Any
Apologies For Paddars!
By Subhash Gatade
19 February, 2007
Countercurrents.org
The name of Canadian-Syrian Mahel
Arar is not unfamiliar today in the rest of the world.
The travails and tribulations
of this young software engineer who became a victim of the US government's
extraordinary rendition programme have been recounted umpteen times.
We very well know how he was seized by CIA operatives during a stopover
at New York in 2002 and was secretly sent to Syria.Lodged in a grave
like cell in Syria, Arar was repeatedly tortured to extract information
which he did not know. Ultimately his tormentors released him within
a span of year and half without ever being charged with a crime.
Looking back it is clear
that Mahel Arar became a victim of the Islamophobia manufactured by
the likes of Bush-Blair in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.
Recently Stephen Harper,
Prime Minister of Canada sought public apology for the ordeal which
Maher went through and for the role played by Canadian officials in
the whole affair . The Canadian government also gave him nine million
dollars as compensation. Mr Harper said in full public view of the media
"On behalf of the government of Canada, I wish to apologize to
you, Monia Mazigh (Arar’s wife) and your family for any role Canadian
officials may have played in the terrible ordeal that all of you experienced
in 2002 and 2003.”
Ofcourse Mahel's saga reminds
us of the ordeal through which Tariq Ahmad Dar, a Kashmiri by birth,
went through in recent times. Tariq, a Kashmiri by birth, had carved
out a niche for himself in business in B'desh and was also one of the
most successful models in the country. Many top corporate houses had
signed him.But September 2006 changed all that.
One fine morning a team of
security personnel from Bangladesh Rapid Action Force raided his house
and jailed him for being a RAW agent. In jail he was badly tortured
to extract some confession. Ultimately when the security forces failed
to get any evidence against him, they released him without charging
him with any crime. Tariq, feeling relieved over his release, caught
the next flight to Delhi to meet with his parents. But he did not knew
what was waiting for him. At the Delhi airport, the personnel of the
Delhi police, immediately arrested him for being a terrorist owning
allegiance to Lashkar-e-Toiba, a dreaded terrorist organisation working
across the continent.
If in Dhaka jail, the Bangladesh
Rapid Action Force were his tormentors, inside Tihar, he was subjected
to similar harassment by Indian security agencies. Of course, he was
released after 90 days when the police failed to gather any evidence
against him and failed to present a chargesheet. Today, Tariq is a bitter
man.He is finding himself in a blind alley with a career ruined by false
charges and a family which underwent tremendous emotional trauma during
all these months.
Looking at the ordeal through
which Tariq went through, is it asking for too much that custodians
of democracy in our country and our neighbouring country, should come
forward and seek apologies from this innocent young man for whatever
wrong which was done to him by their own people. But apologies and that
also coming from the custodians of our country are unthinkable at least
in the subcontinent.. One cannot even expect that the office of the
Delhi police or the Bangladesh Rapid Action Force, would have issued
even a formal apology to Tariq. And as far as Tariq or his family members
are concerned, one cannot expect them to pursue the case at judicial
level, so that guilty officers are punished and the Indian government
decides to compensate him for the role played by its own people in his
tragic ordeal.
Of course anyone familiar
with the Indian situation may easily notice the rampant misuse of various
laws of detention and confinement. We have plethora of cases before
us where one finds innocent people being targeted and criminalized for
no fault of theirs.
In worst cases they are also
killed in fake encounters to gather gallantry awards by the custodians
of law and order themselves. It is not for nothing that Kashmir has
erupted into a show of mass anger where many similar cases have come
to limelight. The exact quantum of such killings would never be known,
looking at the fact that the people in power go all out to cover their
acts of commission and ommission and defenders of human rigths try to
go the extra mile to document each every of such killings/ disappearances.
The year 2003 had seen "[o]fficial
acknowledgement that many scores of people may have been killed in the
custody of India's security forces." According to a report filed
by Phil Reeves in Delhi ( The Independent 23 June 2003) "A provincial
minister told the state’s legislature this weekend that there
had been “144 alleged custodial killings” by security agencies
and local police since 1989, when violence erupted in Indian-administered
Jammu and Kashmir. Abdul Rehman Veeri also gave the number of people
reported missing in the past 14 years as 3,931, a figure that will be
seized on by human rights campaigners demanding an investigation into
the “disappearances” in Indian-controlled Kashmir. "
Notwithstanding the recent
eruptions in Kashmir, which has rather prompted the powers that be to
take some corrective actions, we should not forget that within the law
and order machinery itself, discrimination against certain communities
and sections of our society has been internalised to a great extent.
All of us have been witness to the way the probe in the Malegaon bomb
blast proceeded and the way continuous stigmatisation of the minority
community went on unabated despite clear evidence that Hindutva extremists
had unleashed this reign of terror.
To be very frank, in all
such cases it is difficult to differentiate whether the people are ruled
by forces of the 'programmatic communalist variety ( like the BJP or
Shiv Sena) or the 'pragmatic communalists' like Congress.
It then becomes impossible
to forget Mohammad Afroz , who was arrested after 9/11by the Mumbai
police and was charged for planning a terrorist attack . It was told
to the pliant media then that this 'dreaded terrorist' wanted to crash
a plane piloted by him on the British house of Commons and Australia.
A special team from Mumbai police especially went to these countries
but could not bring back any evidence. Ultimately it took the whole
charge as a grand fabrication. It was a time when Maharashtra was ruled
by a Secular front which comprised of parties like Congress and NCP.
And what happened to the
'dreaded terrorists' arrested in connection with the four year old attack
on the Raghunath temple in Jammu.The courts have finally absolved all
the accused of any charges and have advised the police to properly use
its minds in handling sensitive cases of such nature.These innocent
people had to languish in jail for such a long period for no fault of
theirs.
As of now Kashmir is up in
arms over the series of fake encounters staged in the central Kashmir
district of Ganderbal last year. Two senior police officials who were
said to be at the heart of a rogue police and army ring responsible
for a series of fake encounters have also been arrested. The cold blooded
murder of Larnoo resident - Abdul Rehman Paddar, a carpenter by trade
has shocked many.
It remains to be seen who
will seek apologies from Paddar's near and dear ones ? Who would gather
the courage to stand before Paddar's widow and children with folded
hands and say 'On behalf of the Government of India, I wish to apologize
to you ..?
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