Saffron Terror!!!

"The ruling coalition has failed to reaffirm a secular agenda in a credible way. Unless it acts with determination and despatch, Hindutva hatred and prejudices will undermine interreligious harmony and tear this society asunder," says, Praful Bidwai, veteran journalist, activist and columnist in Frontline. Excerpts :

The September 2006 bombings in Malegaon outside a crowded mosque after the Friday prayers fit this pattern to a T. Ironically, the police held Muslims responsible, ignoring all material evidence and important clues: the victims were exclusively Muslims observing Shab-e-Barat, or remembrance of the dead, in an adjoining graveyard; the bicycles in which the bombs were planted had Hindu names painted on them.

Militant majoritarianism has held sway in India over the past 20 years and created great fear and insecurity among Muslims. Hindutva’s rise has deeply affected official thinking and given India’s counter-terrorism strategy an Islamophobic edge. A significant number of police and intelligence officials, both serving and retired, have embraced hard or soft Hindutva. Muslim alienation from the government has never been greater. This is especially so where Muslims have been harassed or treated with suspicion, as after the Batla House episode.

The lion’s share of the responsibility for this unacceptably deplorable state of affairs rests with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), many of whose members seamlessly walk in and out of the front organisations of the RSS, and whom the RSS uses at will. Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, for instance, was a leader of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) for nearly a decade and campaigned for the BJP during the last Assembly elections in Gujarat. Her associates have a similar relationship with Sangh Parivar organisations.

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The cat is out of the bag!!!

Pragya Singh Thakur, third from left with MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan left
and BJP chief Rajnath Singh, foreground.

Manoj Joshi, veteran Journalist based in New Delhi has dwelled in detail about the emerging truths, shady deals, holy alliances - everything concerned with the bomb blasts in India. It can be claimed that finally the cat is out of the bag. But, still what really matters is that who is to bell the cat? And that is the trillion dollar question. Excerpts from his article:

The arrival of Hindutva terrorism in India — via the Malegaon and Modasa blasts arrests — has been anticipated for some time now.
Between 2003 and 2006, there have been several unexplained and unsolved bombings targeting Muslims in many small towns of Maharashtra.

A blast took place at Parbhani’s Mohammadiya Mosque on Friday November 21, 2003, a blast at the Meraj-ul-uloom madarsa at Purna took place again on a Friday, August 27, 2004. On the same day, the Qadiriya mosque at Jalna was also the target of a bomb blast.

On September 8, 2006, again a Friday, a bomb was planted near a graveyard in Malegaon on the day of Shab-e-Barat, when Muslims congregate to commemorate their departed. There were bigger strikes, too, which were not of the normal pattern because they targeted Muslims — the May 2007 blast at Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad, the twin blasts at New Delhi’s Jama Masjid in April 2006, the blast at the Ajmer Sharif shrine in October 2007 and the Samjhauta Express attack of February 2007.

The Kanpur blasts were more recent. Two men, Rajiv Mishra and Bhupinder Singh, were killed in what was an accidental blast at the Kalyanpur area of the city in August this year. Apparently they had been making bombs and had been associated with the Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The police recovered some hand grenades, explosives and timers that the two were using.

To read the complete story, click here.

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Malegaon, Mecca Masjid and Justice

Asghar Ali Engineer is a Mumbai based Peace activist. He is in the field for the past thirty years. He has been awarded Right livelihood award alongwith Swami Agniwesh in 2004 "...for promoting over many years in South Asia the values of religious and communal co-existence, tolerance and mutual understanding." He has been running centre for study of society and secularism (CSSS) which strives with the of spreadling the spirit of Secularism and communal harmony and social peace.

Now that the latest revelations of Malegaun blasts has hit the nation, Mr. Asghar Ali Engineer has expressed his thoughts in his own way. The following is the excerpts from his thought provoking article "And now Hindu Terrorists?":

I had investigated Malegaon blasts of 2006 and had met all political leaders across party lines and common people and intellectuals and no one was convinced that those arrested after the blasts in 2006 in which more than 50 persons were killed could have been carried out by those arrested by the police. It was important festival and Friday and the bombs went off just when the Friday prayers ended. No Muslim would go for blasting bombs at such a place on such an occasion.

Yet the police was determined to blame it only on some ex-SIMI members and would listen to no arguments.

The 2006 blasts should be reinvestigated and I am sure something else would be revealed. I have seen the charge sheets filed by ATS in 2006 Malegaon blasts. It totally depends on confessions obtained in police custody and is bound to fail in any court of law. The real culprits would certainly escape.

The Nanded blasts in which two Bajrang Dal activists were killed had taken place just before Malegaon blasts of 2006 and there was every possibility of involvement of some of those persons in Malegaon blasts. Similarly the Mecca Masjid blasts of Hyderabad should also be thoroughly reinvestigated as it also took place on Friday just at the end of Friday prayers when thousands of Muslims were coming out of the Mosque.

And all those arrested in Mecca Masjid blasts were also mostly innocent persons. I have heard them in a public hearing in Hyderabad and human rights activists and civil rights group worked hard to get them released on bail as there was nothing by way of credible evidence against them. The courts had to give them bail. The Hyderabad police could not, or did not want to lay its hands on real culprits.

The involvement of some army officers even of the rank of major should not be surprising as many RSS sympathizers are regularly employed and after retirement they become active in Hindutva organizations. The army usually claims to be quite secular, and probably it is, but it should be much more careful while recruiting soldiers and officers. No one with communal background should be recruited. This principle is not being rigorously observed at the time of recruitment. Many people who come out of RSS controlled schools and colleges are recruited in army.

I think it will be better if all terror blast cases be investigated by the police of credible conduct under the supervision of retired high court justices. This will reduce possibility of biased investigation though may not all together eliminate it. It is in the interests of the internal security of the country. It appears communal riots are fast being replaced by bomb blasts and some people suspect, it is new strategy of the communal forces. Major communal riots are becoming increasingly difficult to organize.

The civil society should also become vigilant against all terrorists of whatever religion or group. As communal riots were major danger in twentieth century, terrorist attacks are for 21st century.

To read the full article, click here.