Premonition And Terrorism: Malegaon And Gujarat
By Mustafa Khan
14 August, 2010
Countercurrents.org
Malegaon is a strange place, unnecessarily feared and foully derided for no fault of its own. Those who are afraid to come or marry here and scurrilously speak of it do not know its pulse. It is free from tension and strife unless the people see any design in the events. How come they do it? A bizarre incident of dead cows found on the high way sends them to call relatives to safety and not venture out of house and one’s neighbourbood. When the local people see a police van with Nasik or Mumbai marking they fear that the police have come from outside to arrest someone. Sometimes they see extraordinary excitement over an issue and they are filled with premonition that they are in for some trouble like a madrasa girl consuming acid and Shiv Sena making a hullaballoo over it. As apprehension passes down the spinal cord they begin to grind wheat, buy necessary foodstuff or ration. The town is made infamous for communal tension and riots and inordinate long periods of curfew when people find meeting both ends impossible. Foodstuff is the top priority after safety.
In 2006 as the Ganesh festival approached there was this instinctive foreboding. Something terrible was on the way. Within forty eight hours it happened. Four bombs that exploded on September 8, 2006 killed more than 37 people and injured more than 200. The police began questioning 20 Hindus and then suddenly they changed the track and started arresting Muslim youths alleging them to be members of SIMI, Students Islamic Movement of India. The mainstream newspapers reported that it was all on account of the schism of Sunni, Deobandi, Wahabi. No Muslim in the town was convinced about it as they felt that the local youths could not fit in what Arshy Malik depicts in his poem “khankhaon pe jaley deep bhujhane walo”. There was no one who wanted to kill himself in a fidayeen attack or suicide bombing: “boo men barud ki janat ke kamane walo”. And as the police also were perplexed that nobody had claimed responsibility, the people knew that there was no one of the type: “khudkashi ker ke jasn manane walo”.
One of the earliest arrested was Noorulhoda. He was tortured and his signature obtained on a blank paper but his three narco tests and brain mapping drew blank. He was arrested six times at least on sundry charges and the courts acquitted him. The courts acquitted him in arms haul case of May 13, 2006. The police wanted him to own up responsibility for the July 11, 2006 local train explosions in Mumbai but found no evidence and he was again set free. Going back to August 18, 2001they had arrested him for sheltering terrorists but there was no proof. These attempts had failed. When 2006 blasts took place and the police changed the track they again arrested him. Inspector Malegaonkar (LLB, Nasik) tortured him and questioned him for eight hours and then rationalized: “Why are you keeping a beard? You are still young and also offer namaz five times a day, don kurta, pyjama and cap. There are many other Muslim youths of your age but they do not do that and why you do all that. You are a hardcore and fanatic Muslim.” The syllogism seems to conclude: you fit in the description and therefore you are a terrorist. Unlike another bearded, SAR Geelani, Noorlhoda did not get a Ram Jethmalano to argue in the court for him and so he is languishing in jail for the last five years.
In contrast to Noorulhoda there is another bearded man, potbellied thanks to years of surfeit on choicest delicacies, clad in neat kurta and pyjama, flabby due to luxurious life and a huge amount of money stashed away for future. Driven in government cars with even ministers in waiting for him as he is the favourite of the Chief Minister and has his ears and his consent for the asking. Amit Shah.
Look at the battle royal fought for him in the Supreme Court. On Thursday August 12 his counsel accused the CBI of having taken a political brief of the Congress party in order to dislodge Modi government. Jethmalani was melodramatic, there was a conspiracy hatched by the central government and a subplot of conspiracy by the lower level staff of the CBI. He insidiously suggested that the director of the agency had even scoffed at the evidence gathered against Amit Shah. Even before the SC ordered the CBI to investigate the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case on January 12 this year the agency had begun hunt for Amit Shah. What Jethmalani does not say gives away the real thing that Modi and Shah have been in the lime light of the criminal world for much longer time. They had used Sohrabuddin in extortion business for quite some years. They have also been registering false cases of criminal involvement in shooting, smuggling, etc, of those whom they were using in multipurpose murky dealings like the two builder brothers Raman Patel and Dashrat Patel, Sohrabuddin, and Tulsiram Prajapati, etc. A diligent investigating officer can follow a lead with tenacity of application and devotion and unearth very secret matters. That need not mean holding a brief for a political party.
On the other hand the CBI did not investigate Malegaon 2006 case except putting signature and seal to what Malegaon police and ATS under KP Raghuvanshi had done. This despite the fact that the government had handed over the case to it and it had taken some years to work on the case and the SC asking it for its periodic report. In fact it did not even look in the evidence honestly. It reproduced the approver Abrar Ahmed’s consumer application form for mobile phone ( 98233436809) without bothering to see that his signature was not obtained at the three spaces indicated on the form. That surely raises serious question that what Abrar claimed in his affidavit is true that the phone was provided by no other than the SP Rajwardhan and all the recording done on it was at the insistence of the police. Rajwardhan had shared the recording with Lt Col Shrikant Purohit and must have also let Sudhakar Pandey and the Sadhvi Pragyasingh know it. This is so because Abrar claims that it was the police officer Rajwardhan who had arranged meeting with Purohit, Pandy, the Sadhvi and others.
Abrar also claims that the 2006 blast some doctors were involved and he names Dr Bipin Parekh, Dr Rajendra Amin, etc. Instead of following the lead the police arrested Dr Farogh Mukhdumi. Parekh’s phone number is traced in Pragyasingh’s phone as well. This could not be just because she had attended a religious discourse in Malegaon that is why her phone had the doctor’s number in the memory car. If Parekh, Amin and Someshwar Shankar are arrested it would not surprise anyone because of the premonition.
When Abrar had disclosed their names to Rajwardhan he was taken aback. The senior police officer even used Abrar’s brother in law Wardha to persuade him to toe the police line and Wardha had a gun given to him to watch Abrar. That is quite ominous. Had the CBI been quite sincere in its work it would have thoroughly inquired into what Abrar has said in his affidavit to the MCOCA judge YD Shinde.
If the central government according to Jethmalani had used CBI in a conspiracy to dislodge Modi why did not the government show any interest in Malegaon 2006 case? This is puzzling and only CBI director can explain. Or will he again scoff at the evidence collected by his agency in the Malegaon case.
Sohrabuddin case: CBI gets 3 months - India - The Times of India
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Sohrabuddin-case-CBI-
gets-3-months/articleshow/6300970.cms#ixzz0wTb4XpqM
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