Targeting Innocents: State and human
Rights of Minorities
Ram Puniyani
In Kalyan a Muslim
youth Bilal Shaikh was slaped with a non boilable cognizable offense (May 2012)
under section 333, after he jumped the traffic signal. He was assaulted
brutally by the police for having arguments with them, suffered a fracture in
right arm and was in jail for eight days. The policemen who beat him up got
released with the non cognizable warrant.
Another Muslim youth
Mohammad Amir Khan, age 18, preparing for his school exam, was abducted by
police, charged with being the mastermind of serial blasts in Delhi, was
charged under all the possible sections, tortured in jail for 14 years and
finally released in 2012 when no evidence was proved in the courts.
In the series of
blasts, for which now Aseemanand-Pragyasingh Thakur and company is now cooling
the heels in jails, many a Muslim youth were arrested after every blast in
Malegaon, Mecca Masjid (Hyderabad), Ajmer and Samjhauta express. In all the
cases the Muslim youth had to be released as police had no credible evidence of
any sort. In the meanwhile many of them had to drop out from their studies and
their careers were ruined.
In the recently
released (June 2012) report by Tata Institute of social sciences, the
observation is that 36% of the jail inmates in Maharashtra are Muslims while
the population of Muslims in state is close to 10.6%. The report was sponsored
by the Maharashtra States’ Minorities Panel. The findings of the report are in
conformity with the Sachar Committee report and general observation of Human
rights activists.
Most of the arrests of
Muslim youth are prompted by the prevalent stereotype of ‘Muslims are
criminals, terrorists’. These stereotypes are highly prevalent not only in
society but also amongst the bureaucracy, particularly the police and amongst
intelligence agencies. Many in the police force are totally in the grip of
communal thinking and with their infinite power they unleash themselves against
the Muslim youth at every conceivable opportunity. The rise of communalization
of society and more particularly after the coming up of the terrorism of Al
Qaeda variety, the stereotypes about Muslims have worsened. One recalls that
this type of terrorism was subtly brought up by United States for pursuing its
goal of controlling the oil wealth. The attitude of authorities has become more
anti minority and this in turn has undermined their professionalism and they
are guided more by their biases than by the rules of law.
There are multiple
reasons for the Muslim youth being targeted by the state authorities. True, that
some Muslim youth have fallen prey to the illegal activities due to the abject
poverty which they have to suffer. Still the major reason for their being
indiscriminately arrested by the police relates to the misconception regarding
acts of terrorism and communal violence.
In communal violence,
the major culprit instigating the violence is majoritiarian communal forces.
The study of different inquiry committee reports by Teesta Setalvad
(Communalism Combat, March 1998) shows that in most of the cases of violence it
is the RSS related organization, already prevalent or floated specially for the
occasion, which is in the lead. Even in Mumbai violence, Shrikrishna Commission
held Shiv Sena as the major factor leading the violence. As such Muslims are 13.4%
of the Indian population according to 2001 census, but amongst the violence
victims 90% are Muslims. Police and many a times political leadership takes the
attitude which increases the insecurity of the community.
The worst part of this
phenomenon is that in popular perception it is alleged that it is Muslims, who
start the riots. Dr. V.N. Rai, who has done a major study on the communal
violence points out that generally a situation, is created where the minority
community is forced to throw the first stone on many occasions. To worsen the
matter, after the violence the majority of those who are arrested for communal
violence are Muslims again.
The recent acts of
terror and attitude of police are very reflective of the whole process. In most
of these acts of terror, Malegaon, Ajmer, Jaipur and Samjhauta express blast,
many a Muslim youth were arrested as the ones’ who have done the act. Police
machinery produced evidence of their involvement with some Pakistan based
terror group; SIMI was always blamed for many of these acts. Even at that time
there were enough pointers that police investigations and action defies common
sense. Police had the standard formula for arresting Muslim youth after every
blast. They made it a practice to implicate the Muslim youth and put on their
head the charge of blast and their link with Lashkar-E-Tayyaba, Indian
Mujahideen, SIMI or some such group. Social activists kept pointing to the
authorities about the leads showing in another direction from where the acts of
terror were emerging. Police totally biased with prejudiced mind set kept on
repeating the same pattern over and over again.
Once Hemant Karkar’s
immaculate investigation showed the link of Malegaon blast to Sadhvi Pragya
Singh Thakur’s motor cycle and her links with many Hindutva groups the matters
came to a halt. Sadhvi’s links with Swami Dayanand Pandey, Lt Col Prasad
Shrikant Purohit, retired Major Upadhaya, Swami Aseemanand and many others of
Hindutva ideology revealed that police till then was totally acting in a wrong
manner. In this light Human Rights organization ANHAD (Act Now for Harmony And
Democracy), organized a tribunal in Hyderabad, ‘Scapegoats and Holy Cows’. The
report of this tribunal was very damning of the actions of the investigation
authorities and the state. Logically with the arrest of Saffron terror gangs
the acts of terror seem to have come to a halt.
Despite this, the
attitude of police remains as biased as before and in the day to day life they
display this partisan behavior. This biased attitude of state machinery, police
and intelligence authorities in the main, has been ruining the life and careers
of many a Muslim youth. The feeling of insecurity amongst the community as a
whole is on the rise. This feeling of insecurity is crippling the possible
growth of the community. Those implicated in such acts are also boycotted by
the community and have faced immense personal, social and economic losses. It
is time that the Human rights groups intensify their campaign to protect the
innocent Muslim youth, the legal measures need to be strengthened whereby the
police cannot exercise its biased attitude in arresting any Muslim youth.
Measures are needed to ensure that police-intelligence agencies takes up more
professional attitude overall and more particularly in the matters related to
minority youth. The Government needs to wake up and apply the correcting
measurs.
Apart from preventive
legal steps we also need to work against the prevalent social biases against
Muslims in particular. The myths against the community, which are historical
and contemporary issues, which are related to the causes of acts of terrorism
need to be countered by spread of truth about these myths. It is the duty of
state and social organizations to undertake and promote such awareness programs
through lectures, workshops, popular booklets and through mechanisms like T.V.
and media in particular.
