by Asghar Ali Engineer
No year in India has been riot-free. Some years like 1992-93 post Babri Masjid demolition, 2002 in Gujarat witness major communal catastrophe, 2008 in Kandhamal riots or some years witness riots which are not nationally taken notice of. The year 2010 of course did not witness riots like Mumbai in 1992-93 or one like in Gujarat in 2002 but did witness riots mostly in either middle level cities or even small towns and villages.
However, some riots were really disturbing and also one cannot be oblivious of ever increasing trend of communalization due to all out efforts being made by RSS and its other outfits. Even a moderate party like the Congress has felt danger from communalism and tried to focus attack on communal BJP in its own interest. The BJP may not be upfront in promoting communal politics for various reasons not to be discussed in this article but is using other organizations of Sangh Parivar to do so. The BJP is in power in a few states and it is going all out to promote RSS in these states and also to recruit people with the RSS background in various government services which itself is great danger to our secularism.
The Congress focusing on communalism in its 84th session is more symbolic than substantial. It is still not ready to take on communal bull by its horns but is fighting it rather sheepishly. The Congress is the only national party with secular ideology but is not honest as it should be in fighting menace of communalism. Otherwise there is no reason why India cannot be riot-free.
According to the Home Ministry data between 2001 and 2009 6,541 communal clashes occurred and 2,234 persons were killed. Though the number of communal clashes may be correct officially the number of casualties is never reported accurately in official records for various reasons. In 2002 in Gujarat alone, all non-official sources agree, was 2000 dead and official sources are showing number of deaths between 2001 sand 2009 i.e. over a period of 8 years as 2,234 i.e. minus Gujarat total number of dead over a period of 8 years in all only 234 persons died which can hardly be accurate. But if we take official figure of dead in Gujarat riots of 2002 as 1000, then over a period of 8 years 1234 people died i.e. more than 150 people per year which is not so small, after all.
In 2009 the last riot had taken place on 30th December in Bhilwada, Rajasthan. This year too Rajasthan witnessed two horrible riots. The Sangh Parivar is doing everything possible to convert Rajasthan into Gujarat and Rajasthan is already on its way to becoming one. Maharashtra too is communally very sensitive state though it has always been ruled by the Congress except for one term i.e. from 1995 to 2000 by the Shiv Sena-BJP. The first riot in 2009, as per our record, took place in Evatmahal, Maharashtra on 16th January. The apparent cause was the rumour that Shivaji's and Bal Thackeray's photographs have been blackened in the College Chowk. The Shivsainiks came out on the road and started pelting stones on shops, buses and other vehicles. The police, however, brought the situation under control without any loss of life. The police arrested 50 Shivsainiks for rioting.
Karnataka, especially South Karnataka, is another communally sensitive area. The Ramsena has become hyper active since the BJP came to power. Both Christians and Muslims are being attacked in this state. Attacks on churches and mosques have increased. On 31st January Churches were attacked in Bhatkal and Mysore and a glass painting of mother Mary was attacked in Mangalore. Apart from this in Mangalore two mosques, one orphanage, one shop and one house also came under attack. One student was injured in an attack on the orphanage.
Next Shimoga in Karnataka and Bareilly in U.P. experienced communal violence on the occasion of Prophet's birthday. In Shimoga the provocation came when a Kannada paper Kannada Prabha published Kannada translation of Taslima Nasreen's article. Taslima Nasreen denied having anything to do with it. It was an article on burqa which was originally written in English in 2006 and it was a distorted translation according to her. Shimoga and Hassan experienced communal violence and both towns were put under curfew. Though there was no loss of life properties and vehicles were set to fire. Curfew was enforced and extended for two days to contain the situation.
Barielly in U.P. also saw communal violence on the occasion of Prophet's birthday. On March 2 Muslims were to take out Julus-e-Muhammadi i.e. Prophet's birthday procession. There were thousands of Muslims in the procession when some Hindus objected to procession being taken from a particular route. Bareilly has no history of communal violence. Both sides were throwing stones and attacking vehicles and houses.
It was difficult or 300 constables to contain the huge mob and hence imposed curfew which helped bring the situation under control. However, on March 8 the police arrested Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, President Ittahid-e-Millat Council for delivering provocative speeches in the procession. When Muslims protested he was released on 11th March. Then the Hindus protested and said he was released under pressure from Muslims and fresh trouble broke out on 12th March.
Since Holi and Prophet's birth day coincided Muslims decided to take out julus two days later but Shabani Mian of Anjuman-e-Khuddam-e-Rasul did not agree to defer and hence for last two years two processions were being taken out and this year it resulted in communal eruption. There are various conjectures as to why Bareilly suddenly erupted which had remained quiet even after demolition of Babri Masjid. Some say Mayawati felt insecure as the Congress was performing well and that she had secret understanding with the BJP to polarize Hindu and Muslim vote. It is true that the Congress and BSP are at logger's head and would not mind engineering communal violence. Communal violence is a political phenomenon, not religious one.
Thus Bariely remained under curfew for a long time which it had not witnessed before and sustained huge losses of property. This riot, mainly due to rivalry between Congress and BSP assumed national importance and this issue was raised even in Parliament also.
Next it was turn of Hyderabad on 30th March. Hyderabad old city is communally highly sensitive thanks to rivalry between Majli-s-Ittihadul Muslimin and BJP. In the old city poorest of poor Muslims live along with Hindus some of whom are traders and supporters of BJP. Most of the poor Muslims support the Majlis. Majlis is trying to increase its political clout and hence decided to celebrate Prophet's birth day on a grand scale and even went to the extent of creating a copy of the Prophet's mausoleum in the old city which had never happened before.
It also decorated old city and the area remained under illumination and decoration for long after the Barawafat i.e. Prophet's birth day. The BJP, not to be outdone, celebrated Hanuman jayanti on a big scale and created huge sized statue which was not the tradition. It led to tension when the BJP workers tried to remove Prophet's birth day flags and decorations and clashes occurred.
There were other factors besides this rivalry between the Majlis and BJP. New Chief Minister Rosaih had taken over after death of Rajshekhar Reddy in the helicopter accident and his son Jaganmohan Reddy was aspiring to become C.M. but the congress high command chose Rosaiah. Many were of the opinion that he was behind the riots trying to destabilize Rosaiah. Yet there was another theory that some big builders engineered the violence as land prices are skyrocketing in the old city and builders are interested in big development projects by getting the land vacant through engineering violence.
There was yet another theory that the BJP wanted to increase its base in the area and so far it has not tested power in Andhra Pradesh though it is already in power in neighbouring Karnataka and hence it sent VHP cadre to provoke communal violence to consolidate the Hindu vote. It is said that these people came on motorcycle and injuries inflicted were of the same kind.
This riot was also of major kind and persisted for a whole month and old city remained under curfew for that period greatly inconveniencing the poor who could not even go out for work. There was shortage of food, milk and vegetables. Various NGOs came out to render some help to the poor. These are the political games which politicians play and subsequently poor suffer. Two persons were killed in stabbing incidents besides huge property losses.
The attacks from outside were such that several young Muslim boys of 9 to 14 years of age formed defence squad and tried to scare away attackers from outside who entered the old city to engineer violence. A student from U.K. carried out study of this spontaneous defence squad and read out a paper on her field study in the Asia conference in Australia in which I was also present. These young boys acted spontaneously and no political party or agency had organized them. This communal violence continued for whole month i.e. up to beginning of April.
Agra in U.P. came under spell of communal violence on 25th April when 25 shops were set to fire as rumour spread that some people teased some girls. It took communal form and these shops happened to be in Shivaji Market of Fort area. However, authorities denied that it was communal in nature. But it seems it was communal in nature two groups belonged to two different communities.
Dhule in Maharashtra too is sensitive area which has witnessed worst riots earlier too. Outside collector's office there appeared a poster with the cartoon of the Prophet of Islam on 4th May which provoked Muslims to protest. The police fired on the agitating mob and also lathicharged thus injuring more than 4 people were injured and several more in lathicharge. During stone pelting vehicle of Dy.S.P. was also damaged. However, Minister in charge of Dhule Abdus Sattar convened peace committee meeting and violence was stopped.
It is so funny that in India even 60 years after independence and our secular Constitution communal violence breaks out on small and very insignificant issues like in Amalner Maharashtra where riot broke out on 19 May on the question of grinding spices in a grinding mill. The floor mill belonged to a Muslim and a Hindu customer wanted his spices to be grinded on priority basis and resulted in a bitter exchange and violence broke out in which Muslims were targeted The Police had to fire in the air to disperse the mob and two persons were injured in firing. Even the police came under attack and 9 of them were injured.
Jodhpur in Rajasthan witnessed communal violence on 23rd May near Balesar village. The dominant community of Sainis attacked police station after member of this community died in a police firing after damaging an Idgah. The incidents took place after dispute over removal of a particular shop for road widening. Then the labourers working on NREGA scheme damaged the portion of the Idgah.
Then came the turn of Ahmedabad where communal violence erupted on 26th May. One person was killed in acid attack in Shahpur area. Shopkeepers immediately downed their shutters. Tension spread to other areas of the city, as knives and swords were out and two people were stabbed. The clashes began when a marriage procession passed by a mosque at prayer time. Eleven people were injured when rival groups stoned and police was forced to fire. One of the injured Vijay Datania died in the hospital triggering fresh violence. It was alleged by People's Union for Civil Liberties that the Modi Government was mainly responsible for communal violence and a delegation of PUCL met Governor to intervened and stop violence.
The communal violence however, continued to spread in other areas and later in Chalte Peer Ki Dargah area an armed mob of masked boys slashed a scooterist's throat barely 15 feet from police station. In retaliation armed mob set two motor bikes on fire.
Again it was in Rawer of Jalgaon District, Maharashtra that communal violence broke out on the question of eve teasing on 2nd June. The police first resorted to lathicharge and then to firing to disperse the mob. (12 persons were injured in stoning and firing. After the incident of eve teasing a mob attacked the Mastanshah Masjid. Three policemen were also injured in communal incidents. The mob attacked several shops and properties belonging to Muslims
Malegaon experienced communal unrest when news spread that 6 dead cows were found on the road. Malegaon would have exploded if the police had not countered the rumour. The cows were not killed or slaughtered by any one but they died of suffocation while being transported. Some Hindutvawadis published on internet bodies of badly injured cows by doctoring these photographs to incite violence. But it did not work. People refused to be provoked. Malegaon, otherwise, is highly sensitive area.
Sarada town in Udaipur district erupted on 24-25 July after two drunk gangsters fought one of them Muslim and the other a tribal as Sarada happens to be a tribal area. The VHP, RSS and BJP exploited this incident o the hilt and provoked tribals into seeking revenge and distributed arms to them and all of them were made to gather near Muslim area and it all happened the Congress ruled state that 70 houses belonging to Muslims were burnt right in the presence of S.P. and District Magistrate.
Also about 500 Muslim families were dishoused in 6 other villages in this district. One Congress M.P. and his MLA wife were also present when these houses were burnt and destroyed. They belonged to the same tribal group. Thus tribal loyalty proved to be stronger than ideological loyalty. What is worse the Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, supposedly a secular man did not take any action against guilty S.P. and D.M. despite repeated representation to him by human rights activists. Muslims are very angry with Gehlot for deliberately not taking any action. I also personally told him when I met him at P.M.'s house in Delhi in a meeting but he had no convincingly reply. Instead he promoted the S.P., a tribal from North East and transferred him. He even refused to hold a judicial inquiry. Not only that even adequate compensation was not offered to those who lost everything they possessed. Paltry amounts were offered and when Muslims refused police intimated them into accepting.
Since the BJP has lost elections in Rajasthan it is trying to use communal card to come back to power. The Congress is not ready even to understand this. It appears Gehlot is not interested in controlling communal elements in Rajasthan and giving them full latitude to do what they want and going totally unpunished.
Ratlam in M.P. which is normally a peaceful town came under communal spell after some people threw cow dung on a mosque which was being painted on 4th September. This led to clashes between Hindus and Muslims. Muslims set fire to a motorcycle. Thereupon people from another community came on the streets with weapons and began to set fire to motorcycles and other vehicles. One section of the city came under spell of violence. However, then the police intervened and brought about reconciliation between warring groups.
On 6th September Deganga, West Bengal saw communal violence when Rahul Gandhi was to begin his tour of West Bengal. Haji Nurul Islam is accused of presiding over a four hour mayhem on September 6 in Deganga that led to destruction of properties belonging to Hindus and the desecration of a temple. A rattled Trinamool has launched an investigation into the matter.
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December 31, 2010
Victimization of Teesta Setalvad CJP, Advocate M.M. Tirmizi & victims survivors of 2002
From Citizens for Justice and Peace (Teesta Setalvad and Others) :- The background
Worse in the midst of this propaganda against Victims of the Carnage of 2002, Advocate MM Tirmizi and Teesta Setalvad what is being missed is that despite the fact that victims did through their efforts and the order of the Gujarat High Court establish the identity of their dead relatives in 2005-2006, it took an order from the Supreme Court (February 2008 and a subsequent order of the Trial Court in December 2008) that dignified burial was finally conducted with no one being allowed to be present in August 2010, ie six years after the brutal massacre.
We strongly condemn the malicious and motivated campaign against human rights activists and their lawyers struggling for justice for the victims of the genocidal carnage in Gujarat in 2002. The patently false allegations of doctoring evidence are being orchestrated at a time when crucial trials are nearing completition and accused among whom are powerful politicians and policemen face charges of criminal conspiracy and murder.
The allegations against Teesta Setalvad, Secretary Citizens for Justice and Peace and the organisation she represents as well as advocate MM Tirmizi a lawyer who has fought tirelessly for justice were spearheaded first by the state of Gujarat, then fuelled by a former employee and widely publicised by Pioneer edited by an MP of the same political dispensation that rules Gujarat.
The timings of the malafide allegation are aimed at derailing the course of justice and come at a time when the apex court is poised to hear a complaint of conspiracy to commit mass murder, subresion of justice and destruction of evidence.
The brazen attempts need to be seen for what they are given the seriousness of the charges against the Gujarat state and its functionaries. In 2004 too after the Best Bakery trial was shifted to Mumbai a star witness made similar allegations. She had thereafter to serve a jail term for perjury while those found guilty of inducing her into falsehood escaped penal punishment. The allegations, baseless as they are remain the same though persons making them have changed.
There is some suggestion and strong possibilities that the Gujarat Police may try to stage an arrest of Teesta Setalvad, and others. The background of the case is as follows:
In a nutshell:
On Dec 27, 2005 victim survivors of the Pandharwada massacre (where officially 27 persons were massacred...actually figure is higher on 1.3.2002) who were frustrated after the studied refusal of the state authorities to hand back skeletal remains of their dead which were dumped illegally by the state’s police, began the digging themselves. The spot where they had been illegally dumped was off the Paanam river Lunawada in Godhra district.
For months before they started digging they had approached the authorities to dig out their remains. There was no response. Frustrated, they started the digging they had informed some members of the electronic media and also Citizens for Justice and Peace(CJP). The CJP’s then coordinator Rais Khan (who is since not with the organisation following irregularities since January 2008) who contacted its Secretary in Mumbai. CJP through its Secretary Teesta Setalvad clearly told them to wait at the spot till the authorities came, we informed the Collector and SP and contacted lawyers and moved the High Court of Gujarat the next day. The local police was informed by fax of the frustration of the victims.
The victims and CJP together moved the Guj HC the next day got our prayer for DNA sampling from Red HILL Hyderabad The DNA sampling proved that the victim survivors were right. Nine of the 22 skeletal remains were found to be of the relatives of the victims of the Pandharwada massacre.
After the initial order in the Gujarat HC which was a breakthrough, year later the Gujarat HC dismissed the victims’petition asking for transfer of investigation of the massacre to the CBI. Ironically we had pointed out that the panchnamas related to the crimes had nowhere mentioned the skeletal remains.
The state has tried to say that this was never an illegal dumping but a proper burial on Forest land off an river. Legally speaking not only has the panchnama of the original crime of mass murder not list the skeletal remains disproving the version of the Gujarat state and police. Victims and rights activists have argued that Lunawada has a large Kabrastan hence if Gujarat Police could in fact not trace relatives, what was the need to so dump the remains rather than according them a dignified prayer cum burial in the Kabrastan? Why dump them in an obscure spot off the river rather than give them to community leaders for a dignified burial?
Worse in the midst of this propaganda what is being missed is that despite the fact that victims did through their efforts and the order of the Gujarat High Court establish the identity of their dead relatives in 2005-2006, it took an order from the Supreme Court (February 2008 and a subsequent order of the Trial Court in December 2008) that dignified burial was finally conducted with no one being allowed to be present in August 2010, ie six years after the brutal massacre.
Following in its tradition of victimising human rights defenders and victims, the local police lodged an FIR on Jan 1 2006 against victim survivors and Rais Khan of the CJP. CJP gave full legal aid to them and bail was granted and a stay against their arrest also granted by the Gujarat High Court.
In the interim Rais Khan has today is no more with the organisation, he was dismissed from service. He is today under the influence been won over by the accused in the Naroda Patiya case—. Inexplicably on November 24, 2010 the matter that had been stayed by the Gujarat High Court was listed and the stay vacated. Rais Khan surrendered and has in statement recorded under section 164 made false accusations against mediapersons and Teesta Setalvad.
He appears to enjoy full immunity and security within the state of Gujarat.
Worse in the midst of this propaganda against Victims of the Carnage of 2002, Advocate MM Tirmizi and Teesta Setalvad what is being missed is that despite the fact that victims did through their efforts and the order of the Gujarat High Court establish the identity of their dead relatives in 2005-2006, it took an order from the Supreme Court (February 2008 and a subsequent order of the Trial Court in December 2008) that dignified burial was finally conducted with no one being allowed to be present in August 2010, ie six years after the brutal massacre.
We strongly condemn the malicious and motivated campaign against human rights activists and their lawyers struggling for justice for the victims of the genocidal carnage in Gujarat in 2002. The patently false allegations of doctoring evidence are being orchestrated at a time when crucial trials are nearing completition and accused among whom are powerful politicians and policemen face charges of criminal conspiracy and murder.
The allegations against Teesta Setalvad, Secretary Citizens for Justice and Peace and the organisation she represents as well as advocate MM Tirmizi a lawyer who has fought tirelessly for justice were spearheaded first by the state of Gujarat, then fuelled by a former employee and widely publicised by Pioneer edited by an MP of the same political dispensation that rules Gujarat.
The timings of the malafide allegation are aimed at derailing the course of justice and come at a time when the apex court is poised to hear a complaint of conspiracy to commit mass murder, subresion of justice and destruction of evidence.
The brazen attempts need to be seen for what they are given the seriousness of the charges against the Gujarat state and its functionaries. In 2004 too after the Best Bakery trial was shifted to Mumbai a star witness made similar allegations. She had thereafter to serve a jail term for perjury while those found guilty of inducing her into falsehood escaped penal punishment. The allegations, baseless as they are remain the same though persons making them have changed.
There is some suggestion and strong possibilities that the Gujarat Police may try to stage an arrest of Teesta Setalvad, and others. The background of the case is as follows:
In a nutshell:
On Dec 27, 2005 victim survivors of the Pandharwada massacre (where officially 27 persons were massacred...actually figure is higher on 1.3.2002) who were frustrated after the studied refusal of the state authorities to hand back skeletal remains of their dead which were dumped illegally by the state’s police, began the digging themselves. The spot where they had been illegally dumped was off the Paanam river Lunawada in Godhra district.
For months before they started digging they had approached the authorities to dig out their remains. There was no response. Frustrated, they started the digging they had informed some members of the electronic media and also Citizens for Justice and Peace(CJP). The CJP’s then coordinator Rais Khan (who is since not with the organisation following irregularities since January 2008) who contacted its Secretary in Mumbai. CJP through its Secretary Teesta Setalvad clearly told them to wait at the spot till the authorities came, we informed the Collector and SP and contacted lawyers and moved the High Court of Gujarat the next day. The local police was informed by fax of the frustration of the victims.
The victims and CJP together moved the Guj HC the next day got our prayer for DNA sampling from Red HILL Hyderabad The DNA sampling proved that the victim survivors were right. Nine of the 22 skeletal remains were found to be of the relatives of the victims of the Pandharwada massacre.
After the initial order in the Gujarat HC which was a breakthrough, year later the Gujarat HC dismissed the victims’petition asking for transfer of investigation of the massacre to the CBI. Ironically we had pointed out that the panchnamas related to the crimes had nowhere mentioned the skeletal remains.
The state has tried to say that this was never an illegal dumping but a proper burial on Forest land off an river. Legally speaking not only has the panchnama of the original crime of mass murder not list the skeletal remains disproving the version of the Gujarat state and police. Victims and rights activists have argued that Lunawada has a large Kabrastan hence if Gujarat Police could in fact not trace relatives, what was the need to so dump the remains rather than according them a dignified prayer cum burial in the Kabrastan? Why dump them in an obscure spot off the river rather than give them to community leaders for a dignified burial?
Worse in the midst of this propaganda what is being missed is that despite the fact that victims did through their efforts and the order of the Gujarat High Court establish the identity of their dead relatives in 2005-2006, it took an order from the Supreme Court (February 2008 and a subsequent order of the Trial Court in December 2008) that dignified burial was finally conducted with no one being allowed to be present in August 2010, ie six years after the brutal massacre.
Following in its tradition of victimising human rights defenders and victims, the local police lodged an FIR on Jan 1 2006 against victim survivors and Rais Khan of the CJP. CJP gave full legal aid to them and bail was granted and a stay against their arrest also granted by the Gujarat High Court.
In the interim Rais Khan has today is no more with the organisation, he was dismissed from service. He is today under the influence been won over by the accused in the Naroda Patiya case—. Inexplicably on November 24, 2010 the matter that had been stayed by the Gujarat High Court was listed and the stay vacated. Rais Khan surrendered and has in statement recorded under section 164 made false accusations against mediapersons and Teesta Setalvad.
He appears to enjoy full immunity and security within the state of Gujarat.
Raising Legitimate Questions is not anti Nationalism
by Ram Puniyani
The tragedy of Mumbai 26/11 was one of the worst terror attacks in recent history in more ways than one. Apart from many other aspects of the tragedy one accompanying fact was the death of Hemant Karkare who was investigating into Malegaon bomb blast. His death was preceded by many a threats to his life from various quarters, Maharashtra Government had the reports about these threats. Since then the death of this upright police officer has become a contentious issue. Anybody raising questions about it is outright dubbed anti Hindu, anti-national, pro-Pakistan, a convenient decoy for those trying to hide the mountain of truth behind this tragedy.
That’s precisely what happened when Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh stated that Karkare was under tremendous pressure from Hindu right wing groups and that Singh had a talk with Karkare on the evening prior to Karkare’s death (December 2010). With this statement of his a hell broke loose and section of media tried to project as if Digvijay Singh’s statement is not true as Karkare was busy in such and such meetings. Now that does not cut much ice in today’s times when people are eared to the mobiles, and few minutes of conversation between meetings or during meetings is not a big deal.
Mr Singh also gave the Bhopal BSNL the number from which he had talked to Karkare but since the conversation took place over two years earlier, the record could not be traced as BSNL does not keep records beyond one year. Mr. Singh also showed the cuttings of papers which had carried this news at some time ago.
But is it the first time that we are coming to know that Karkare was under immense pressure from the people who were being investigated? Apart from Mr. Singh’s statement there had been media reports about leaders of Shiv Sena and BJP raising doubts about his integrity. The Shiv Sena’s Saamana had launched a sort of character assassination of this officer, it went to the extent of saying that they spit on Karkar’s face. Narendra Modi called him deshdrohi. The hypocrisy of both streams became clear after the murder of Karkare. Karkare was called a martyr by these communal parties and Narendra Modi even offered Rs 1 crore to the widow of the slain Karkare, which she refused to accept.
None other than Lal Krishna Advani went to the Prime Minister to complain about the torture of Pragya Singh Thakur and demanded for investigation of Thakur’s torture. This was a direct insinuation into the work of Karkare, who was so intimidated by this gang that he sought solace and advice from the senior police officer of the stature and integrity of Julio Reibeiro. Reibiero in his obituary (Times of India28th Nov 2010) confirmed that Karkare was being harassed and intimidated by the associates of Advani-Modi. Reibeiro advised the junior colleague to carry on with his work irrespective of the pressures. "He came to me because he was looking for someone to hold his hand," Ribeiro told IANS on phone from Mumbai while stressing that Karkare was not a man to be politically influenced.
"He… was more bothered about the BJP, which had well-oiled propaganda machinery and was running a concerted campaign against him that he had filed false cases against Pragnya Thakur and others" said Reibeiro.
By now many a skeletons have tumbled out of the secrecy of Sangh Parivar and starting from Pragya Singh Thakur to the top leaders Indresh Kumar and Swami Assemanand’s role in Ajmer, Mecca masjid blast and many other blasts is being investigated. One recalls that the large section of media has been quiet on this issue and starting form Nanded April 2006 blast in the house of a RSS worker Rajkondawar, these news items are either ignored or underplayed. We have seen banner headlines after some blasts proclaiming so called Jehadi groups to be behind the blasts. As the matters turn other barring the 26/11 case where Pakistan based Al Qaeda offshoot is involved, most of the cases which took place were the handiwork of the likes of Thakur, Indresh Kumar and Swami Assemanand, which had roped in a section of military officers like Lt. Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit.
Those activists who had been trying to raise these uncomfortable questions were bypassed, ignored or the convenient label of being pro-Pakistan was put on them. Even the Indian National Congress as a whole does not seem to be ready to stand up to the truth and has distanced itself from the statements of Mr. Singh now and earlier with Mr. Antulay in the aftermath of 26/11. Antulay had also pointed out that there may be a terrorism plus something else due to which Karkare got killed.
It seems the common perceptions in society have been so cultivated that to dub a SIMI or some Al Qaeda outfit finds easy acceptance and some scapegoats have been created, around which the social perceptions and police attitude and political opinions are based. There are infinite examples globally and locally where the manufactured perceptions dominate and rule the attitude of the state authorities. The case of Kennedy murder, now the 9/11 2001 and in our case the blasts like Mecca Masjid, Malegaon, Ajmer and even Samjhauta express are there for us to introspect. What is needed is a forthright investigation and punishing the guilty irrespective of their religion. Dubbing those raising the questions as pro-Pakistan, defy all the logic. True there are terror groups based on the soil of Pakistan, terror groups which were the product of US policy of fighting Russian army through the indoctrinated Muslim youth under the leadership of Osama bin Laden, himself a product of US policies. But that does not absolve the likes of Pragya Singh Thakur, Swami Aseemanand and company from their black deeds.
The other major propaganda has been that if you criticize these Hindutva terrorists, you are against Hindus and Hinduism. This is a deliberate projection to create a wall of confusion to hide the real culprits. While criticizing these terrorists nobody is criticizing Hindus or Hinduism. Such formulations have been manufactured to protect the guilty and those creating these formulations need to introspect rather than beating their breasts to hide the truth. Mr Digvijay Singh is right when he says, “If I point out that Karkare was under threat from Hindu fundamentalist organizations, I am accused of being anti-national and pro-Pakistan. However, if a former Union home minister and the shadow prime minister doubts the integrity of a police officer like Karkare, and demands a judicial probe into the ATS action against Pragya Thakur, he is a nationalist!”
The tragedy of Mumbai 26/11 was one of the worst terror attacks in recent history in more ways than one. Apart from many other aspects of the tragedy one accompanying fact was the death of Hemant Karkare who was investigating into Malegaon bomb blast. His death was preceded by many a threats to his life from various quarters, Maharashtra Government had the reports about these threats. Since then the death of this upright police officer has become a contentious issue. Anybody raising questions about it is outright dubbed anti Hindu, anti-national, pro-Pakistan, a convenient decoy for those trying to hide the mountain of truth behind this tragedy.
That’s precisely what happened when Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh stated that Karkare was under tremendous pressure from Hindu right wing groups and that Singh had a talk with Karkare on the evening prior to Karkare’s death (December 2010). With this statement of his a hell broke loose and section of media tried to project as if Digvijay Singh’s statement is not true as Karkare was busy in such and such meetings. Now that does not cut much ice in today’s times when people are eared to the mobiles, and few minutes of conversation between meetings or during meetings is not a big deal.
Mr Singh also gave the Bhopal BSNL the number from which he had talked to Karkare but since the conversation took place over two years earlier, the record could not be traced as BSNL does not keep records beyond one year. Mr. Singh also showed the cuttings of papers which had carried this news at some time ago.
But is it the first time that we are coming to know that Karkare was under immense pressure from the people who were being investigated? Apart from Mr. Singh’s statement there had been media reports about leaders of Shiv Sena and BJP raising doubts about his integrity. The Shiv Sena’s Saamana had launched a sort of character assassination of this officer, it went to the extent of saying that they spit on Karkar’s face. Narendra Modi called him deshdrohi. The hypocrisy of both streams became clear after the murder of Karkare. Karkare was called a martyr by these communal parties and Narendra Modi even offered Rs 1 crore to the widow of the slain Karkare, which she refused to accept.
None other than Lal Krishna Advani went to the Prime Minister to complain about the torture of Pragya Singh Thakur and demanded for investigation of Thakur’s torture. This was a direct insinuation into the work of Karkare, who was so intimidated by this gang that he sought solace and advice from the senior police officer of the stature and integrity of Julio Reibeiro. Reibiero in his obituary (Times of India28th Nov 2010) confirmed that Karkare was being harassed and intimidated by the associates of Advani-Modi. Reibeiro advised the junior colleague to carry on with his work irrespective of the pressures. "He came to me because he was looking for someone to hold his hand," Ribeiro told IANS on phone from Mumbai while stressing that Karkare was not a man to be politically influenced.
"He… was more bothered about the BJP, which had well-oiled propaganda machinery and was running a concerted campaign against him that he had filed false cases against Pragnya Thakur and others" said Reibeiro.
By now many a skeletons have tumbled out of the secrecy of Sangh Parivar and starting from Pragya Singh Thakur to the top leaders Indresh Kumar and Swami Assemanand’s role in Ajmer, Mecca masjid blast and many other blasts is being investigated. One recalls that the large section of media has been quiet on this issue and starting form Nanded April 2006 blast in the house of a RSS worker Rajkondawar, these news items are either ignored or underplayed. We have seen banner headlines after some blasts proclaiming so called Jehadi groups to be behind the blasts. As the matters turn other barring the 26/11 case where Pakistan based Al Qaeda offshoot is involved, most of the cases which took place were the handiwork of the likes of Thakur, Indresh Kumar and Swami Assemanand, which had roped in a section of military officers like Lt. Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit.
Those activists who had been trying to raise these uncomfortable questions were bypassed, ignored or the convenient label of being pro-Pakistan was put on them. Even the Indian National Congress as a whole does not seem to be ready to stand up to the truth and has distanced itself from the statements of Mr. Singh now and earlier with Mr. Antulay in the aftermath of 26/11. Antulay had also pointed out that there may be a terrorism plus something else due to which Karkare got killed.
It seems the common perceptions in society have been so cultivated that to dub a SIMI or some Al Qaeda outfit finds easy acceptance and some scapegoats have been created, around which the social perceptions and police attitude and political opinions are based. There are infinite examples globally and locally where the manufactured perceptions dominate and rule the attitude of the state authorities. The case of Kennedy murder, now the 9/11 2001 and in our case the blasts like Mecca Masjid, Malegaon, Ajmer and even Samjhauta express are there for us to introspect. What is needed is a forthright investigation and punishing the guilty irrespective of their religion. Dubbing those raising the questions as pro-Pakistan, defy all the logic. True there are terror groups based on the soil of Pakistan, terror groups which were the product of US policy of fighting Russian army through the indoctrinated Muslim youth under the leadership of Osama bin Laden, himself a product of US policies. But that does not absolve the likes of Pragya Singh Thakur, Swami Aseemanand and company from their black deeds.
The other major propaganda has been that if you criticize these Hindutva terrorists, you are against Hindus and Hinduism. This is a deliberate projection to create a wall of confusion to hide the real culprits. While criticizing these terrorists nobody is criticizing Hindus or Hinduism. Such formulations have been manufactured to protect the guilty and those creating these formulations need to introspect rather than beating their breasts to hide the truth. Mr Digvijay Singh is right when he says, “If I point out that Karkare was under threat from Hindu fundamentalist organizations, I am accused of being anti-national and pro-Pakistan. However, if a former Union home minister and the shadow prime minister doubts the integrity of a police officer like Karkare, and demands a judicial probe into the ATS action against Pragya Thakur, he is a nationalist!”
Report in Frontline on the symposium Faith and Fact: Democracy after Ayodhya Verdict”
Frontline, Volume 28 - Issue 01 :: Jan. 01-14, 2011
Bones of contention
T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
Experts say that not all the facts that emerged during excavations at Ayodhya were taken into account in the verdict given by the High Court.
THE verdict delivered by the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court on September 30 on the Ayodhya title suit has been a subject of debate and discussion among social scientists, activists and legal experts. “Faith and Fact: Democracy after Ayodhya Verdict”, a symposium held in New Delhi from December 6 to 8 and organised by Social Scientist, the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) and Communalism Combat, dealt with the verdict's ramifications, including its consequences for the country's plurality and secularism, one of the basic tenets of the Indian Constitution that is unalterable even by the legislature.
Historians such as Irfan Habib, Shireen Moosvi and Syed Ali Rezavi drew on historical and archaeological evidence to show that many facts were not taken into account in giving the judgment, while the flawed report of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was. Legal experts lamented the deep-rooted social and religious biases among members of the higher judiciary and the implications that this had for democracy in India. The occasion was marked by the release of a significant publication by the Aligarh Historians Society, titled “History and the Judgement of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in the Ramjanambhumi-Babri Masjid case”. In its preface, Irfan Habib wrote: “The operational part of the majority judgment derived not from Justice S.U. Khan's, but from Justice Sudhir Agarwal's reading of the historical background.”
The ASI's excavation report of 2002 formed the crux of the judgment. Rezavi explained, with the help of slides, how the Babri Masjid could not have been made at a time later than the 15th century and that it was not constructed by the later Mughals as alleged. Irfan Habib, who is also the president of the Aligarh Historians Society, spoke of the ASI's conduct and said that it was surprising that while the idols were assumed to be those of Ram Lalla, the Babri Masjid was referred to as an “alleged” mosque.
The ASI's report talked of finding “pillar bases” in its excavations. Rezavi, who was one of the three archaeologists appointed by the court as observers during the excavations, said that many of the ASI's actions were disturbing. He said that “minaras”, or minarets, came much after Babar's time and that the argument that all mosques had minaras and the Babri Masjid was not a mosque as it did not have one was flawed. These structures appeared from Shah Jahan's time. Even the defined arch, he explained, emerged only during Aurangazeb's and Akbar's regimes. “In Babar's period, they were still trying to perfect the arch,” he said. The main archway of the Babri Masjid and the heaviness of the structure were ideas borrowed from the Iranian tradition, he said. The material used in the Babri Masjid, surkhi (according to an established glossary this means pounded brick mixed with lime to form a hydraulic mortar) and lime alternating with rubble and calcrete was used in many structures in Ayodhya such as makbaras and mausoleums.
Rezavi, who calls himself a historian rather than an archaeologist, said that the pillars found at the site were decorative ones inserted in the archway and could not support any structure. “None of the pillars, including the free-standing ones, resembles each other. They could have been got from anywhere else and used as decorative pieces. The existence of pillars does not mean that there was no mosque,” he said, citing examples of existing mosques and Mughal structures that have pillars that are not used for decorative purposes but for supporting the roof. Fatehpur Sikri in Agra, Jama Masjid in Delhi and structures in Jaunpur, which typified Mughal mosques, used pillars, he pointed out.
Irfan Habib said that the Babri Masjid was supposed to be a protected monument. On the orders of the Bench that the ASI seek expert opinion, the ASI deployed the services of a company called Tojo-Vikas International Limited to undertake geological surveys. He quipped: “Ignorant as the ASI was of history, it got in touch with a company with the name of Tojo.” Hideki Tojo was Japan's political and military leader who ordered the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941.
The Indian History Congress had protested when the Bench ordered the excavation to see if there was any structure below the mosque. The High Court had ruled that the exercise would be undertaken by five eminent archaeologists, including two Muslims. “The first thing the Government of India did when the ASI was assigned the task was to change the Director-General of ASI. The then Bharatiya Janata Party government got a pliant DG,” Habib said. The nomenclature of the Bench as referred to in the ASI itself changed; from being referred to as the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi Bench, it became the Ram Janmabhoomi Bench. A team leader was selected, and of the 20 experts, only one was a Muslim.
“Even before the excavation, the religious colour of the excavation was established. The Bench took notice of this and asked the ASI to remedy it. Religion was not as important as public confidence was. In fact, more non-Muslim archaeologists and historians were representing the Sunni Waqf Board,” he said.
Of a total of 89 labourers, only nine were Muslims, and the ASI continued to defy the orders, said Habib. “It was obvious that their conduct was not above board,” he said. The matter took a serious turn when the ASI did not record the glazed ware, bones and fragments that appeared while digging the trenches. The Bench ordered that the matter should be sealed. “All this reflects in Justice Sudhir Agarwal's judgment, but he does not mention it,” he said. The Bench then passed an extraordinary order that called for the appointment of a new team leader. The existing leader, B.R. Mani, was made Director, Excavations. While Justice Sudhir Agarwal's judgment makes no note of the observations by the Bench, it took a serious view of the violations by the ASI. “It was only because of the monitors appointed by the Bench that the truth came out,” said Habib, adding that Justice Agarwal was irritated by complaints by the monitors regarding the ASI's behaviour. “It does not irritate him that the ASI was committing violations,” he said.
Judicial censures, especially motivated ones, he said, should not matter to historical experts. The monitoring did not go in vain; the ASI was forced to record the glazed ware and other findings. “The ASI report is motivated; it has concealments and defiance. It provides no concordance with layers and trenches; one just has to take their word for it,” he said. On the ASI's finding of pillar bases, he said that the ASI claimed to have found pillar bases with brickbats.
“It is interesting that B.R. Mani's own report on Lalkot where stone bases were found and were said to be weak enough to hold a canopy, in Ayodhya, brickbats can hold pillars,” said Habib. The assertion that the remains of 50 pillars were found was also specious because it was not supported by the finding of an equivalent number of slabs. “Where did they all go? Pillars are supposed to be there and cannot be found. The question is why should pillar bases be associated with Hindus and not Muslims. All this was submitted as evidence by R.C. Thakran, but it was ignored. Not only pillars are Hindu, even circles are. The area denoted as a circular shrine despite its Lilliputian size was given gigantic importance in the judgment, ” he added.
The presence of bones could have been an indication of human habitation, especially by the poor; it could not have been a temple, let alone the Ram Janmabhoomi temple, he said. There was no proof of animal sacrifice; without citing any authority on the subject, Justice Agarwal in his order emphatically stated that “it was a well-known fact that in certain Hindu temples, animal sacrifices are made and flesh is eaten as prasad while bones are deposited below the floor at the site”. No evidence has been found of the Kali cult in the Upper Gangetic Basin where Ayodhya is situated, said Habib. On the contrary, the presence of glazed ware and bones showed that the land adjacent to the walls and the main structure remained open, as would be the case with an Eidgah or Qanati (with much open land) mosque, so that the waste matter could be thrown there. The presence of glazed ware itself was a clincher of Islamic presence.
In the three centuries preceding 1528, argue the Historians' Forum, Ayodhya, or Awadh, was a city with a large Muslim population along with Hindu inhabitants, and given the dietary customs of the two communities, an “abundance of animal bones” would weigh heavily in favour of a Muslim presence in the immediate vicinity of the disputed site. The historians felt that the court should have asked the concerned plaintiffs what proof there was that a temple existed. To have merely asserted that the remains beneath the Babri Masjid were “religious” was not sufficient in itself as such a structure could be theoretically Islamic, Jain, Buddhist or even Saivite, given the presence of animal bones. Neither were any significant remains of a “massive Hindu or Vaishnavite temple”, images or stones with sculptured divinities, vandalised or otherwise, found in the excavations. On the basis of very limited “evidence”, stones and bricks, the idea of an entire temple was constructed. The detailed notes were deleted from the computer, as reported to the Bench by the ASI.
Historians baffled
The historians were baffled by the opinion of Justice Agarwal with respect to Islam where he is supposed to have said: “Whatever we had to suffice it to conclude that the incidence of temple demolition are [ sic] not only confined to past but is going in [ sic] continuously. The religion which is supposed to connect all individuals with brotherly feeling has become a tool of hearted [ sic] and enmity.” How can a historian answer in either “yes” or “no”, asked Shireen Moosvi, one of the authors of the document. Moosvi was cross-examined by the Bench.
Legal experts like B.A. Desai, Mihir Desai and Anupam Gupta and retired judges like P.B. Sawant and Hosbet Suresh felt that the act of demolition was a clear contempt of court and those responsible for that should have been put behind bars. They expressed concern as to how certain judgments had interpreted Hindutva and given legitimacy to acts perpetrated under its name. B.A. Desai, who was also the former Additional Solicitor General of India, wrote in his paper that Hindu communal forces had looked upon Justice Verma's judgment ( Manohar Joshi vs N.B. Patil) as the “judicial imprimatur of its divisive ideology”, where the judge found that the statement of Manohar Joshi that the “first Hindu state will be established in Maharashtra” did not amount to appeal on the grounds of religion. Desai said that the judge did not find anything wrong in the election speech of Manohar Joshi, a Shiv Sena leader, and held that “in our opinion, the mere statement that a Hindu state will be established in Maharashtra is by itself not an appeal on the ground of his religion but the expression at the best of such hope”.
Mihir Desai pointed out how derogatory statements of another senior Shiv Sena leader about Muslims were interpreted by the High Court as having referred to only “anti-national” Muslims. “The High Court held a view that even the Shiv Sena leader did not harbour,” said Desai. The order was challenged in the apex court, which turned down the appeal. Justice Hosbet Suresh lamented that the courts often favoured the majority community. “I could never imagine that this kind of a judgment could be delivered. If faith is to be the rule of law, it would affect democracy ultimately,” he said.
Justice P.B. Sawant felt that all the key institutions in the country were being run by the ruling classes. “As a citizen, lawyer and judge, I have yet to come across a case where a person belonging to the ruling class or supporting a ruling class has been convicted and a victim has got justice. The Lucknow Bench has committed three grave injustices. One, it converted a title suit to a partition suit; two, instead of giving a judgment, it gave a compromise that was not sought by anybody; and three, it made its basis faith and not law,” he said.
The basis of democracy was the rule of law and if that got substituted by faith, then the outcome would be disastrous, he said. All the legal experts were unanimous that in the interests of democracy and secularism, the judgment needed to be reversed. “Let us hope the Supreme Court sets things right. Had the apex court given this kind of a judgement, where would we have gone? It is now the Constitution which is at stake,” he said.
Bones of contention
T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
Experts say that not all the facts that emerged during excavations at Ayodhya were taken into account in the verdict given by the High Court.
THE verdict delivered by the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court on September 30 on the Ayodhya title suit has been a subject of debate and discussion among social scientists, activists and legal experts. “Faith and Fact: Democracy after Ayodhya Verdict”, a symposium held in New Delhi from December 6 to 8 and organised by Social Scientist, the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) and Communalism Combat, dealt with the verdict's ramifications, including its consequences for the country's plurality and secularism, one of the basic tenets of the Indian Constitution that is unalterable even by the legislature.
Historians such as Irfan Habib, Shireen Moosvi and Syed Ali Rezavi drew on historical and archaeological evidence to show that many facts were not taken into account in giving the judgment, while the flawed report of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was. Legal experts lamented the deep-rooted social and religious biases among members of the higher judiciary and the implications that this had for democracy in India. The occasion was marked by the release of a significant publication by the Aligarh Historians Society, titled “History and the Judgement of the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in the Ramjanambhumi-Babri Masjid case”. In its preface, Irfan Habib wrote: “The operational part of the majority judgment derived not from Justice S.U. Khan's, but from Justice Sudhir Agarwal's reading of the historical background.”
The ASI's excavation report of 2002 formed the crux of the judgment. Rezavi explained, with the help of slides, how the Babri Masjid could not have been made at a time later than the 15th century and that it was not constructed by the later Mughals as alleged. Irfan Habib, who is also the president of the Aligarh Historians Society, spoke of the ASI's conduct and said that it was surprising that while the idols were assumed to be those of Ram Lalla, the Babri Masjid was referred to as an “alleged” mosque.
The ASI's report talked of finding “pillar bases” in its excavations. Rezavi, who was one of the three archaeologists appointed by the court as observers during the excavations, said that many of the ASI's actions were disturbing. He said that “minaras”, or minarets, came much after Babar's time and that the argument that all mosques had minaras and the Babri Masjid was not a mosque as it did not have one was flawed. These structures appeared from Shah Jahan's time. Even the defined arch, he explained, emerged only during Aurangazeb's and Akbar's regimes. “In Babar's period, they were still trying to perfect the arch,” he said. The main archway of the Babri Masjid and the heaviness of the structure were ideas borrowed from the Iranian tradition, he said. The material used in the Babri Masjid, surkhi (according to an established glossary this means pounded brick mixed with lime to form a hydraulic mortar) and lime alternating with rubble and calcrete was used in many structures in Ayodhya such as makbaras and mausoleums.
Rezavi, who calls himself a historian rather than an archaeologist, said that the pillars found at the site were decorative ones inserted in the archway and could not support any structure. “None of the pillars, including the free-standing ones, resembles each other. They could have been got from anywhere else and used as decorative pieces. The existence of pillars does not mean that there was no mosque,” he said, citing examples of existing mosques and Mughal structures that have pillars that are not used for decorative purposes but for supporting the roof. Fatehpur Sikri in Agra, Jama Masjid in Delhi and structures in Jaunpur, which typified Mughal mosques, used pillars, he pointed out.
Irfan Habib said that the Babri Masjid was supposed to be a protected monument. On the orders of the Bench that the ASI seek expert opinion, the ASI deployed the services of a company called Tojo-Vikas International Limited to undertake geological surveys. He quipped: “Ignorant as the ASI was of history, it got in touch with a company with the name of Tojo.” Hideki Tojo was Japan's political and military leader who ordered the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941.
The Indian History Congress had protested when the Bench ordered the excavation to see if there was any structure below the mosque. The High Court had ruled that the exercise would be undertaken by five eminent archaeologists, including two Muslims. “The first thing the Government of India did when the ASI was assigned the task was to change the Director-General of ASI. The then Bharatiya Janata Party government got a pliant DG,” Habib said. The nomenclature of the Bench as referred to in the ASI itself changed; from being referred to as the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi Bench, it became the Ram Janmabhoomi Bench. A team leader was selected, and of the 20 experts, only one was a Muslim.
“Even before the excavation, the religious colour of the excavation was established. The Bench took notice of this and asked the ASI to remedy it. Religion was not as important as public confidence was. In fact, more non-Muslim archaeologists and historians were representing the Sunni Waqf Board,” he said.
Of a total of 89 labourers, only nine were Muslims, and the ASI continued to defy the orders, said Habib. “It was obvious that their conduct was not above board,” he said. The matter took a serious turn when the ASI did not record the glazed ware, bones and fragments that appeared while digging the trenches. The Bench ordered that the matter should be sealed. “All this reflects in Justice Sudhir Agarwal's judgment, but he does not mention it,” he said. The Bench then passed an extraordinary order that called for the appointment of a new team leader. The existing leader, B.R. Mani, was made Director, Excavations. While Justice Sudhir Agarwal's judgment makes no note of the observations by the Bench, it took a serious view of the violations by the ASI. “It was only because of the monitors appointed by the Bench that the truth came out,” said Habib, adding that Justice Agarwal was irritated by complaints by the monitors regarding the ASI's behaviour. “It does not irritate him that the ASI was committing violations,” he said.
Judicial censures, especially motivated ones, he said, should not matter to historical experts. The monitoring did not go in vain; the ASI was forced to record the glazed ware and other findings. “The ASI report is motivated; it has concealments and defiance. It provides no concordance with layers and trenches; one just has to take their word for it,” he said. On the ASI's finding of pillar bases, he said that the ASI claimed to have found pillar bases with brickbats.
“It is interesting that B.R. Mani's own report on Lalkot where stone bases were found and were said to be weak enough to hold a canopy, in Ayodhya, brickbats can hold pillars,” said Habib. The assertion that the remains of 50 pillars were found was also specious because it was not supported by the finding of an equivalent number of slabs. “Where did they all go? Pillars are supposed to be there and cannot be found. The question is why should pillar bases be associated with Hindus and not Muslims. All this was submitted as evidence by R.C. Thakran, but it was ignored. Not only pillars are Hindu, even circles are. The area denoted as a circular shrine despite its Lilliputian size was given gigantic importance in the judgment, ” he added.
The presence of bones could have been an indication of human habitation, especially by the poor; it could not have been a temple, let alone the Ram Janmabhoomi temple, he said. There was no proof of animal sacrifice; without citing any authority on the subject, Justice Agarwal in his order emphatically stated that “it was a well-known fact that in certain Hindu temples, animal sacrifices are made and flesh is eaten as prasad while bones are deposited below the floor at the site”. No evidence has been found of the Kali cult in the Upper Gangetic Basin where Ayodhya is situated, said Habib. On the contrary, the presence of glazed ware and bones showed that the land adjacent to the walls and the main structure remained open, as would be the case with an Eidgah or Qanati (with much open land) mosque, so that the waste matter could be thrown there. The presence of glazed ware itself was a clincher of Islamic presence.
In the three centuries preceding 1528, argue the Historians' Forum, Ayodhya, or Awadh, was a city with a large Muslim population along with Hindu inhabitants, and given the dietary customs of the two communities, an “abundance of animal bones” would weigh heavily in favour of a Muslim presence in the immediate vicinity of the disputed site. The historians felt that the court should have asked the concerned plaintiffs what proof there was that a temple existed. To have merely asserted that the remains beneath the Babri Masjid were “religious” was not sufficient in itself as such a structure could be theoretically Islamic, Jain, Buddhist or even Saivite, given the presence of animal bones. Neither were any significant remains of a “massive Hindu or Vaishnavite temple”, images or stones with sculptured divinities, vandalised or otherwise, found in the excavations. On the basis of very limited “evidence”, stones and bricks, the idea of an entire temple was constructed. The detailed notes were deleted from the computer, as reported to the Bench by the ASI.
Historians baffled
The historians were baffled by the opinion of Justice Agarwal with respect to Islam where he is supposed to have said: “Whatever we had to suffice it to conclude that the incidence of temple demolition are [ sic] not only confined to past but is going in [ sic] continuously. The religion which is supposed to connect all individuals with brotherly feeling has become a tool of hearted [ sic] and enmity.” How can a historian answer in either “yes” or “no”, asked Shireen Moosvi, one of the authors of the document. Moosvi was cross-examined by the Bench.
Legal experts like B.A. Desai, Mihir Desai and Anupam Gupta and retired judges like P.B. Sawant and Hosbet Suresh felt that the act of demolition was a clear contempt of court and those responsible for that should have been put behind bars. They expressed concern as to how certain judgments had interpreted Hindutva and given legitimacy to acts perpetrated under its name. B.A. Desai, who was also the former Additional Solicitor General of India, wrote in his paper that Hindu communal forces had looked upon Justice Verma's judgment ( Manohar Joshi vs N.B. Patil) as the “judicial imprimatur of its divisive ideology”, where the judge found that the statement of Manohar Joshi that the “first Hindu state will be established in Maharashtra” did not amount to appeal on the grounds of religion. Desai said that the judge did not find anything wrong in the election speech of Manohar Joshi, a Shiv Sena leader, and held that “in our opinion, the mere statement that a Hindu state will be established in Maharashtra is by itself not an appeal on the ground of his religion but the expression at the best of such hope”.
Mihir Desai pointed out how derogatory statements of another senior Shiv Sena leader about Muslims were interpreted by the High Court as having referred to only “anti-national” Muslims. “The High Court held a view that even the Shiv Sena leader did not harbour,” said Desai. The order was challenged in the apex court, which turned down the appeal. Justice Hosbet Suresh lamented that the courts often favoured the majority community. “I could never imagine that this kind of a judgment could be delivered. If faith is to be the rule of law, it would affect democracy ultimately,” he said.
Justice P.B. Sawant felt that all the key institutions in the country were being run by the ruling classes. “As a citizen, lawyer and judge, I have yet to come across a case where a person belonging to the ruling class or supporting a ruling class has been convicted and a victim has got justice. The Lucknow Bench has committed three grave injustices. One, it converted a title suit to a partition suit; two, instead of giving a judgment, it gave a compromise that was not sought by anybody; and three, it made its basis faith and not law,” he said.
The basis of democracy was the rule of law and if that got substituted by faith, then the outcome would be disastrous, he said. All the legal experts were unanimous that in the interests of democracy and secularism, the judgment needed to be reversed. “Let us hope the Supreme Court sets things right. Had the apex court given this kind of a judgement, where would we have gone? It is now the Constitution which is at stake,” he said.
December 29, 2010
In India secularism has become a slave of religious lobbies
Khaleej Times, 6 December 2010
Down the road from Ayodhya
by Farzana Versey
Eighteen years after the Bombay riots, if I still remember the face of the Hindu woman who wanted me to walk with her in the streets that were fast getting deserted on that December 6, then it certainly means the scars have not faded. On any other occasion we could have swapped clothes and stories, but on that day she was a Hindu and I a Muslim.
I did not tell her; it was my secret, my cranny identity. She told me, with fear of ‘them’ in her quivering voice. I wanted to laugh through my unwept tears. The burden of proving wounds was on the prey. Years later it is the same. The strategy has changed, though. In the forward-looking India, secularism has become a slave of religious lobbies. To bait Muslims and demand progressive thinking is part of an agenda. Political postmodernism subverts the contemporary for its edifice is antiquity. The Renaissance of Hindutva is based to a large extent on this. One of the most backward organisations in this country — the RSS — is ruling India, either directly in states where its emissaries make sure its satellite political parties toe the line or by forcing counteracting policies even from the supposedly non-communal parties.
During the riots of 1992-93, there was one particular line of thinking that urged Muslims to ‘go to Pakistan’. In the wake of the recent WikiLeaks, one interesting revelation is that President Asif Ali Zardari is trying to get away from the blame of the 26/11 terrorist attacks in Mumbai by quoting from the Sachar Report on economic and social backwardness, saying that it “indicated that Indian Muslims are treated poorly and are among the least prosperous members of society”. However, when he adds that “there were plenty of extremist groups in India that could have assisted LeT”, it gives the impression that poverty is the only cause of terrorism. It also conveys that Pakistan is concerned about the Indian Muslim, which it is not, and the Indian Muslim looks to Pakistan as some sort of saviour, which we do not.
This sort of rash argument plays into the hands of the saffron parties. Let us not forget that post-Partition the fall of the Babri Masjid was the beginning of the visible division of India. It was a blatant display of power. Every commission of inquiry has not been able to pin down the culprits. The age of enlightenment has meant a patronising acceptance of the largest minority with the proviso that they should help to build a temple at the site. Our liberals do not find this unusual, given that such an expectation should bring down their flimsy curtain of evolution. It is regressive if we have to clutter our mores with excavated history. It acts as a barricade to any movement forward and creates fences.
And in this scenario Muslims are urged to reform. Reform into what — chattels of the Hindutva movement or its own liberals with their elastic halos? The liberal schema is seriously flawed for it looks towards the majoritarian credo for its acceptance. It lacks the courage to protest. It comes out in droves to rally for the causes where the Islamists are the culprits. But when Uma Bharti, who was on the dais when the mosque’s demolition took place, declared that the senior BJP leaders did not know who did it, there were no rallies by them demanding an explanation.
Why is this so? Here the Muslim sympathiser comes in. Now, Muslims cannot be Muslim sympathisers, so the causes have been taken over by the others. Our modern Muslims are the token angels in the deviously-manufactured paradise where a handful dictates terms to the rest. It is part of the ‘objectivity’ plan, which denotes that the minority community has to prove itself at every turn. Those who call for a strong sensible Muslim leadership are the ones who will scuttle such a move for they have appropriated the right to be spokespersons of the Indian Muslim.
Religious open-mindedness is measured in economic and cultural terms. Ironically, the Muslims who are aired as examples of the ‘good’ ones are not in a position to speak on behalf of the 160 million who live lives of abject poverty and fear. The class that has to be protected is the one that is most threatened. Azim Premji may be the biggest philanthropist today but will it have any impact on society’s attitude towards Indian Muslims? The common person will not bask in such reflected glory, but they certainly do not want an IT revolutionary thrust as an example of how they can move ahead. No one uses the example of Narayan Murthy or the Ambanis to ask the poor Hindus and Dalits to become progressive. The other fallout is the appearance of the cultural Muslim. They are so afraid that even when they observe the Ramadan fasts they call it a cultural act. It would be better for them to perform kathak to prove their cultural allegiance to the faith associated with the Mughal colonisers. There has to be a clear understanding as to how a religion is viewed in political terms, for there may be fringe adherents and even non-believers but an accident of birth puts them in a position to be part of the community. Their participation is crucial for they too have to bear the consequences of being tagged.
After Ayodhya, all labels come with strings attached.
Farzana Versey is a Mumbai- based writer
Down the road from Ayodhya
by Farzana Versey
Eighteen years after the Bombay riots, if I still remember the face of the Hindu woman who wanted me to walk with her in the streets that were fast getting deserted on that December 6, then it certainly means the scars have not faded. On any other occasion we could have swapped clothes and stories, but on that day she was a Hindu and I a Muslim.
I did not tell her; it was my secret, my cranny identity. She told me, with fear of ‘them’ in her quivering voice. I wanted to laugh through my unwept tears. The burden of proving wounds was on the prey. Years later it is the same. The strategy has changed, though. In the forward-looking India, secularism has become a slave of religious lobbies. To bait Muslims and demand progressive thinking is part of an agenda. Political postmodernism subverts the contemporary for its edifice is antiquity. The Renaissance of Hindutva is based to a large extent on this. One of the most backward organisations in this country — the RSS — is ruling India, either directly in states where its emissaries make sure its satellite political parties toe the line or by forcing counteracting policies even from the supposedly non-communal parties.
During the riots of 1992-93, there was one particular line of thinking that urged Muslims to ‘go to Pakistan’. In the wake of the recent WikiLeaks, one interesting revelation is that President Asif Ali Zardari is trying to get away from the blame of the 26/11 terrorist attacks in Mumbai by quoting from the Sachar Report on economic and social backwardness, saying that it “indicated that Indian Muslims are treated poorly and are among the least prosperous members of society”. However, when he adds that “there were plenty of extremist groups in India that could have assisted LeT”, it gives the impression that poverty is the only cause of terrorism. It also conveys that Pakistan is concerned about the Indian Muslim, which it is not, and the Indian Muslim looks to Pakistan as some sort of saviour, which we do not.
This sort of rash argument plays into the hands of the saffron parties. Let us not forget that post-Partition the fall of the Babri Masjid was the beginning of the visible division of India. It was a blatant display of power. Every commission of inquiry has not been able to pin down the culprits. The age of enlightenment has meant a patronising acceptance of the largest minority with the proviso that they should help to build a temple at the site. Our liberals do not find this unusual, given that such an expectation should bring down their flimsy curtain of evolution. It is regressive if we have to clutter our mores with excavated history. It acts as a barricade to any movement forward and creates fences.
And in this scenario Muslims are urged to reform. Reform into what — chattels of the Hindutva movement or its own liberals with their elastic halos? The liberal schema is seriously flawed for it looks towards the majoritarian credo for its acceptance. It lacks the courage to protest. It comes out in droves to rally for the causes where the Islamists are the culprits. But when Uma Bharti, who was on the dais when the mosque’s demolition took place, declared that the senior BJP leaders did not know who did it, there were no rallies by them demanding an explanation.
Why is this so? Here the Muslim sympathiser comes in. Now, Muslims cannot be Muslim sympathisers, so the causes have been taken over by the others. Our modern Muslims are the token angels in the deviously-manufactured paradise where a handful dictates terms to the rest. It is part of the ‘objectivity’ plan, which denotes that the minority community has to prove itself at every turn. Those who call for a strong sensible Muslim leadership are the ones who will scuttle such a move for they have appropriated the right to be spokespersons of the Indian Muslim.
Religious open-mindedness is measured in economic and cultural terms. Ironically, the Muslims who are aired as examples of the ‘good’ ones are not in a position to speak on behalf of the 160 million who live lives of abject poverty and fear. The class that has to be protected is the one that is most threatened. Azim Premji may be the biggest philanthropist today but will it have any impact on society’s attitude towards Indian Muslims? The common person will not bask in such reflected glory, but they certainly do not want an IT revolutionary thrust as an example of how they can move ahead. No one uses the example of Narayan Murthy or the Ambanis to ask the poor Hindus and Dalits to become progressive. The other fallout is the appearance of the cultural Muslim. They are so afraid that even when they observe the Ramadan fasts they call it a cultural act. It would be better for them to perform kathak to prove their cultural allegiance to the faith associated with the Mughal colonisers. There has to be a clear understanding as to how a religion is viewed in political terms, for there may be fringe adherents and even non-believers but an accident of birth puts them in a position to be part of the community. Their participation is crucial for they too have to bear the consequences of being tagged.
After Ayodhya, all labels come with strings attached.
Farzana Versey is a Mumbai- based writer
December 26, 2010
Ayodhya Judgement and its Repurcussions - Anhad Seminar in Bombay (29 December 2010)
ANHAD
DECEMBER 29, 2010
Venue: Nirmala Niketan Extension Centre, St Pius College Campus, Aarey Road, Goregaon East, Mumbai-400063
SEMINAR
AYODHYA JUDGEMENT AND ITS REPURCUSSIONS
SEMINAR
Is Indian State Turning Communal? PROF KN PANIKKAR
Overview of the Ayodhya Judgement ANUPAM GUPTA
12.30-1.30PM
Open Discussion
1.30-2.30
LUNCH
2.30-4.00
Ayodhya Judgement: An Assault on Scientific Temper and Secularism: GAUHAR RAZA
Growth of Communal Consciousness: Role of Media: SEEMA MUSTAFA
4.00-5.30PM
Open Discussion
DECEMBER 29, 2010
Venue: Nirmala Niketan Extension Centre, St Pius College Campus, Aarey Road, Goregaon East, Mumbai-400063
SEMINAR
AYODHYA JUDGEMENT AND ITS REPURCUSSIONS
SEMINAR
Is Indian State Turning Communal? PROF KN PANIKKAR
Overview of the Ayodhya Judgement ANUPAM GUPTA
12.30-1.30PM
Open Discussion
1.30-2.30
LUNCH
2.30-4.00
Ayodhya Judgement: An Assault on Scientific Temper and Secularism: GAUHAR RAZA
Growth of Communal Consciousness: Role of Media: SEEMA MUSTAFA
4.00-5.30PM
Open Discussion
Maa Danteshwari Swabhimani Adivasi Manch thretens to kill journalists in Chhatissgarh
The Hindu, Dec 24, 2010
Dantewada: scribes receive threats
Aman Sethi
Raipur (Chhattisgarh) : Last month, a group calling itself the “Maa Danteshwari Swabhimani Adivasi Manch” circulated a pamphlet in Dantewada district, threatening to kill anyone perceived to be a supporter of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).
The pamphlet accused Dantewada's oldest journalist N.R.K. Pillai, Anil Mishra, Chhattisgarh Correspondent for Tehelka, and Yashwant Yadav, District Secretary of the Chhattisgarh Working Journalists' Union, of working for the Maoists and threatened them with dire circumstances.
The pamphlet also praised the efforts of the Dantewada Senior Superintendent of Police, S.R.P. Kalluri, describing him as an officer who has “destroyed the daily rest and nightly sleep of the Maoists.”
The journalists believe that the local administration and police are using the armed conflict between paramilitary forces and CPI (Maoist) rebels as an excuse for targeting reporters who have highlighted police atrocities and are critical of the local administration.
“The ‘Ma Danteswari Manch' is a front organisation floated and supported by the district police,” said Mr. Mishra. “It has been used in the past to intimidate social activists like Medha Patkar, and is now being used to threaten the press. Members of the Manch were also responsible for the attack on a peaceful anti-government rally in Dantewada in January this year.”
In October 2009, Mr. Mishra and Mr. Yadav were served with police notices, ordering them to reveal their sources, when they published stories alleging that security forces had killed and maimed innocent villagers in a routine search operation. In January this year, they were repeatedly detained at police check-posts while working on a follow-up story. In October, the International Federation of Journalists noted that “journalists in the Maoist insurgency areas are often intimidated into silence by a climate of intolerance promoted by state authorities.
“We asked the police to track the people behind this pamphlet, but they refused to register a first information report,” said Mr. Yadav.
“If the police can arrest those in possession of Maoist pamphlets, why can't they investigate a pamphlet that incites murder?”
Dantewada: scribes receive threats
Aman Sethi
Raipur (Chhattisgarh) : Last month, a group calling itself the “Maa Danteshwari Swabhimani Adivasi Manch” circulated a pamphlet in Dantewada district, threatening to kill anyone perceived to be a supporter of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).
The pamphlet accused Dantewada's oldest journalist N.R.K. Pillai, Anil Mishra, Chhattisgarh Correspondent for Tehelka, and Yashwant Yadav, District Secretary of the Chhattisgarh Working Journalists' Union, of working for the Maoists and threatened them with dire circumstances.
The pamphlet also praised the efforts of the Dantewada Senior Superintendent of Police, S.R.P. Kalluri, describing him as an officer who has “destroyed the daily rest and nightly sleep of the Maoists.”
The journalists believe that the local administration and police are using the armed conflict between paramilitary forces and CPI (Maoist) rebels as an excuse for targeting reporters who have highlighted police atrocities and are critical of the local administration.
“The ‘Ma Danteswari Manch' is a front organisation floated and supported by the district police,” said Mr. Mishra. “It has been used in the past to intimidate social activists like Medha Patkar, and is now being used to threaten the press. Members of the Manch were also responsible for the attack on a peaceful anti-government rally in Dantewada in January this year.”
In October 2009, Mr. Mishra and Mr. Yadav were served with police notices, ordering them to reveal their sources, when they published stories alleging that security forces had killed and maimed innocent villagers in a routine search operation. In January this year, they were repeatedly detained at police check-posts while working on a follow-up story. In October, the International Federation of Journalists noted that “journalists in the Maoist insurgency areas are often intimidated into silence by a climate of intolerance promoted by state authorities.
“We asked the police to track the people behind this pamphlet, but they refused to register a first information report,” said Mr. Yadav.
“If the police can arrest those in possession of Maoist pamphlets, why can't they investigate a pamphlet that incites murder?”
Hindutva Terror Tapes that exposed nexus between military intelligence and hindutva outfits
From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 7, Issue 52, Dated January 01, 2011
CURRENT AFFAIRS
MILITARY INTELLIGENCE
HINDUTVA TERROR TAPES
THE UNTURNED STONE
The Malegaon blast probe threw up 37 audiotapes in which ultra-Hindu groups plot terror attacks. These tapes expose a shocking nexus between Military Intelligence men and the outfits. Two years later, why is this still unexplored, asks RANA AYYUB
Lt Col Shrikant Purohit Military Intelligence officer
Lt Col Shrikant Purohit
Military Intelligence officer
The man who procured the RDX that was used for the Malegaon blast. He is the first serving officer to be arrested in a terror case
PHOTOS: DEEPAK SALVI
HATE IS one of the obvious and evident yields of the Hindutva worldview. But few had imagined it could spawn a terror network until investigations into the 2008 Malegaon blast led to a series of startling arrests that included Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and Lt Col Shrikant Purohit of Abhinav Bharat, an ultra-right Hindu group. Since then, the issue of ‘saffron terror’ has entered national discourse as a fractious and heated debate.
Last week, the issue erupted once again, triggering livid responses across the political spectrum. First, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh claimed that Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare — who had been investigating the Malegaon blast — had called him hours before he died on the fateful night of 26/11, saying he was being threatened by those opposed to his probes. Singh was speaking at the launch of a book by Aziz Burney, controversially titled 26/11 — A RSS Controversy? and both sections of his own party and the BJP were dismayed that his “irresponsible” remarks would play into Pakistan’s hands.
Maj (retd) Ramesh Upadhyay Military Intelligence officer
Maj (retd) Ramesh Upadhyay
Military Intelligence officer
He is suspected of training those who assembled the bomb that went off in Malegaon. He also headed BJP’s ex-servicemen cell
PHOTOS: DEEPAK SALVI
A few days later, in its ongoing exposé, WikiLeaks released a cable in which US Ambassador Timothy Roemer claimed that Rahul Gandhi had told him that ultra-Hindu terror was probably a greater threat to national security than Islamist terror. In all the furious exchanges that have followed, a crucial issue was overlooked. With the capture of Ajmal Kasab, it is undoubtedly an absurd stretch of imagination to believe 26/11 was engineered by ultra-Hindu groups, but the truth is the ‘saffron terror’ story is indeed far from being a closed book.
TEHELKA has found that, in the two years since the Malegaon blast, investigators have left many leads unexplored. Most alarmingly, they have failed to pin down eight Indian Army officers allegedly involved with the terror network. Why haven’t they been questioned by the army or sufficiently tracked? How far has the network penetrated sections of the army? To understand the full implication of this, it is important to recall the whole story.
Sadhvi Pragya Thakur Self-styled godwoman
Sadhvi Pragya Thakur
Self-styled godwoman
Her cell phone call records proved to be a minefield of information about those involved in the Malegaon blast
PHOTOS: DEEPAK SALVI
IT WAS a low-intensity bomb fitted in a motorbike, but its impact was powerful. It exploded in the small town of Malegaon in Nashik district, Maharashtra, on 29 September 2008, leaving six dead and several injured. The only clue was a mangled number-plate. Forensic lab officials used a 25 MP camera for a magnified view of the number-plate. They managed to get three sets of possible numbers. Then the ATS began the chase. The first combination took them to Badayun, Uttar Pradesh, where the vehicle bearing the number still existed. The second was tracked down to Gujarat. Here too the vehicle was still in use. In October 2008, the last number-plate took them to the bike owner, a self-styled godwoman called Sadhvi Pragya Thakur
Pragya’s interrogation and call information from her cell phone opened a pandora’s box. Shamlal Sahu, 42, a commerce graduate, was first to be arrested on charges of planting the bomb. Shivnarayan Kalangasara Singh, 36, a science graduate, was arrested for setting a timer device in the bomb. Another science graduate, Sameer Kulkarni, 32, was arrested for his role in procuring chemicals for the bomb.
military officer
PHOTOS: DEEPAK SALVI
But the story did not end with these arrests. Five days after Pragya’s arrest, the ATS caught a major fish: Maj (retd) Ramesh Upadhyay, 64, a resident of Pune. He had worked in the Indian Army’s Military Intelligence (MI) unit and was suspected of training those who had assembled the bombs. He had also headed the BJP’s ex-servicemen’s cell in Mumbai.
On 2 November 2008, three more arrests were made — Ajay Rahirkar, 39, for raising funds for Abhinav Bharat; Rakesh Dhawde, 35, a weapon consultant in the movie The Rising; and Jagdish Mhatre, 40, who had paid money to Dhawde for buying weapons. All these men were from either Nashik or Pune. Then came the biggest arrest. On 5 November, the first ever serving army officer, Lt Col Purohit, 37, was arrested for procuring the RDX used in the blast. The MI officer was posted at the Army Education Corps Training Centre and College in Pachmarhi, Madhya Pradesh, where he was studying Arabic at the time of his arrest.
Terror on board The Samjhauta Express blast in 2007 killed 68 people
Terror on board The Samjhauta Express blast in 2007 killed 68 people
PHOTO: SHAILENDRA PANDEY
Purohit’s role as a prime conspirator became clearer with the arrest of selfstyled seer Swami Dayanand Pandey alias Shankar Acharya alias Shukhakar Dwivedi, 40, on 14 November. Pandey had a habit of recording all his conversations with his co-conspirators on his laptop.
The ATS retrieved three videos and 37 audiotapes. These proved to be an unprecedented source of information. On 21 November, Karkare questioned Pune’s RSS leader Shyam Apte, named in the tapes.
Purohit himself wasn’t an easy case to crack. During his interrogation, he asserted that his job as an MI spy included interacting with both Hindu and Muslim extremists. At first, the army seemed to rally behind him. Soon after his arrest, the army spokesman claimed he had only been detained, not arrested. Pragya, however, disclosed that she had met Purohit in Pachmarhi, where Purohit had told her that he had executed two blasts in the past. The ATS officials suspected Purohit was hinting at the Samjhauta Express and Ajmer Sharif blasts, but this was not made public because of its diplomatic implications.
Cycle of violence The Malegaon blast in 2008 left six people dead
Cycle of violence The Malegaon blast in 2008 left six people dead
PHOTO: REUTERS
THE AUDIOTAPES revealed a chilling landscape. A godwoman, a seer, political bigwigs and retired and serving army officers all seemed part of the conspiracy. They spilled vitriolic hate for Muslims and even Hindus who did not subscribe to their ultra right-wing communal vision. They had set up Abhinav Bharat with the intention of infiltrating and subverting every institution in the country. This, for instance, is an excerpt of what Purohit says on the tapes about the nation they dreamed of creating:
“We must aim for militarisation of the organisation (Abhinav Bharat). Every member at all levels must have a basic knowledge of weapons. We haven’t done it so far. We should indoctrinate them with our ideology. We should establish an academy for ideological indoctrination. At the end of the course, each member will be tested and only those who pass will be finally admitted to the organisation. The level of testing is when he will be tried in ‘action’. Then our organisation will propagate establishment of all-India Hindu rashtra called Abhinav Bharat. There will be a uniform code of conduct irrespective of any caste. Reporting channels like those in the armed forces will be established. This will ensure the smooth flow of information and passing of orders. An Honour Court Committee will exist at all levels. This will ensure strict adherence to moral and ethical behaviour as decided by the core group by all the members based on our Vedas.”
Ground zero Fourteen people died in the 2007 Mecca Masjid bombing
Ground zero Fourteen people died in the 2007 Mecca Masjid bombing
PHOTO: AFP
The conversations were alarming. The then Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil was briefed by senior ATS officials. Other national agencies like the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and, later, the National Investigating Agency (NIA)were brought in. Initial investigations suggested that Purohit was an aberration. The investigators found it odd that despite their mentors in the army, the attackers behaved like novices. “They were so dumb they used their own motorcycle to plant the bomb. It took us just a month to catch all of them. The police have never taken such a short time to arrest terrorists,” says a senior home ministry official, requesting anonymity. How could anyone take them seriously? he asks.
After Purohit’s arrest, there was a lot of pressure to downplay the role of the army, reveals an ATS officer
So the sleuths deemed the Malegaon blast to be a freak incident. Over the next two years, however, a larger pattern began to emerge. First Malegaon. Then Mecca Masjid and Ajmer Sharif. The Abhinav Bharat cell was found to have a hand in all these blasts. It obviously had deeper roots.
TEHELKA first scooped and wrote about the tapes in 2008. Subsequently, a few other media organisations accessed and published parts of the tapes. However, through all this, at no point has there been sufficient focus on the army officers who figure on the tapes. They remain the big unturned stone in the investigation.
There are a total of eight army officers, retired and serving, named in the tapes. At least four of them have an MI background. Apart from Lt Col Purohit and Maj Upadhyay, who are now in jail, topping the list is Col (retd) Hasmukh Patel. A JNU graduate, Patel was commissioned into the Infantry Jat Regiment and later detailed with the MI. After 25 years in service, he retired in 2007 and joined Reliance. His LinkedIn profile says he is a specialist in threat analysis, background checks, physical- electronic-aviation security, vigilance, investigations, disaster management, negotiation and loss prevention. The NIA is understood to have questioned him recently but let him off under surveillance.
Col Shailesh Raikar is a retired commandant. He is said to be a brilliant officer who belonged to the Maratha Regiment. According to the tapes, Raikar was commander of the Bhosla Military Academy in Nashik. He allegedly provided academy facilities to Purohit and other Abhinav Bharat members for weapons training. He too is under the NIA scanner.
Others named in the tapes are Col Aditya Bappaditya Dhar (Parachute Regiment, now retired); Brig Mathur (full name not known, but he was apparently posted at Deolali Cantonment near Nashik); Maj Nitin Joshi and Maj Prayag Modak (in both cases, regiment not known).
The NIA has reportedly established contact with Col Dhar; it is yet to initiate investigations against the rest. Apart from these men, there is a Brig Lajpat Prajwal, apparently posted with the Nepal Army. According to the tapes, Purohit and he had trained together at IMA and that Purohit was in constant touch with Prajwal for logistic support. In one of his conversations with Col Purohit on the tapes, Col Dhar asks: Did you see one of my messages?
LT COL PUROHIT: Yes... About how this country should be taken over by the army?
COL DHAR: Yes, yes. I have written three lakh letters... I distributed three lakh letters among the jawans... It is not a political stunt... And I distributed 20,000 maps of Akhand Bharat among the jawans on 26 January... It is my humble attempt to sow the seeds.
Given these alarming ambitions and self-confessed acts of sedition, why haven’t their roles been probed more seriously yet? Why has the army itself not acted on them?
Maharashtra ATS chief KP Raghuvanshi, who was accused of going slow on the Malegaon probe, says: “We acted on the basis of evidence. The case against these armymen was not watertight. We did call some of them in, including Col Dhar, for questioning but there was nothing on the basis of which we could detain or arrest them.”
‘I gave 20,000 maps of Akhand Bharat to the jawans. It is my humble bid to sow the seeds,’ says Col Dhar
Interestingly, Raghuvanshi admits to a major handicap while interrogating the officers. “A MI official was always around monitoring our questioning. In the beginning, in fact, it was difficult to get hold of Lt Col Purohit because even though we presented a dossier of evidence against him the army insisted it’s their internal matter and they’d look into it themselves,” he says.
Finally, pressure from the home ministry worked and Purohit wa arrested. The army, however, has still not initiated action against its officials and court martial proceedings against Lt Col Purohit are yet to take off. Sources say the proceedings have been postponed under Section 7 of the Indian Soldiers Litigation Act, 1925. Since Purohit was serving under ‘special conditions’, the Act says a postponement is necessary in the interests of justice.
ANOTHER ATS official says, “Most of what Purohit says on the tapes about sending people to Nepal and Israel for training wasn’t taken seriously. That is the biggest blunder. The job of a MI officer posted along the Jammu & Kashmir border is to spread his net of informers, spies and get crucial information. Imagine what damage Purohit has already done while posted there. The entire truth on Purohit is still not out.”
That seems a very disturbing probability. The armymen named on the tapes are not mentioned casually. Sample snatches of this conversation between Lt Col Purohit, Maj Ramesh Upadhyay, Col Dhar, Dayanand Pandey, BL Sharma Prem, a twotime BJP MP, and RP Singh, an endocrinologist at Apollo Hospital and president of the World Hindu Federation.
LT COL PUROHIT:We have done two operations which have been successful and I got material support for them. On 24 June 2007, Col Lajpat Prajwal, now a Brigadier, had arranged our meeting with King Gyanendra Nobody in this country will be able to figure who is doing the work. If Major Saheb (Upadhyay) has 20 people, we (read Prajwal) will train them.
Terror taint RSS’ Indresh Kumar was linked to Ajmer blast
Terror taint RSS’ Indresh Kumar was linked to Ajmer blast
PHOTO: SHAILENDRA PANDEY
RP SINGH: King Gyanendra’s close relative sat with us in Gorakhpur... We are constantly in touch with them... Maj Prayag Modak was the one who came to our meeting. There are Col Raikar and Col Hasmukh Patel, who are helping us in the training. Prajwal is from the side of Rani Aishwarya.
Col Dhar enters the room…
LT COL PUROHIT: Namaskar Dharji… (To the others) He has been in the army since 23 years and has been with me. He’s with the Parachute Regiment. I was also posted with him. Dhar sahib, let me introduce you to the people here. We are all on the same plane, Hindu rashtra…
LT COL PUROHIT:We also have General JJ Singh, he’s from the Maratha Regiment. As you know I have also been part of the Maratha regiment…
PANDEY: Ok…
LT COL PUROHIT: Swamiji, we haven’t spoken about certain things, but two operations have been done by us. One of our own captains has visited Israel for training and meeting and there was a very positive response… We demanded four things from Israel — continuous and uninterrupted supply of arms and training, our office with a saffron flag in Tel Aviv, political asylum and support for our cause of a Hindu Nation in the UN. Israel has asked us to show something on the ground and have promised at least a supply of arms and political asylum... I have a state-wise population of Muslims in each state but I have only three AK-47s. We couldn’t buy much earlier because we didn’t have funds.
MAJ UPADHYAY: AK-47 is available at Cox Bazaar in Gorakhpur, but mostly jihadis sell the weapons…
LT COL PUROHIT: You will get very expensive AKs…
PANDEY: Arrey, you get many AK guns.
LT COL PUROHIT: The Israelis ask us to give them proof of our involvement. What more proof do they need? We have completed two successful operations.
MAJ UPADHYAY: The Hyderabad blasts were executed by our man. Colonel will tell you about that.
PANDEY: What if this organisation is banned?
APTE: We will give it an international aspect... and a covert name. We have to fight. See, if you aren’t a Hindu, you are my enemy. I will be unsafe if you are alive…
Obviously, this was not just empty bragging. Purohit goes on to talk of Khetomi Sema, a leader of the banned insurgent group, Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland. Purohit says he had saved his life and Sema has issued a letter to all his generals to support Purohit’s cause. “He has promised to give us seven years of logistic support,” Purohit tells Pandey.
Purohit’s conversations further reveal that he had been using the army machinery to serve Abhinav Bharat. He says he was in the process of indoctrinating like-minded army officers who could serve in Abhinav Bharat. He also admits to catching and killing two Maoists in cold blood in Delhi.
LT COL PUROHIT: “I bought weapons worth Rs. 4 lakh in Assam. A police officer got me the weapons. It costs a lot. I had 3 lakh and I borrowed one more. I kept one pistol with me. I sent some weapons to Nepal. Our study is on… We will soon start action. We have got a list of top 5-6 Maoist financers. We’ll kill them first…You know one Assam DIG had informed me about two Maoists who had arrived in Delhi to kill me. We caught them at the Vasant Kunj Civic Centre. We kept them in a place at Munirka through the night. You know we have encroached upon a property in Munirka that has sewer lid inside the house. We got the information out of them, then killed them and threw them in the gutter.”
PUROHIT’S CONVERSATIONS also suggest an alarming shared mindset among sections of the army. At one point he tells Pandey, “There was a captain and a major posted in Delhi. I managed to do my work with them over the phone. This work otherwise would have taken more than three months. It happened because I belong to Sangh and he was also from Sangh. I didn’t even know him. He was from UP and he did the work in one day. Tapping such people (with Sangh background) is important.”
Sample another chat between them:
PANDEY: I have to attend a programme organised by one editor of Organiser, Deepak Rath, in Orissa on 17 February. This is his personal function.
LT COL PUROHIT: Is it in Bhubaneshwar city? Let me know, I will arrange my Orissa commander to receive you…
PANDEY: Do you know Narendra Modi?
LT COL PUROHIT: I have met him once or twice, but I don’t know him well.
PANDEY:Will you be interested if I arrange your meeting with him?
LT COL PUROHIT: Why not!
PANDEY: In fact, there is one Swami Aseemanandji....
He has good relations with Narendra Modi… I can arrange your meeting through him.
(Swami Aseemanand, a Kolkata native known as Jatin Chatterjee before he donned his ochre robes, came to the Dangs district of Gujarat to start a campaign to bring Christian converts back into the Hindu fold. A RSS man, he is said to be very close to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Aseemanand was arrested recently but the police have not shared any information gleaned from his interrogation.)
Elsewhere in the tapes, Purohit elaborates on other sinister strategies the Abhinav Bharat group plans on adopting against Muslims — including shooting people under false identities to create mayhem.
“I know that the army and the BSF don’t complement each other’s action,” says Purohit. “Nor there is any coordination between the BSF, CRPF and state police. So if I buy two army vehicles from the scrap and paint them with army colours and send them along with our people in army uniform into Meerut, they can just fire and come out of the situation easily. There is so much confusion in this country.”
The conversations on these tapes demand extreme vigilance. These statements were not recorded under police custody or during interrogation. They were voluntarily recorded by Pandey. Therefore, there can be no accusation of coercion or manipulation with regard to them. So the question is, how far did Lt Col Purohit’s influence run in the army? How vast was the network he had succeeded in building? Was he only a small link in a bigger, more dangerous, chain within the army?
In the Mecca Masjid blast, which brought the Abhinav Bharat under the scanner, the accused had used a combination of TNT and RDX. An IB official based in Mumbai raises a pertinent question: “Do you think Purohit can smuggle RDX and weapons from Jammu Army depot on his own? Can he alone sponsor sending men for military training to Nepal and Israel?”
This question has even more alarming implications when one recalls that in the narco reports of Nanded blasts accused, Himanshu Panse and Sanjay Bhaurao Chaudhury, first published by TEHELKA in 2006, the men clearly talk of how an army man named Mithun Chakrabarty had trained them to make the IEDs for the blasts at the Sinhagad Fort. The identity of this army man is yet to be established.
Going slow? ATS’ Raghuvanshi says the army tried to meddle
Going slow? ATS’ Raghuvanshi says the army tried to meddle
PHOTO: SHAILENDRA PANDEY
A senior ATS Official told this reporter that after Lt Col Purohit’s arrest, there was a lot of pressure on them to downplay the role of the army. “We were told we couldn’t lower the morale of officers posted in sensitive positions. It could have a backlash. But with more cases involving military intelligence officials coming out, we could be overlooking a dangerous trend.”
The MI is a small but important corps, and a relatively new addition to the army structure. It is currently headed by Gen Lumba. MI officers are tasked to track spies and other security threats and, outside the country, are mostly active in China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Japan, USA and Russia. Many MI cadre officers (Lt Col Purohit was one of them) do not wear uniforms and work in conjunction with the IB, BSF (‘G’ Force) and other intelligence agencies. MI officials work in field formations and report to their respective commanders. Nobody, except the commander, would know they are part of MI.
What makes the story of Lt Col Purohit so dark is that the Indian Army has never been suspected of any communal overtones. But as an IB official says: “There was a time when the army would not think twice about religious identity when they entered the Golden Temple to arrest the terrorists holed inside. But after the 1992 Ayodhya movement, things have changed. The political climate has affected the army too in a big way, especially among officers posted along the border. Look at Lt Col Purohit. His indoctrination happened during his posting in Kashmir.”
THE UNMAPPED SCALE of the army connection, however, is not the only missing piece in the ultra-Hindu terror puzzle. In December 2007, Sunil Joshi, an RSS man suspected of a key role in the Ajmer blast and of being a link between several ultra-right groups like Abhinav Bharat, Vande Mataram and other fringe elements was mysteriously murdered. His family said he had been bumped off by his own organisation. Sadhvi Pragya confirmed this. According to her, a man named Mayank had probably killed Joshi. Despite these clues, the MP Police closed the case.
hemant karkare
Clued in Hemant Karkare pursued the ‘saffron terror’ angle
PHOTO: DEEPAK SALVI
Earlier this week, however, the MP Police finally accepted that Joshi was murdered by his own friends in the RSS. They charged Mayank, Harshad Solanki, Mehul and Mohan from Gujarat, Anand Raj Katare from Indore and Vasudev Parmar from Dewas with Joshi’s murder. While Mehul and Mohan are still on the run, Solanki was brought before the Dewas court last week and confessed to the murder. (Solanki is also an accused in the infamous Best Bakery case, Gujarat 2002.) This development validates what TEHELKA had reported back in 2008.
However, even these arrests don’t join all the dots. The MP Police have claimed internal rivalry as the motive for the murder. The CBI though believes the real culprits in the RSS behind Joshi’s murder are also the men responsible for the blasts. Their hunch is, if Joshi were alive today, most of the masterminds would have been unmasked. Joshi was known to be close to senior RSS leader Indresh Kumar. Their question is why did the two fall out?
The MP Police, Rajasthan ATS and CBI are all looking into the Ajmer, Mecca Masjid and Samjhauta blasts. However, their investigations do not have the same conclusions.
This October, the Rajasthan ATS filed a chargesheet linking Indresh to the Ajmer blasts. They said he attended a secret meeting in Jaipur on October 25, 2005 in which the conspiracy for the Ajmer blast was drawn up. The meeting was allegedly attended by Indresh, Pragya Thakur, Sunil Joshi, Ramji Kalsangra, Devendra Gupta, Lokesh Sharma and Sandeep Dange. The chargesheet hinted the same people were responsible for the Samjhauta blast. The chargesheet, however, did not list Indresh as an accused. And Dange and Kalsangra are still on the run.
The CBI, which is also probing the case, blames the Rajasthan ATS for not making sufficient headway in pinning down the role of the RSS. “They have helped RSS men like Indresh create an alibi by alerting them with witness statements that are not credible evidence in the court of law. This has allowed him time to concoct documents to prove he was not physically present at various places,” says an investigating official.
Confusingly, however, Lt Col Purohit and his co-conspirators on the tapes also curse Indresh as a sell-out and wish they could kill him.
Where, then, does the truth lie? And how far does the network sprawl? Less heated debate and more ground work might provide some real answers.
CURRENT AFFAIRS
MILITARY INTELLIGENCE
HINDUTVA TERROR TAPES
THE UNTURNED STONE
The Malegaon blast probe threw up 37 audiotapes in which ultra-Hindu groups plot terror attacks. These tapes expose a shocking nexus between Military Intelligence men and the outfits. Two years later, why is this still unexplored, asks RANA AYYUB
Lt Col Shrikant Purohit Military Intelligence officer
Lt Col Shrikant Purohit
Military Intelligence officer
The man who procured the RDX that was used for the Malegaon blast. He is the first serving officer to be arrested in a terror case
PHOTOS: DEEPAK SALVI
HATE IS one of the obvious and evident yields of the Hindutva worldview. But few had imagined it could spawn a terror network until investigations into the 2008 Malegaon blast led to a series of startling arrests that included Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and Lt Col Shrikant Purohit of Abhinav Bharat, an ultra-right Hindu group. Since then, the issue of ‘saffron terror’ has entered national discourse as a fractious and heated debate.
Last week, the issue erupted once again, triggering livid responses across the political spectrum. First, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh claimed that Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare — who had been investigating the Malegaon blast — had called him hours before he died on the fateful night of 26/11, saying he was being threatened by those opposed to his probes. Singh was speaking at the launch of a book by Aziz Burney, controversially titled 26/11 — A RSS Controversy? and both sections of his own party and the BJP were dismayed that his “irresponsible” remarks would play into Pakistan’s hands.
Maj (retd) Ramesh Upadhyay Military Intelligence officer
Maj (retd) Ramesh Upadhyay
Military Intelligence officer
He is suspected of training those who assembled the bomb that went off in Malegaon. He also headed BJP’s ex-servicemen cell
PHOTOS: DEEPAK SALVI
A few days later, in its ongoing exposé, WikiLeaks released a cable in which US Ambassador Timothy Roemer claimed that Rahul Gandhi had told him that ultra-Hindu terror was probably a greater threat to national security than Islamist terror. In all the furious exchanges that have followed, a crucial issue was overlooked. With the capture of Ajmal Kasab, it is undoubtedly an absurd stretch of imagination to believe 26/11 was engineered by ultra-Hindu groups, but the truth is the ‘saffron terror’ story is indeed far from being a closed book.
TEHELKA has found that, in the two years since the Malegaon blast, investigators have left many leads unexplored. Most alarmingly, they have failed to pin down eight Indian Army officers allegedly involved with the terror network. Why haven’t they been questioned by the army or sufficiently tracked? How far has the network penetrated sections of the army? To understand the full implication of this, it is important to recall the whole story.
Sadhvi Pragya Thakur Self-styled godwoman
Sadhvi Pragya Thakur
Self-styled godwoman
Her cell phone call records proved to be a minefield of information about those involved in the Malegaon blast
PHOTOS: DEEPAK SALVI
IT WAS a low-intensity bomb fitted in a motorbike, but its impact was powerful. It exploded in the small town of Malegaon in Nashik district, Maharashtra, on 29 September 2008, leaving six dead and several injured. The only clue was a mangled number-plate. Forensic lab officials used a 25 MP camera for a magnified view of the number-plate. They managed to get three sets of possible numbers. Then the ATS began the chase. The first combination took them to Badayun, Uttar Pradesh, where the vehicle bearing the number still existed. The second was tracked down to Gujarat. Here too the vehicle was still in use. In October 2008, the last number-plate took them to the bike owner, a self-styled godwoman called Sadhvi Pragya Thakur
Pragya’s interrogation and call information from her cell phone opened a pandora’s box. Shamlal Sahu, 42, a commerce graduate, was first to be arrested on charges of planting the bomb. Shivnarayan Kalangasara Singh, 36, a science graduate, was arrested for setting a timer device in the bomb. Another science graduate, Sameer Kulkarni, 32, was arrested for his role in procuring chemicals for the bomb.
military officer
PHOTOS: DEEPAK SALVI
But the story did not end with these arrests. Five days after Pragya’s arrest, the ATS caught a major fish: Maj (retd) Ramesh Upadhyay, 64, a resident of Pune. He had worked in the Indian Army’s Military Intelligence (MI) unit and was suspected of training those who had assembled the bombs. He had also headed the BJP’s ex-servicemen’s cell in Mumbai.
On 2 November 2008, three more arrests were made — Ajay Rahirkar, 39, for raising funds for Abhinav Bharat; Rakesh Dhawde, 35, a weapon consultant in the movie The Rising; and Jagdish Mhatre, 40, who had paid money to Dhawde for buying weapons. All these men were from either Nashik or Pune. Then came the biggest arrest. On 5 November, the first ever serving army officer, Lt Col Purohit, 37, was arrested for procuring the RDX used in the blast. The MI officer was posted at the Army Education Corps Training Centre and College in Pachmarhi, Madhya Pradesh, where he was studying Arabic at the time of his arrest.
Terror on board The Samjhauta Express blast in 2007 killed 68 people
Terror on board The Samjhauta Express blast in 2007 killed 68 people
PHOTO: SHAILENDRA PANDEY
Purohit’s role as a prime conspirator became clearer with the arrest of selfstyled seer Swami Dayanand Pandey alias Shankar Acharya alias Shukhakar Dwivedi, 40, on 14 November. Pandey had a habit of recording all his conversations with his co-conspirators on his laptop.
The ATS retrieved three videos and 37 audiotapes. These proved to be an unprecedented source of information. On 21 November, Karkare questioned Pune’s RSS leader Shyam Apte, named in the tapes.
Purohit himself wasn’t an easy case to crack. During his interrogation, he asserted that his job as an MI spy included interacting with both Hindu and Muslim extremists. At first, the army seemed to rally behind him. Soon after his arrest, the army spokesman claimed he had only been detained, not arrested. Pragya, however, disclosed that she had met Purohit in Pachmarhi, where Purohit had told her that he had executed two blasts in the past. The ATS officials suspected Purohit was hinting at the Samjhauta Express and Ajmer Sharif blasts, but this was not made public because of its diplomatic implications.
Cycle of violence The Malegaon blast in 2008 left six people dead
Cycle of violence The Malegaon blast in 2008 left six people dead
PHOTO: REUTERS
THE AUDIOTAPES revealed a chilling landscape. A godwoman, a seer, political bigwigs and retired and serving army officers all seemed part of the conspiracy. They spilled vitriolic hate for Muslims and even Hindus who did not subscribe to their ultra right-wing communal vision. They had set up Abhinav Bharat with the intention of infiltrating and subverting every institution in the country. This, for instance, is an excerpt of what Purohit says on the tapes about the nation they dreamed of creating:
“We must aim for militarisation of the organisation (Abhinav Bharat). Every member at all levels must have a basic knowledge of weapons. We haven’t done it so far. We should indoctrinate them with our ideology. We should establish an academy for ideological indoctrination. At the end of the course, each member will be tested and only those who pass will be finally admitted to the organisation. The level of testing is when he will be tried in ‘action’. Then our organisation will propagate establishment of all-India Hindu rashtra called Abhinav Bharat. There will be a uniform code of conduct irrespective of any caste. Reporting channels like those in the armed forces will be established. This will ensure the smooth flow of information and passing of orders. An Honour Court Committee will exist at all levels. This will ensure strict adherence to moral and ethical behaviour as decided by the core group by all the members based on our Vedas.”
Ground zero Fourteen people died in the 2007 Mecca Masjid bombing
Ground zero Fourteen people died in the 2007 Mecca Masjid bombing
PHOTO: AFP
The conversations were alarming. The then Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil was briefed by senior ATS officials. Other national agencies like the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and, later, the National Investigating Agency (NIA)were brought in. Initial investigations suggested that Purohit was an aberration. The investigators found it odd that despite their mentors in the army, the attackers behaved like novices. “They were so dumb they used their own motorcycle to plant the bomb. It took us just a month to catch all of them. The police have never taken such a short time to arrest terrorists,” says a senior home ministry official, requesting anonymity. How could anyone take them seriously? he asks.
After Purohit’s arrest, there was a lot of pressure to downplay the role of the army, reveals an ATS officer
So the sleuths deemed the Malegaon blast to be a freak incident. Over the next two years, however, a larger pattern began to emerge. First Malegaon. Then Mecca Masjid and Ajmer Sharif. The Abhinav Bharat cell was found to have a hand in all these blasts. It obviously had deeper roots.
TEHELKA first scooped and wrote about the tapes in 2008. Subsequently, a few other media organisations accessed and published parts of the tapes. However, through all this, at no point has there been sufficient focus on the army officers who figure on the tapes. They remain the big unturned stone in the investigation.
There are a total of eight army officers, retired and serving, named in the tapes. At least four of them have an MI background. Apart from Lt Col Purohit and Maj Upadhyay, who are now in jail, topping the list is Col (retd) Hasmukh Patel. A JNU graduate, Patel was commissioned into the Infantry Jat Regiment and later detailed with the MI. After 25 years in service, he retired in 2007 and joined Reliance. His LinkedIn profile says he is a specialist in threat analysis, background checks, physical- electronic-aviation security, vigilance, investigations, disaster management, negotiation and loss prevention. The NIA is understood to have questioned him recently but let him off under surveillance.
Col Shailesh Raikar is a retired commandant. He is said to be a brilliant officer who belonged to the Maratha Regiment. According to the tapes, Raikar was commander of the Bhosla Military Academy in Nashik. He allegedly provided academy facilities to Purohit and other Abhinav Bharat members for weapons training. He too is under the NIA scanner.
Others named in the tapes are Col Aditya Bappaditya Dhar (Parachute Regiment, now retired); Brig Mathur (full name not known, but he was apparently posted at Deolali Cantonment near Nashik); Maj Nitin Joshi and Maj Prayag Modak (in both cases, regiment not known).
The NIA has reportedly established contact with Col Dhar; it is yet to initiate investigations against the rest. Apart from these men, there is a Brig Lajpat Prajwal, apparently posted with the Nepal Army. According to the tapes, Purohit and he had trained together at IMA and that Purohit was in constant touch with Prajwal for logistic support. In one of his conversations with Col Purohit on the tapes, Col Dhar asks: Did you see one of my messages?
LT COL PUROHIT: Yes... About how this country should be taken over by the army?
COL DHAR: Yes, yes. I have written three lakh letters... I distributed three lakh letters among the jawans... It is not a political stunt... And I distributed 20,000 maps of Akhand Bharat among the jawans on 26 January... It is my humble attempt to sow the seeds.
Given these alarming ambitions and self-confessed acts of sedition, why haven’t their roles been probed more seriously yet? Why has the army itself not acted on them?
Maharashtra ATS chief KP Raghuvanshi, who was accused of going slow on the Malegaon probe, says: “We acted on the basis of evidence. The case against these armymen was not watertight. We did call some of them in, including Col Dhar, for questioning but there was nothing on the basis of which we could detain or arrest them.”
‘I gave 20,000 maps of Akhand Bharat to the jawans. It is my humble bid to sow the seeds,’ says Col Dhar
Interestingly, Raghuvanshi admits to a major handicap while interrogating the officers. “A MI official was always around monitoring our questioning. In the beginning, in fact, it was difficult to get hold of Lt Col Purohit because even though we presented a dossier of evidence against him the army insisted it’s their internal matter and they’d look into it themselves,” he says.
Finally, pressure from the home ministry worked and Purohit wa arrested. The army, however, has still not initiated action against its officials and court martial proceedings against Lt Col Purohit are yet to take off. Sources say the proceedings have been postponed under Section 7 of the Indian Soldiers Litigation Act, 1925. Since Purohit was serving under ‘special conditions’, the Act says a postponement is necessary in the interests of justice.
ANOTHER ATS official says, “Most of what Purohit says on the tapes about sending people to Nepal and Israel for training wasn’t taken seriously. That is the biggest blunder. The job of a MI officer posted along the Jammu & Kashmir border is to spread his net of informers, spies and get crucial information. Imagine what damage Purohit has already done while posted there. The entire truth on Purohit is still not out.”
That seems a very disturbing probability. The armymen named on the tapes are not mentioned casually. Sample snatches of this conversation between Lt Col Purohit, Maj Ramesh Upadhyay, Col Dhar, Dayanand Pandey, BL Sharma Prem, a twotime BJP MP, and RP Singh, an endocrinologist at Apollo Hospital and president of the World Hindu Federation.
LT COL PUROHIT:We have done two operations which have been successful and I got material support for them. On 24 June 2007, Col Lajpat Prajwal, now a Brigadier, had arranged our meeting with King Gyanendra Nobody in this country will be able to figure who is doing the work. If Major Saheb (Upadhyay) has 20 people, we (read Prajwal) will train them.
Terror taint RSS’ Indresh Kumar was linked to Ajmer blast
Terror taint RSS’ Indresh Kumar was linked to Ajmer blast
PHOTO: SHAILENDRA PANDEY
RP SINGH: King Gyanendra’s close relative sat with us in Gorakhpur... We are constantly in touch with them... Maj Prayag Modak was the one who came to our meeting. There are Col Raikar and Col Hasmukh Patel, who are helping us in the training. Prajwal is from the side of Rani Aishwarya.
Col Dhar enters the room…
LT COL PUROHIT: Namaskar Dharji… (To the others) He has been in the army since 23 years and has been with me. He’s with the Parachute Regiment. I was also posted with him. Dhar sahib, let me introduce you to the people here. We are all on the same plane, Hindu rashtra…
LT COL PUROHIT:We also have General JJ Singh, he’s from the Maratha Regiment. As you know I have also been part of the Maratha regiment…
PANDEY: Ok…
LT COL PUROHIT: Swamiji, we haven’t spoken about certain things, but two operations have been done by us. One of our own captains has visited Israel for training and meeting and there was a very positive response… We demanded four things from Israel — continuous and uninterrupted supply of arms and training, our office with a saffron flag in Tel Aviv, political asylum and support for our cause of a Hindu Nation in the UN. Israel has asked us to show something on the ground and have promised at least a supply of arms and political asylum... I have a state-wise population of Muslims in each state but I have only three AK-47s. We couldn’t buy much earlier because we didn’t have funds.
MAJ UPADHYAY: AK-47 is available at Cox Bazaar in Gorakhpur, but mostly jihadis sell the weapons…
LT COL PUROHIT: You will get very expensive AKs…
PANDEY: Arrey, you get many AK guns.
LT COL PUROHIT: The Israelis ask us to give them proof of our involvement. What more proof do they need? We have completed two successful operations.
MAJ UPADHYAY: The Hyderabad blasts were executed by our man. Colonel will tell you about that.
PANDEY: What if this organisation is banned?
APTE: We will give it an international aspect... and a covert name. We have to fight. See, if you aren’t a Hindu, you are my enemy. I will be unsafe if you are alive…
Obviously, this was not just empty bragging. Purohit goes on to talk of Khetomi Sema, a leader of the banned insurgent group, Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland. Purohit says he had saved his life and Sema has issued a letter to all his generals to support Purohit’s cause. “He has promised to give us seven years of logistic support,” Purohit tells Pandey.
Purohit’s conversations further reveal that he had been using the army machinery to serve Abhinav Bharat. He says he was in the process of indoctrinating like-minded army officers who could serve in Abhinav Bharat. He also admits to catching and killing two Maoists in cold blood in Delhi.
LT COL PUROHIT: “I bought weapons worth Rs. 4 lakh in Assam. A police officer got me the weapons. It costs a lot. I had 3 lakh and I borrowed one more. I kept one pistol with me. I sent some weapons to Nepal. Our study is on… We will soon start action. We have got a list of top 5-6 Maoist financers. We’ll kill them first…You know one Assam DIG had informed me about two Maoists who had arrived in Delhi to kill me. We caught them at the Vasant Kunj Civic Centre. We kept them in a place at Munirka through the night. You know we have encroached upon a property in Munirka that has sewer lid inside the house. We got the information out of them, then killed them and threw them in the gutter.”
PUROHIT’S CONVERSATIONS also suggest an alarming shared mindset among sections of the army. At one point he tells Pandey, “There was a captain and a major posted in Delhi. I managed to do my work with them over the phone. This work otherwise would have taken more than three months. It happened because I belong to Sangh and he was also from Sangh. I didn’t even know him. He was from UP and he did the work in one day. Tapping such people (with Sangh background) is important.”
Sample another chat between them:
PANDEY: I have to attend a programme organised by one editor of Organiser, Deepak Rath, in Orissa on 17 February. This is his personal function.
LT COL PUROHIT: Is it in Bhubaneshwar city? Let me know, I will arrange my Orissa commander to receive you…
PANDEY: Do you know Narendra Modi?
LT COL PUROHIT: I have met him once or twice, but I don’t know him well.
PANDEY:Will you be interested if I arrange your meeting with him?
LT COL PUROHIT: Why not!
PANDEY: In fact, there is one Swami Aseemanandji....
He has good relations with Narendra Modi… I can arrange your meeting through him.
(Swami Aseemanand, a Kolkata native known as Jatin Chatterjee before he donned his ochre robes, came to the Dangs district of Gujarat to start a campaign to bring Christian converts back into the Hindu fold. A RSS man, he is said to be very close to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Aseemanand was arrested recently but the police have not shared any information gleaned from his interrogation.)
Elsewhere in the tapes, Purohit elaborates on other sinister strategies the Abhinav Bharat group plans on adopting against Muslims — including shooting people under false identities to create mayhem.
“I know that the army and the BSF don’t complement each other’s action,” says Purohit. “Nor there is any coordination between the BSF, CRPF and state police. So if I buy two army vehicles from the scrap and paint them with army colours and send them along with our people in army uniform into Meerut, they can just fire and come out of the situation easily. There is so much confusion in this country.”
The conversations on these tapes demand extreme vigilance. These statements were not recorded under police custody or during interrogation. They were voluntarily recorded by Pandey. Therefore, there can be no accusation of coercion or manipulation with regard to them. So the question is, how far did Lt Col Purohit’s influence run in the army? How vast was the network he had succeeded in building? Was he only a small link in a bigger, more dangerous, chain within the army?
In the Mecca Masjid blast, which brought the Abhinav Bharat under the scanner, the accused had used a combination of TNT and RDX. An IB official based in Mumbai raises a pertinent question: “Do you think Purohit can smuggle RDX and weapons from Jammu Army depot on his own? Can he alone sponsor sending men for military training to Nepal and Israel?”
This question has even more alarming implications when one recalls that in the narco reports of Nanded blasts accused, Himanshu Panse and Sanjay Bhaurao Chaudhury, first published by TEHELKA in 2006, the men clearly talk of how an army man named Mithun Chakrabarty had trained them to make the IEDs for the blasts at the Sinhagad Fort. The identity of this army man is yet to be established.
Going slow? ATS’ Raghuvanshi says the army tried to meddle
Going slow? ATS’ Raghuvanshi says the army tried to meddle
PHOTO: SHAILENDRA PANDEY
A senior ATS Official told this reporter that after Lt Col Purohit’s arrest, there was a lot of pressure on them to downplay the role of the army. “We were told we couldn’t lower the morale of officers posted in sensitive positions. It could have a backlash. But with more cases involving military intelligence officials coming out, we could be overlooking a dangerous trend.”
The MI is a small but important corps, and a relatively new addition to the army structure. It is currently headed by Gen Lumba. MI officers are tasked to track spies and other security threats and, outside the country, are mostly active in China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Japan, USA and Russia. Many MI cadre officers (Lt Col Purohit was one of them) do not wear uniforms and work in conjunction with the IB, BSF (‘G’ Force) and other intelligence agencies. MI officials work in field formations and report to their respective commanders. Nobody, except the commander, would know they are part of MI.
What makes the story of Lt Col Purohit so dark is that the Indian Army has never been suspected of any communal overtones. But as an IB official says: “There was a time when the army would not think twice about religious identity when they entered the Golden Temple to arrest the terrorists holed inside. But after the 1992 Ayodhya movement, things have changed. The political climate has affected the army too in a big way, especially among officers posted along the border. Look at Lt Col Purohit. His indoctrination happened during his posting in Kashmir.”
THE UNMAPPED SCALE of the army connection, however, is not the only missing piece in the ultra-Hindu terror puzzle. In December 2007, Sunil Joshi, an RSS man suspected of a key role in the Ajmer blast and of being a link between several ultra-right groups like Abhinav Bharat, Vande Mataram and other fringe elements was mysteriously murdered. His family said he had been bumped off by his own organisation. Sadhvi Pragya confirmed this. According to her, a man named Mayank had probably killed Joshi. Despite these clues, the MP Police closed the case.
hemant karkare
Clued in Hemant Karkare pursued the ‘saffron terror’ angle
PHOTO: DEEPAK SALVI
Earlier this week, however, the MP Police finally accepted that Joshi was murdered by his own friends in the RSS. They charged Mayank, Harshad Solanki, Mehul and Mohan from Gujarat, Anand Raj Katare from Indore and Vasudev Parmar from Dewas with Joshi’s murder. While Mehul and Mohan are still on the run, Solanki was brought before the Dewas court last week and confessed to the murder. (Solanki is also an accused in the infamous Best Bakery case, Gujarat 2002.) This development validates what TEHELKA had reported back in 2008.
However, even these arrests don’t join all the dots. The MP Police have claimed internal rivalry as the motive for the murder. The CBI though believes the real culprits in the RSS behind Joshi’s murder are also the men responsible for the blasts. Their hunch is, if Joshi were alive today, most of the masterminds would have been unmasked. Joshi was known to be close to senior RSS leader Indresh Kumar. Their question is why did the two fall out?
The MP Police, Rajasthan ATS and CBI are all looking into the Ajmer, Mecca Masjid and Samjhauta blasts. However, their investigations do not have the same conclusions.
This October, the Rajasthan ATS filed a chargesheet linking Indresh to the Ajmer blasts. They said he attended a secret meeting in Jaipur on October 25, 2005 in which the conspiracy for the Ajmer blast was drawn up. The meeting was allegedly attended by Indresh, Pragya Thakur, Sunil Joshi, Ramji Kalsangra, Devendra Gupta, Lokesh Sharma and Sandeep Dange. The chargesheet hinted the same people were responsible for the Samjhauta blast. The chargesheet, however, did not list Indresh as an accused. And Dange and Kalsangra are still on the run.
The CBI, which is also probing the case, blames the Rajasthan ATS for not making sufficient headway in pinning down the role of the RSS. “They have helped RSS men like Indresh create an alibi by alerting them with witness statements that are not credible evidence in the court of law. This has allowed him time to concoct documents to prove he was not physically present at various places,” says an investigating official.
Confusingly, however, Lt Col Purohit and his co-conspirators on the tapes also curse Indresh as a sell-out and wish they could kill him.
Where, then, does the truth lie? And how far does the network sprawl? Less heated debate and more ground work might provide some real answers.
December 25, 2010
December 23, 2010
The yoga industry is under assault from religious critics, Hindu and Christian
guardian.co.uk, 22 December 2010
Yoga's holy wars
The yoga industry is under assault from religious critics, Hindu and Christian. But are the objections theological – or financial?
by Stewart J Lawrence
yoga hinduism Sun salute: yoga practitioners on Santa Monica beach, California. According to a 2004 report, 15.5 million Americans practise yoga. Photograph: Alamy
Once again, a burgeoning controversy is engulfing the American yoga world – the sprawling exercise-cum-enlightenment industry that has steadily captured the hearts and minds of Americans with its promise of a buff bod and a fast track to Nirvana. The last time we checked in on the nation's "wellness practice of choice", which claims a whopping $6bn in annual revenues, dwarfing martial arts and massage combined, the movement – or rather, industry – was divided over the "naked yoga" trend and accusations of using sex to sell classes.
Now, though, it's not sex, but religion that threatens to knock the yoga world off balance. Religious fundamentalists – Christians on one side, Hindus on the other – say they've had enough of yoga's impact on their respective faiths – and their adherents' wallets. Sinners, they reckon, even relatively affluent yoga devotees, have only so much disposable income available for church- or temple-building, especially now when Americans face slow recovery from a historically deep recession.
And, the complaint goes, if Americans keep spending most of their precious "tithings" on $30 yoga classes, $300 workshops, and exotic $3,000 retreats, how will we keep the lights in our temples and mega-churches on?
Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a leading Christian theologian, fired the first shot in the new holy war against American yoga last September, when he wrote a blistering article, virtually denouncing the practice as the work of the devil, and warning adherents not to attend yoga classes, whose postures and breathing exercises, he believes, are inseparable from the Hindu cosmos, and dangerously antithetical to Christianity.
It was not long before Mohler's fundamentalist views received some surprising confirmation from Hindus. In November, a small but vocal and fairly influential group of transplanted American Hindus, who are grouped around the Hindu-American Foundation (HAF), launched a "Take Back Yoga" movement to try to draw attention to what they agree are the deeply Hindu and Indian religious roots of yoga, which, they feel, the industry has jettisoned in order to sell yoga to secular mainstream. The controversy reached such a pitch that HAF and its claims were even featured in a front-page story in the New York Times.
And just when you thought things couldn't get any weirder or more overblown, Deepak Chopra, the New Age pop-philosopher and author who has charmed millions of bored and restless suburbanites with his workshops, has recently offered his services as a kind of freelance "referee" to the current dispute. Chopra, who's no theologian but happens to be Indian, challenges the claims of HAF, arguing that yoga actually predates Hinduism and, though originating in his homeland, cannot be properly "owned" by any one religious tradition. He's joined in that critique by the American Yoga Association, which points to a multitude of yoga religious blends, including a Jewish variant, "Torah-Yoga", as well as "Christian Yoga", the latter also a critique of the claims of Mohler and his fellow fundamentalists.
Many of these yoga blends largely adapt the yoga postures – and the underlying yoga theology – to their own religious traditions. For example, some Christian yoga practitioners have redesignated "Salute to the Sun", a popular yoga posture that some religious critics claim is too "paganistic", as "Salute to the Son". Some of their classes also feature Christian hymns and mix the classic yoga postures with "non-denominational" stretching techniques.
Of course, Hindu-Christian squabbling over yoga is not new. While not widely reported, evangelical Christian groups in small-town America have been trying for years to have yoga banned from public-school gym classes, and indeed, from any publicly supported facility, on the implied principle that yoga constitutes a religion, and tax dollars should not be used to support its activities. And when conflicts have threatened to get ugly, yogis have usually offered to strip any vestiges of Hindu religiosity from their class offerings, so as not to offend other, more traditional religious sensibilities.
But the intervention by Mohler, HAF and Chopra have forced this simmering, under-the-radar religious dispute out into the open – a clear indication of just how far-reaching yoga's impact as a grassroots movement – and a prospective financial threat to organised religions – is becoming. Mohler's cudgel is likely to be taken up by other mainstream Christian denominations (even though Sarah Palin, one of America's most visible and popular Christian personalities, is a known yoga practitioner).
So, where does this leave mainstream secular yoga practitioners who, if they can tell the difference between a "Downward-Facing Dog" and a "Dolphin" pose, almost certainly couldn't pronounce their names in Sanskrit? Just when they thought they'd found a congenial, gently spiritual refuge from the rage of organised religion's more zealous adherents, the latter have arrived to disturb their karma.
Yoga's holy wars
The yoga industry is under assault from religious critics, Hindu and Christian. But are the objections theological – or financial?
by Stewart J Lawrence
yoga hinduism Sun salute: yoga practitioners on Santa Monica beach, California. According to a 2004 report, 15.5 million Americans practise yoga. Photograph: Alamy
Once again, a burgeoning controversy is engulfing the American yoga world – the sprawling exercise-cum-enlightenment industry that has steadily captured the hearts and minds of Americans with its promise of a buff bod and a fast track to Nirvana. The last time we checked in on the nation's "wellness practice of choice", which claims a whopping $6bn in annual revenues, dwarfing martial arts and massage combined, the movement – or rather, industry – was divided over the "naked yoga" trend and accusations of using sex to sell classes.
Now, though, it's not sex, but religion that threatens to knock the yoga world off balance. Religious fundamentalists – Christians on one side, Hindus on the other – say they've had enough of yoga's impact on their respective faiths – and their adherents' wallets. Sinners, they reckon, even relatively affluent yoga devotees, have only so much disposable income available for church- or temple-building, especially now when Americans face slow recovery from a historically deep recession.
And, the complaint goes, if Americans keep spending most of their precious "tithings" on $30 yoga classes, $300 workshops, and exotic $3,000 retreats, how will we keep the lights in our temples and mega-churches on?
Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a leading Christian theologian, fired the first shot in the new holy war against American yoga last September, when he wrote a blistering article, virtually denouncing the practice as the work of the devil, and warning adherents not to attend yoga classes, whose postures and breathing exercises, he believes, are inseparable from the Hindu cosmos, and dangerously antithetical to Christianity.
It was not long before Mohler's fundamentalist views received some surprising confirmation from Hindus. In November, a small but vocal and fairly influential group of transplanted American Hindus, who are grouped around the Hindu-American Foundation (HAF), launched a "Take Back Yoga" movement to try to draw attention to what they agree are the deeply Hindu and Indian religious roots of yoga, which, they feel, the industry has jettisoned in order to sell yoga to secular mainstream. The controversy reached such a pitch that HAF and its claims were even featured in a front-page story in the New York Times.
And just when you thought things couldn't get any weirder or more overblown, Deepak Chopra, the New Age pop-philosopher and author who has charmed millions of bored and restless suburbanites with his workshops, has recently offered his services as a kind of freelance "referee" to the current dispute. Chopra, who's no theologian but happens to be Indian, challenges the claims of HAF, arguing that yoga actually predates Hinduism and, though originating in his homeland, cannot be properly "owned" by any one religious tradition. He's joined in that critique by the American Yoga Association, which points to a multitude of yoga religious blends, including a Jewish variant, "Torah-Yoga", as well as "Christian Yoga", the latter also a critique of the claims of Mohler and his fellow fundamentalists.
Many of these yoga blends largely adapt the yoga postures – and the underlying yoga theology – to their own religious traditions. For example, some Christian yoga practitioners have redesignated "Salute to the Sun", a popular yoga posture that some religious critics claim is too "paganistic", as "Salute to the Son". Some of their classes also feature Christian hymns and mix the classic yoga postures with "non-denominational" stretching techniques.
Of course, Hindu-Christian squabbling over yoga is not new. While not widely reported, evangelical Christian groups in small-town America have been trying for years to have yoga banned from public-school gym classes, and indeed, from any publicly supported facility, on the implied principle that yoga constitutes a religion, and tax dollars should not be used to support its activities. And when conflicts have threatened to get ugly, yogis have usually offered to strip any vestiges of Hindu religiosity from their class offerings, so as not to offend other, more traditional religious sensibilities.
But the intervention by Mohler, HAF and Chopra have forced this simmering, under-the-radar religious dispute out into the open – a clear indication of just how far-reaching yoga's impact as a grassroots movement – and a prospective financial threat to organised religions – is becoming. Mohler's cudgel is likely to be taken up by other mainstream Christian denominations (even though Sarah Palin, one of America's most visible and popular Christian personalities, is a known yoga practitioner).
So, where does this leave mainstream secular yoga practitioners who, if they can tell the difference between a "Downward-Facing Dog" and a "Dolphin" pose, almost certainly couldn't pronounce their names in Sanskrit? Just when they thought they'd found a congenial, gently spiritual refuge from the rage of organised religion's more zealous adherents, the latter have arrived to disturb their karma.
No New Year’s eve please, we are Hindus: VHP to school
(Source URL)
by Anupam Chakravartty
The Indian Express Posted: Thu Dec 23 2010, 00:17 hrs Vadodara:
A Rajpipla-based English medium school’s decision to host a New Year eve function has run into rough weather with the local Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) unit sending it a letter saying that New Year celebration is against Hindu culture.
G S L English Medium School is now reconsidering its plans. VHP secretary Nimish Tailor told The Indian Express that they had faxed a copy of the letter to the state Education Minister too.
“The school is organising a party for the children on New Year’s eve, which is against our culture. We are Hindus and we follow the Hindu calendar. Why couldn’t they organise something during Diwali?” said Tailor.
School administrator J D Patel said: “We celebrate all festivals with equal fervour. But if there is a demand from the local VHP unit, we will reconsider our plans.”
School principal N K Mishra said they have invited renowned singer Lata Kanitkar from Vadodara on December 31. Besides, the students will put up a folk dance performance at the event.
“I feel I follow the Hindu religion more than those who are demanding the cancellation of this programme,” said Mishra.
The school follows the Gujarat education board curriculum and imparts schooling from Class I to X. Narmada district education officials refused to comment, saying it was a private school.
by Anupam Chakravartty
The Indian Express Posted: Thu Dec 23 2010, 00:17 hrs Vadodara:
A Rajpipla-based English medium school’s decision to host a New Year eve function has run into rough weather with the local Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) unit sending it a letter saying that New Year celebration is against Hindu culture.
G S L English Medium School is now reconsidering its plans. VHP secretary Nimish Tailor told The Indian Express that they had faxed a copy of the letter to the state Education Minister too.
“The school is organising a party for the children on New Year’s eve, which is against our culture. We are Hindus and we follow the Hindu calendar. Why couldn’t they organise something during Diwali?” said Tailor.
School administrator J D Patel said: “We celebrate all festivals with equal fervour. But if there is a demand from the local VHP unit, we will reconsider our plans.”
School principal N K Mishra said they have invited renowned singer Lata Kanitkar from Vadodara on December 31. Besides, the students will put up a folk dance performance at the event.
“I feel I follow the Hindu religion more than those who are demanding the cancellation of this programme,” said Mishra.
The school follows the Gujarat education board curriculum and imparts schooling from Class I to X. Narmada district education officials refused to comment, saying it was a private school.
Harry Potter films actress attacked by family for dating Hindu
[This sort of stuff is daily fare in South Asia and its diaspora]
o o o
BBC News, 20 December 2010
Harry Potter actress's brother admits attacking her
The brother of a Harry Potter films actress who assaulted her because her boyfriend was not Muslim has been warned he could be jailed.
Ashraf Azad, 28, was due to face trial at Manchester Crown Court for attacking his sister Afshan Azad, 22, who played Padma Patil in the hit films.
The actress did not attend court.
The prosecution accepted the brother's guilty plea to assault occasioning actual bodily harm but cleared both him and his father of threats to kill her.
Ashraf Azad, who is due to be sentenced on 21 January, was bailed on condition he lives at the home address, does not contact his sister and does not travel to London.
Judge Roger Thomas QC told him: "Domestic violence can result, even for a man such as you, in imprisonment."
His father Abul Azad, 53, accepted to be bound over in the sum of £500 to keep the peace for 12 months.
The court was told Miss Azad was assaulted and branded a "prostitute" after meeting a young Hindu man, a relationship which brought anger from her father and brother.
'Happiness of daughter'
The frightened actress, whose character was a witch in the same year as Harry Potter at Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry, later fled through her bedroom window after threats were made to kill her.
Richard Vardon QC, prosecuting, told the court the incident had taken place on 21 May at the family home in Beresford Road, Longsight, Manchester.
"Specifically she spoke not only of assault but also threats to kill, made jointly by her father and brother."
Chudi Grant, representing the father, told the court he "emphatically" denied any wrong-doing but was prepared to be bound over.
"At the forefront of his mind is the welfare and happiness of his daughter," Mr Grant added.
Miss Azad first appeared as the identical twin sister of Parvati Patil in Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire and also featured in Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows.
o o o
BBC News, 20 December 2010
Harry Potter actress's brother admits attacking her
The brother of a Harry Potter films actress who assaulted her because her boyfriend was not Muslim has been warned he could be jailed.
Ashraf Azad, 28, was due to face trial at Manchester Crown Court for attacking his sister Afshan Azad, 22, who played Padma Patil in the hit films.
The actress did not attend court.
The prosecution accepted the brother's guilty plea to assault occasioning actual bodily harm but cleared both him and his father of threats to kill her.
Ashraf Azad, who is due to be sentenced on 21 January, was bailed on condition he lives at the home address, does not contact his sister and does not travel to London.
Judge Roger Thomas QC told him: "Domestic violence can result, even for a man such as you, in imprisonment."
His father Abul Azad, 53, accepted to be bound over in the sum of £500 to keep the peace for 12 months.
The court was told Miss Azad was assaulted and branded a "prostitute" after meeting a young Hindu man, a relationship which brought anger from her father and brother.
'Happiness of daughter'
The frightened actress, whose character was a witch in the same year as Harry Potter at Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry, later fled through her bedroom window after threats were made to kill her.
Richard Vardon QC, prosecuting, told the court the incident had taken place on 21 May at the family home in Beresford Road, Longsight, Manchester.
"Specifically she spoke not only of assault but also threats to kill, made jointly by her father and brother."
Chudi Grant, representing the father, told the court he "emphatically" denied any wrong-doing but was prepared to be bound over.
"At the forefront of his mind is the welfare and happiness of his daughter," Mr Grant added.
Miss Azad first appeared as the identical twin sister of Parvati Patil in Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire and also featured in Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows.
Masjid blast heat on RSS top man
Mail Today, 23 December 2010
Masjid blast heat on RSS top man
By Dalip Singh in New Delhi
THE CENTRAL Bureau of Investigation ( CBI) issued a notice to top RSS leader Indresh Kumar on Tuesday, asking him to appear before the agency on Thursday in connection with the three- year- old Mecca Masjid ( Hyderabad) blast case.
The notice, served at the RSS headquarters in Jhandewalan, New Delhi, was issued under section 160 of the Criminal Procedure Code ( CrPC), which empowers an investigating agency to summon any person who is witness to or acquainted with circumstances or facts of a case under probe.
Kumar has been an RSS central working committee member since 2007.
RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav confirmed that Kumar has been summoned by the central investigating agency and assured that Kumar would cooperate with the CBI sleuths.
“ We have maintained that we would cooperate in the investigation. We saw it coming since the move is motivated by certain considerations as reflected in the recently held Congress conclave where leaders like Rahul Gandhi gave enough indication of things to come.” Madhav dubbed the CBI notice as an attempt to “ damage the reputation of individuals and target organisations like the RSS”. The premier investigative agency’s move to question the influential Sangh leader comes a month after Naba Kumar Sarkar, popularly known as Swami Asimanand, was arrested from Haridwar.
Asimanand is believed to have divulged crucial information on the larger conspiracy of the Hindutva terror, which the CBI is working on to unravel the entire plot in Hyderabad blast case.
Mail Today was the first to report on July 15 that Kumar was on the radar of the investigating agencies probing the terror strikes at the Mecca Masjid and the Ajmer Sharif Dargah.
Later, the Rajastjan ATS named Kumar in the voluminous chargesheet filed in a Jaipur court on October 22.
The chargesheet said that the senior RSS leader, towards the end of October or early November, 2005, addressed a secret conclave in Jaipur which was attended by seven suspected terrorists.
Lokesh Sharma, Ramji Kalsangre, Sandeep Dange, Shivam Dhakad, Samandar and Pragya Singh Thakur – an accused in the Malegaon blast – were invited to Jaipur on October 31, 2005 by RSS office bearer Sunil Joshi.
Joshi was found murdered in mysterious circumstances in Dewas on December 29, 2007.
In Jaipur, the suspected terrorists stayed under assumed identities in room no 26 of the C Scheme Gujarati guesthouse.
“ Indresh Kumar told them that you all should join some religious organisation and start working so that nobody can raise a suspicion.
It should appear that you all are on a religious yatra,” the chargesheet written in Hindi alleged.
“ Only after joining a religious organization you all would be successful in achieving your mission,” Kumar is alleged to have advised the seven blast suspects during the secret meeting.
However, the RSS leader has not been made an accused in the Ajmer blast case. The Rajasthan ATS is yet to question Kumar in the Ajmer blast case, despite the fact that state home minister Shanti Kumar Dhariwal had claimed, days after the chargehsheet was filed, that there was enough evidence for interrogating the RSS leader.
The CBI will also have to file a supplementary chargesheet in the Mecca Masjid blast case after their probe on Swami Asimanand’s role in the case is over.
The anti terrorism squad had charged five persons — including Devender Gupta, Lokesh Sharma and Chander Shekhar Lave — for carrying out the blast.
All of them are behind the bars now. Two accused Sandeep Dange and Ramji Kalsangra are still on the run.
December 21, 2010
Swami Ashimanand also involved in organising Samjhauta Train blast
The Times of India
Mecca Masjid blast accused also linked to Samjhauta train attack: NIA
Rajinder Nagarkoti, TNN, Dec 21, 2010, 02.49pm IST
The NIA has claimed that Hyderabad's Mecca Masjid blast accused, Swami Asimanand, was also involved in the Feb 2007 Samjhauta train blasts that killed 68 people.
PANCHKULA: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has claimed that Hyderabad's Mecca Masjid blast accused, Swami Asimanand was also involved in the February 2007 Samjhauta train blasts that killed 68 people, mostly Pakistanis. The agency procured a warrant from a court here to produce the suspect for further questioning in the case.
Sources said that NIA, in its application submitted to the additional district and sessions court (a special court for Samjhauta blasts case), stated that it had sufficient evidence against the Swami. Accepting their plea, Judge Ritu Garg granted a production warrant till January 3.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had arrested 59-year-old Swami on November 19 from Haridwar in connection with the blast at the historic Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad on May 18, 2007. Nine persons were killed in the explosion. Sources said, during his interrogation by CBI sleuths, the Swami had reportedly admitted his involvement in Samjhauta Express blasts.
Sixty-eight people were killed when bombs were set off in two coaches of cross-country Samjhauta Express around midnight on February 18, 2007 at Diwana near Panipat. Only 38 victims could be identified and most of them were Pakistani nationals on their return journey to Lahore. Investigation into the blasts had found that six firebombs along with timers, which were kept inside six suitcases, were purchased from an outlet in Indore.
======
See Photo of Ashimanand:
Mecca Masjid blast accused also linked to Samjhauta train attack: NIA
Rajinder Nagarkoti, TNN, Dec 21, 2010, 02.49pm IST
The NIA has claimed that Hyderabad's Mecca Masjid blast accused, Swami Asimanand, was also involved in the Feb 2007 Samjhauta train blasts that killed 68 people.
PANCHKULA: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has claimed that Hyderabad's Mecca Masjid blast accused, Swami Asimanand was also involved in the February 2007 Samjhauta train blasts that killed 68 people, mostly Pakistanis. The agency procured a warrant from a court here to produce the suspect for further questioning in the case.
Sources said that NIA, in its application submitted to the additional district and sessions court (a special court for Samjhauta blasts case), stated that it had sufficient evidence against the Swami. Accepting their plea, Judge Ritu Garg granted a production warrant till January 3.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had arrested 59-year-old Swami on November 19 from Haridwar in connection with the blast at the historic Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad on May 18, 2007. Nine persons were killed in the explosion. Sources said, during his interrogation by CBI sleuths, the Swami had reportedly admitted his involvement in Samjhauta Express blasts.
Sixty-eight people were killed when bombs were set off in two coaches of cross-country Samjhauta Express around midnight on February 18, 2007 at Diwana near Panipat. Only 38 victims could be identified and most of them were Pakistani nationals on their return journey to Lahore. Investigation into the blasts had found that six firebombs along with timers, which were kept inside six suitcases, were purchased from an outlet in Indore.
======
See Photo of Ashimanand:
Indian National Congress and Communalism
Indian National Congress and Communalism
Ram Puniyani
On the occasion of completion of 125 years of the Indian National Congress its President Sonia Gandhi criticized the Communal forces. She pointed out that there is a pernicious impact of individuals, institutions and ideologies that distort our history, that thrive on spreading religious prejudice and that incite people to violence using the religion as a cover. (December 19, 2010). She went on to say that Congress has always fought against communalism of all forms irrespective of their source and that there was no distinction between majority and minority communalism as both are equally dangerous to the country. While one can understand the spirit of the statement there are lot of problems with this formulation.
To begin with the Congress President needs to be reminded as to what her grand father-in-law, the architect of modern India, Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, had to say on the issue. He had said that while both majority and minority communalisms are bad, the majority communalism is more dangerous as it presents itself under the garb of the nationalism. The minority communalism at the worst comes through as the separatist tendency, it also keeps giving provocations to the majority communalism; it keeps providing them pretexts to undertake what they want to do anyway. For Congress to equate majority and minority communalism is a big climb down from the secular foundations on which Nehru wanted this party to be based. And practically if we see in the arena of communal politics and communal violence both, it is the majority communalism which creates situations for the same. And then this majoritarian communalism has a vast network which affects the thinking of the society, it shifts the focus of social concerns from the basic needs of society to the identity issues like the Ram Temple agitation launched by it.
While Shah Bano issue was taken up by the minority communalists, it surely did a great damage to the nation, still its damage is no where close to what the Ram Temple did by dividing the society along religious lines and later on going to demolish the Masjid and launching the ‘celebratory violence’ all over the country. Surely both communalisms are a modern presentation of feudal interests and feudal values added up by the interests of sections of middle class who want to preserve their privileges and desire status quo for continuation of their privileged position in the society.
Sonia Gandhi’s claim that Congress has always fought communalism does not reflect the whole truth. There have been times when Congress has been looking the other way around when the communal marauders are on the rampage. Be it the anti-Sikh pogrom, the Babri demolition and in many such situations Congress has either been looking the other way around or taking an afternoon siesta, when the fire of communal violence is raging. It is for this reason that many a critics blame Congress being communal and some go to the extent of blaming Congress more than BJP, as lot of communal violence has taken place when Congress has been in power. This criticism, though incorrect, is a sign of extreme frustration on the part of the victims of the violence and they can see that some action on the part of Congress could have saved the situation. But that, intervention of Congress to stop the violence, generally does not take place. There are two deeper reasons of this Congress inaction. One, the communal forces have infiltrated various wings of our state apparatus, police, bureaucracy, even army and judiciary as pointed out by Digvijay Singh. And second, as Nehru had correctly warned that many a power seekers who are communal have entered Congress without any conviction for secular values.
One must say on this score that the party has been very lax, and has kept short term electoral compulsions above the ones of principled politics. Its stand on the highly biased Ayodhya judgment has again reminded us that this party is not bold enough to call the spade a spade. The Congress kept quiet on Ayodhya verdict while as a matter of fact this judgment has been far away from the values of Indian Constitution, from the secular and democratic ethos of our freedom movement of which Congress under Gandhi and Nehru was the moving force.
Still one will welcome the statement of Congress President if Congress really adopts a principled secular stand. In that case will it ensure that Ayodhya judgment is evaluated as per the secular ethos, as per the justice to the minority community? If Congress is principled in its secularism it must take up the affirmative action for minorities in full gear. The implementation of Sachar Committee report, that of Rangnath Mishra Committee recommendation can’t be kept in the cold freeze and at the same time claim the secular tag?
Will Congress take up the battle against the distortion of history, the word of mouth propaganda against minorities, spreading of religious prejudices against minorities? Is it equipped to take on the multiple tasks which are needed to preserve and promote secular values? Does it train its cadres in the values of secularism and democracy? While the recruitment drive for membership of Congress is in full swing, what are the efforts to ensure that the new recruits are not carrying the baggage of communal biases prevalent in the society? There is an in-depth need to train the existing and new members of political parties owning allegiance to secular democratic nationalism to take up the awareness and training programs which are able to oppose the religious hatred prevalent in the society. Short of these the claims of Congress President will just be declaration of the intent lacking in any substance.
And what about the statement of Digaviyay Singh in which he warned about the infiltration of communal elements in the state apparatus? Will a strategy be devised to ensure that all the state officials are really committed to secular democratic values and are not acting on the ground of communal bias. True, communalists have sowed their seeds all over, so what is the strategy of a secular party to counter this? Mr. Singh also said that communal forces are targeting minorities a la Nazis in Germany. A correct observation, but what is being done to counter that is the real question and a challenge which needs to be taken up.
Ram Puniyani
On the occasion of completion of 125 years of the Indian National Congress its President Sonia Gandhi criticized the Communal forces. She pointed out that there is a pernicious impact of individuals, institutions and ideologies that distort our history, that thrive on spreading religious prejudice and that incite people to violence using the religion as a cover. (December 19, 2010). She went on to say that Congress has always fought against communalism of all forms irrespective of their source and that there was no distinction between majority and minority communalism as both are equally dangerous to the country. While one can understand the spirit of the statement there are lot of problems with this formulation.
To begin with the Congress President needs to be reminded as to what her grand father-in-law, the architect of modern India, Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, had to say on the issue. He had said that while both majority and minority communalisms are bad, the majority communalism is more dangerous as it presents itself under the garb of the nationalism. The minority communalism at the worst comes through as the separatist tendency, it also keeps giving provocations to the majority communalism; it keeps providing them pretexts to undertake what they want to do anyway. For Congress to equate majority and minority communalism is a big climb down from the secular foundations on which Nehru wanted this party to be based. And practically if we see in the arena of communal politics and communal violence both, it is the majority communalism which creates situations for the same. And then this majoritarian communalism has a vast network which affects the thinking of the society, it shifts the focus of social concerns from the basic needs of society to the identity issues like the Ram Temple agitation launched by it.
While Shah Bano issue was taken up by the minority communalists, it surely did a great damage to the nation, still its damage is no where close to what the Ram Temple did by dividing the society along religious lines and later on going to demolish the Masjid and launching the ‘celebratory violence’ all over the country. Surely both communalisms are a modern presentation of feudal interests and feudal values added up by the interests of sections of middle class who want to preserve their privileges and desire status quo for continuation of their privileged position in the society.
Sonia Gandhi’s claim that Congress has always fought communalism does not reflect the whole truth. There have been times when Congress has been looking the other way around when the communal marauders are on the rampage. Be it the anti-Sikh pogrom, the Babri demolition and in many such situations Congress has either been looking the other way around or taking an afternoon siesta, when the fire of communal violence is raging. It is for this reason that many a critics blame Congress being communal and some go to the extent of blaming Congress more than BJP, as lot of communal violence has taken place when Congress has been in power. This criticism, though incorrect, is a sign of extreme frustration on the part of the victims of the violence and they can see that some action on the part of Congress could have saved the situation. But that, intervention of Congress to stop the violence, generally does not take place. There are two deeper reasons of this Congress inaction. One, the communal forces have infiltrated various wings of our state apparatus, police, bureaucracy, even army and judiciary as pointed out by Digvijay Singh. And second, as Nehru had correctly warned that many a power seekers who are communal have entered Congress without any conviction for secular values.
One must say on this score that the party has been very lax, and has kept short term electoral compulsions above the ones of principled politics. Its stand on the highly biased Ayodhya judgment has again reminded us that this party is not bold enough to call the spade a spade. The Congress kept quiet on Ayodhya verdict while as a matter of fact this judgment has been far away from the values of Indian Constitution, from the secular and democratic ethos of our freedom movement of which Congress under Gandhi and Nehru was the moving force.
Still one will welcome the statement of Congress President if Congress really adopts a principled secular stand. In that case will it ensure that Ayodhya judgment is evaluated as per the secular ethos, as per the justice to the minority community? If Congress is principled in its secularism it must take up the affirmative action for minorities in full gear. The implementation of Sachar Committee report, that of Rangnath Mishra Committee recommendation can’t be kept in the cold freeze and at the same time claim the secular tag?
Will Congress take up the battle against the distortion of history, the word of mouth propaganda against minorities, spreading of religious prejudices against minorities? Is it equipped to take on the multiple tasks which are needed to preserve and promote secular values? Does it train its cadres in the values of secularism and democracy? While the recruitment drive for membership of Congress is in full swing, what are the efforts to ensure that the new recruits are not carrying the baggage of communal biases prevalent in the society? There is an in-depth need to train the existing and new members of political parties owning allegiance to secular democratic nationalism to take up the awareness and training programs which are able to oppose the religious hatred prevalent in the society. Short of these the claims of Congress President will just be declaration of the intent lacking in any substance.
And what about the statement of Digaviyay Singh in which he warned about the infiltration of communal elements in the state apparatus? Will a strategy be devised to ensure that all the state officials are really committed to secular democratic values and are not acting on the ground of communal bias. True, communalists have sowed their seeds all over, so what is the strategy of a secular party to counter this? Mr. Singh also said that communal forces are targeting minorities a la Nazis in Germany. A correct observation, but what is being done to counter that is the real question and a challenge which needs to be taken up.
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