Herald, Panjim, 15 July 2008
Editorial
The making of a terrorist?
The strange case of Tariq Ahmed Battlo – the man who was released by a Goa Fast Track Court only to be seized by plain clothes policemen outside the New Delhi airport and whisked away in a car, after which Jammu & Kashmir policemen claimed he was arrested from a ‘hideout’ in Jammu – will probably come back to haunt us all.
What happens when a man is unfairly caught on trumped-up charges and forced to spend years in jail? He grows bitter, and loses faith in law and justice. What happens when the same thing is done repeatedly, and the best years of his life are stolen from him by cynical policemen and intelligence operatives? Would he not then be ‘justified’ in feeling that there is simply no justice in this country? If the law enforcement authorities in this country themselves show so little respect for the law they are sworn to protect, they are only sending the wrong signals.
Tariq Ahmed Battlo was arrested by the Goa Police. They said he was getting off the Mangala Express, and had a kilo of RDX, grenades and detonators in his suitcase, and that he planned to set off bomb blasts in Goa. The arrests caused a sensation worldwide.
But thankfully, the Indian justice system requires proof. The cops neither had a ticket, nor did the prosecution examine anybody from the railways to prove that Battlo had travelled on the train that day. The RDX and grenades he was allegedly carrying were neither produced in court nor examined by experts. Both investigating officers admitted that they had not interrogated him about the source of his alleged explosives. Other prosecution witnesses hopelessly contradicted each other. The ‘panch’ witnesses turned out to be ‘veterans’ that had appeared in dozens of cases before... The police simply didn’t have a case.
Battlo, on the other hand, said he was picked up at Grace Church in Margao a full week before his ‘official’ arrest. And he had some ‘proof’ of sorts – a newspaper report of a statement made by then Chief Minister Pratapsingh Rane, before Battlo’s official arrest, that police in the state had held a ‘terrorist’. It was a perfect picture of what he alleged was a frame-up.
And, on his acquittal, we saw another such performance. Battlo, accompanied by his brother and cousin, was having a shave at a barber’s when police picked them up and took them to Vasco police station. They were instructed to take the very next flight out of the state. Police were at the airport, questioning them, as well as photographing and filming them, and making calls on their mobile phones. As soon as they reached Delhi and collected their bags, they were surrounded by men in plain clothes who took Battlo away. Two days later, J&K police said they caught him in his ‘hideout’ in Jammu, on the same day that he left Goa. He has been booked in an old 2005 case against someone else, and now faces the prospect of spending a few more years in jail, until another court realises that it wasn’t possible for him to reach Jammu on the same day he left Goa at 5.45 pm and reached Delhi at 8.30 pm, and acquits him from those charges as well. But what happens to a young man whose own experiences tell him that there is no such thing as justice in this country if the police want to get you anyhow? He starts thinking that the guys who have taken up guns against the government may be right after all...
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