Communal profiling
Delhi TERROR TARGET
Delhi cops prepare a list of all Muslim students studying in Manipal institute
By Sowmya Aji in Manipal
Mail Today, 25 September 2008, mailtoday.in
IF YOU are Muslim and studying at the prestigious Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), the big brothers are closely watching you. In a shocking case of communal profiling, Manipal Police, under instructions from their Delhi counterpart, have prepared a list of all Muslim students at MAHE from across the country for “verification”.
The second category of students under the scanner are those coming from Uttar Pradesh. However, the university is “absolutely sure” that it doesn’t have any terrorist on its rolls. In fact, director of the Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) Brigadier Surjit Pabla, who had fought militants in Jammu and Kashmir before his retirement, says his campus is the “safest place” in the country where nothing antinational takes place.
Manipal Police, too, seem to be merely doing Delhi Police’s bidding. Inspector general of police (western range) Ashit Mohan Prasad, the senior most official here, said “no Delhi Police team went to MAHE at all. Maybe, it is our local police who have sought this list.”
It all began with Delhi Police bringing a blindfolded Mohammad Saif, a Delhi blasts accused, to this university town to prove he had sourced bombs and funds from Karnataka.
According to Delhi Police, Saif had allegedly booked a room at Hotel New Broadway International here as Rahul Sharma on August 29 when he visited “the town to seek admission to the MIT”. This scribble on the guest ledger of the Eshwarnagar hotel sent the police hotfooting to the MAHE campus. MIT director Dr Pabla did his own verification. “We have verified that three students with variations of the name, Saif, like Saifulla or Saifuddin studied here in 2003 and 2005. They have all passed out of the university and there is no one by the name of Saif here now,” he said.
But the police obviously assume that the Muslim students and those from UP are up to something suspicious. Pabla maintained that his campus was free of terrorists. "'This is the safest place in the country. There can be no SIMI or other banned outfit working on our campuses or staying in our hostels. Our wardens are very strict and on the watch for potential mischief makers."
The director also pointed out that patrolling on the campus was intense when Saif was supposedly in Manipal. "We are particular that there is no ragging. So during admission time, we deployed extra security guards. There is no way any terror activity could have taken place," he added.
MAIL TODAY checked the University records to see if Saif, the alleged terrorist, could in anyway be linked to the university. While 21 students were counselled on August 27 and two on August 26, nobody was admitted or counselled on August 29, the date mentioned by Rahul Sharma in the lodge ledger.
But Delhi Police did not wait for this clarification from MIT. Sources at MAHE, the deemed university that runs MIT, said "we were asked to pull out the entire list of Muslim students and the entire list of students from Uttar Pradesh studying in our university for their (the police's) perusal. The list runs into thousands of names. We have given the police relevant names, addresses and photographs." Incidentally, most of the students here come from UP, Delhi, Bihar and Jharkhand.
sowmya.aji@mailtoday.in
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