As Israel Bomb Gaza, These Two Indian Judges Stand Tall
People with conscience, shaken by watching daily the images and videos of shattered and half/fully burnt dead bodies of the Palestinians, women and children included, wonder isn’t there a single person of integrity in the world’s power corridors, who like the two Indian judges, has the courage to stand against the Zionists and held them accountable for their crimes?
[On the remains of a demolished home in Nuh district of Haryana.]
August 07, 2023
Communal riots flared up in Nuh - a Muslim dominated district in Mewat region of Haryana, barely 02-hour drive from India’s national capital New Delhi. The riots were result of stones allegedly pelted by Muslims on the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) Brajmandal Yatra taken out on July 31, 2023.
Tension had gripped Nuh ahead of the VHP’s yatra following the reports that Monu Manesar – a Bajrang Dal activist allegedly involved in attacks on local Muslims in the name of protecting cow slaughter, was participating the Hindutva procession.
Some videos, purportedly recorded by Monu Manesar, also surfaced before the yatra where the Bajrang Dal activist was seen threatening Muslims. In another video, Bittu Bajrangi, a self-styled cow vigilante and Bajrang Dal member, was seen making sexist slur against local Muslims.
According to the reports, provocative slogans and gestures during the VHP yatra added fuel to the already charged atmosphere leading to the clashes between Hindus and Muslims on the fateful day.
As per the admission by a minister in Haryana government, Hindu participants of the procession were armed with sticks, swords, tridents and even guns. As happens in India, the riots started in Nuh spread to nearby Gurgaon, Faridabad, Palwal and other places where Muslims, and their homes, businesses and places of worship were targeted with impunity for the next few days.
Six people lost their life. Two of them were Homeguards – Neeraj Khan and Gursev Singh. The four other casualties were of Imam Muhammad Saad of a Gurugram Mosque, two Bajrang Dal members, Pradeep Sharma and Abhishek Chauhan, and the 4th was of Shakti Singh, a bystander.
After three days of riots, the state government resorted to what the right wing loyalists call “bulldozer justice” and ordered the demolition of homes and businesses owned by Muslims. The Muslims, who were battling the brunt of the right wing rioters, were now facing the wrath of the state government.
The state machineries demolished over 350 shanties and 50 RCC structures mostly of poor Muslim labourers, and were planning for more when a Punjab and Haryana High Court bench comprising of Justices G.S. Sandhawalia and Harpreet Kaur Jeewan taking suo moto cognisance intervened and halted the demolition drive ordered by the far right BJP government in Haryana.
In its order halting the demolition drive by the right wing BJP government, the Punjab and Haryana High Court bench of Justices G.S. Sandhawalia and Harpreet Kaur Jeewan also made some harsh statements, and observations that will go down as a golden page in the history of the Indian Judiciary.
Without mincing words the two judges in their order observed that the state government is targeting Muslims and indulging in their ethnic cleansing using law and order problem as ruse.
“The issue also arises whether the buildings belonging to a particular community are being brought down under the guise of law and order problem, and an exercise of ethnic cleansing is being conducted by the state”, the HC bench said.
The bench of Justice GS Sandhawalia and Justice Harpreet Kaur Jeewan also observed that the state authorities had conducted the demolition drive “without following the procedure established by law” or issuing any prior notices to the people owning the properties.
“…. we issue directions to Haryana to furnish an affidavit as to how many buildings have been demolished in the last two weeks, both in Nuh and Gurugram, and whether any notice was issued before demolition. If any such demolition is to be carried out today, it should be stopped if the procedure is not followed as per law,” the Bench said in its order pronounced on August 07 a year ago.
“We are of the considered opinion that the Constitution of India protects the citizens of this country and no demolition as such can be done without following the procedure prescribed in law,” Justice Sandhawalia observed.
The judges also took a strong exception to the statement made by State Home Minister Anil Vij who in an attempt to justify the demolitions said bulldozers were part of the “ilaaj (treatment)” since the government was probing communal violence. Slamming the minister, the High Court quoted British historian Lord Acton and observed:
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
The observation by the Punjab and Haryana High Court was a rare example of India’s judiciary asking a question that was already being asked by rights groups and experts around the world.
What happened in the Haryana district of Nuh last year was part of a pattern seen in India since 2014 when right wing Hindutva organisations take out a procession where provocative slogans are raised, Muslims are teased, and as a result confrontation takes place in turn leading to riots.
In the consequent riots, Muslims are systematically targeted and also killed in police firing. Post communal clashes, Muslims are arrested, tortured in custody, and then their homes and businesses are bulldozed by state machineries.
This went on and on in various cities of India since 2017 when UP Chief Minister Adityanath first “introduced” it in his home state. Appeals were made to various courts, including the Supreme Court of India, for intervention but to no avail.
It was however Justices GS Sandhawalia and Harpreet Kaur Jeewan who took suo moto cognizance of the state sponsored terror unleashed on Muslims in Haryana, and registered their name in the list of those standing for justice and against brutal regimes.
August 07, 2024
[The aftermath of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.]
Exactly a year later, some 4,000 Kilometres from the Indian capital New Delhi, the Israeli Occupation Forces on August 07, 2024 conducted airstrikes on various locations in Gaza, Palestine, including Al-Bureij and Al-Nuseirat camps - among the besieged strip’s densely populated historic refugee camps killing more than 30 Palestinians just in an hour.
Three days later, unashamedly continuing what academicians, rights groups and activists have called “a text book case of genocide of the Palestinians”, the Israeli Occupation Forces on August 10, 2024 targeted al-Tabin School, located in Daraj district of Gaza City killing more than 100 and wounding equal number.
Targeted airstrikes and bombardments of 315 days by the Israeli Occupation Forces in Gaza took the death toll to 40,005 and 92,401 injured since Oct 07, 2023, according to the Health Ministry of Palestine as on August 15, 2024. Media reports citing health volunteers in Gaza put the death toll as 186,000, calculated after adding those stranded under the debris whom the officials count as “missing”.
A huge majority – around 75%, of those killed and injured in the Israeli attacks on Gaza, are women and children, as per the UN agencies and the Health Ministry of Palestine.
In the airstrikes conducted since Oct 07, 2023, the Israeli Occupation Forces have also partly or fully destroyed over 60% of the basic infrastructure of Gaza ransacking to ground a number of schools, hospitals, colleges, universities, mosques, churches and refugee camps and shelter homes.
The Palestinians are running from death to death since the last 315 days, but unlike the two Indian Judges, who demonstrated extraordinary courage to rein in those in power from what they called the “ethnic cleaning” of Muslims, none among those who have control over the far right Zionist regime in Israel show the courage to stop the Israeli military from committing the genocide of the Palestinians.
Far from stopping the far right Zionist extremists, these powers are shamelessly patronising them with military, financial and diplomatic supports, and eulogising them with “17 standing ovations” even as images and videos of half burnt Palestinian children lying on ground without any medical aid haunt the people around the world.
The Israeli Occupation Forces are on rampage after the Palestinian Resistance Fighters, including Hamas, tired of over seven decades of Israeli occupation, atrocities and torture, stormed their homeland under the Zionist control via land, sea and air on Oct 07, 2023.
In their Oct 7 operation named al Aqsa Storm or Flood al Aqsa, launched in retaliation of seven decades of Israeli atrocities and illegal occupation, the Palestinian Resistance Fighters took some 250 hostages who they are using now for prisoners swap. The Israelis claim, the Palestinian Resistance Fighters also killed 1,200 people on Oct 7.
International probe - including one conducted by the United Nations and some even by Israeli agencies, disputes the Israeli claim concluding that a good number of causalities on Oct 7 was the result of the drone attacks by the Israeli army.
In a related development, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in a ruling called the Zionists control over the Palestinian land “illegal occupation”. The ICJ also ruled that the Palestinians have right to self-determination.
In a further blow to the Zionists, International Criminal Court (ICC) also made public its recommendation to issue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and two members of his “war cabinet”. But, the ICC diluted it’s much publicised recommendation by also treating Hamas leaders on par, clearly failing to distinguish between the oppressed and the oppressors.
A high level UN official meanwhile said that Israel as an occupying power does not have right to self-defence – the excuse the Zionists are using to kill and massacre the Palestinians and destroy their home land, categorically ruling out all the justifications of the Israeli genocidal war in Gaza.
The rulings by the ICJ and ICC, and the assertion by the UN official all-together rejecting Israel’s right to self-defence are important and extraordinary, and are rare in the seven decades of the Israeli aggression against the Palestinians.
The problem is that the ICC, ICJ and the UN have no power to implement their rulings or impose their views on Israel whereas those who have power to do so are lending all-out support to the far right Zionist regime.
Justices GS Sandhawalia and Harpreet Kaur Jeewan of Punjab and Haryana High Court too had the option to sit and watch as a mute spectator while the homes of Muslims were bulldozed by a brutal regime like those in the world who have the power to stop the killing and massacre of the Palestinians but have instead become genocide cheerleaders. They however took a stand which has become an example.
People with conscience - from the West to East and from the North to South, shaken by watching daily the images and videos of shattered and half/fully burnt dead bodies of the Palestinians, women and children included, wonder isn’t there a single person of integrity in the world’s power corridors, who like the two Indian judges, has the courage to stand against the Zionists and held them accountable for their crimes?
[The writer, Aleem Faizee, is Founder Editor of ummid.com. He can be reached at aleem.faizee@gmail.com or @aleemfaizee.]
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