|
Swami Aseemanand’s confession before
the metropolitan magistrate of Tees Hazari Court has finally put
the seal of legal validity over what had been circulating for
months now, since the surfacing of the audio tapes seized from
Dayanand Pande’s laptop. That Hindutva groups had been plotting
and executing a series of bomb blasts across the country—including
Malegaon (2006 and 08), Samjhauta Express (2007),Ajmer Sharif
(2007) and Mecca Masjid (2007).
For the past several years however,
dozens of Muslim youth have been picked up, detained, tortured,
chargesheeted for these blasts—with clearly no evidence, except
for custodial confessions (which unlike Swami’s confessions have
no legal value). Report after report has proved that the
Maharashtra and Andhra police willfully refused to pursue the
Hindutva angle preferring to engage in communal witch-hunt—or as
in the case of Nanded blast—where the evidence was so glaring as
to be unimpeachable—weakening the prosecution of these elements.
What is striking today is not the revelation contained in
Aseemanand’s confessions but that it should have taken the
country’s premier and pampered security agencies this long—four
years after the Malegaon serial blasts, and even longer since the
explosions elsewhere in Maharashtra—to unravel the Hindutva terror
networks. Especially so, when Maharshtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare
had, as far back as 2008, communicated to the Hyderabad Police the
sensational claim by Col. Purohit that he had procured RDX from an
army inventory when he was posted in Jammu and Kashmir in 2006.
While the Hyderabad Police having conveniently arrested over 70
Muslim youth, tortured them at private farmhouses and extracted
confessions, refused even to seek Puroshit’s custody; the Haryana
ATS investigating the Samjhauta Express blast questioned Dayanand
Pande but then pleaded that the trail had turned cold, thus
washing its hands off. The use of RDX in the Samjhauta blast was
touted as proof enough of Pakistani involvement in the Samjhauta
blast; the crucial piece of evidence, the suitcase carrying the
bomb was traced to Kothari Market in Indore, but the Haryana ATS,
possibly under pressure or simply incredulous about the
possibility of Hindutva terror appeared paralyzed.
Amnesia about Narco-Analysis?
What is one to make of the reports
of the Narco-analysis tests conducted on SIMI activists, including
Safdar Nagori his brother Kamruddin Nagori and Amil Parvez in
April 2008, which claimed expediently that SIMI activists “had
helped carry out the Mumbai train bombings of July 11, 2006 and
the Samjhauta Express blasts of January 2007...with the help of
Pakistani nationals who had come from across the border.” India
Today magazine had proudly claimed in an ‘exclusive’ that the
Narco-tests revealed “SIMI’s direct links with not only the Mumbai
train bombings which killed over 200 persons but also links with
the Samjhauta Express blast of February 2007 which killed 68
persons.” The reports of the Narco test on Nagori claimed that he
had revealed that “some persons from Pakistan” had purchased the
suitcase cover at Kataria market, Indore, while a SIMI activist
“helped them to get the suitcase cover stitched”. Nagori is said
to have named Abdul Razak and Misbah-ul-Islam of Kolkata as key
people who provided crucial support to SIMI’s Indore unit in
executing the Samjhauta train blast.
As for the Malegaon blasts, Nagori is said to have ‘admitted’
during the Narco test that some Muslim members were involved and
he was aware of it; and he attributed the Hyderabad blast to one
Nasir—who according to Nagori disliked the owner of the Gokul Chat
stall—who was arrested a few months’ prior to Nagori’s arrest.
Other important information revealed in the exclusive story is the
Nagori claim that “most of the SIMI activists knew about other
bomb conspiracies across the country” and the presence of sleeper
cells in Hubli. (Sandeep Unnithan, India Today, 19 September
2008).
So why did Nagori decide—even if in a drugged state—to take credit
for the blasts that have now been proven to be the handiwork of
Sangh offshoots? To boost SIMI’s sagging image? Or maybe to score
brownie points over rival factions within SIMI?
Or perhaps, as several scientists, jurists and civil rights
activists have been pointing out, Narco-analysis not only robs the
suspect’s rights and dignity—amounting to third degree—but is also
highly unscientific, dubious and undependable as evidence in
investigations. It is entirely possible for the investigator to
induce, communicate his/ her ideas and thoughts to the suspect,
thereby eliciting a response favoured by the investigator and the
police theory—whatever it happens to be at the moment.
Media or Hand Maiden of the Police?
What India Today was trying to disguise as a scoop was the result
not of any painstaking investigation, but the patronage of
security agencies. This is sadly becoming too routine in
supposedly investigative stories about blasts and terror strikes:
security agencies pass on dossiers and reports such as the Narco
tests to favoured journalists, who dutifully reproduce the police
version. The public naming of individuals and groups as
suspects—with little credible evidence—is usually a prelude to
detentions, arrests and torture of ‘suspects’. No doubt, claims
that SIMI members in Maharashtra were in the know of the bomb
conspiracy then afford greater freedom to the police to launch
manhunts for former SIMI members (even when the organization was
still not banned) as co-conspirators. Mass arrests following Mecca
Masjid blasts were accompanied by stories which implicated local
youth from Muslim-dominated localities such as Moosaram Bagh
(“Behind the Mecca Masjid Bombing: Communal Violence, Organised
Crime and Global Jihad Intersect in Andhra Pradesh’s Capital” by
Praveen Swami, Frontline,
May 23, 2007). Such stories lent a veneer of legitimacy to the
subversion of due processes of law—where the hype surrounding the
threats of Islamic terrorism justifies the shortcut methods of
investigation—namely illegal detentions, torture, custodial
confessions, narco-tests and the like.
On October 11, 2007 the Union Home Ministry claimed that the Ajmer
Sharif blast was the handiwork of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, which was
opposed to Sufi Islam, whose prime symbol was the Ajmer Sharif
dargah. And the very next day, Praveen Swami served up “The War
against Popular Islam” (The Hindu, October 12, 2007), wherein he
claimed that the bombing of the Ajmer dargah—as well as blasts at
Mecca Masjid and Sufi shrine in Malegaon—reflect a
“less-understood project: the war of Islamist neoconservatives
against the syncretic traditions and beliefs that characterise
popular Islam in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.” It turns out now
that Swami’s profound understanding has been turned on its head:
it was not rabid Islam’s war against popular Islam but Hindutva’s
revenge on the inherent syncreticism of India. Aseemanand is said
to have told the magistrate: “Since Hindus throng the Ajmer Sharif
Dargah we thought a bomb blast in Ajmer would deter Hindus from
going there.” (in Tehelka, 15 January, 2011). Again screaming
headlines about HUJI link created an atmosphere in which the
Rajasthan SIT could detain a dozen Imams, maulvis and madrasa
teachers, without producing the suspects in court, plucking them
from their native places and bringing them to Ajmer for
interrogation without even bothering to obtain transit remands.
More recently, the Varanasi blast occasioned yet another rash of
stories based on ‘sources’ in the Indian intelligence agencies
about Indian Mujahideen men on the run, in hideouts abroad, but
whose associates still live in places as predictable as Azamgarh
and Bhatkal. (For a fairly standard story see, “Indian Mujahudeen:
The
Hunt Continues” by Vicky Nanjapa.
http://vickynanjapa.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/indian-mujahideen-the-hunt-continues/)
Gear up for more arrests, shall we?
An apology? And some compensation?
Though the Mecca Masjid blast case
was transferred to the CBI, the Hyderabad Police registered three
cases related to conspiracies in order to retain control over the
investigations and indeed to push for its line of investigation
based on forced confessions extracted under torture. This is clear
demonstration of the high stakes Special Investigation Teams (SITs)
and Special Cells attach to cases such as
bomb blasts and terror attacks: terror investigations are
lucrative means of earning quick medals, promotions and awards—as
long as scapegoats (read Muslim youth) can be produced and paraded
as masterminds, conspirators and accomplices.
The Home Ministry must release a White Paper on the total number
of those arrested and in jail currently for the blasts now in
every single the blasts named by Swami Aseemanand as the handiwork
of his organization and associates. Those still languishing in
prisons must be released without any further delay.
Those whose lives have been destroyed, those psychologically
scarred and socially stigmatized by these false charges and
imprisonment deserve surely a public apology, from the state
governments as well as the Home Ministry. The former Home Minister
Shivraj Patil had expressed his satisfaction at the direction of
the Ajmer bomb probe—at the time when maulavis and madrasa
teachers were being picked up—and in 2009, P. Chidambaram had
pleaded that the investigations in the Mecca Masjid blast case had
reached a dead end with the death of the mastermind of the blast,
Shahid Bilal (the same Bilal whose house appeared prominently in
Praveen Swami’s article). More recently, when a Hindutva angle was
suggested by the Maharashtra ATS in the Pune Bakery blast, The
Maharashtra Home Minister, RR Patil threatened action against the
ATS Chief.
Even the exceedingly low levels of political propriety in our
country can be no excuse for not tendering an apology to the
victims of the witch-hunt. The Andhra Chief Minister has announced
grandly on the floor of the state assembly that he would tender an
apology if it was proved that Muslim youth had been deliberately
harassed by the police in the aftermath of the Mecca Masjid
blasts. The AP Chief Minister would do well to read the reports of
the National Minorities Commission and the AP Minorities
Commission, both of which laid bare the gratuitous violence
committed by the Hyderabad police on suspects. The CM appears to
be waiting for the report of the Justice Bhaskara Rao Commission
before offering an apology (newspaper reports on 17 Dec 2010).
Except that he forgot that the Commission was appointed to look
into the police firing after the Mecca Masjid blasts and not into
accusations of torture and illegal detention—and the Commission
already submitted its report to the CM three months ago, in
October 2010!
While we need to be vigilant that the investigations are now not
derailed by prejudice of security agencies and state governments;
the issue of compensation to those unjustifiably arrested and
tortured needs to be addressed urgently. Dr. Haneef’s case in
Australia—where the Australian government apologised and paid
undisclosed large sums of money as compensation for wrongful
terror accusations and detention—should serve as a model for us
here. The Andhra Pradesh Government’s offer of rehabilitation
package of Rs 30,000 –Rs 80,000 as loans (!) to those who suffered
arrests and torture can only add insult to the already inflicted
injury (“Andhra’s ‘Healing Touch’ to ‘innocent’ Muslims”, Indian
Express, 14 Nov 2008). Just for the sake of record, even these
loans have not materialsed. On the other hand, the state
government is contesting the damages of Rs 20 lakhs each being
claimed by the victims in the Hyderabad City Civil Court.
Finally, all those who colluded and covered up these sham
investigations need to be brought to justice: those in the
intelligence agencies, officers of the police and security
agencies, political bosses et al. The Hyderabad Joint Commissioner
of Police (Administration) Harish Gupta—who presided over the
Mecca Masjid
custodial confessions, torture and narco-analysis tests—must be
held accountable. As must be each and every police officer who
participated in this charade of investigation; in this large scale
violation of the rights of the accused by subjecting them to
brutal torture, and in doing so, undermined their own office.
Police officers must be charged and tried for their criminal acts
of violence against the youth—whom they knew to be innocent—as
well as gross dereliction of duties for deliberately building
their investigations on falsehoods in so serious a crime as bomb
blasts.
We shouldn’t have had to wait for a change of Swami Aseemanand’s
heart to reach this far.
Manisha Sethi is a
Delhi based activist associated with
Jamia Millia Teachers'
Solidarity Group
|
Comments
|
Quick links