Monday, December 1, 2008
Spreading lies masquerading as truth
Link: http://southasia.oneworld.net/opinioncomment/spreading-lies-masquerading-as-truth
Delhi-based human rights organisations claim that police in the name of investigating the serial blasts of September 13 in the national capital of India are only engaging in vilification campaign and harassment of Muslims. OneWorld South Asia correspondent analyses the main contents of their findings.
Rajender Singh Negi, OneWorld South Asia
New Delhi: A house that was like any other, a colony that was like many others, and a district that was like every other existed for years without attracting much attention. Then one day in true Marquezian style – more tragic than comic – ‘the winds of misfortune’ started blowing in their quiet lives, forcing them out of their oblivion to name and fame, something they would have preferred to live without.
In little over less than two months an ordinary house was turned into an ‘epicenter of terror plots’, a colony shaped into a ‘den of terrorists’, and a whole district metamorphosed into a ‘nursery of terrorism’.
Flat number 108 in L-18 Batla House; a colony in southeast Delhi known as Jamia Nagar; and, a backward district in eastern Uttar Pradesh called Azamgarh – have all earned these sobriquets, thanks to our prejudiced and unscrupulous police and intelligence agencies, our largely uncritical and irresponsible media, and our publicity hungry and rabid politicians.
It all began with that infamous ‘encounter’ in which two young Muslim boys were killed – while two others mysteriously slipped out and one arrested – in broad daylight by members of Delhi Police’s Special Cell. It was alleged they were dreaded terrorists and masterminds of Delhi serial blasts of September 13 (To read more, please click here). The two dead boys were incidentally from Azamgarh.
Since then a spate of terror has been unleashed in the name of investigating the crime and bursting the terror network.
In doing so, it does not matter whether the rule of law is becoming a casualty; whether the guidelines and rulings of National Human Rights Commission and the Supreme Court are flouted with impunity; whether a particular religious community is feeling alienated, ostracised and persecuted; and whether the secular fabric of the country is being torn apart by poisoning the minds of an entire generation with hatred for that community.
Before and after the ‘encounter’
After the September 13 serial blasts in Delhi, the police had started targeting the residents of Jamia Nagar. Between September 14 and 18, many young Muslims from the area were picked up and illegally detained for interrogation for varied length of time. Some of them were even brutally tortured and others were subjected to intimidation, humiliation and harassment, says a report released jointly by Delhi-based human rights organisations People’s Union for Democratic Right (PUDR) and Janhastakshep.
The two organisations were joined by others in Azamgarh. The team found out that a large number of people, mostly Muslims, were being arrested, tortured, harassed, intimidated and interrogated particularly from Delhi’s Jamia Nagar and Azamgarh district in UP by the Delhi Police Special Cell and the Anti Terrorist Squads (ATS) of several states.
The report is critical of the fact that more than two months after the ‘encounter’ no independent enquiry has been instituted to ascertain what actually happened on September 19. There is only a Crime Branch enquiry, not even a CBI one, that has been ordered and the government has categorically rejected the need for a judicial enquiry.
The first arrest after September 19 encounter was of Mohammad Saif from L-18 Batla House. The next was Zeeshan Ahmed on the same evening as he came out of a TV channel office where he spoke about his innocence; followed by Zia ur Rahman, son of Abdur Rahman, caretaker of the building. The others were Saquib Nisar, a third semester MBA student of Sikkim Manipal University and Mohammad Shakeel, final year student of MA (Economics) from Jamia Milia University.
Custodial confessions
The arrested people were not allowed by the police to meet either their family members or their lawyers for many days. It was only on October 3 after Delhi High Court’s intervention that they were finally allowed.
While in custody they were made to make supervised phone calls to their family members in which they typically ‘confessed’ to their crimes and kept assuring them of their well-being and that how well the police were treating them. The police even stage-managed an interview with three of the arrestees for a journalist of India Today, a prominent weekly magazine, in which they have again ‘confessed’ to their crimes.
Harish Dhawan, secretary of PUDR, termed the investigations as “biased, wrongful and inept,” pointing out that by leaking the information to media the police were prejudicing the cases of the accused even though the confessions in custody had no evidentiary value.
Adding that in almost all the cases of detention no arrest memo was signed and the arresting officials were not wearing uniforms or carrying identifications. Even the family members of the arrestees were not informed. All this was in contravention of the Supreme Court guidelines on arrest, he added.
Cases in the court
Five separate cases have been filed in the court by the police. The PUDR also filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in Delhi High Court and demanded an independent judicial enquiry, charging the Special Cell with contempt of court for violating Supreme Court guidelines on arrest.
Another petition filed jointly by anti-communalism organisation called Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (Anhad) and PUDR has questioned the role of the police in leaking custodial confessions to the press citing particularly the case of the story carried in India Today in which the court has served the notices to the police and the magazine.
Discrediting Azamgarh
The place known for its luminaries like Muslim scholar and reformer Shibli Nomani, Hindi poet Ayodhya Singh Hariaudh, scholar and communist Rahul Sankrityayan, Urdu poet Kaifi Azmi and many others, Azamgarh, a backward district in eastern Uttar Pradesh, is getting all the wrong publicity.
Ish Mishra, one of the members of the joint fact-finding team said: “Azamgarh is today being projected in the media as bigoted and ghettoised place of the Muslim community despite the fact that the place had remained almost untouched by communal violence even at the time of Partition and up until the Rath Yatra and later demolition of Babri Masjid.”
It was only recently that the Hindu communal forces had succeeded in creating the schism and “contaminate the atmosphere in the city by attacking the communal peace, the culture of tolerance and in particular its symbol, the Shibli National College,” notes the report.
Of the five arrested in connection of Delhi blasts, three -- Saif, Zeeshan and Saquib – are from Azamgarh. In addition the two – Atif Amin and Mohammad Sajid – who died in the encounter also hailed from the same district. This has led the Delhi Police Special Cell and the police of other states turn to the area for further leads.
Not just the police raids but also the media attention and incessant beaming of pictures from villages of these accused caused a panic among the Muslim population in the area. The residents protested and tried stopping TV crews asking them to leave. Some even were arrested by the police.
Post Jamia Nagar encounter the report says police raids have been carried out not just in the houses of the arrested people but also in the houses of those who happened to know the accused and the dead. Young boys are especially being targeted.
The team met many of those whose houses were raided. They all claimed that the police had least regard for the procedure like preparing a seizure memo or identifying themselves. The police were at times even communal in their questioning.
Shahana Bhattacharya, a team member, said the fear of impending raids and arrests was so palpable among the people that it was forcing many young boys to disappear to evade being falsely implicated in some case.
“There is a need for a more meticulous adherence to procedures designed to prevent wrongful indictment and a careful appreciation of evidence to prevent lies from masquerading as the truth,” she said.
Date of Publishing: November 28, 2008
Delhi-based human rights organisations claim that police in the name of investigating the serial blasts of September 13 in the national capital of India are only engaging in vilification campaign and harassment of Muslims. OneWorld South Asia correspondent analyses the main contents of their findings.
Rajender Singh Negi, OneWorld South Asia
New Delhi: A house that was like any other, a colony that was like many others, and a district that was like every other existed for years without attracting much attention. Then one day in true Marquezian style – more tragic than comic – ‘the winds of misfortune’ started blowing in their quiet lives, forcing them out of their oblivion to name and fame, something they would have preferred to live without.
In little over less than two months an ordinary house was turned into an ‘epicenter of terror plots’, a colony shaped into a ‘den of terrorists’, and a whole district metamorphosed into a ‘nursery of terrorism’.
Flat number 108 in L-18 Batla House; a colony in southeast Delhi known as Jamia Nagar; and, a backward district in eastern Uttar Pradesh called Azamgarh – have all earned these sobriquets, thanks to our prejudiced and unscrupulous police and intelligence agencies, our largely uncritical and irresponsible media, and our publicity hungry and rabid politicians.
It all began with that infamous ‘encounter’ in which two young Muslim boys were killed – while two others mysteriously slipped out and one arrested – in broad daylight by members of Delhi Police’s Special Cell. It was alleged they were dreaded terrorists and masterminds of Delhi serial blasts of September 13 (To read more, please click here). The two dead boys were incidentally from Azamgarh.
Since then a spate of terror has been unleashed in the name of investigating the crime and bursting the terror network.
In doing so, it does not matter whether the rule of law is becoming a casualty; whether the guidelines and rulings of National Human Rights Commission and the Supreme Court are flouted with impunity; whether a particular religious community is feeling alienated, ostracised and persecuted; and whether the secular fabric of the country is being torn apart by poisoning the minds of an entire generation with hatred for that community.
Before and after the ‘encounter’
After the September 13 serial blasts in Delhi, the police had started targeting the residents of Jamia Nagar. Between September 14 and 18, many young Muslims from the area were picked up and illegally detained for interrogation for varied length of time. Some of them were even brutally tortured and others were subjected to intimidation, humiliation and harassment, says a report released jointly by Delhi-based human rights organisations People’s Union for Democratic Right (PUDR) and Janhastakshep.
The two organisations were joined by others in Azamgarh. The team found out that a large number of people, mostly Muslims, were being arrested, tortured, harassed, intimidated and interrogated particularly from Delhi’s Jamia Nagar and Azamgarh district in UP by the Delhi Police Special Cell and the Anti Terrorist Squads (ATS) of several states.
The report is critical of the fact that more than two months after the ‘encounter’ no independent enquiry has been instituted to ascertain what actually happened on September 19. There is only a Crime Branch enquiry, not even a CBI one, that has been ordered and the government has categorically rejected the need for a judicial enquiry.
The first arrest after September 19 encounter was of Mohammad Saif from L-18 Batla House. The next was Zeeshan Ahmed on the same evening as he came out of a TV channel office where he spoke about his innocence; followed by Zia ur Rahman, son of Abdur Rahman, caretaker of the building. The others were Saquib Nisar, a third semester MBA student of Sikkim Manipal University and Mohammad Shakeel, final year student of MA (Economics) from Jamia Milia University.
Custodial confessions
The arrested people were not allowed by the police to meet either their family members or their lawyers for many days. It was only on October 3 after Delhi High Court’s intervention that they were finally allowed.
While in custody they were made to make supervised phone calls to their family members in which they typically ‘confessed’ to their crimes and kept assuring them of their well-being and that how well the police were treating them. The police even stage-managed an interview with three of the arrestees for a journalist of India Today, a prominent weekly magazine, in which they have again ‘confessed’ to their crimes.
Harish Dhawan, secretary of PUDR, termed the investigations as “biased, wrongful and inept,” pointing out that by leaking the information to media the police were prejudicing the cases of the accused even though the confessions in custody had no evidentiary value.
Adding that in almost all the cases of detention no arrest memo was signed and the arresting officials were not wearing uniforms or carrying identifications. Even the family members of the arrestees were not informed. All this was in contravention of the Supreme Court guidelines on arrest, he added.
Cases in the court
Five separate cases have been filed in the court by the police. The PUDR also filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in Delhi High Court and demanded an independent judicial enquiry, charging the Special Cell with contempt of court for violating Supreme Court guidelines on arrest.
Another petition filed jointly by anti-communalism organisation called Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (Anhad) and PUDR has questioned the role of the police in leaking custodial confessions to the press citing particularly the case of the story carried in India Today in which the court has served the notices to the police and the magazine.
Discrediting Azamgarh
The place known for its luminaries like Muslim scholar and reformer Shibli Nomani, Hindi poet Ayodhya Singh Hariaudh, scholar and communist Rahul Sankrityayan, Urdu poet Kaifi Azmi and many others, Azamgarh, a backward district in eastern Uttar Pradesh, is getting all the wrong publicity.
Ish Mishra, one of the members of the joint fact-finding team said: “Azamgarh is today being projected in the media as bigoted and ghettoised place of the Muslim community despite the fact that the place had remained almost untouched by communal violence even at the time of Partition and up until the Rath Yatra and later demolition of Babri Masjid.”
It was only recently that the Hindu communal forces had succeeded in creating the schism and “contaminate the atmosphere in the city by attacking the communal peace, the culture of tolerance and in particular its symbol, the Shibli National College,” notes the report.
Of the five arrested in connection of Delhi blasts, three -- Saif, Zeeshan and Saquib – are from Azamgarh. In addition the two – Atif Amin and Mohammad Sajid – who died in the encounter also hailed from the same district. This has led the Delhi Police Special Cell and the police of other states turn to the area for further leads.
Not just the police raids but also the media attention and incessant beaming of pictures from villages of these accused caused a panic among the Muslim population in the area. The residents protested and tried stopping TV crews asking them to leave. Some even were arrested by the police.
Post Jamia Nagar encounter the report says police raids have been carried out not just in the houses of the arrested people but also in the houses of those who happened to know the accused and the dead. Young boys are especially being targeted.
The team met many of those whose houses were raided. They all claimed that the police had least regard for the procedure like preparing a seizure memo or identifying themselves. The police were at times even communal in their questioning.
Shahana Bhattacharya, a team member, said the fear of impending raids and arrests was so palpable among the people that it was forcing many young boys to disappear to evade being falsely implicated in some case.
“There is a need for a more meticulous adherence to procedures designed to prevent wrongful indictment and a careful appreciation of evidence to prevent lies from masquerading as the truth,” she said.
Date of Publishing: November 28, 2008
Top economists skeptical of fiscal stimulus package
Link: http://southasia.oneworld.net/todaysheadlines/top-economists-skeptical-of-fiscal-stimulus-package
Indian economists say that the remedies being sought to come out of the on-going economic recession are further going to deepen the crisis. They have suggested that fiscal stimulus package needs to be given to people rather than corporate houses.
Rajender Singh Negi, OneWorld South Asia
New Delhi: What is being witnessed today in the form of economic recession is not an aberration. This is, in fact, a modus operandi of the system of free market capitalism characterised by free financial markets, says Professor Prabhat Patnaik, Deputy Chairman Kerala Planning Board.
He was speaking at a symposium in New Delhi yesterday jointly organised by Anveshan, Delhi Science Forum and Economic Research Foundation.
Taking his argument further, he elaborated: “This financial crisis and the associated global economic recession is part and parcel of any regime which has the hegemony of international finance capital.” Such crises always carried the potential risk of the spread of fascist forces, as was witnessed in 1930s, he warned.
“Sheer technical discussions will not take us very far,” he added and said the only way to overcome this crisis was to dislodge this hegemony.
“There is no transcendental justification for freedom of trade. It is good only if it gives rise to larger employment,” he declared.
Need for vigilance
A government that was unhappy about the slow pace of reforms all of a sudden began taking pride in the fact that it had not gone full throttle on pursuing its financial sector liberalisation agenda. A prime minister, who till a few months back, was talking of ‘integrating’ Indian economy with that of the world in a volte-face of sorts began to talk of ‘insulating’ it from external threats. A finance minister, who all along championed the neoliberal agenda, began taking pride in his socialist leanings.
Ever since the ill effects of the US financial crisis have started to be felt globally, the Indian government has gone on board saying that the country’s economy is on sound footing and that it had seen it coming. Last week only Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was quoted as saying that the growth might slowdown but it would not be a major slow down. Later he talked of doing whatever was needed of doing to keep the economy sound.
Professor Jayati Ghosh of the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University said that this was a period that demanded more vigilance.
She reminded that past financial crises in developing countries were all accompanied by intensification of the very policies that caused the crisis in the first place, that is, a very significant shift in income distribution and further liberalisation.
“Policies being planned or negotiated nationally and internationally will be hugely detrimental to any progressive development project,” she said referring to the recently concluded G-20 summit meeting in Washington last week and the developments thereafter.
Making a reference of the ‘fiscal stimulus’ package that was talked about at G-20, she said that a pattern of stimulus was important.
It all depended on what one wanted to stimulate – a private sector enterprise engaged in profitable infrastructure project, or a public sector enterprise that could generate employment. The government also must set its priorities right and redirect its public expenditure in areas where there have been huge job losses. It must take immediate measures to correct the developmental imbalances and provide basic nutrition and sanitation to the people, she said.
What is happening on the contrary is that there has already been an attempt to provide ‘stimulus packages’ for large corporate groups rather than for unorganised sector or even for industrial clusters, which employ a huge number of people, she rued.
As a matter of fact the government is busy bailing out the aviation sector. Last week the government announced a reduction in prices of aviation fuel, which benefited only a handful of airline companies. However, no attempt has been made to reduce the prices of petrol and diesel, which can directly impact the common man.
She also touched upon the issue of how India was conceding to the West’s demand, further jeopardising the interest of its people, for free trade and opening its domestic markets for dumping of foreign products.
“It is crucial to look at the nature of ‘fiscal stimuli’ and to demand from the very beginning progressive kinds of expenditure. Otherwise what is likely to happen is that huge amounts of money will have gone in private bailouts and then they would say that we cannot have further expansion because that will be inflationary.”
System of oligopoly
Renowned Egyptian economist, Professor Samir Amin, who is currently on his India tour, was also among the speakers. In his presentation he reflected on some political issues arising out of this current financial and economic crisis.
He felt that if this crisis deepened further, which he thought was a likely scenario, it would lead to unprecedented political changes at the global level.
The present capitalist imperialist system had reached a level of centralisation of capital, According to him: “It is a system of oligopoly. A handful of oligopolies, perhaps 5,000, are controlling 90% of whatever happens in any part of the world.”
But now the military might and the financial empire controlled by a few is crumbling. “That is what is at stake,” he argued.
This however goes against the analysis of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the US. In its 2005 report it had concluded that the US’ Super Power status was going to remain intact. Its conclusions was that the changes in the global economic order would be minor except that India and China would start having a greater share in global trade.
Prof Amin while pointing out that the CIA had not changed its stance even after this great economic upheaval, said that he did not agree with this analysis and said that there were clear signs of the sole Super Power’s power waning.
No lessons learnt
Sitaram Yechuri, Politburo member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said that it seemed the government had not learnt any lessons from its past mistakes. It forced the public sector banks to put money in stocks and that was how the Sensex in past week moved up only to fall after the withdrawal of money by the Foreign Institutional Investors having registered profits.
Pointing out that this government would have gone pushed the country in a much deeper mess if the Left Parties had not pressurised it for not going for complete liberalisation of financial sector by privatising the nationalised banks and insurance companies, transferring the social security funds like pension and provident fund to the stock market, full capital account convertibility, etc.
Speakers were unanimous in their prescription for coming out of this economic recession which was that the government must strengthen banking sector, tighten the regulatory mechanisms to control the financial market, increase public expenditure on welfare and employment generating schemes and refrain from bailing out big corporate houses in the name of providing fiscal stimulus.
Date of Publishing: November 18, 2008
Indian economists say that the remedies being sought to come out of the on-going economic recession are further going to deepen the crisis. They have suggested that fiscal stimulus package needs to be given to people rather than corporate houses.
Rajender Singh Negi, OneWorld South Asia
New Delhi: What is being witnessed today in the form of economic recession is not an aberration. This is, in fact, a modus operandi of the system of free market capitalism characterised by free financial markets, says Professor Prabhat Patnaik, Deputy Chairman Kerala Planning Board.
He was speaking at a symposium in New Delhi yesterday jointly organised by Anveshan, Delhi Science Forum and Economic Research Foundation.
Taking his argument further, he elaborated: “This financial crisis and the associated global economic recession is part and parcel of any regime which has the hegemony of international finance capital.” Such crises always carried the potential risk of the spread of fascist forces, as was witnessed in 1930s, he warned.
“Sheer technical discussions will not take us very far,” he added and said the only way to overcome this crisis was to dislodge this hegemony.
“There is no transcendental justification for freedom of trade. It is good only if it gives rise to larger employment,” he declared.
Need for vigilance
A government that was unhappy about the slow pace of reforms all of a sudden began taking pride in the fact that it had not gone full throttle on pursuing its financial sector liberalisation agenda. A prime minister, who till a few months back, was talking of ‘integrating’ Indian economy with that of the world in a volte-face of sorts began to talk of ‘insulating’ it from external threats. A finance minister, who all along championed the neoliberal agenda, began taking pride in his socialist leanings.
Ever since the ill effects of the US financial crisis have started to be felt globally, the Indian government has gone on board saying that the country’s economy is on sound footing and that it had seen it coming. Last week only Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was quoted as saying that the growth might slowdown but it would not be a major slow down. Later he talked of doing whatever was needed of doing to keep the economy sound.
Professor Jayati Ghosh of the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University said that this was a period that demanded more vigilance.
She reminded that past financial crises in developing countries were all accompanied by intensification of the very policies that caused the crisis in the first place, that is, a very significant shift in income distribution and further liberalisation.
“Policies being planned or negotiated nationally and internationally will be hugely detrimental to any progressive development project,” she said referring to the recently concluded G-20 summit meeting in Washington last week and the developments thereafter.
Making a reference of the ‘fiscal stimulus’ package that was talked about at G-20, she said that a pattern of stimulus was important.
It all depended on what one wanted to stimulate – a private sector enterprise engaged in profitable infrastructure project, or a public sector enterprise that could generate employment. The government also must set its priorities right and redirect its public expenditure in areas where there have been huge job losses. It must take immediate measures to correct the developmental imbalances and provide basic nutrition and sanitation to the people, she said.
What is happening on the contrary is that there has already been an attempt to provide ‘stimulus packages’ for large corporate groups rather than for unorganised sector or even for industrial clusters, which employ a huge number of people, she rued.
As a matter of fact the government is busy bailing out the aviation sector. Last week the government announced a reduction in prices of aviation fuel, which benefited only a handful of airline companies. However, no attempt has been made to reduce the prices of petrol and diesel, which can directly impact the common man.
She also touched upon the issue of how India was conceding to the West’s demand, further jeopardising the interest of its people, for free trade and opening its domestic markets for dumping of foreign products.
“It is crucial to look at the nature of ‘fiscal stimuli’ and to demand from the very beginning progressive kinds of expenditure. Otherwise what is likely to happen is that huge amounts of money will have gone in private bailouts and then they would say that we cannot have further expansion because that will be inflationary.”
System of oligopoly
Renowned Egyptian economist, Professor Samir Amin, who is currently on his India tour, was also among the speakers. In his presentation he reflected on some political issues arising out of this current financial and economic crisis.
He felt that if this crisis deepened further, which he thought was a likely scenario, it would lead to unprecedented political changes at the global level.
The present capitalist imperialist system had reached a level of centralisation of capital, According to him: “It is a system of oligopoly. A handful of oligopolies, perhaps 5,000, are controlling 90% of whatever happens in any part of the world.”
But now the military might and the financial empire controlled by a few is crumbling. “That is what is at stake,” he argued.
This however goes against the analysis of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the US. In its 2005 report it had concluded that the US’ Super Power status was going to remain intact. Its conclusions was that the changes in the global economic order would be minor except that India and China would start having a greater share in global trade.
Prof Amin while pointing out that the CIA had not changed its stance even after this great economic upheaval, said that he did not agree with this analysis and said that there were clear signs of the sole Super Power’s power waning.
No lessons learnt
Sitaram Yechuri, Politburo member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said that it seemed the government had not learnt any lessons from its past mistakes. It forced the public sector banks to put money in stocks and that was how the Sensex in past week moved up only to fall after the withdrawal of money by the Foreign Institutional Investors having registered profits.
Pointing out that this government would have gone pushed the country in a much deeper mess if the Left Parties had not pressurised it for not going for complete liberalisation of financial sector by privatising the nationalised banks and insurance companies, transferring the social security funds like pension and provident fund to the stock market, full capital account convertibility, etc.
Speakers were unanimous in their prescription for coming out of this economic recession which was that the government must strengthen banking sector, tighten the regulatory mechanisms to control the financial market, increase public expenditure on welfare and employment generating schemes and refrain from bailing out big corporate houses in the name of providing fiscal stimulus.
Date of Publishing: November 18, 2008
Lies masquerading as truth
Rajender Singh Negi, OneWorld South Asia
28 November 2008
http://southasia.oneworld.net/opinioncomment/spreading-lies-masquerading-as-truth
Delhi-based human rights organisations claim that police in the name of investigating the serial blasts of September 13 in the national capital of India are only engaging in vilification campaign and harassment of Muslims. OneWorld South Asia correspondent analyses the main contents of their findings.
New Delhi: A house that was like any other, a colony that was like many others, and a district that was like every other existed for years without attracting much attention. Then one day in true Marquezian style – more tragic than comic – ‘the winds of misfortune’ started blowing in their quiet lives, forcing them out of their oblivion to name and fame, something they would have preferred to live without.
In little over less than two months an ordinary house was turned into an ‘epicenter of terror plots’, a colony shaped into a ‘den of terrorists’, and a whole district metamorphosed into a ‘nursery of terrorism’.
Flat number 108 in L-18 Batla House; a colony in southeast Delhi known as Jamia Nagar; and, a backward district in eastern Uttar Pradesh called Azamgarh – have all earned these sobriquets, thanks to our prejudiced and unscrupulous police and intelligence agencies, our largely uncritical and irresponsible media, and our publicity hungry and rabid politicians.
It all began with that infamous ‘encounter’ in which two young Muslim boys were killed – while two others mysteriously slipped out and one arrested – in broad daylight by members of Delhi Police’s Special Cell. It was alleged they were dreaded terrorists and masterminds of Delhi serial blasts of September 13 (To read more, please click here). The two dead boys were incidentally from Azamgarh.
Since then a spate of terror has been unleashed in the name of investigating the crime and bursting the terror network.
In doing so, it does not matter whether the rule of law is becoming a casualty; whether the guidelines and rulings of National Human Rights Commission and the Supreme Court are flouted with impunity; whether a particular religious community is feeling alienated, ostracised and persecuted; and whether the secular fabric of the country is being torn apart by poisoning the minds of an entire generation with hatred for that community.
Before and after the ‘encounter’
After the September 13 serial blasts in Delhi, the police had started targeting the residents of Jamia Nagar. Between September 14 and 18, many young Muslims from the area were picked up and illegally detained for interrogation for varied length of time. Some of them were even brutally tortured and others were subjected to intimidation, humiliation and harassment, says a report released jointly by Delhi-based human rights organisations People’s Union for Democratic Right (PUDR) and Janhastakshep.
The two organisations were joined by others in Azamgarh. The team found out that a large number of people, mostly Muslims, were being arrested, tortured, harassed, intimidated and interrogated particularly from Delhi’s Jamia Nagar and Azamgarh district in UP by the Delhi Police Special Cell and the Anti Terrorist Squads (ATS) of several states.
The report is critical of the fact that more than two months after the ‘encounter’ no independent enquiry has been instituted to ascertain what actually happened on September 19. There is only a Crime Branch enquiry, not even a CBI one, that has been ordered and the government has categorically rejected the need for a judicial enquiry.
The first arrest after September 19 encounter was of Mohammad Saif from L-18 Batla House. The next was Zeeshan Ahmed on the same evening as he came out of a TV channel office where he spoke about his innocence; followed by Zia ur Rahman, son of Abdur Rahman, caretaker of the building. The others were Saquib Nisar, a third semester MBA student of Sikkim Manipal University and Mohammad Shakeel, final year student of MA (Economics) from Jamia Milia University.
Custodial confessions
The arrested people were not allowed by the police to meet either their family members or their lawyers for many days. It was only on October 3 after Delhi High Court’s intervention that they were finally allowed.
While in custody they were made to make supervised phone calls to their family members in which they typically ‘confessed’ to their crimes and kept assuring them of their well-being and that how well the police were treating them. The police even stage-managed an interview with three of the arrestees for a journalist of India Today, a prominent weekly magazine, in which they have again ‘confessed’ to their crimes.
Harish Dhawan, secretary of PUDR, termed the investigations as “biased, wrongful and inept,” pointing out that by leaking the information to media the police were prejudicing the cases of the accused even though the confessions in custody had no evidentiary value.
Adding that in almost all the cases of detention no arrest memo was signed and the arresting officials were not wearing uniforms or carrying identifications. Even the family members of the arrestees were not informed. All this was in contravention of the Supreme Court guidelines on arrest, he added.
Cases in the court
Five separate cases have been filed in the court by the police. The PUDR also filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in Delhi High Court and demanded an independent judicial enquiry, charging the Special Cell with contempt of court for violating Supreme Court guidelines on arrest.
Another petition filed jointly by anti-communalism organisation called Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (Anhad) and PUDR has questioned the role of the police in leaking custodial confessions to the press citing particularly the case of the story carried in India Today in which the court has served the notices to the police and the magazine.
Discrediting Azamgarh
The place known for its luminaries like Muslim scholar and reformer Shibli Nomani, Hindi poet Ayodhya Singh Hariaudh, scholar and communist Rahul Sankrityayan, Urdu poet Kaifi Azmi and many others, Azamgarh, a backward district in eastern Uttar Pradesh, is getting all the wrong publicity.
Ish Mishra, one of the members of the joint fact-finding team said: “Azamgarh is today being projected in the media as bigoted and ghettoised place of the Muslim community despite the fact that the place had remained almost untouched by communal violence even at the time of Partition and up until the Rath Yatra and later demolition of Babri Masjid.”
It was only recently that the Hindu communal forces had succeeded in creating the schism and “contaminate the atmosphere in the city by attacking the communal peace, the culture of tolerance and in particular its symbol, the Shibli National College,” notes the report.
Of the five arrested in connection of Delhi blasts, three – Saif, Zeeshan and Saquib – are from Azamgarh. In addition the two – Atif Amin and Mohammad Sajid – who died in the encounter also hailed from the same district. This has led the Delhi Police Special Cell and the police of other states turn to the area for further leads.
Not just the police raids but also the media attention and incessant beaming of pictures from villages of these accused caused a panic among the Muslim population in the area. The residents protested and tried stopping TV crews asking them to leave. Some even were arrested by the police.
Post Jamia Nagar encounter the report says police raids have been carried out not just in the houses of the arrested people but also in the houses of those who happened to know the accused and the dead. Young boys are especially being targeted.
The team met many of those whose houses were raided. They all claimed that the police had least regard for the procedure like preparing a seizure memo or identifying themselves. The police were at times even communal in their questioning.
Shahana Bhattacharya, a team member, said the fear of impending raids and arrests was so palpable among the people that it was forcing many young boys to disappear to evade being falsely implicated in some case.
“There is a need for a more meticulous adherence to procedures designed to prevent wrongful indictment and a careful appreciation of evidence to prevent lies from masquerading as the truth,” she sai
28 November 2008
http://southasia.oneworld.net/opinioncomment/spreading-lies-masquerading-as-truth
Delhi-based human rights organisations claim that police in the name of investigating the serial blasts of September 13 in the national capital of India are only engaging in vilification campaign and harassment of Muslims. OneWorld South Asia correspondent analyses the main contents of their findings.
New Delhi: A house that was like any other, a colony that was like many others, and a district that was like every other existed for years without attracting much attention. Then one day in true Marquezian style – more tragic than comic – ‘the winds of misfortune’ started blowing in their quiet lives, forcing them out of their oblivion to name and fame, something they would have preferred to live without.
In little over less than two months an ordinary house was turned into an ‘epicenter of terror plots’, a colony shaped into a ‘den of terrorists’, and a whole district metamorphosed into a ‘nursery of terrorism’.
Flat number 108 in L-18 Batla House; a colony in southeast Delhi known as Jamia Nagar; and, a backward district in eastern Uttar Pradesh called Azamgarh – have all earned these sobriquets, thanks to our prejudiced and unscrupulous police and intelligence agencies, our largely uncritical and irresponsible media, and our publicity hungry and rabid politicians.
It all began with that infamous ‘encounter’ in which two young Muslim boys were killed – while two others mysteriously slipped out and one arrested – in broad daylight by members of Delhi Police’s Special Cell. It was alleged they were dreaded terrorists and masterminds of Delhi serial blasts of September 13 (To read more, please click here). The two dead boys were incidentally from Azamgarh.
Since then a spate of terror has been unleashed in the name of investigating the crime and bursting the terror network.
In doing so, it does not matter whether the rule of law is becoming a casualty; whether the guidelines and rulings of National Human Rights Commission and the Supreme Court are flouted with impunity; whether a particular religious community is feeling alienated, ostracised and persecuted; and whether the secular fabric of the country is being torn apart by poisoning the minds of an entire generation with hatred for that community.
Before and after the ‘encounter’
After the September 13 serial blasts in Delhi, the police had started targeting the residents of Jamia Nagar. Between September 14 and 18, many young Muslims from the area were picked up and illegally detained for interrogation for varied length of time. Some of them were even brutally tortured and others were subjected to intimidation, humiliation and harassment, says a report released jointly by Delhi-based human rights organisations People’s Union for Democratic Right (PUDR) and Janhastakshep.
The two organisations were joined by others in Azamgarh. The team found out that a large number of people, mostly Muslims, were being arrested, tortured, harassed, intimidated and interrogated particularly from Delhi’s Jamia Nagar and Azamgarh district in UP by the Delhi Police Special Cell and the Anti Terrorist Squads (ATS) of several states.
The report is critical of the fact that more than two months after the ‘encounter’ no independent enquiry has been instituted to ascertain what actually happened on September 19. There is only a Crime Branch enquiry, not even a CBI one, that has been ordered and the government has categorically rejected the need for a judicial enquiry.
The first arrest after September 19 encounter was of Mohammad Saif from L-18 Batla House. The next was Zeeshan Ahmed on the same evening as he came out of a TV channel office where he spoke about his innocence; followed by Zia ur Rahman, son of Abdur Rahman, caretaker of the building. The others were Saquib Nisar, a third semester MBA student of Sikkim Manipal University and Mohammad Shakeel, final year student of MA (Economics) from Jamia Milia University.
Custodial confessions
The arrested people were not allowed by the police to meet either their family members or their lawyers for many days. It was only on October 3 after Delhi High Court’s intervention that they were finally allowed.
While in custody they were made to make supervised phone calls to their family members in which they typically ‘confessed’ to their crimes and kept assuring them of their well-being and that how well the police were treating them. The police even stage-managed an interview with three of the arrestees for a journalist of India Today, a prominent weekly magazine, in which they have again ‘confessed’ to their crimes.
Harish Dhawan, secretary of PUDR, termed the investigations as “biased, wrongful and inept,” pointing out that by leaking the information to media the police were prejudicing the cases of the accused even though the confessions in custody had no evidentiary value.
Adding that in almost all the cases of detention no arrest memo was signed and the arresting officials were not wearing uniforms or carrying identifications. Even the family members of the arrestees were not informed. All this was in contravention of the Supreme Court guidelines on arrest, he added.
Cases in the court
Five separate cases have been filed in the court by the police. The PUDR also filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in Delhi High Court and demanded an independent judicial enquiry, charging the Special Cell with contempt of court for violating Supreme Court guidelines on arrest.
Another petition filed jointly by anti-communalism organisation called Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (Anhad) and PUDR has questioned the role of the police in leaking custodial confessions to the press citing particularly the case of the story carried in India Today in which the court has served the notices to the police and the magazine.
Discrediting Azamgarh
The place known for its luminaries like Muslim scholar and reformer Shibli Nomani, Hindi poet Ayodhya Singh Hariaudh, scholar and communist Rahul Sankrityayan, Urdu poet Kaifi Azmi and many others, Azamgarh, a backward district in eastern Uttar Pradesh, is getting all the wrong publicity.
Ish Mishra, one of the members of the joint fact-finding team said: “Azamgarh is today being projected in the media as bigoted and ghettoised place of the Muslim community despite the fact that the place had remained almost untouched by communal violence even at the time of Partition and up until the Rath Yatra and later demolition of Babri Masjid.”
It was only recently that the Hindu communal forces had succeeded in creating the schism and “contaminate the atmosphere in the city by attacking the communal peace, the culture of tolerance and in particular its symbol, the Shibli National College,” notes the report.
Of the five arrested in connection of Delhi blasts, three – Saif, Zeeshan and Saquib – are from Azamgarh. In addition the two – Atif Amin and Mohammad Sajid – who died in the encounter also hailed from the same district. This has led the Delhi Police Special Cell and the police of other states turn to the area for further leads.
Not just the police raids but also the media attention and incessant beaming of pictures from villages of these accused caused a panic among the Muslim population in the area. The residents protested and tried stopping TV crews asking them to leave. Some even were arrested by the police.
Post Jamia Nagar encounter the report says police raids have been carried out not just in the houses of the arrested people but also in the houses of those who happened to know the accused and the dead. Young boys are especially being targeted.
The team met many of those whose houses were raided. They all claimed that the police had least regard for the procedure like preparing a seizure memo or identifying themselves. The police were at times even communal in their questioning.
Shahana Bhattacharya, a team member, said the fear of impending raids and arrests was so palpable among the people that it was forcing many young boys to disappear to evade being falsely implicated in some case.
“There is a need for a more meticulous adherence to procedures designed to prevent wrongful indictment and a careful appreciation of evidence to prevent lies from masquerading as the truth,” she sai
Thursday, November 20, 2008
The scapegoats of terrorism
Rajender Singh Negi, OneWorld South Asia
19 November 2008
19 November 2008
At a recent People’s Tribunal in Rajasthan, western India, it was clear that the state is acting in a partisan and prejudiced manner in the name of curbing terror. OneWorld South Asia correspondent sits through the public hearing where victims narrate their tales.
Jaipur: The first thing that happens after every terrorist blast is that ‘spin doctors’ in administration – be they government functionaries in intelligence agencies or the police, or their political masters in government, or the great imaginative editors and reporters in media – begin weaving a story that can have only one villain with a name identifiable with a particular religion or a group that uses a nomenclature from an otherwise beautiful language: Harkut-al-Ansar, Hizb-ul-Mujahiddin, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, Lashkar-e-Toiba, and lately Indian Mujahiddin [dubbed as another avatar of Students Islamic Movement of India].
People are caught with diaries and laptops in their possessions with complete details like their identities, their plan of actions, maps, incendiary literature, the names of their masters and their accomplices. In fact, they are found with everything that can easily nail them to the crime they have just allegedly committed.
They are otherwise very clever and cunning, yet so foolish to be carrying self-incriminating evidence with them all the time. They are well-trained hardcore dreaded terrorists, yet docile enough to be belching out everything at the drop of a hat and confessing to not just the crime currently under investigation but many more that happened before in a distant and not-so-distant past.
Media commentators use elaborate vocabulary to describe them. One day they are described as poor and uneducated and therefore susceptible to be lured by money and unearthly enticements such as a secured place in jannat or heaven. Another day they are described as people educated in ‘regressive’ madarsaas and therefore coming straight from ‘jehadi factories’ – orthodox and well-indoctrinated. Yet another day they become highly educated and tech-savvy, who can orchestrate their crimes in a well-coordinated manner, using high-tech devices.
Having given the socio-economic-religious profile of these ‘terrorists’, they would go on to untangle their complex terror networks and indulge in a perfect display of verbal calisthenics by using the terms like ‘sleeper modules’, ‘proxy terrorist groups’, ‘low intensity war’ and so on.
Blasts in walled city
When serial blasts happened in Jaipur, Rajasthan on May 13 this year, these were almost immediately attributed to Bangladesh-based group Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI). Raids and crackdown followed and hundreds of Bangla speaking Muslims were rounded up from across Rajasthan but mainly from Jaipur city.
Whatever happened in Jaipur since then was akin to ‘ethnic cleansing’. Many bastis (slums) like Bagrana, Transit Camp, Manoharpura Beed, Buxawala, Tila Number 7, Sanjay Kachchi Basti and others came under the scanner in the lookout for hiding ‘terrorists’. In the week following the blasts, over 140 people were sent to jail under preventive detention.
Persistent harassment, torture and threats forced hundreds of thousands to flee out of the city. More than 10,000 Bangla-speaking people were driven out by the end of September, according to People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Rajasthan.
As Prakash Chaturvedi, a social activist, said: “These raids were also about the intention of grabbing the land and livelihood of these poor Muslims.”
Many who fled to West Bengal to escape the wrath of the Rajasthan Police are now languishing in Murshidabad Jail.
Victims speak
During a People’s Tribunal in Jaipur on November 7-8 organised by People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Rajasthan along with other social organisations, victims of police brutality spoke of their bitter experiences.
Among those who spoke was Sadaf, wife of Shahbaz Ahmed. The Rajasthan Police describes Shahbaz as the mastermind of Jaipur serial blasts. Sadaf vouched for her husband’s innocence. She said her husband was an educated and law-abiding person who ran a cyber café to earn his living.
Renowned social activist Sandeep Pandey, who was part of a joint fact-finding team that investigated the case of Shahbaz, said in his opinion the police had concocted the case against Shahbaz on the basis of fabricated evidences.
Rashid Hussain used to work as senior network engineer at the Jaipur office of Infosys, an IT company. Rashid narrated the harrowing experiences that he had to undergo during his nine days of detention. The police had to release him when they could not find anything to substantiate their claim that he was involved in Jaipur blasts.
Rashid said that while he was being interrogated he was subjected to extreme mental torture. Giving an instance of the extent of prejudice that runs deep not just among the rank and file but also among senior officials of the police department, he said: “An officer of the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police told me that any engineer who reads Koran becomes a terrorist.”
Rashid’s life has come to a standstill since his arrest. Infosys, where he worked, showed him the door. Even though the police have cleared his name, no company today is ready to employ him.
The police also picked up Mohammad Sajid in connection of the blasts. He remained in the illegal custody of police for 24 days from May 16 to June 8. In this period, he was never produced before a magistrate. His past association with the banned SIMI, as its ex-president, usually brings him among the first people who come under suspicion after every terrorist blast. The police, however, have never been able to prove any case against him.
The police also picked up Mohammad Sajid in connection of the blasts. He remained in the illegal custody of police for 24 days from May 16 to June 8. In this period, he was never produced before a magistrate. His past association with the banned SIMI, as its ex-president, usually brings him among the first people who come under suspicion after every terrorist blast. The police, however, have never been able to prove any case against him.
Deposing his case before the jury consisting of Justice (retd) S.N. Bhargava, writer Ram Puniyani, Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan, Sajid said he feared for his life. “We have reached at such a pass today that even if courts exonerate you there is no guarantee that you would be able to live a life of dignity without any fear. The police can still kill you in an encounter.”
Many other victims came forward and recounted their tales of victimisation at the hands of police in the name of fighting terror. There was Dr Amanullah Jamali, a practitioner of Unani medicine, who was picked up twice. He was tortured and humiliated. Also Dr Abrar Ali, an intern at SMS Medical College in Jaipur, who was illegally detained for seven days. There was Dr Anwar Hussein, who had to remain in illegal custody of police for two days. The list is long and so are the tales of miseries.
Noted writer and one of the jury members observed that for past many years now politics in the name of religion is being used to destroy the democratic values and secular fabric of this country. Demonisation of an entire religious community is another manifestation of this politics.
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