Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association
Why Hyderabad Investigations are doomed to fail
In
a grotesque replay of every investigation that follows a bomb blast,
prejudice, misinformation and media blitz rules the direction of Dilsukh
Nagar bombings investigation too. The same suspects and shadowy
organizations are being paraded as executors of the Hyderabad bombings.
But
should we be surprised? A day after the Home Minister’s humiliating
capitulation to the RSS-BJP, virtually giving them and their affiliates a
clean chit, the message to the investigating agencies must have been
crystal clear. When the Home Minister himself discards the bulk of
allegations and material pointing to the existence of Hindutva groups in
planning and executing terror attacks, should we really expect the
investigating agencies, whose past record inspires hardly any
confidence, to sincerely pursue all possible angles and leads? This,
when Messrs Aseemanand and company are being tried for the 2007 bombing
of the Mecca Masjid. By asserting that Hyderabad bombing may have been a
reaction to the execution of Kasab and Afzal Guru, the Home Minister
himself foreclosed any possibility of unbiased investigation.
Hyderabad Police: Can we trust them with the investigations?
The
same Hyderabad Police which had, in the aftermath of the Mecca Masjid,
raided Muslim mohallas, rounded up scores of young men, tortured them at
private farmhouses, alleged to have recovered RDX, arms and ammunition,
jihadi literature, incriminating cellphone records and laptops, as
well records of
journey to foreign countries for terror-training by these young men –
all proven to be false now – have been entrusted with the investigation
of the Dilsukh Nagar blasts. Have we already forgotten that the
additional metropolitan Sessions Judges in throwing out the two related
cases of Mecca Masjid blast found the police unable to produce any
evidence except for the confessional statements of the accused –
statements which had obviously been extracted under harsh and brutal
torture, as attested by the Advocate Ravi Chander report.
And sure enough, the various SITs formed by the Hyderabad Police have knocked on the same doors. Mohammed
Rayeesuddin, Mohammed Azmath, Arshed Khan, Abdul Raheem, and Abdul
Kareem were detained for questioning, while Dr. Ibrahim Ali Junaid was
hounded over the phone. Not only were the same people targeted once
again, the methods were no improvement over 2007: the same surreptitious
whisking away without information to relatives, reviving the horrors of
2007.
Why
have the police officers, who indulged in and who supervised the
frame-ups in the 2007 Mecca Masjid blasts, not been punished? Indeed,
Hyderabad investigations demand that the policemen who deliberately
tried to fabricate and derail a genuine probe the last time, be first
punished. What is the guarantee that they will not influence the course
of investigation of the recent twin blasts as well? Is there any reason
for us to believe that they will not avenge the humiliation of their
2007 fiasco by harassing their victims, many of whom have filed a civil
suit seeking damages for their illegal detention and torture?
The
detentions of Rayeesuddin and others have in fact again confirmed our
fears of collusion and complicity between the Andhra and Gujarat Police
over encounter killings and communal witch-hunts. Rayeesuddin is key
witness to the cold-blooded murder of Mujahid Salim Islahi by the
Gujarat encounter specialist Narendra Amin - currently in jail for
Sohrabuddin fake encounter, another instance of the ‘cooperation’
between the police of the two states - at the Lakdi ka pul police
station in Hyderabad in 2004. While the Hyderabad Police has shown no
inclination to pursue the case against Amin, not even once seeking his
custody, there is reason to believe that the cases against Rayeesuddin
are a way to intimidate him into withdrawing his witness in the case. In
fact, many of the terror accusations against Muslim youth in Hyderabad
relate to this incident in 2004.
In
sum, the Hyderabad police has shown itself to be thoroughly communal
and corrupt, and should not be entrusted with the investigations of the
Dilsukhnagar blasts.
Media Trial: Return of the Stenographers
Lack
of journalistic skills and ethics, a perverse sense of ‘national
interest’, the mad rush for TRPs has produced a lethal cocktail of
‘breaking news’, each more pernicious than the other. If nothing else,
one has to admire the media’s consistency: their refusal to learn from
their past gaffes and their unrestrained urge to act as judge, jury and
executioner. So what if they flash the photograph of the recently
assassinated MQM leader Manzar Imam as one of the key accused?
MQM-MIM-IM, all the same, as long as it’s a bearded face and a name that
fits.
Confessions
and Interrogation reports are being dramatized on prime time. Hawala
transactions via Dubai, and dark conspiracies are being breathlessly
screamed about, slowly coagulating a narrative of guilt. One could have
dismissed these televised kangaroo courts as mere rantings, if only they
did not play a role in keeping accused in custody for long
periods. While in many cases, this media trial may not affect the
eventual outcome of the trial; it is enough to pressure the courts into
denying the accused bail repeatedly, and even the accused from moving
bail applications. Just six months ago, Muti Ur Rehman, a reporter
with Deccan Herald, was touted
as “the face of modern violent Islamic extremism”. He was held up as an
example of how “the profile of the various groups who come under the
rubric of the 'Indian Mujahideen', can be from any segment of society.”
While
the NIA has now failed to even file a charge sheet against Rehman and
his two roommates, also falling in the educated Jihadi profile, the
media’s unrelenting mastermind hype ensured that he spent close to six
months in jail.
In
other cases, we know, that such biased reporting can manufacture a
‘collective conscience’ that demands retribution even where guilt is not
established beyond reasonable doubt. It is this power that the media
gloats over, and in its crazed delirium, forgets that it is human lives
they destroy by uncritically relaying the deliberate leaks by agencies
as scoops and investigations. If appeals for restraint and previous
mistakes breed no introspection, then perhaps large-scale defamation
suits would be the only deterrence.
So grave is the situation now that that the Chief Justice was forced to admit recently that (media trial) “can prejudice against an accused in a case.”
What about Pune and Nashik modules?
As
proof of IM’s existence, security experts and agencies have cited the
emails that the organisation purportedly sent after every blast they
executed. Though no emails were forthcoming this time, the BJP Chief of
Andhra Pradesh, G. Krishan Reddy, received by post (not known whether it
was speed post favoured by the Home Ministry) a letter from LeT,
claiming responsibility for the blasts.
While
the investigating agencies see an IM module in every Muslim
concentrated town and a sleeper cell in every madrasa, they must explain
why those organisations currently being tried for exploding bombs in
the same city in 2007 are not even being mentioned as potential
suspects. While forensic evidence is still being collected and analyzed –
much of it destroyed by the media trampling all over the site –
agencies through trusted mouthpieces are chanting about the discovery of
trademark IM bombs. What is the basis of this claim? Media reports
suggest that Dilsukh Nagar bomb was an IED, as indeed was in the Mecca
masjid blast. In December last year, not many months ago, the NIA
arrested Tej Ram, which it accuses of planting an IED at Mecca Masjid,
the one that did not explode. His alleged partner Rajender Choudhary,
whose IED did go off, has been in NIA’s custody for a while now. Given
that Tej Ram was arrested only months ago, and given also that many of
the key aides of Aseemanand and Purohit are still at large, why is there
an absolute refusal to pursue that line of investigation?
Are
we to forget the conversations between the retired Major Ramesh
Upadhyay and the serving colonel in the Army, Purohit, which revealed
not in their ability to procure explosives but also their international
linkages and patronage? To quote:
Maj.
(Retd.) Ramesh Upadhyay:“...for example what happened in Hyderabad
Mosque or at other places was not done by anybody from ISI; it was done
by our person. On the basis of my information, I can say that it was
done by this particular person.[ …]
Lt.
Col. Purohit:“...I have done two operations. They were successful
Swamiji (Dayanand Pandey), I have the capacity to carry out operations. I
have no dearth of equipment [explosives]. Once I decide I can procure
the equipment...”
[…]
Lt.
Col. Purohit: “...I am in contact with Israel. One of our captains has
visited Israel. Very positive response from their side. They have said
“You show us something on ground”. [...] Secondly, they say they cannot
support us in the international forum under the present circumstances
for two years, till our movement does not gather some momentum.
Political asylum any time; equipment and training once we show something
on ground. I am trying to achieve that...”
What
has happened to the full contents of the laptops recovered by the late
Mr. Hemant Karkare? We fear that they may be destroyed to hide the names
and details of Right wing terrorists. It is surprising that while one
elite anti-terror agency has leaked the Interrogation Report of a
suspect to the media, there has been a silencing and secreting of the
contents of the two laptops.
The
full contents of these laptops should be transcribed and placed in
public domain with immediate effect. These transcripts are neither
confessions, disclosures nor statements made in police custody – whose
genuineness is vitiated by the fact that custodial confessions carry the
threat of real or potential violence – these are recordings of their
own conversations made by the men themselves under no duress or pressure.
And
it might be in order to remember here too that Aseemanand’s
‘confession’ was not made in police custody either, but to the Delhi
Metropolitan Magistrate under section 164 CrPC, after he was
given two days to reflect upon his decision, as is required to ascertain
the voluntary nature of the confession. Those commentators and TV
anchors who push the virtuous line that terror has no religion whenever
Hindutva terror is as much as mentioned, would do well to reflect on
this civilized adherence to procedure against the horrors of torture
endured by the young men of Hyderabad in 2007 whose private parts were
electrocuted to extract confessions from them.
While
NIA teams raid villages and towns in Bihar, and interrogate ‘IM
terrorists’ anew, a man whose name has consistently appeared in Ajmer
blast chargesheet, in Purohit’s interrogation and Aseemanand’s
confession, remains free. No raids at the home or office of Indresh
Kumar, national executive member and the sahprachar pramukh in
the RSS, who is said to have been present at a secret meeting to plan
the Ajmer Sharif bombing, held in a Gujarati guesthouse in Jaipur on
October 31, 2005, in which six other functionaries of the RSS were also
present; and who is named by Aseemanand to have financed the now
conveniently murdered Sunil Joshi’s terror activities. Has a deal been
struck to absolve Indresh of all allegations of involvement in
terrorism?
Having
just exorcised the ghosts of his Jaipur statement, the Home Minister
would probably not want to be reminded of this: but the Nanded and
Malegaon investigations pointed to arms trainings and camps at Bhonsale
Military School in Nashik. But who dare raid Bhonsale Military School,
set up by the ardent fascist B.S. Moonje, and at whose platinum jubilee
celebrations almost exactly a year ago, Mohan Bhagwat was the main
speaker? A madrasa in Hyderabad is easier to pull down and interrogation
of a cleric – even one who has been in jail for a while – likely to
fetch you more popularity. “Highly placed intelligence sources” are
therefore letting it known through their friends in the media that they
intend to question Abdul Nasir Madni, old, ailing and nearly blind.
What
we are seeing is not simply a blatant and deep institutional prejudice
playing out. It is as if our institutions are hell bent on ensuring that
injustice is not only done, but also seen to be done. For all the inane
and pious assertions of ‘Let’s not politicize terror’, in fact
terrorism has been the subject of the most cynical political
competition. Vulnerable targets are being picked on. Hindutva terror is
being denied under pressure from the RSS BJP combine and a
rabble-rousing media. None – neither the UPA which hoped to add muscle
to its anti-terror image by hanging Kasab and Afzal; nor the BJP, the
original tough guys, nor the hawks who froth at the mouth demanding
blood on TV, are concerned with the fact that the mastermind of the
biggest terror attack is safely secreted in the US, having cut a deal
with the US agencies, will never be tried for his crimes in India. The
continuous cries of Lashkar by various investigative agencies in the
aftermath of the Hyderabad blasts should surely fuel the demand for
David Headley’s extradition?
Only
a genuine and unbiased probe will be a true homage to those who lost
their lives in the utterly senseless violence of Dilsukh Nagar
bombings. But sadly, that doesn’t appear likely.
Released on 26th February 2013-02-26
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