistant Commissioner Rathina Sabhapati and his associates — who had arrested the five youth belonging to a 'Manitha Neethi Pasarai' (MNP) a human rights organisation to malign the group.
Of course it would not be improper to say that the act by the Coimbatore police pales before another case involving the Delhi Police itself. The case pertains to two persons namely Mohammad Marouf Qamar and Irshad Ali, residents of namely Bhajanpura and Sultanpuri, Delhi, who were working as informers for the Special Cell of the Delhi police. It has been more than two-and-half-year that they are languishing in Tihar Jail on false charges of "Al Badr terrorists".
When MNP's claim that the whole episode was a fabrication by the police
gathered broader support, then the government was also forced a start
a fresh enquiry in the case by the SIT. The SIT officials recommended
action against the cops
Thanks to their refusal to continue working for Special Cell who wanted
to send them to as moles in a militant camp in Kashmir, they were
first kidnapped by the police themselves and later showed that they
were nabbed from Mubarak Chowk bus stop on GT Karnal road in North
Delhi on February 9, 2006 with two kgs of RDX and pistols. Later it
was revealed that Qamar was abducted from his Bhajanpura residence
on December 22, 2005 whereas Irshad Ali went missing from his Sultanpuri
home on December 12.
Later Qamar and Ali both moved Delhi High Court and in protest against police harassment asked their lawyer Sufiyan Siddiqui not to file any bail application. When the matter came for hearing the 'holes' in the case became evident where their counsel produced records of calls between them and Special Cell officials before their "arrest" to prove that they were informers. Interestingly, statements of Special Cell officials contradicted each other. While the police had claimed that the two accused were nabbed from a J&K bus in the capital with RDX, neither it could produce tickets of the journey nor the driver or conductor of the said bus knew anything about the matter.
The CBI enquiry made it clear that the Special Cell's version "did not inspire confidence" (Hindustan Times, 'Some Respite for Police Officers who 'framed' Informers, August 6, 2008). It also agreed to the fact that the 'duo were victims of a conspiracy hatched by the Special Cell in collaboration with the IB officials. Justice Suresh has asked the CBI to proceed against the guilty officials.
It is disturbing that the role of the media which is considered the 'watchdog of democracy' is highly imbalanced and xenophobic in all such cases. It not only uncritically accepts police versions of the case, but is ever ready to become a party to the 'silencing' of news which can be discomforting for the powers-that-be. Bomb blasts in Kanpur which saw deaths of two activists of Bajrang Dal was a case in point. The English media was in the forefront of suppressing/underreporting the news which had exposed the big conspiracy of the Bajrang Dal-RSS combine to organise bomb blasts in northern India and precepitate communal tensions. (Bombs Defused In Newsrooms, Shahina KK, www.thehoot.org)
Sharadanagar, rather a non-descript locality in Kalyanpur, Kanpur has suddenly reached national-international headlines, thanks to a bomb-explosion in one of the private hostels run by a retired employee of KESKO Mr Shiv Sharan Mishra. Mr Mishra had built this private hostel, which had nine rooms and 14 students stayed in the hostel and Rajiv had kept one room with him.
The explosion witnessed the deaths of Rajiv alias Piyush, son of Mr SS Mishra — an activist of Bajrang Dal — and Bhupinder Singh Arora, a friend of Rajiv, and ex-convenor the city Bajrang Dal, in explosion and serious injuries to two others. The bomb explosion was so massive that there were cracks in all the walls of the hostel and bomb splinters reached 50 metres from the spot of the explosion.
There is a noticeable tendency on part of the police to rush to the
press immediately after arresting some person and dole out stories
of their success and relate the progress of the investigations. When
such claims are are publicised there is a perceptible increase in
animosity towards the targetted community
According to the police the explosives were meant to used during Sunday's
Janmashtami celebrations. On Monday police recovered some crude hand
grenades, lead oxide, red lead, potassium nitrate, bomb pins, timers
and batterires from the spot. The police felt that the quantity of
explosives stored there was enough to destroy half of Kanpur.
The most notable fact about the perpetrators of this conspiracy, who died during this explosion, is that both of them belonged to Bajrang Dal, the 'storm troopers' of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The leaders of the Bajrang Dal have conceded that they 'worked with the organisation' some time back and one of them happened to be the convenor of the city wing.
Looking at the grievous nature of the crime, and the fact that a major tragedy could be averted, it was expected that the state government with necessary help from the central government would try to unearth the real conspirators who were behind the plan. But nothing of that sort happened after the initial euphoria. Apart from narco-tests of two friends of the perpetrators — who themselves became victims — the police did not even enquire into the role played by a professor in Kanpur IIT who belonged to RSS and who was quite close to the duo. Neither the media nor the civil society deemed it necessary to push the matter further.
Of course this cavalier attitude of police as also intelligence agencies in the wake of a terrorist act committed by Hindu fanatic is not new. At a press conference held in Delhi ('Setalvad raps CBI on Nanded terror, August 29, 2008, Mail Today) leading social activist Teesta Setalvad and filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt reported the "massive cover-up operation" launched by the CBI of the Nanded terror incident which similarly saw deaths of two youths of Bajrang Dal activists in 2006. According to them the CBI did not apply 'sections of criminal conspiracy or booking the Bajrang Dal accused under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act' while 'submitting a chargesheet about this in March in the court.
They further add :
"The CBI chargesheet filed in March 2008 in the Nanded case is an eyewash. The CBI has watered down the entire terror trail and links to terror training grounds of Bajrang Dal youth in Maharashtra- - the Bhonsla school in Nashik and Nagpur - have not been explored. The Mumbai anti-terrorism squad (ATS) chargesheeted 11 persons for criminal conspiracy but the CBI did not even consider the possibility of a conspiracy — it has, in fact even diluted the ATS case."
A few days before this press conference senior Congress leader and ex Chief Minister of MP Mr Digvijay Singh had raised some pertinent questions about the blasts in the country in an interview to 'Tehelka'. He had asked why blasts occur whenever BJP is in trouble. He had also said that he had enough proof to show the RSS and its front organisations had been involved in bomb-making in earlier events as well.
As expected the media just ignored any discussion on this 'bombshell' of an information.
A three day 'People's Tribunal on the Atrocities Committed Against Minorities in the Name of Fighting Terrorism' organised by HRLN, Peace and other civil society organisations (August 22, 2008) brought to the fore the manner in which minorities are viewed and dealt with by the state and the civil society in today's India.
In the case of terrorism-related investigations, the police force,
which exercises power without any accountability, acquires further
immunity thanks to the special laws drafted for special conditions,
under which confession before a police officer is admissible as evidence
The People's Tribunal sought to question the manner in which terrorist
incidents/acts are treated in the country where 'Only people from
one community are arrested, only organisations of one sort are blamed
and motives too similar are rattled most of the times. Facts like
members of all communities dieing, including of the one being blamed
for the act, or the particular community targeting its own place of
worship simply go unquestioned.'
The deponents in the tribunal who came from 10 states, comprised of two types of people. People who were arrested by police on flimsy charges and then let off due to lack of evidence, relatives of people who are in jail under similar charges. Those who deposed, belonged to Muslim community. A few of the deponents also submitted copies of documents pertaining to their cases. The jury which comprised of eminent judges, social activists and journalists issued its interim report which emphasised that a large number of innocent young Muslims have been or are being victimised by the police on charges of terrorism in gross violation of law. The People’s Tribunal showed that police, intelligence agencies and even judiciary are constantly compromising civil liberties and constitutional rights all over India. It seems that the Indian State has become an apparatus that willfully ignores the basic human rights of minorities in the country. It rightly emphasised that it is the collective responsibility of society 'to ensure that the merchants of terror are punished but at the same time society has to take care that deep rooted prejudices do not develop against certain sections — so much so that these sections start wondering whether they are part of this society at all or not.'
A tendency on part of the police also came in for bitter criticism wherein police seemed to rush to the press immediately after nabbing some person and dole out stories of their success and relate the progress of the investigations. The media inadvertently or because of malice towards particular communities also reproduced this police version ad verbatim.
Interim recommendations of the People's Tribunal are worth consideration: Human Rights Commissions at the state as well as central level taking up such matters sincerely, courts becoming more cautious in granting police or judicial custody looking at the fact that alleged confessions of the accused can also be forced, under duress and doctored, courts awarding compensation for the destruction of life and reputation of persons acquitted, trial courts being provided with medical officer who can immediately examine any accused complaining of torture in Police or judicial custody, police should not be allowed to get blank papers signed by the accused, members of Bar Associations seeking to prevent lawyers from representing accused persons must be hauled up for contempt of court and for interfering with the administration of Justice. And the most important recommendation was addressed to the Indian government which talked of its signing the International Criminal Court Treaty known as the Rome Statute which has been signed by most countries.
It is a fact that there is a great disjunction between the claims by the police and the public perception about the same. And this gets further enhanced when there are grandiose claims about 'cracking any terrorism related case'.
The general public skepticism could be discerned at two levels.
The police force in the country is armed with tremendous power and little accountability which has made it a dangerous force. It is normally the case that as they can pick up any bear and parade it as a self-confessed tiger, they have little drive or motivation to go after the real tiger(s). This situation results in appalling intelligence failures by breeding incompetence and corruption within the force. It was not for nothing that in one famous judgement in the fifties Justice AN Mulla castigated it as 'the biggest organised goonda force in the country'.
In case of terrorism related investigations the police force which exercises power without any accountability acquires further immunity thanks to the special laws drafted for special conditions. If under normal law confession before a police officer is not admissible as evidence, under such laws such confessions are admissible. It follows that terrorism related investigations which are considered special always face credibility problems in this part of the world.
Gujarat is a classic case where one has been witness to the unfolding of this modus operandi. The memories of Sohrabuddin and Kausarbi encounter killings are still fresh when police force from two states — Gujarat and Rajasthan — coordinated their killing and presented it as killing of Lashkar-e-Toiba operatives who were planning to eliminate Narendra Modi and other senior leaders. Later it was revealed that controversial Gujarat IPS officer and “encounter specialist” D.G. Vanzara, now under arrest for the death of Sohrabuddin in November 2005, and his team of trigger happy police personnel had killed at least 15 people in the past few years in nine encounters on the alleged grounds that they were plotting to kill Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and other senior BJP leaders. He had also arrested scores of “terrorists” on similar charges.
As of now neither it is possible to predict when would the process of 'terrorisation' and 'stigmatisation' of particular communities would end nor it is possible to predict when would the division of peoples in holy-cows-and-scapegoats would end.
As of now there seems to be no end to this phenomenon — wherein the long arms of injustice pick up scapegoats to cover up incompetence. Nor does one see an end to the phenomenon of 'holy cows' whereby people/organisations irrespective of their crimes against the people of the country are protected to the extent of being given absolute impunity. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the future of India as a republic is at stake because of this.
—
The writer is a Delhi-based freelance journalist
