Terrorism, Muslims and Media bias

What is rarely visible in the Indian media, however, are the brutal, illegal methods used against suspected terrorists: torture cells, illegal detention, unlawful killings in “police encounters”; elimination of evidence against the illegal actions of the law-enforcing agencies; and rampant harassment of Muslims. In July 2009, The Week reported on the existence of at least 15 secret torture chambers meant to extract information from the detainees. The methods to extract information include attaching electrodes to a detainee’s genitals as well as the use of pethidine injections. To quote The Week, these chambers are “our own little Guantanamo Bays or Gitmos”, which a top policeman called “precious assets”.

In May 2008, a Muslim boy aged 14 was abducted by the Gujarat police. He was dragged to the police car at gunpoint and taken to a detention centre where he was tortured. He returned home ten days later when the court ordered his release following his mother’s petition. The police subsequently threatened the boy’s family with dire consequences if they pursued the case in court. The police harassment becomes even more acute in light of the fact that most lawyers often hesitate to take up the cases of “terrorists”. As a disempowered community - as the government-appointed Sachar Committee report (of 2006) minutely demonstrates - Muslims themselves don’t have adequate and qualified lawyers to pursue such cases. Muslims’ marginalisation thus renders their voice invisible in the media too.

It is believed that after SIMI was banned, soon after 9/11, its radical members formed IM. During my fieldwork (2001-2004) on Jamaat-e-Islami and SIMI I did not hear anything about IM. SIMI activists and other Muslims I met felt terrorised themselves. It is worth noting that since 2001 far more people have been arrested as “SIMI terrorists” than the actual number of SIMI members, which in 1996 was 413 (when founded in 1976, SIMI’s members numbered 132). Until today, the Indian government has still not legally proved its rationale for banning SIMI.
In the fight against terrorism, evidence and the rule of law are subservient to prejudice. As of this writing, the Indian government has not yet tracked the perpetrators of the July 13 attack. However, only two days after the attack, Subramanian Swamy, a prominent politician and former minister (with a doctorate from Harvard University) wrote an article called “How to Wipe Out Islamic Terror”. Without any evidence, he blamed Muslims for the attack, in the same way that The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Sun suspected Muslim involvement in the Norway shooting nine days later.

What Swamy did is standard practice in Indian media. In September 2006, a blast killed 35 people at a Muslim graveyard in Malegaon (in the state of Karnataka). The media blamed Muslims. Likewise, in 2007, after a blast killed 10 Muslims praying in Hyderabad’s Mecca mosque, Praveen Swami freely wrote about the Muslim terrorists he believed caused it and about what he perceived to be the “Islamist threat to India’s cities”. However, investigations later showed that Hindu nationalists carried out the Malegaon and Mecca mosque terror attacks.

Returning to Subramanian Swamy, Swamy wrote: “We need a collective mindset as Hindus to stand against the Islamic terrorist. The Muslims of India can join us if they genuinely feel for the Hindus. That they do I will not believe unless they acknowledge with pride that though they may be Muslims, their ancestors were Hindus”. Those refusing to acknowledge this, Swamy advocated, “should not have voting rights”. He proposed declaring India “a Hindu Rashtra [state]”.

Stories of Muslim terrorists abound in both the Indian and Western media. Since the July 13, 2011 Mumbai bombings, vitriolic pieces like Subramanian Swamy’s have appeared frequently in the media. These pieces subtly influence the analyses of many liberal intellectuals. By contrast, stories portraying Muslims as the terrorised remain fairly sparse. One wonders if, and how, such stories will be told

Irfan Ahmed in Al Jazeera. Here

Who cares for innocents languishing in jails?

Have the political parties of India given up morality and humanism? Did any honourable Member of Parliament raise his powerful voice against the indefensible but ever-continuing incarceration of young Muslim boys, charged with enacting Malegaon, Ajmer, Hyderabad and Samjhauta Express blasts?

Did any TV channel organise any meaningful talk-show on the redundancy of criminal cases, needlessly destroying careers of Muslim youth in various jails?

Are the State Home Ministers of Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh cocksure they will not have to, at the end of the day, hang their heads in shame before the nation in this regard?

What does the law say on the subject in concrete terms? Is this being misused by the morbid minds?

Cannot the Supreme Court, the last ray of hope of the hopeless, take notice on its own as it does in some cases to right a grave and grievous wrong to the principal minority of the country?

TALE-TELL CONFESSIONS

Pragya with senior BJP leaders

After tale-tell confessions, in addition to misleading statements as well, by Col. Srikant Prasad Purohit, Ms. Pragya Singh Thakur and Swami Aseemanand, detention of the Muslim accused appears to be utterly unjustified to the minority leaders, opinion makers, whistle blowers and social activists. If it is a confusing case, let the State and Central governments remove the cobwebs for the sake of clarity and political ethics. 

Here are a few glimpses of some chilling, real life stories, told not by any idiot but by close relations of the police victims:

“I am Saliha Khatoon from Gujarat, Zahid Sheikh’s sister. He had been accused of 26 July 2008 bomb blasts. The police asked him to come for some enquiry regarding mobile SIM cards. He went on his motorcycle and has not returned since then. My parents want to see him. They saw that he was unable to walk. He was severely tortured. We were allowed to meet him for two minutes only.”

“I am Jamil Msiullah from Malegaon, Maharashtra. I am the elder brother of Shabbir Masiullah. The police arrested my brother at 3:30 a.m. on August 3, 2006 from his house. He was given electric shocks on his private parts and acid was poured on his private parts to make him confess that he was responsible for either the Malegaon or the Mumbai local train bomb blasts.”

“I am Abdul Kareem from Hyderabad. I used to drive an auto-rickshaw before arrest. One day police barged into my house and took me away. I was tortured, hit on the soles and other body parts with a rubber belt. I was asked what I knew about the Hyderabad bomb blasts. I answered I did not know anything. But they were still forcing me either to admit to the crime or to speak about it.”

Not only the parents but the nation as a whole must be taken into confidence by the state governments as well as the central government with regard to use of electric shocks and pouring of acid on the private parts of even the proven criminals. This is a subject that deserves sympathetic consideration of the powers-that-be. 

Does our civilized society approve of it? Does it not run counter to human rights, which we think are enjoyed even by the criminals, proven or otherwise.

INTELLIGENCE REVELATIONS

Victims of Malegaon blasts

The above reproductions are from a booklet titled “What It Means to Be a Muslim in India”, brought out by the Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD). 

What a poor, semi-literate, helpless accused can do to sensitise the callous police and the not-so-callous lower level judiciary and administrative officers? Add to it the planned infiltration of communal mindset in the system.

A recently retired Intelligence officer has, not long ago, admitted in black and white: “Hindu link to blasts was ignored at the outset.” To quote him from a story by Josy Joseph from the Times News Network: “... several vital clues that should have prompted us to be far broader in our approach towards those blasts were ignored. We were swept away by the overwhelming opinion in the (security) establishment that only Islamic groups could carry out the sophisticated blasts we saw in Samjhauta and Mecca Masjid.”

Such blasts, he added, were ignored in cases that are now being seen as the handiwork of the Abhinav Bharat network. For example, in the initial days, after the twin blasts in Jama Masjid (on April 14, 2006) we had intercepted suspicious phone calls to an RSS member. But we chose to ignore it.” He added. A senior official pointed out the “environment was so overwhelming” in the belief that only Muslim extremists could carry out terror attacks – “we did not even have discussion on other possibilities.” Mind it: this is from the proverbial horse’s mouth.

UTTERLY ILLOGICAL

Otherwise in each and every democracy, but particularly in a plural polity, justice and even-handedness is a must. What ensures rather strengthens a heterogeneous setup is judicious treatment with various religious, linguistic and cultural segments. The Congress as a party perhaps forgot to look beyond its nose in this regard. Our charge is graver as all the affected States except Gujarat are governed by the Congress Party. See the secularist lethargy on the one hand and on the other observe the systematic plantation by the Rightists of their cadres in various sectors and services. Does the very thought of Muslims blasting the faithful in a mosque during the Friday prayers not run in the face of commonsense? At similar footing rests the case of destruction of a divine’s mausoleum or train carrying Muslims back to their country.

MINDLESS PERSECUTION

But neither at the State level nor at the Central plane, the logic of Muslims killing Muslims appears to be odd. And they continued persuing and prosecuting the innocent Muslim youth. This mindless persecution resulted in legthening the shadows between Muslims and the government, Muslims and Congress and Muslims and other communities. What the Untied States was laboriously popularising after 9/11 that Islam is a terrorist ideology, so are its friends doing in India, official denials notwithstanding.

For what crime Ishrat jahan was murdered?

It is noteworthy that almost each and every fanatic, owing allegiance to the Abhinav Bharat has, direct or indirect, relations with the known fascist outfits.

On the other hand, it is not the case of a few hundred Muslim youth standing between Malegaon and Samjhauta Express. The entire 170-million strong Muslim minority stands in the dock, charged with terrorism not only against the Hindu brethren but against their own co-religionists.

BEYOND ASEEMANAND

Aseemanand

Things would not stop at Swami Aseemanand. Those would go beyond him. The official machinery appears to be acutely conscious of that embarrassing eventuality. Therefore, perhaps they are putting blocks after blocks against the withdrawal of the framed cases and bail to the fictitiously manufactured accused. The less-than-morally conscious officers and their less-than-bold bosses see their political future in keeping the innocent as long as possible in the jails. Inexplicable delay in enquiries, illogical denials of bail and hurdles in the release of the Muslim accused speaks volumes of the nervousness of the bureaucracy. 

ROLE OF SHARAD PAWAR

You must have heard Mr Sharad Pawar periodically vaxing eloquent on the Muslim plight. What you appear to have forgotten is that both at the time of Malegaon and even now the Home Minister of Maharashtra was, and is, from Mr. Pawar’s party, the NCP. At the time of innocent Muslim youths arrest, Mr. Pawar did not raise his little finger. Now when the bail applications of the accused are put forward, they are successfully opposed by police working under the NCP Home Minister. Mr. Pawar, we feel, is doing what an ace politician should, having nothing to do with morality. But what has happened to Dr. Manmohan Singh and Mr. P. Chidambaram? True, law and order is a State subject and security is more than a state subject. But all this should not be used as a tool to persecute a peaceful minority’s upcoming children, whose careers and future are being destroyed mindlessly. Another question of importance is: will it not raise the level of frustration breeding among Muslims? Is it good for national integration?

Let the all-India Muslim leadership rise to the occasion and hold mirror to the morally weak, myopic, unethical leaders of the country and demand justice for the innocent youth who are suffering for crimes which they never committed.

Dr S Ausaf Saied Vasfi in Radiance Weekly. More Here

Malegaon blasts, media and Justice!

The 2006 Malegaon blasts are a watershed in the history of Indian Muslims. The trend of targeting mosques and Muslim localities originated like a sparkle in Nanded, Parbhani and Jalna in 2003 and the sparkle turned into fire when it reached Malegaon, Mecca Masjid, Ajmer and Samjhauta Express. The screaming voices of Indian Muslims to investigative these blasts from all possible angles were lost in wilderness and it came back like an echo at Mahabaleshwar’s Arthur point. Then all of a sudden 2008 blast took place. It was the honesty and integrity of a brave officer whose investigation turned the tables. There is a gap of five years between 2003 and 2008. The political voice of Indian Muslim is so weak that it took five years to travel from bylanes of Malegaon to power corridors of Delhi. The political Muslim dispensation is still living an age of defeat; they have yet to come out of slump of 1857.

The reinvestigation of 2006 Malegaon blasts will be litmus test for Central Bureau of Investigation. It remains to be seen which path CBI chooses to tread. Its battered image can get a fresh coat of paint if it applies the rule of common sense. It will not be unfair to suggest that Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur knew about the 2006 blasts. She visited former RSS pracharak Sunil Joshi’s house on December 30, 2007, the night after he was murdered by his “own” men in and took away a briefcase without telling the family members. The family was unaware of Joshi’s death and nobody questioned Sadhvi since she was “regular” visitor. Sadhvi has told investigators that the motorcycle used for the Malegaon blast was the one she had sold to Joshi. Aseemanand’s confession is a masterstroke in the sense that main accused Sunil Joshi has been murdered in mysterious circumstances. Both Sadhvi and Aseemanand seem to suggest that Sunil Joshi was the main player in 2006 and 2008 blast. It will be an uphill task for CBI to connect dots with a dead man. Which court in the world has successfully prosecuted a dead man? 

With Swami Aseemanand’s confession the mood in Malegaon seems to be celebratory. The same mood prevailed when 2006 blasts inquiry was mischievously handed to CBI after filing of chargesheet. The same mood prevailed when approver Abrar Ahmed turned hostile. The same mood prevailed when CBI told Bombay High Court that it has not found anything incriminating against the nine accused.  This vicious cycle of justice seems to be as evasive as a mirage of barren desert. At each episode, the key players involved in the struggle of justice have enjoyed their 15 minutes of fame but nothing has happened. Will January 28, 2011, the date of hearing for bail, turn out to be an extension of this vicious cycle?

Media is the mirror of society. It returns to Malegaon only when there is some ‘development’ in the bomb blast case. One cannot blame media for this trend because news-hunt is their job. Omair Ahmed sarcastically describes the role of media in covering Mozammabad thus, “Look at them, how they gather, descending like kites upon a fresh kill.” In doing so, media has greatly affected the collective behaviour of Malegaon: leaders only appear when on screen when there is any ‘development’. There is no persistent attempt for justice. The air-conditioned office of a chief minister or a home minister (be it RR Patil or Chidambaram) is not the ideal place to seek justice in a democracy. The days of Mughal Empire are long over! In a democratic setup, justice is sought in court of law. One understands the importance of building political ‘pressure’ but this exercise is always performed discreetly not in front of camera. No Kashmiri went to meet Home minister when SAR Geelani was wrongly convicted in 2001 Parliament attack case. Instead they turned to famous lawyer Ram Jethmalani who successfully fought Geelani’s case free of cost despite strong opposition from right-wing quarters.   

From Mubashir Mushtaq's post in his blog. More Here.