(Deccan Herald - November 13, 2004
Hunter becomes the hunted
The people are helpless in the face of Zaheera-like cases where the activists themselves become targets
BY KULDIP NAYAR
The cat is out of the bag. I was at pains to know why Zaheera Sheikh had changed her statement on the Best Bakery case, which covered the burning of people alive. Her earlier disclosure that the witnesses did not testify because of police pressure was so telling that the Supreme Court had to reopen the cases which it had closed. While commenting on Zaheera’s retraction, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s statement gave him out. He said that the country should find out the role of human rights activists. As expected, his ardent supporter Arun Jaitley has questioned the very role of NGOs.
The anger of Modi and Jaitley is understandable. Human rights activists put the Gujarat carnage on the map of the country and the world. They pursued the matter in law courts and elsewhere. They made the BJP say that its head bowed in shame. However, it has taken the BJP establishment seven months to bring Zaheera around. Hers is the key evidence although it does not mean that the case will fall because of her retraction. What kind of pressure worked and who were behind it may come to be known if and when the CBI makes an inquiry, a demand made by human rights activists.
Zaheera also targeted the human rights activists. She fired her first salvo by attacking Teesta Setlvad, a leading human rights activist, and said that Teesta had threatened her to keep quiet. Teesta is responsible for a threadbare discussion on the killings and other excesses committed in Gujarat. She is the one who constituted a committee of citizens, including two former Supreme Court judges, to go into what happened in Gujarat. The committee submitted a two-volume report, which indicted Modi by name. Zaheera’s statement cannot be taken even with a pinch of salt because if she wanted to speak out, she could have done so long ago. She could have sent her petition to the Minorities Commission then as she has done now. Zaheera visited the Supreme Court at least 15 times and had several opportunities to talk to the media. If she was under pressure, she could have indicated to the court or somebody in the media.
Points of interest
In fact, it would be interesting to know who arranged Zaheera’s press conference and what was the Baroda police commissioner doing when she was retracting her statement which attacked the state police. It is quite revealing that the public prosecutor has said that Zaheera’s mother approached members of the prosecution to give the family a flat and set up a bakery in Mumbai.
I do not think that those who have followed Teesta’s career will be taken in by Zaheera’s allegation. Teesta is a byword for the protection of human rights. Her contribution in the field of Hindu-Muslim riots is outstanding. She is the one who pursued the Mumbai blasts before Justice Sri Krishna. No wonder, organisations like Hindu Chetna Vahini burnt her effigy at Vadodara the other day. Human rights activists are mote in the eyes of any government.
Indira Gandhi appointed an inquiry commission against them when she returned to power after the Janata Party’s defeat at the polls. The Kudal Commission harassed literally every human rights activist, particularly the Gandhians, because they put up the stiffest resistance during the emergency. Not even a shred of evidence against them was found. Still the report raised every type of doubt about the working of human rights activists without evidence.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s remark that people should “ponder and reflect” over Zaheera’s retraction is neither here nor there. True, he cannot go into the merits of the case since it is sub judice. But he could have at least commented on the system where the pressure by police could make Zaheera go back on what she had said. Zaheera’s case has brought such tactics of authorities to the fore. People have raised their voice against similar incidents earlier. If the Prime Minister had only mentioned the helplessness of public in the face of Zaheera-like cases, the police and the administration would have got the warning and might have improved themselves.
Nothing new
The police involvement in cases is nothing new. The force gets away with anything because there is no proper follow-up and punishment. So many inquiry commissions have pointed out how the police are a party to cover up crime. No concrete step has been taken so far to improve the situation. Once again, the army is in the dock in Kashmir. True, an inquiry has been ordered into the allegation of rape of an 11-year-old girl and her mother in a remote village of Kupwara district. A major has reportedly been taken into custody. Such incidents only alienate people. Thousands of them took to the streets in the valley to demonstrate against the incident. Even human rights organisations are angry. But what do they do when so many of their inquiry reports remain unacknowledged and unimplemented?
In the meantime, the bureau of South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR), which met the other day at Lahore under the chairmanship of former Prime Minister I K Gujral, underlined the extent to which political leaders go to harass people. The bureau noted with alarm “the deteriorating law and order situation in South Asia, with particular reference to the rising religious extremism in the region, threatening life and security of citizens.” SAHR regretted that even secular political figures were resorting to “the exhibition of religiosity to further their own political agenda.”
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