India: Bombay's Far Right Shiv Sena opens distributes weapons and gets away with it

From: Daily News and Analysis, September 4, 2013

Of blunt swords and other police dilemmas

by Jyoti Punwani
Swords feature commonly in riots in Mumbai. Ever wondered how people lay hands on this medieval weapon in this 21st century city? It’s not difficult. Last week, Shiv Sena leader Abhijit Panse distributed swords to male and female participants of a dahi handi programme. The men were advised to use them to ‘‘cut off the limbs of those who attack women’’, the women for self-defence. To do so, women will have to carry these swords all the time. Won’t that be a crime? And, are the men supposed to dismember attackers of women as they catch them red-handed, or after they have been arrested? That’s not as improbable as it sounds. At least one recorded instance exists of Mumbai police handing over a deaf-mute Muslim to a Sena mob in the post-Babri Masjid riots.

The Srikrishna Commission inquiring into the riots recommended action against this group of policemen, but the recommendation was overruled by a government-appointed team comprising their colleagues. In another instance, the police asked a Muslim if he wanted to be killed by them or by the Sena. On Justice Srikrishna’s insistence, the Muslim agreed to identify these cops, but backed out on the day scheduled for identification.

Why have the police not acted against Mr Panse? In the only report on the incident, two officers explained their inaction. ACP Dhananjay Kulkarni said he didn’t know if blunt swords could be defined as weapons. But the man distributing them had no such doubts! No complaint had been made, said Joint CP Sadanand Date. Whose complaint is he waiting for? An eye-witness to the distribution? Or someone attacked by these swords?

Similar strange reasons were given by the police to Justice Srikrishna for not arresting Sena leaders. They ranged from not wanting “to hurt their followers’ feelings’’ to not being sure under what offences the leaders could be booked.

Interestingly, Mr Panse seems to live by the sword — no pun intended — doing things “the Sena style’’, as he himself puts it. The police has supported him all the way; whether in 2007, when his followers vandalized internet cafes after an “I hate Bal Thackeray’’ community was found on Orkut; or in 2008, when they put up posters declaring that they were ‘‘proud to be terrorists if killing traitors…bombing those who criticise the motherland and the religion is terrorism.’’ A Thackeray edit in Saamna had called upon Hindus to form ‘‘suicide squads’’ and make ‘‘better bombs’’ against “mini-Pakistans’’ in India.

Defending his posters, Mr Panse had declared: “We are not Gandhians, we are Shiv Sainiks. This is the language we speak.’’ The violent intent of the posters screamed at every passer-by. But not at the police, who were waiting — DCP Milind Bharambe had said then, ‘‘to understand from legal experts the implications of these words,’’ adding for good measure that the posters must have been put up after taking legal advice!

Thus emboldened, Mr Panse went from strength to strength. In 2010, his boys scored two victories against their old enemy — books: burning copies of Rohinton Mistry’s Such a Long Journey outside the University; and warning booksellers not to stock James Laine’s book on Shivaji.

When Muslims who attacked policemen at Azad Maidan last year were thrown into jail, their families recalled the impunity with which members of the city’s two Senas regularly run riot. By choosing not to act against a Sena leader who openly distributes weapons, the Mumbai police is sending out a message that won’t be forgotten.

The author is a Mumbai-based freelance journalist