New Age - 6 Feb 2013
Editorial : Second ICT verdict and Quader Mollah’s victory sign
THE conviction of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami assistant secretary general, Abdul Quader Molla, on Tuesday by the International Crimes Tribunal 2, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated during the war of independence in 1971, is welcome in view of the principle that no crime—whenever committed or whoever by—should go untried and unpunished. While it is the second conviction since the war crimes trial was initiated by the Awami League-led government in 2010, the first being the sentencing of Abul Kalam Azad, a former Jamaat activist, to death by the same tribunal on January 21, it is the first time that a top leader of the religion-based party has been handed down punishment for war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, the content and context of the verdict against Quader Molla could provide further scope for controversy over the trial process.
According to the summary of the full text of the judgement, made available to the press on Tuesday, Quader Mollah was found criminally liable on five of the six charges brought against him; he was acquitted of the other. Yet, while the tribunal ascertained his criminal liability on five charges, which include the mass killing at Alubdi in the capital Dhaka’s Mirpur area, why it sentenced him to life-term imprisonment, and not death as in the case against Abul Kalam Azad, is not clear from the summary. It is also not clear why Molla was deemed to have been ‘complicit’ in the crimes while Abul Kalam Azad was adjudicated to have ‘led’ the crimes although the circumstances in which such crimes were committed seem quite similar. It is also intriguing that the tribunal chose life-term imprisonment as punishment for Quader Molla despite its conclusion in the Alubdi mass killing charge that the Jamaat leader ‘is liable for the atrocious event of massacre in the same manner as if it was done by him alone.’
Moreover, the verdict, is deemed lenient by many, especially in comparison with the one handed down in the case against Abul Kalam Azad, comes in the wake of days of violent agitation by Jamaat and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir, which has resulted in deaths and widespread destruction of public property, for the ‘dismantling’ of the war crimes tribunal and release of its top leaders. Besides, although Jamaat announced that it would observe a daylong countrywide hartal (general strike) today in protest, Quader Molla was seen to be flashing a victory sign after the verdict. In such circumstances, it is entirely likely that there would be speculations linking the tribunal’s perceived leniency with the sustained Jamaat-Shibir violence and vandalism. Besides, it will also lend credence to the suspicion that the AL-led government may be using the international crimes tribunals and the war crimes trial as political leverages, keeping an eye on the next polarisation in electoral politics, although the law minister insisted on Tuesday that ‘the tribunals are working independently.’ Suffice it to say, such suspicion gets reinforced by growing murmurs in society about behind-the-curtain negotiations between the ruling Awami League and Jamaat for a possible entente—overt or covert.
Against such a backdrop, it can be safely assumed that the tribunals in the coming days will come for more intense scrutiny, both at home and abroad. Hence, it is imperative that the tribunals should live up to the historic duty they have been tasked with and make sure that their coming judgements leave no room for political speculation or legal controversy.
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Showing posts with label trial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trial. Show all posts
February 09, 2013
January 16, 2012
News on Babri Masjid demolition trial adjurned till 27 March 2012
From: The Times of India
Babri Masjid demolition was just an incident, says Supreme Court
PTI | Jan 16, 2012, 05.40PM IST
NEW DELHI: The Babri Masjid demolition is just an incident and there is nothing famous or infamous about it, the Supreme Court today said while listing CBI's plea for levelling charges of criminal conspiracy against senior BJP leader L K Advani, Shiv Sena Chief Bal Thackeray and 18 others to March 27.
"What is famous about it. It was an incident which happened and parties are before us. It is not famous or infamous," a bench of Justices H L Dattu and C K Prasad said when the Additional Solicitor General said at the beginning of the proceeding that the matter is related to "famous" Babri Masjid demolition case.
The proceeding before the bench could not go on as it was mentioned that some of the parties in the case have not filed their response and the case was then adjourned for March.
The apex court had on March 4 last year issued notice to 21 people including Advani, Thackeray, Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti, Satish Pradhan, CR Bansal, MM Joshi, Vinay Katiyar, Ashok Singhal, Giriraj Kishore, Sadhvi Ritambhara, VH Dalmia, Mahant Avaidhynath, RV Vedanti, Param Hans Ram Chandra Das, Jagdish Muni Maharaj, BL Sharma, Nritya Gopal Das, Dharam Das, Satish Nagar and Moreshwar Save.
The court had asked all of them to file their response on why criminal conspiracy charges should not be revived against them in the Babri Masjid demolition case.
It had passed the order on an appeal filed by CBI challenging the May 21, 2010 Allahabad High Court judgement upholding a special court's decision to drop the charges against the leaders.
The high court had at that time, however, allowed the CBI to proceed with the other charges against Advani and others in a Rae Bareily court since the disputed structure falls under its jurisdiction.
Challenging the High Court order, the CBI has said in its petition that "it appears an artificial distinction was made by the trial court attempting to assign a role in respect of each of the accused persons and to see which offences were made out.
It said that the trial court had erroneously come to the conclusion that 21 persons were not entitled to be tried in the case (pertaining to the demolition on December 6, 1992).
"The order passed by the High Court results in serious miscarriage of justice, violates the principle of consolidated investigation, consolidated charge sheet and also disables an effective trial," the petition said.
The May 2010 order of the High Court had said there was no merit in the CBI's revision petition challenging the May 4, 2001 order of the special court which directed dropping of criminal conspiracy charges against them.
There are two sets of cases -- one against Advani and others who were on the dais at Ram Katha Kunj in Ayodhya in December 1992 when the Babri Masjid was demolished, while the other case was against lakhs of unknown 'karsevaks' who were in and around the disputed structure.
The CBI had chargesheeted Advani and 20 others under sections 153A IPC (promoting enmity between classes), 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration) and 505 (false statements, rumours etc circulated with the intent to cause mutiny or disturb public peace).
But it subsequently invoked charges under Section 120 B (Criminal Conspiracy) which was quashed by the Special Court whose decision was upheld by the High Court.
The HC while upholding the special court's order had said that the CBI at no point of time, either during the trial at Rai Bareli or in its revision petition, ever stated that there was offence of criminal conspiracy against the leaders.
Babri Masjid demolition was just an incident, says Supreme Court
PTI | Jan 16, 2012, 05.40PM IST
NEW DELHI: The Babri Masjid demolition is just an incident and there is nothing famous or infamous about it, the Supreme Court today said while listing CBI's plea for levelling charges of criminal conspiracy against senior BJP leader L K Advani, Shiv Sena Chief Bal Thackeray and 18 others to March 27.
"What is famous about it. It was an incident which happened and parties are before us. It is not famous or infamous," a bench of Justices H L Dattu and C K Prasad said when the Additional Solicitor General said at the beginning of the proceeding that the matter is related to "famous" Babri Masjid demolition case.
The proceeding before the bench could not go on as it was mentioned that some of the parties in the case have not filed their response and the case was then adjourned for March.
The apex court had on March 4 last year issued notice to 21 people including Advani, Thackeray, Kalyan Singh, Uma Bharti, Satish Pradhan, CR Bansal, MM Joshi, Vinay Katiyar, Ashok Singhal, Giriraj Kishore, Sadhvi Ritambhara, VH Dalmia, Mahant Avaidhynath, RV Vedanti, Param Hans Ram Chandra Das, Jagdish Muni Maharaj, BL Sharma, Nritya Gopal Das, Dharam Das, Satish Nagar and Moreshwar Save.
The court had asked all of them to file their response on why criminal conspiracy charges should not be revived against them in the Babri Masjid demolition case.
It had passed the order on an appeal filed by CBI challenging the May 21, 2010 Allahabad High Court judgement upholding a special court's decision to drop the charges against the leaders.
The high court had at that time, however, allowed the CBI to proceed with the other charges against Advani and others in a Rae Bareily court since the disputed structure falls under its jurisdiction.
Challenging the High Court order, the CBI has said in its petition that "it appears an artificial distinction was made by the trial court attempting to assign a role in respect of each of the accused persons and to see which offences were made out.
It said that the trial court had erroneously come to the conclusion that 21 persons were not entitled to be tried in the case (pertaining to the demolition on December 6, 1992).
"The order passed by the High Court results in serious miscarriage of justice, violates the principle of consolidated investigation, consolidated charge sheet and also disables an effective trial," the petition said.
The May 2010 order of the High Court had said there was no merit in the CBI's revision petition challenging the May 4, 2001 order of the special court which directed dropping of criminal conspiracy charges against them.
There are two sets of cases -- one against Advani and others who were on the dais at Ram Katha Kunj in Ayodhya in December 1992 when the Babri Masjid was demolished, while the other case was against lakhs of unknown 'karsevaks' who were in and around the disputed structure.
The CBI had chargesheeted Advani and 20 others under sections 153A IPC (promoting enmity between classes), 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration) and 505 (false statements, rumours etc circulated with the intent to cause mutiny or disturb public peace).
But it subsequently invoked charges under Section 120 B (Criminal Conspiracy) which was quashed by the Special Court whose decision was upheld by the High Court.
The HC while upholding the special court's order had said that the CBI at no point of time, either during the trial at Rai Bareli or in its revision petition, ever stated that there was offence of criminal conspiracy against the leaders.
March 24, 2010
India: On Gujarat, SIT itself is on trial
The Times of India, 21 March 2010
On Gujarat, SIT itself is on trial
by Manoj Mitta
The Gujarat riot cases are again at the crossroads. The first time, an exasperated Supreme Court took the extreme measure of shifting two high-profile cases, Best Bakery and Bilkis Banu, out of Gujarat. It led to a fair trail and convictions.
Once again we are at the cusp of some out-of-the-box move by the Supreme Court. The court has already stayed the trial into the Gulbarg massacre case involving the murder of 69 people, including Congress MP Ehsan Jafri. The stay has come in the wake of stunning allegations of bias by special public prosecutor R K Shah against the probe agency, the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT), and the special court judge.
Shah has alleged that SIT was sabotaging the case by giving weak support to the prosecution team, and the judge — if Shah is to be believed — was behaving as though he was presiding over a kangaroo court; he was intimidating eye-witnesses and, generally speaking, showing little interest in getting to the truth.
In the circumstances, the Supreme Court — the one institution that has consistently batted for justice for the riot victims — was left with no option but to stay the trial for now. What it will do next is the big question. Will it upbraid SIT and urge it to discharge its duties fairly and diligently? Or will it, acting on a long-pending application, direct a reconstitution of SIT?
SIT’s credibility appears to have sunk to a new low. This is despite it summoning Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi for questioning this Sunday. Modi is one of the worthies in a list of 62 influential persons against whom Zakia Jafri, Ehsan Jafri’s widow, has filed a complaint, which is still to be registered. But this remarkable step of summoning the chief minister has not quite retrieved SIT’s credibility — in fact, the timing of the summons is seen as a desperate effort by SIT to salvage its battered reputation.
Critics point out that SIT could have summoned Modi much earlier if it wanted to. Gulbarg is one of the nine cases
falling under SIT’s jurisdiction. And it could have examined Modi in this case because Rahul Sharma, one of the few Gujarat police officers to have acquitted himself well during the riots, has produced a CD containing cell phone records of BJP leaders and police officers. Besides, eyewitnesses have testified in court that shortly before his murder, Jafri rang Modi for help, only to be abused by him. The sudden summoning of Modi now is, therefore, being viewed with dollops of skepticism.
The larger skepticism about SIT lies in its composition. Apart from the former CBI chief, R K Raghavan, who heads the team, its senior officers are drawn largely from the Gujarat Police, which itself has been seen to have been biased during the riots. The three senior Gujarat officers are Shivanand Jha, Geeta Johri and Ashish Bhatia. One of them, Jha, is named as an accused in Jafri’s complaint.
Special prosecutor Shah has alleged that Bhatia tried to sabotage the prosecution’s case by producing fresh witness statements contradicting the earlier ones. Bhatia’s alleged machinations were exposed when all the eyewitnesses and victims stood by their original testimonies during the trial, disowning the retractions attributed to them. Shah’s damaging revelations about SIT corroborate previous allegations against Bhatia by eyewitnesses and victims in their transfer petition to the Gujarat high court.
Whether it is biased or not, SIT has certainly been horribly inept in its assistance to the prosecution. Prosecutor Shah alleged that statements of witnesses were given to him only when they were in the witness box, giving him no time to study. And the trial court, he alleged, was seeking to shield the Gulbarg massacre accused. Overall, this indicates that Modi’s Gujarat remains as hostile to justice as it was when the original Best Bakery case trial collapsed in Vadodara under the weight of testimonies retracted under duress.
So, if the Supreme Court felt Gujarat was not the right place for securing justice in the Best Bakery and Bilkis Banu cases, it might even feel similarly when it takes up the issue next month about the nine cases with SIT. But more likely, it could reconstitute the team so as to show it means business. It is clear the SIT experiment is in need of serious review.
At the next Supreme Court hearing, Raghavan may also be pressed to justify SIT’s handling of the Godhra train-burning case. Having bought into the Gujarat police’s claim that the killing of 57 passengers was the result of an ISI conspiracy, SIT seems to have acquiesced in the attempt to use trumped-up evidence. This came to light because of a plea filed before the Supreme Court by somebody who has been cited as an eyewitness. The eyewitness, Ilyas Hussain Mulla, claimed that he was not in Godhra that fateful day; he was, in fact, in Palej, 150 km from Godhra. Mulla has said that SIT officials abducted and tortured him again last month to prevent him from speaking the truth at the trial.
Look at it any which way, we haven’t heard the last of the Gujarat riot trials. One minister, Maya Kodnani, might have been arrested. But in the larger context, this seems a case of selective enforcement of law. Much greater rigour would be required to give justice to the riot victims. And heal a festering wound in our society.
On Gujarat, SIT itself is on trial
by Manoj Mitta
The Gujarat riot cases are again at the crossroads. The first time, an exasperated Supreme Court took the extreme measure of shifting two high-profile cases, Best Bakery and Bilkis Banu, out of Gujarat. It led to a fair trail and convictions.
Once again we are at the cusp of some out-of-the-box move by the Supreme Court. The court has already stayed the trial into the Gulbarg massacre case involving the murder of 69 people, including Congress MP Ehsan Jafri. The stay has come in the wake of stunning allegations of bias by special public prosecutor R K Shah against the probe agency, the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT), and the special court judge.
Shah has alleged that SIT was sabotaging the case by giving weak support to the prosecution team, and the judge — if Shah is to be believed — was behaving as though he was presiding over a kangaroo court; he was intimidating eye-witnesses and, generally speaking, showing little interest in getting to the truth.
In the circumstances, the Supreme Court — the one institution that has consistently batted for justice for the riot victims — was left with no option but to stay the trial for now. What it will do next is the big question. Will it upbraid SIT and urge it to discharge its duties fairly and diligently? Or will it, acting on a long-pending application, direct a reconstitution of SIT?
SIT’s credibility appears to have sunk to a new low. This is despite it summoning Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi for questioning this Sunday. Modi is one of the worthies in a list of 62 influential persons against whom Zakia Jafri, Ehsan Jafri’s widow, has filed a complaint, which is still to be registered. But this remarkable step of summoning the chief minister has not quite retrieved SIT’s credibility — in fact, the timing of the summons is seen as a desperate effort by SIT to salvage its battered reputation.
Critics point out that SIT could have summoned Modi much earlier if it wanted to. Gulbarg is one of the nine cases
falling under SIT’s jurisdiction. And it could have examined Modi in this case because Rahul Sharma, one of the few Gujarat police officers to have acquitted himself well during the riots, has produced a CD containing cell phone records of BJP leaders and police officers. Besides, eyewitnesses have testified in court that shortly before his murder, Jafri rang Modi for help, only to be abused by him. The sudden summoning of Modi now is, therefore, being viewed with dollops of skepticism.
The larger skepticism about SIT lies in its composition. Apart from the former CBI chief, R K Raghavan, who heads the team, its senior officers are drawn largely from the Gujarat Police, which itself has been seen to have been biased during the riots. The three senior Gujarat officers are Shivanand Jha, Geeta Johri and Ashish Bhatia. One of them, Jha, is named as an accused in Jafri’s complaint.
Special prosecutor Shah has alleged that Bhatia tried to sabotage the prosecution’s case by producing fresh witness statements contradicting the earlier ones. Bhatia’s alleged machinations were exposed when all the eyewitnesses and victims stood by their original testimonies during the trial, disowning the retractions attributed to them. Shah’s damaging revelations about SIT corroborate previous allegations against Bhatia by eyewitnesses and victims in their transfer petition to the Gujarat high court.
Whether it is biased or not, SIT has certainly been horribly inept in its assistance to the prosecution. Prosecutor Shah alleged that statements of witnesses were given to him only when they were in the witness box, giving him no time to study. And the trial court, he alleged, was seeking to shield the Gulbarg massacre accused. Overall, this indicates that Modi’s Gujarat remains as hostile to justice as it was when the original Best Bakery case trial collapsed in Vadodara under the weight of testimonies retracted under duress.
So, if the Supreme Court felt Gujarat was not the right place for securing justice in the Best Bakery and Bilkis Banu cases, it might even feel similarly when it takes up the issue next month about the nine cases with SIT. But more likely, it could reconstitute the team so as to show it means business. It is clear the SIT experiment is in need of serious review.
At the next Supreme Court hearing, Raghavan may also be pressed to justify SIT’s handling of the Godhra train-burning case. Having bought into the Gujarat police’s claim that the killing of 57 passengers was the result of an ISI conspiracy, SIT seems to have acquiesced in the attempt to use trumped-up evidence. This came to light because of a plea filed before the Supreme Court by somebody who has been cited as an eyewitness. The eyewitness, Ilyas Hussain Mulla, claimed that he was not in Godhra that fateful day; he was, in fact, in Palej, 150 km from Godhra. Mulla has said that SIT officials abducted and tortured him again last month to prevent him from speaking the truth at the trial.
Look at it any which way, we haven’t heard the last of the Gujarat riot trials. One minister, Maya Kodnani, might have been arrested. But in the larger context, this seems a case of selective enforcement of law. Much greater rigour would be required to give justice to the riot victims. And heal a festering wound in our society.
November 12, 2009
India: Kandhamal killers escape through holes in the justice delivery system
12 November,
From John Dayal
12 November 2009
I have just come back from Orissa, very depressed at the way the criminal justice system is working in that benighted state.
I had gone to take part in a rare Civil Society meeting with victims, some law experts and some Human Rights activists on 3rd November 2009 in Bhubaneswar. In truth, barring some leaders of various Left parties and Women’s groups, there is not much of a civil society in Orissa as far as violence on Christians or Muslims is concerned. Fortunately, there are activists - and Dhirendra Panda is one such - who are determined to press for justice. Fortunately again, there are some more activists working in the defence of the rights of Tribals and workers whose very existence is threatened by the entry of global mining giants trying to profit from the underground riches of Orissa. About them, in another note.
Advocate Rasmi Ranjan Jena says "As we know in most of the cases already tried in the Fast Track Courts in Kandhamal the accused persons have been acquitted. This is nothing but a great failure of the criminal justice system which has miserably failed to give justice to the victims of the communal violence. At this juncture there is an urgent need of critical analysis of the factors responsible for the failure. Though nothing much should be expected from a judicial forum in a communal society, but we need to have a self introspection to develop a strategy for the upcoming days.
[. . .]
Full Text at: http://www.sacw.net/article1221.html
From John Dayal
12 November 2009
I have just come back from Orissa, very depressed at the way the criminal justice system is working in that benighted state.
I had gone to take part in a rare Civil Society meeting with victims, some law experts and some Human Rights activists on 3rd November 2009 in Bhubaneswar. In truth, barring some leaders of various Left parties and Women’s groups, there is not much of a civil society in Orissa as far as violence on Christians or Muslims is concerned. Fortunately, there are activists - and Dhirendra Panda is one such - who are determined to press for justice. Fortunately again, there are some more activists working in the defence of the rights of Tribals and workers whose very existence is threatened by the entry of global mining giants trying to profit from the underground riches of Orissa. About them, in another note.
Advocate Rasmi Ranjan Jena says "As we know in most of the cases already tried in the Fast Track Courts in Kandhamal the accused persons have been acquitted. This is nothing but a great failure of the criminal justice system which has miserably failed to give justice to the victims of the communal violence. At this juncture there is an urgent need of critical analysis of the factors responsible for the failure. Though nothing much should be expected from a judicial forum in a communal society, but we need to have a self introspection to develop a strategy for the upcoming days.
[. . .]
Full Text at: http://www.sacw.net/article1221.html
July 24, 2009
Gujarat High Court dismisses the petition seeking a stay to investigate Modi's role in 2002 riots
BBC News, 24 July 2009
Court backs Gujarat riot probe
A court in the Indian state of Gujarat has rejected a bid to delay a probe into the role of the chief minister in communal riots in 2002.
More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died in the riots which began after 60 Hindus died in a fire on a train.
The cause of the fire has never been clearly established.
Hindu groups alleged that it was started by Muslim protesters, but an earlier inquiry said it was an accident.
Justice DH Vaghela ruled that the probe against the chief minister and 62 others should not be delayed.
The rejection of the petition means that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) is now free to summon Mr Modi and his colleagues and question them about their role at the time.
The petition was filed in June by a former legislator of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJO), Kalubhai Maliwad, who is also listed for investigation.
The SIT's remit is to investigate the riots which followed the killing of 59 people in a fire on a train at Godhra after a skirmish with locals at the railway station.
A former member of the Indian Parliament, Ehsan Jaffri, was also killed in the rioting in Ahmedabad. His widow, Zakia Jaffri, had filed a different petition alleging that the chief minister and 62 of his colleagues and officers were involved in the riots.
In the past the Supreme Court has criticised the government of Gujarat for failing to protect its Muslim citizens.
Mr Modi's supporters have always said he could have done little under the circumstances to prevent the violence.
Last year, a commission of inquiry set up by the state government exonerated Mr Modi over the riots.
Court backs Gujarat riot probe
A court in the Indian state of Gujarat has rejected a bid to delay a probe into the role of the chief minister in communal riots in 2002.
More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died in the riots which began after 60 Hindus died in a fire on a train.
The cause of the fire has never been clearly established.
Hindu groups alleged that it was started by Muslim protesters, but an earlier inquiry said it was an accident.
Justice DH Vaghela ruled that the probe against the chief minister and 62 others should not be delayed.
The rejection of the petition means that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) is now free to summon Mr Modi and his colleagues and question them about their role at the time.
The petition was filed in June by a former legislator of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJO), Kalubhai Maliwad, who is also listed for investigation.
The SIT's remit is to investigate the riots which followed the killing of 59 people in a fire on a train at Godhra after a skirmish with locals at the railway station.
A former member of the Indian Parliament, Ehsan Jaffri, was also killed in the rioting in Ahmedabad. His widow, Zakia Jaffri, had filed a different petition alleging that the chief minister and 62 of his colleagues and officers were involved in the riots.
In the past the Supreme Court has criticised the government of Gujarat for failing to protect its Muslim citizens.
Mr Modi's supporters have always said he could have done little under the circumstances to prevent the violence.
Last year, a commission of inquiry set up by the state government exonerated Mr Modi over the riots.
June 24, 2008
Babu Bajrangi’s bail and Gujarat riot probe
(Published in: Combat Law, May - June 2008)
Appointment of Justice Akshay Mehta (retired) on Nanawati Enquiry Commission inevitably poses the question – can a person be the judge in his own cause? This becomes all the more important since Gujarat riot accused Babu Bajrangi was set free on bail by the judge in a media sting operation. Bajrangi bragged about being let off by the judge whom Gujarat chief minister “posted” after sending a “message” (to Bajrangi) about “finding a way” (for his bail). Human Right Law Network and Jan Sangharsh Manch advocate SH Iyer writes from Ahmedabad about the new probe panel incumbent and the issues posed by this
The cardinal principle of administration of justice that a person cannot be the judge in his own cause is put to test before the enquiry commission headed by justice GT Nanavati which is probing the riot related cases of Gujarat after Godhra train carnage in the year 2002.
After the incident of burning of Sabarmati Express at Godhra on February 27, 2002 in which 59 innocent passengers lost their lives, the Gujarat government constituted a commission of inquiry under the commission of Inquiry Act, to inquire into the Godhra train carnage and the subsequent riots that had taken place in Gujarat after February 27, 2002. Initially, justice KG Shah, a retired judge of Gujarat High Court was appointed by the state government as a sole member of the enquiry commission, later, Justice GT Nanavati, a retired Supreme Court judge was appointed as the chairman of the commission. The terms of reference made for the commission were expanded so as to include the violent incidents of post-Godhra riots and the role and conduct of the ministers including the chief minister, state executives and bureaucrats, police officials, political and other organisations during the riots.
The Nanavati-Shah Commission carried on inquiry ever since its inception with the assistance of the lawyers representing the state, BJP, Congress, VHP and Jan Sangharsh Manch. Certain other organisations also participated in the inquiry proceedings. Ever since its appointment in March 2002, the Nanavati- Shah commission examined several hundreds of witnesses, including the railway officials, government officials, police officials, riot victims and the activist of several social organisations.
------------------------------
BEFORE THE HON’BLE MR JUSTICE GT NANAVATI AND MR JUSTICE KG SHAH COMMISSION OF INQUIRY AT SHAHIBAUGH, AHMEDABAD
Production of the VCD of the Transmission of “Operation Kalank” Telecasted on “AAJ TAK” News Channel between 18:59 to 20:45 (Part-I) and 20:45 to 1:05 hours (Part-II) on 25th October 2007.
MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIPS:
On behalf of the State Government of Gujarat it is humbly submitted that:
1 On 25-10-2007 AAJ TAK, a News Channel in its transmission telecast under the caption “Operation Kalank” that came to be telecast between 18:59 to 1:05 hours, wherein under the purported sting operation, certain audio visual transmission came to be made. The same has been recorded in two VCDs viz. transmission from 18:59 to 20:45 (Part-I) and transmission from 20:45 to 1:05 hours (Part-II), which is produced before this Hon’ble Commission.
2 It is stated and submitted that the Government of Gujarat in exercise of powers conferred under Sec.6 of the Commission of Inquiry Act, has appointed this Hon’ble Commission to inquire into the terms of reference of appointment, having further extended the said terms of reference vide further notification dated 20th July 2004.
3 It is stated that the issue of which reference is made in the said two VCDs produced herewith before this Hon’ble Commission being directly the subject-matter covered under the terms of reference, that it is desired requisite that the same be produced, brought on record and to the notice of this Hon’ble Commission and hence this application for production.
4 In view of what is stated hereinabove, the two VCDs containing the transmission telecasted on 25-10-2007 by AAJ TAK, a News Channel in its transmission telecasted under the caption “Operation Kalank” viz., transmission from 18:59 to 20:45 (Part-I) and transmission from 20:45 to 1:05 hours (Part-II) are hereby produced and the same be taken on record.
Place: Ahmedabad
Date: 29-10-2007
T.S. Nanavati-
Counsel – Government of Gujarat
---------------------------------
Justice KG Shah, who was a member of the commission for the last six years, passed away on March 23, 2008. To fill up the vacancy that had arisen in the commission due to unfortunate demise of Justice KG Shah, the Jan Sangharsh Manch by its letter dated March 25, 2008 suggested the names of five judges for consideration of the government for appointment of any of them to fill up the vacancy. The names of the retired judges suggested by JSM were (1) Justice MR Calla (2) Justice RC Mankad (3) Justice NN Mathur (4) Justice RA Mehta and (5) Justice AP Rawani. The state government, however, did not consider any of the names suggested by Jan Sangharsh Manch and instead straight away made appointment of Justice Akshay Mehta, a retired judge of Gujarat High Court. The appointment of the Justice Akshay Mehta as a member of the enquiry commission has been opposed by Jan Sangharsh Manch on the principle that “a person cannot be the judge in his own cause.”
There are serious allegations against Justice Akshay Mehta with regard to grant of bail to the accused persons involved in murderous crime during riots particularly the cases of Naroda Patia, Naroda village etc. On October 25, 2007 two television channels viz. Aaj Tak and Head Lines Today had telecast a programme under the title of Operation Kalank. The programme was based on the sting operation carried out by Tehelka which had published the full transcript of the dialogue between its correspondent and various persons involved in post-Godhra riots. The dialogues contained very serious statements made by the prime accused of the Naroda Patia case namely Babu Bajrangi, an active member of Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad declaring that as a sitting judge of the Gujarat High Court, Justice Akshay Mehta had granted him bail at the behest of the Chief Minister Narendra Modi without even opening the file when the other judges had refused to grant him bail in the earlier hearing. The dialogue between the correspondent of Tehelka and Babu Bajrangi was published by Tehalka magazine in its issue dated November 3, 2007 (Saturday) Vol-4, Issue-43 on Page No. 51.
The relevant portion of the statement made by Babu Bajrangi published in Tehelka magazine reads as under:
Bajrangi : “Narendrabhai got me out of jail… He kept on changing judges… He set it up so as to ensure my release, otherwise I wouldn’t have been out yet... The first judge was one Dholakiaji. He said Babu Bajrangi should be hanged – not once, but four-five times, and he flung the file aside… Then came another who stopped just short of saying I should be hanged. Then there was a third one. By then, four-and-a-half months had elapsed in jail, then Narendrabhai sent me a message… saying he would find a way out. Next he posted a judge named Akshay Mehta. He never even looked at the file or anything. He just said [bail was] granted. And we were all out.. We were free... For this, I believe in God. We are ready to die for Hindutva.”
Without expressing any opinion on the correctness or otherwise of the allegation made by the accused Babu Bajrangi, on simple reading of conversation, it appears from his statement that he was denied bail by the earlier judges in view of the serious nature of the offences committed by him. He has quoted Justice RP Dholakia who according to Bajrangi had not only denied him bail but was of the view that the offence committed by Bajrangi was so grave that he should be hanged, not once or twice but four to five times. Finally, after four-and-a-half months the matter came before Justice Mehta who granted him bail without even looking at the file. According to the allegation made by Babu Bajrangi, it was the Chief Minister Narendra Modi at whose behest the sitting of the judges of the High Court of Gujarat was changed and Justice Akshay Mehta was assigned the cases of bail and this is how Bajrangi got bail from High Court.
The Video recording of the Operation Kalank telecast by Aaj Tak news channel on October 25, 2007 was placed by the Government of Gujarat before the Nanavati Inquiry Commission on October 29, 2007 vide Application Exh. No. 5991 which reads as under:
The aforesaid application along with CD containing the video recording of Operation Kalank has been taken on record by the enquiry commission. Thus, it is the government’s own case that the contents of the two VCDs of Operation Kalank are the subject matter covered in the terms of reference and forming part of the reference of enquiry made to the commission and therefore the commission should also enquire into the contents of the said VCDs. Apart from many other things, the VCDs also contain the dialogue between the correspondent of Tehelka and Babu Bajrangi who is said to have alleged that he has been granted bail by Justice Akshay Mehta at the behest of the chief minister. Therefore, now this aspect i.e. the conduct of Justice Akshay Mehta and the circumstances, in which he granted bail to Babu Bajrangi, is also the subject matter of enquiry by Nanavati Commission according to the government’s own representation. In this view of the matter, the moot question is – is it fair on the part of government to appoint Justice Akshay Mehta as a member of the commission after the death of Justice KG Shah? Secondly, is it fair on the part of Justice Akshay Mehta to accept the appointment? As a member of enquiry commission, can Justice Akshay Mehta enquire into his own conduct while granting bail to Babu Bajrangi?
The Jan Sangharsh Manch vide its application dated October 29, 2007 placed on record of the commission the Tehelka magazine dated November 3, 2007, and demanded inquiry into the serious allegations made by Shri Arvind Pandya, the advocate appearing for the state of Gujarat before enquiry commission. Thus the aforesaid magazine is also under scrutiny of the enquiry commission. The two VCDs containing the programme Operation Kalank were produced before the commission by the government and the Tehelka magazine containing the aforesaid statement of Babu Bajrangi was placed before commission by Jan Sangharsh Manch. The commission is expected to enquire into both, the VCDs and the Tehelka magazine impartially. With inclusion of Justice Akshay Mehta, how far the enquiry would be impartial is anybody’s guess.
It is not in dispute that the bail application moved by Babu Bajrangi was not entertained by several judges who were of the opinion that no bail can be granted to the accused involved in such serious crimes. One judge has gone to the extent saying that the accused must be hanged four to five times. It was however, Justice Akshay Mehta who by order dated October 19, 2002 granted bail without assigning any reason and merely on condition of executing bond of only Rs 10,000. The order passed by Justice Akshay Mehta in Criminal Misc. Application No. 6529 reads as under: The Manch has found on enquiry that Justice Mehta indeed grant bail to Babu Bajrangi by his order dated October 19, 2002. The order does not disclose any reason for granting bail to the prime accused of the most heinous crime in the history of Gujarat and the bail was granted on execution of bond of Rs. 10,000 with one solvent surety of the like amount. It may note that the Supreme Court insists that the reasons must be given for granting bail.
The Jan Sangharsh Manch has been consistently assisting the enquiry commission ever since its appointment for the reason that the Manch considered the inquiry carried out by the commission was of great national importance and therefore, the sanctity of the commission ought to be maintained all the time. The success of the commission was entirely depending on the faith and confidence reposed by the people at large and therefore according to the Jan Sangharsh Manch, the members of the commission must be beyond all controversies.
With this objective in view, the Jan Sangharsh Manch has objected the appointment of Justice Akshay Mehta as member of the commission especially since the allegations contained, in the Operation Kalank had been placed on record by the government itself before the commission and the same is under scrutiny of the commission. Under these circumstances therefore Justice Mehta, in respect of whom serious allegations have been made regarding grant of bail to the accused Babu Bajrangi, it would be most inappropriate that the same judge would be enquiring into the allegations leveled against him as well as the events of Naroda Patiya. Needless to say that it would be absolutely against the principle of natural justice, which says, “no person shall become a judge in his own cause.”
In the aforesaid circumstances, the Jan Sangharsh Manch feels it necessary to state that it has made no personal allegations against Justice Akshay Mehta nor its objection is directed against Shri Mehta on personal ground.
______
------------
BEFORE THE HON’BLE MR JUSTICE GT NANAVATI AND MR JUSTICE KG SHAH COMMISSION OF INQUIRY AT SHAHIBAUGH, AHMEDABAD
IN THE HIGH COURT OF GUJARAT AT AHMEDABAD
CRIMINAL MISC.APPLICATION No 6529 of 2002
--------------------------------------------------------------
BABUBHAI @ BABU BAJRANGI S/O RAJABHAI PATEL
versus
STATE OF GUJARAT
--------------------------------------------------------------
Appearance:
1. Criminal Misc. Application No. 6529 of 2002 MR ABHAYKUMAR P SHAH for Petitioner No. 1-3 MR KC SHAH, APP for Respondent No. 1
--------------------------------------------------------------
CORAM: MR JUSTICE AKSHAY H.MEHTA
Date of Order: 19/10/2002
ORAL ORDER
Rule. Mr K.C.Shah, Addl. Public Prosecutor waives the service of Rule on behalf of State.
2. The parties do not press for reasoned order. Considering the submissions made on behalf of the parties and having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case, the application is allowed and the applicants are ordered to be released on bail in connection with crime register No. I - 100 of 2002 registered at Naroda police station, Ahmedabad, for the offence alleged against them in this application on their executing bond of Rs.10,000/- (Rupees ten thousand only) each with one solvent surety of the like amount each to the satisfaction of the lower court and subject to the conditions that they shall,
a) -not take undue advantage of their liberty or abuse their liberty;
b) -not to try to tamper or pressurise the prosecution witnesses or complainant in any manner;
c) -maintain law and order and should co-operate the investigating officers;
d) -not act in a manner injurious to the interest of the prosecution;
e) not leave the local limits of State of Gujarat without the prior permission of the concerned sessions judge.
f) -mark presence before the Sardarnagar police station once in a month - on any day between 1st and 5th day of every month, till the commencement of the trial, between 9.00 a.m. to 2.00 p.m.
g) -furnish the address of his residence to the IO and also to the court at the time of execution of the bond and shall not change the residence without prior permission of this court;
h) -not enter into the area of Naroda Police Station till the commencement of the trial;
i) -surrender their passports, if any, to the lower court within a week;
3. If breach of any of the above conditions is committed, the concerned sessions judge will be free to issue warrant or take appropriate action in the matter.
4. Bail before the lower court having jurisdiction to try the case. It would be opened to the trial court concerned to give time to furnish the solvency certificate if prayed for.
5. Rule is made absolute. Direct service is permitted.
[ AKSHAY H. MEHTA, J. ]
Appointment of Justice Akshay Mehta (retired) on Nanawati Enquiry Commission inevitably poses the question – can a person be the judge in his own cause? This becomes all the more important since Gujarat riot accused Babu Bajrangi was set free on bail by the judge in a media sting operation. Bajrangi bragged about being let off by the judge whom Gujarat chief minister “posted” after sending a “message” (to Bajrangi) about “finding a way” (for his bail). Human Right Law Network and Jan Sangharsh Manch advocate SH Iyer writes from Ahmedabad about the new probe panel incumbent and the issues posed by this
The cardinal principle of administration of justice that a person cannot be the judge in his own cause is put to test before the enquiry commission headed by justice GT Nanavati which is probing the riot related cases of Gujarat after Godhra train carnage in the year 2002.
After the incident of burning of Sabarmati Express at Godhra on February 27, 2002 in which 59 innocent passengers lost their lives, the Gujarat government constituted a commission of inquiry under the commission of Inquiry Act, to inquire into the Godhra train carnage and the subsequent riots that had taken place in Gujarat after February 27, 2002. Initially, justice KG Shah, a retired judge of Gujarat High Court was appointed by the state government as a sole member of the enquiry commission, later, Justice GT Nanavati, a retired Supreme Court judge was appointed as the chairman of the commission. The terms of reference made for the commission were expanded so as to include the violent incidents of post-Godhra riots and the role and conduct of the ministers including the chief minister, state executives and bureaucrats, police officials, political and other organisations during the riots.
The Nanavati-Shah Commission carried on inquiry ever since its inception with the assistance of the lawyers representing the state, BJP, Congress, VHP and Jan Sangharsh Manch. Certain other organisations also participated in the inquiry proceedings. Ever since its appointment in March 2002, the Nanavati- Shah commission examined several hundreds of witnesses, including the railway officials, government officials, police officials, riot victims and the activist of several social organisations.
------------------------------
BEFORE THE HON’BLE MR JUSTICE GT NANAVATI AND MR JUSTICE KG SHAH COMMISSION OF INQUIRY AT SHAHIBAUGH, AHMEDABAD
Production of the VCD of the Transmission of “Operation Kalank” Telecasted on “AAJ TAK” News Channel between 18:59 to 20:45 (Part-I) and 20:45 to 1:05 hours (Part-II) on 25th October 2007.
MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIPS:
On behalf of the State Government of Gujarat it is humbly submitted that:
1 On 25-10-2007 AAJ TAK, a News Channel in its transmission telecast under the caption “Operation Kalank” that came to be telecast between 18:59 to 1:05 hours, wherein under the purported sting operation, certain audio visual transmission came to be made. The same has been recorded in two VCDs viz. transmission from 18:59 to 20:45 (Part-I) and transmission from 20:45 to 1:05 hours (Part-II), which is produced before this Hon’ble Commission.
2 It is stated and submitted that the Government of Gujarat in exercise of powers conferred under Sec.6 of the Commission of Inquiry Act, has appointed this Hon’ble Commission to inquire into the terms of reference of appointment, having further extended the said terms of reference vide further notification dated 20th July 2004.
3 It is stated that the issue of which reference is made in the said two VCDs produced herewith before this Hon’ble Commission being directly the subject-matter covered under the terms of reference, that it is desired requisite that the same be produced, brought on record and to the notice of this Hon’ble Commission and hence this application for production.
4 In view of what is stated hereinabove, the two VCDs containing the transmission telecasted on 25-10-2007 by AAJ TAK, a News Channel in its transmission telecasted under the caption “Operation Kalank” viz., transmission from 18:59 to 20:45 (Part-I) and transmission from 20:45 to 1:05 hours (Part-II) are hereby produced and the same be taken on record.
Place: Ahmedabad
Date: 29-10-2007
T.S. Nanavati-
Counsel – Government of Gujarat
---------------------------------
Justice KG Shah, who was a member of the commission for the last six years, passed away on March 23, 2008. To fill up the vacancy that had arisen in the commission due to unfortunate demise of Justice KG Shah, the Jan Sangharsh Manch by its letter dated March 25, 2008 suggested the names of five judges for consideration of the government for appointment of any of them to fill up the vacancy. The names of the retired judges suggested by JSM were (1) Justice MR Calla (2) Justice RC Mankad (3) Justice NN Mathur (4) Justice RA Mehta and (5) Justice AP Rawani. The state government, however, did not consider any of the names suggested by Jan Sangharsh Manch and instead straight away made appointment of Justice Akshay Mehta, a retired judge of Gujarat High Court. The appointment of the Justice Akshay Mehta as a member of the enquiry commission has been opposed by Jan Sangharsh Manch on the principle that “a person cannot be the judge in his own cause.”
There are serious allegations against Justice Akshay Mehta with regard to grant of bail to the accused persons involved in murderous crime during riots particularly the cases of Naroda Patia, Naroda village etc. On October 25, 2007 two television channels viz. Aaj Tak and Head Lines Today had telecast a programme under the title of Operation Kalank. The programme was based on the sting operation carried out by Tehelka which had published the full transcript of the dialogue between its correspondent and various persons involved in post-Godhra riots. The dialogues contained very serious statements made by the prime accused of the Naroda Patia case namely Babu Bajrangi, an active member of Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad declaring that as a sitting judge of the Gujarat High Court, Justice Akshay Mehta had granted him bail at the behest of the Chief Minister Narendra Modi without even opening the file when the other judges had refused to grant him bail in the earlier hearing. The dialogue between the correspondent of Tehelka and Babu Bajrangi was published by Tehalka magazine in its issue dated November 3, 2007 (Saturday) Vol-4, Issue-43 on Page No. 51.
The relevant portion of the statement made by Babu Bajrangi published in Tehelka magazine reads as under:
Bajrangi : “Narendrabhai got me out of jail… He kept on changing judges… He set it up so as to ensure my release, otherwise I wouldn’t have been out yet... The first judge was one Dholakiaji. He said Babu Bajrangi should be hanged – not once, but four-five times, and he flung the file aside… Then came another who stopped just short of saying I should be hanged. Then there was a third one. By then, four-and-a-half months had elapsed in jail, then Narendrabhai sent me a message… saying he would find a way out. Next he posted a judge named Akshay Mehta. He never even looked at the file or anything. He just said [bail was] granted. And we were all out.. We were free... For this, I believe in God. We are ready to die for Hindutva.”
Without expressing any opinion on the correctness or otherwise of the allegation made by the accused Babu Bajrangi, on simple reading of conversation, it appears from his statement that he was denied bail by the earlier judges in view of the serious nature of the offences committed by him. He has quoted Justice RP Dholakia who according to Bajrangi had not only denied him bail but was of the view that the offence committed by Bajrangi was so grave that he should be hanged, not once or twice but four to five times. Finally, after four-and-a-half months the matter came before Justice Mehta who granted him bail without even looking at the file. According to the allegation made by Babu Bajrangi, it was the Chief Minister Narendra Modi at whose behest the sitting of the judges of the High Court of Gujarat was changed and Justice Akshay Mehta was assigned the cases of bail and this is how Bajrangi got bail from High Court.
The Video recording of the Operation Kalank telecast by Aaj Tak news channel on October 25, 2007 was placed by the Government of Gujarat before the Nanavati Inquiry Commission on October 29, 2007 vide Application Exh. No. 5991 which reads as under:
The aforesaid application along with CD containing the video recording of Operation Kalank has been taken on record by the enquiry commission. Thus, it is the government’s own case that the contents of the two VCDs of Operation Kalank are the subject matter covered in the terms of reference and forming part of the reference of enquiry made to the commission and therefore the commission should also enquire into the contents of the said VCDs. Apart from many other things, the VCDs also contain the dialogue between the correspondent of Tehelka and Babu Bajrangi who is said to have alleged that he has been granted bail by Justice Akshay Mehta at the behest of the chief minister. Therefore, now this aspect i.e. the conduct of Justice Akshay Mehta and the circumstances, in which he granted bail to Babu Bajrangi, is also the subject matter of enquiry by Nanavati Commission according to the government’s own representation. In this view of the matter, the moot question is – is it fair on the part of government to appoint Justice Akshay Mehta as a member of the commission after the death of Justice KG Shah? Secondly, is it fair on the part of Justice Akshay Mehta to accept the appointment? As a member of enquiry commission, can Justice Akshay Mehta enquire into his own conduct while granting bail to Babu Bajrangi?
The Jan Sangharsh Manch vide its application dated October 29, 2007 placed on record of the commission the Tehelka magazine dated November 3, 2007, and demanded inquiry into the serious allegations made by Shri Arvind Pandya, the advocate appearing for the state of Gujarat before enquiry commission. Thus the aforesaid magazine is also under scrutiny of the enquiry commission. The two VCDs containing the programme Operation Kalank were produced before the commission by the government and the Tehelka magazine containing the aforesaid statement of Babu Bajrangi was placed before commission by Jan Sangharsh Manch. The commission is expected to enquire into both, the VCDs and the Tehelka magazine impartially. With inclusion of Justice Akshay Mehta, how far the enquiry would be impartial is anybody’s guess.
It is not in dispute that the bail application moved by Babu Bajrangi was not entertained by several judges who were of the opinion that no bail can be granted to the accused involved in such serious crimes. One judge has gone to the extent saying that the accused must be hanged four to five times. It was however, Justice Akshay Mehta who by order dated October 19, 2002 granted bail without assigning any reason and merely on condition of executing bond of only Rs 10,000. The order passed by Justice Akshay Mehta in Criminal Misc. Application No. 6529 reads as under: The Manch has found on enquiry that Justice Mehta indeed grant bail to Babu Bajrangi by his order dated October 19, 2002. The order does not disclose any reason for granting bail to the prime accused of the most heinous crime in the history of Gujarat and the bail was granted on execution of bond of Rs. 10,000 with one solvent surety of the like amount. It may note that the Supreme Court insists that the reasons must be given for granting bail.
The Jan Sangharsh Manch has been consistently assisting the enquiry commission ever since its appointment for the reason that the Manch considered the inquiry carried out by the commission was of great national importance and therefore, the sanctity of the commission ought to be maintained all the time. The success of the commission was entirely depending on the faith and confidence reposed by the people at large and therefore according to the Jan Sangharsh Manch, the members of the commission must be beyond all controversies.
With this objective in view, the Jan Sangharsh Manch has objected the appointment of Justice Akshay Mehta as member of the commission especially since the allegations contained, in the Operation Kalank had been placed on record by the government itself before the commission and the same is under scrutiny of the commission. Under these circumstances therefore Justice Mehta, in respect of whom serious allegations have been made regarding grant of bail to the accused Babu Bajrangi, it would be most inappropriate that the same judge would be enquiring into the allegations leveled against him as well as the events of Naroda Patiya. Needless to say that it would be absolutely against the principle of natural justice, which says, “no person shall become a judge in his own cause.”
In the aforesaid circumstances, the Jan Sangharsh Manch feels it necessary to state that it has made no personal allegations against Justice Akshay Mehta nor its objection is directed against Shri Mehta on personal ground.
______
------------
BEFORE THE HON’BLE MR JUSTICE GT NANAVATI AND MR JUSTICE KG SHAH COMMISSION OF INQUIRY AT SHAHIBAUGH, AHMEDABAD
IN THE HIGH COURT OF GUJARAT AT AHMEDABAD
CRIMINAL MISC.APPLICATION No 6529 of 2002
--------------------------------------------------------------
BABUBHAI @ BABU BAJRANGI S/O RAJABHAI PATEL
versus
STATE OF GUJARAT
--------------------------------------------------------------
Appearance:
1. Criminal Misc. Application No. 6529 of 2002 MR ABHAYKUMAR P SHAH for Petitioner No. 1-3 MR KC SHAH, APP for Respondent No. 1
--------------------------------------------------------------
CORAM: MR JUSTICE AKSHAY H.MEHTA
Date of Order: 19/10/2002
ORAL ORDER
Rule. Mr K.C.Shah, Addl. Public Prosecutor waives the service of Rule on behalf of State.
2. The parties do not press for reasoned order. Considering the submissions made on behalf of the parties and having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case, the application is allowed and the applicants are ordered to be released on bail in connection with crime register No. I - 100 of 2002 registered at Naroda police station, Ahmedabad, for the offence alleged against them in this application on their executing bond of Rs.10,000/- (Rupees ten thousand only) each with one solvent surety of the like amount each to the satisfaction of the lower court and subject to the conditions that they shall,
a) -not take undue advantage of their liberty or abuse their liberty;
b) -not to try to tamper or pressurise the prosecution witnesses or complainant in any manner;
c) -maintain law and order and should co-operate the investigating officers;
d) -not act in a manner injurious to the interest of the prosecution;
e) not leave the local limits of State of Gujarat without the prior permission of the concerned sessions judge.
f) -mark presence before the Sardarnagar police station once in a month - on any day between 1st and 5th day of every month, till the commencement of the trial, between 9.00 a.m. to 2.00 p.m.
g) -furnish the address of his residence to the IO and also to the court at the time of execution of the bond and shall not change the residence without prior permission of this court;
h) -not enter into the area of Naroda Police Station till the commencement of the trial;
i) -surrender their passports, if any, to the lower court within a week;
3. If breach of any of the above conditions is committed, the concerned sessions judge will be free to issue warrant or take appropriate action in the matter.
4. Bail before the lower court having jurisdiction to try the case. It would be opened to the trial court concerned to give time to furnish the solvency certificate if prayed for.
5. Rule is made absolute. Direct service is permitted.
[ AKSHAY H. MEHTA, J. ]
August 07, 2007
Soon India’s jails will be choc-a-block with Muslims
(Dawn
August 06, 2007)
‘Soon India’s jails will be choc-a-block with Muslims’
by Jawed Naqvi
TV JOURNALIST Sagarika Ghose said those worried words in a column last week. She was referring to a controversial verdict in which a hundred persons were handed stiff sentences, including death, by an anti-terror judge for alleged involvement in a string of blasts, which killed 257 people in Mumbai in 1993.
It must be a record of sorts. Of the 123 actually accused, 100 were sentenced, 12 to death, 20 given life terms, 15 of them with rigorous imprisonment. And what are the names of those who will die? The question was vestigial. Ghose and a majority of Indians who have followed the murky trial know the answer. In her own words: “Among others, Memon, Turk, Tarani, Shaikh, Mukadam, Ghansar, Malik, Pawle, and Khan. What are the names of those who will serve life terms with RI? Among others, Shaikh, Khairulla, Qureshi, Memon, Rehman and Kadar. In the 1998 Coimbatore blast verdict this week, the main accused Abdul Nazar Mahdani has been acquitted, but SA Basha, founder of al-Umma has been found guilty, along with 157 others. Muslim after Muslim has stepped up to be convicted and sentenced. Soon India’s jails will be choc-a-block with Muslims.”
One of the convicts in the Mumbai case was popular film star Sanjay Dutt. He got six years RI, admittedly for possessing a gun to protect himself from a nightmarish communal carnage, which preceded the blasts. Shiv Sena hordes and policemen owing allegiance to their leaders had summarily killed most of the 900, mostly Muslims. The Justice Srikrishna Commission investigated the carnage and specifically named 31 policemen and Shiv Sena activists, all based on eye-witness accounts. It was to be in vain.
Ghose has written a brave column. She knows the consequences. “To voice any doubts about the long delayed (blasts) trial is considered ‘anti-national’, ‘unpatriotic’ or ‘pseudo-secular’.” Yet she and senior lawyers she has quoted have cast doubt on the blast case and how it is a shame on the judiciary. “How can justice be thoroughly done through the mountains of documentation, the sheer bulk of facts and contradictions, the long delayed trial and lapses in human memory that must have faced poor Justice PD Kode?” Lawyers have called the case a “mistrial” and a case of “playing to the gallery”.
Writing in the Sunday Express, respected journalist Maseeh Rehman recalled how several members of the convicted Memon family had in fact returned from Karachi, where they had reportedly fled, to prove their innocence. The father of Tiger Memon, the man who actually masterminded the blasts, was livid over the cold-blooded murder of fellow Indians by his son.
Rehman was the chief correspondent for India Today in Mumbai when the blasts occurred. He recalls how Tiger Memon, who had fled to Dubai had become an outcast in his own family after they learnt of his involvement in the serial blasts. “After the bombings, Tiger turned evasive, and it gradually dawned on them that the reports from Mumbai were true — a Memon was behind the outrage.
“This provoked father Abdul Razzak to physically thrash Tiger in front of the others soon after they landed in Karachi. The strongly built, hot-tempered Tiger took the beating quietly (just as he later accepted their decision to return to India), though, as Yakub said in court, Tiger warned him: “Tum Gandhiwadi ban ke ja rahe ho, lekin wahan atankwadi qarar kiye jayo ge (You are going as a Gandhian, but over there you will be labelled a terrorist).” The upshot is that Yakub Memon faces the hangman’s noose for keeping his faith in India’s fabled democracy and judiciary.
A dozen death sentences in one trial is not a joke. Has India become a more bloody-minded state than its founders had envisaged? An Indian judge perhaps sought to correct this nagging perception in his own awkward way. He had to order the deportation of a suspect wanted by the British police for raping and killing an English girl. The judge set an implausible condition. The deportation, he declared, should not lead to the man’s execution in UK! Now either the judge is not aware that unlike India, Britain abolished the last remnants of death penalty in 1998, or the reports quoting his condition for deportation were wrong.
Actually, there is a persistent trend internationally to abolish the death penalty and India is among the countries that retain it. A pity in Gandhi’s land. Studies cited by Amnesty International suggest that death penalty is more likely to be imposed on those who are poorer, less educated and belong to the marginalised segments of society. Moreover, since death penalty is irrevocable, there is an inherent risk of error in its application.
In the 1983 India’s Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty can only be applied in the “rarest of rare” cases. Since this is not further defined and no clear guidelines exist, the use of capital penalty is largely dependent on the interpretation of this phrase by individual judges.
There is room for bias too. Indian authorities have opposed the death penalty in some cases but condoned it in others. In 2004, the government requested mercy for Indian national Ayodhya Prasad Chaubey, who was executed in Indonesia on August 5, 2004 on drug-trafficking charges, but the government is understood to have condoned other executions of Indian citizens.
Even more seriously, Amnesty says the number of executions carried out in India is unknown. PUDR, an Indian human rights group, called on the government in 2005 to make public all information on executions since independence in 1947. Indian media have reported that there have been 55 executions since independence. PUDR has challenged this figure, stating that according to a 1967 Law Commission report, at least 1,422 people were executed between 1953 and 1963. Who were these people? It would be interesting to find out.
There is no consistency across Indian states with regard to disclosure of death penalty statistics. The Delhi Deputy Director General of Prisons stated it was not “in the public interest” to publish such figures. Well-known death sentences in India are of persons convicted of assassinating major political leaders, as in the killings of Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, or for crimes under ‘terrorist’ laws, as in the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001. These sentences were by their nature very well known throughout the country but hundreds of other sentences have been awarded without considerable attention.
The recently published legal casebook, Can Society Escape the Noose…? The Death Penalty in India, contends that of the thousands of murders committed each year in India, it is the poor and underprivileged and persons belonging to minority groups who eventually receive the death sentence and are executed for their crimes.
The point raised by Sagarika Ghose appears to blend with the overall state of affairs. But neither she nor Maseeh Rehman seemed to be perturbed by the fact that India is a rare democracy to retain capital punishment. Even its mistaken role model in the controversial war on terrorism — Israel — had declared capital punishment illegal way back in 1954.
The important question raised by Ghose about the inequality of justice and implied communal bias can be addressed without being bloody-minded in our own version of retribution. She herself asks: “As Muslim after Muslim has walked to his death, as ‘terrorist’ after ‘terrorist’ has been taken away for life, what about the Hindu mobs and Hindu police officers who were named and indicted by the Justice Srikrishna Commission that inquired into the bloodcurdling 1992-93 riots of Mumbai in which 900 died?” It’s a valid question. Justice Srikrishna indicts 31 “trigger-happy” policemen: among others, the names here are sub-inspector Vasant Madhukar More, police inspectors Patankar and Wahule, Jt Commissoner of Police RD Tyagi, not to mention political names like Gopinath Munde, Madhukar Sarpotdar and Ram Naik of the BJP, all accused of inciting mobs. Aren’t riots too not an act of terror? A terrorist is defined as one who kills innocent civilians for a political purpose. So aren’t those Hindu rioters too not ‘terrorists’ and shouldn’t they too face the same law as Muslim ‘terrorists’? To answer the key question raised by Ghose, yes, riots too are an act of terror. But can they be addressed by spilling more blood even if by supposedly legal means?
jawednaqvi@gmail.com
August 06, 2007)
‘Soon India’s jails will be choc-a-block with Muslims’
by Jawed Naqvi
TV JOURNALIST Sagarika Ghose said those worried words in a column last week. She was referring to a controversial verdict in which a hundred persons were handed stiff sentences, including death, by an anti-terror judge for alleged involvement in a string of blasts, which killed 257 people in Mumbai in 1993.
It must be a record of sorts. Of the 123 actually accused, 100 were sentenced, 12 to death, 20 given life terms, 15 of them with rigorous imprisonment. And what are the names of those who will die? The question was vestigial. Ghose and a majority of Indians who have followed the murky trial know the answer. In her own words: “Among others, Memon, Turk, Tarani, Shaikh, Mukadam, Ghansar, Malik, Pawle, and Khan. What are the names of those who will serve life terms with RI? Among others, Shaikh, Khairulla, Qureshi, Memon, Rehman and Kadar. In the 1998 Coimbatore blast verdict this week, the main accused Abdul Nazar Mahdani has been acquitted, but SA Basha, founder of al-Umma has been found guilty, along with 157 others. Muslim after Muslim has stepped up to be convicted and sentenced. Soon India’s jails will be choc-a-block with Muslims.”
One of the convicts in the Mumbai case was popular film star Sanjay Dutt. He got six years RI, admittedly for possessing a gun to protect himself from a nightmarish communal carnage, which preceded the blasts. Shiv Sena hordes and policemen owing allegiance to their leaders had summarily killed most of the 900, mostly Muslims. The Justice Srikrishna Commission investigated the carnage and specifically named 31 policemen and Shiv Sena activists, all based on eye-witness accounts. It was to be in vain.
Ghose has written a brave column. She knows the consequences. “To voice any doubts about the long delayed (blasts) trial is considered ‘anti-national’, ‘unpatriotic’ or ‘pseudo-secular’.” Yet she and senior lawyers she has quoted have cast doubt on the blast case and how it is a shame on the judiciary. “How can justice be thoroughly done through the mountains of documentation, the sheer bulk of facts and contradictions, the long delayed trial and lapses in human memory that must have faced poor Justice PD Kode?” Lawyers have called the case a “mistrial” and a case of “playing to the gallery”.
Writing in the Sunday Express, respected journalist Maseeh Rehman recalled how several members of the convicted Memon family had in fact returned from Karachi, where they had reportedly fled, to prove their innocence. The father of Tiger Memon, the man who actually masterminded the blasts, was livid over the cold-blooded murder of fellow Indians by his son.
Rehman was the chief correspondent for India Today in Mumbai when the blasts occurred. He recalls how Tiger Memon, who had fled to Dubai had become an outcast in his own family after they learnt of his involvement in the serial blasts. “After the bombings, Tiger turned evasive, and it gradually dawned on them that the reports from Mumbai were true — a Memon was behind the outrage.
“This provoked father Abdul Razzak to physically thrash Tiger in front of the others soon after they landed in Karachi. The strongly built, hot-tempered Tiger took the beating quietly (just as he later accepted their decision to return to India), though, as Yakub said in court, Tiger warned him: “Tum Gandhiwadi ban ke ja rahe ho, lekin wahan atankwadi qarar kiye jayo ge (You are going as a Gandhian, but over there you will be labelled a terrorist).” The upshot is that Yakub Memon faces the hangman’s noose for keeping his faith in India’s fabled democracy and judiciary.
A dozen death sentences in one trial is not a joke. Has India become a more bloody-minded state than its founders had envisaged? An Indian judge perhaps sought to correct this nagging perception in his own awkward way. He had to order the deportation of a suspect wanted by the British police for raping and killing an English girl. The judge set an implausible condition. The deportation, he declared, should not lead to the man’s execution in UK! Now either the judge is not aware that unlike India, Britain abolished the last remnants of death penalty in 1998, or the reports quoting his condition for deportation were wrong.
Actually, there is a persistent trend internationally to abolish the death penalty and India is among the countries that retain it. A pity in Gandhi’s land. Studies cited by Amnesty International suggest that death penalty is more likely to be imposed on those who are poorer, less educated and belong to the marginalised segments of society. Moreover, since death penalty is irrevocable, there is an inherent risk of error in its application.
In the 1983 India’s Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty can only be applied in the “rarest of rare” cases. Since this is not further defined and no clear guidelines exist, the use of capital penalty is largely dependent on the interpretation of this phrase by individual judges.
There is room for bias too. Indian authorities have opposed the death penalty in some cases but condoned it in others. In 2004, the government requested mercy for Indian national Ayodhya Prasad Chaubey, who was executed in Indonesia on August 5, 2004 on drug-trafficking charges, but the government is understood to have condoned other executions of Indian citizens.
Even more seriously, Amnesty says the number of executions carried out in India is unknown. PUDR, an Indian human rights group, called on the government in 2005 to make public all information on executions since independence in 1947. Indian media have reported that there have been 55 executions since independence. PUDR has challenged this figure, stating that according to a 1967 Law Commission report, at least 1,422 people were executed between 1953 and 1963. Who were these people? It would be interesting to find out.
There is no consistency across Indian states with regard to disclosure of death penalty statistics. The Delhi Deputy Director General of Prisons stated it was not “in the public interest” to publish such figures. Well-known death sentences in India are of persons convicted of assassinating major political leaders, as in the killings of Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, or for crimes under ‘terrorist’ laws, as in the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001. These sentences were by their nature very well known throughout the country but hundreds of other sentences have been awarded without considerable attention.
The recently published legal casebook, Can Society Escape the Noose…? The Death Penalty in India, contends that of the thousands of murders committed each year in India, it is the poor and underprivileged and persons belonging to minority groups who eventually receive the death sentence and are executed for their crimes.
The point raised by Sagarika Ghose appears to blend with the overall state of affairs. But neither she nor Maseeh Rehman seemed to be perturbed by the fact that India is a rare democracy to retain capital punishment. Even its mistaken role model in the controversial war on terrorism — Israel — had declared capital punishment illegal way back in 1954.
The important question raised by Ghose about the inequality of justice and implied communal bias can be addressed without being bloody-minded in our own version of retribution. She herself asks: “As Muslim after Muslim has walked to his death, as ‘terrorist’ after ‘terrorist’ has been taken away for life, what about the Hindu mobs and Hindu police officers who were named and indicted by the Justice Srikrishna Commission that inquired into the bloodcurdling 1992-93 riots of Mumbai in which 900 died?” It’s a valid question. Justice Srikrishna indicts 31 “trigger-happy” policemen: among others, the names here are sub-inspector Vasant Madhukar More, police inspectors Patankar and Wahule, Jt Commissoner of Police RD Tyagi, not to mention political names like Gopinath Munde, Madhukar Sarpotdar and Ram Naik of the BJP, all accused of inciting mobs. Aren’t riots too not an act of terror? A terrorist is defined as one who kills innocent civilians for a political purpose. So aren’t those Hindu rioters too not ‘terrorists’ and shouldn’t they too face the same law as Muslim ‘terrorists’? To answer the key question raised by Ghose, yes, riots too are an act of terror. But can they be addressed by spilling more blood even if by supposedly legal means?
jawednaqvi@gmail.com
Double Standards: Punishing The culprits of violence
(Kashmir Times
7 August 2007)
Editorial
Double Standards: Punishing The culprits of violence
By Ram Puniyani
Indian society has been plagued by two major types of violence. One is that related to the sectarian one, the one which began with Jablapur riots of 1961, which intensified greatly during the decades of 1980s, the one which gradually assumed the shape of pogrom like the ones of 1984 (Delhi), 1992-3 (Mumbai) and Gujarat (2002). The two latter one of these also showed that lot of organization and planning is being put in to the same. In the context of the punishments being pronounced in the Mumbai blast cases, the demand resurfaced that even the guilty of 1992-93 carnage should also be punished. Just to recall after these riots this Commission worked painstakingly for five years and came to various conclusions and also named those who were guilty of violation of laws due to which the violence took such horrendous shape.
The Shiv Sena, many of whose leaders actively participated in these riots immediately came out vehemently against such demands. It argument is that the victims have reconciled to what has happened and reopening of these cases is just being demanded by secularists to spoil the broth. Congress, slippery as ever, first promised that the Government will reopen the cases immediately went back on that saying that already all action has been taken and nothing more is needed. One of its leaders also showed the apprehension that reopening these cases may give the political benefit to the Hindutva parties. Such political calculations are present in deliverance of justice is fairly well known by now.
This became painfully obvious as the punishment was announced for the guilty of Mumbai blasts of 1993 and as preparations were underfoot to file the case for those involved in the train blasts of Mumbai 2006 July, one nagging question haunted those committed to democratic values and also those who have been the victim of 92-93 Mumbai riots, and also probably the victims of carnage of Gujarat, and many other major and minor incidents of violence, where the victims have been those belonging to the minority community. Most of the culprits of blasts so far indicted have been from the Muslim community, while those who suffered maximum during the sectarian violence were also from the same community.
The present punishments have been meted out to the culprits of Mumbai blasts of 93, which followed the Mumbai violence in the aftermath of Babri demolition. The violence which looked to be spontaneous was investigated by sitting judge Shrikrishna, who after five years of painstaking investigation concluded many a things relating to violence and blasts. About the spread of violence it put the square blame on the failure of police machinery, the role of provocative writings in Shiv Sena paper Saamana and another paper Navakaal, and the role played by Shiv Sena-BJP as a whole, Shiv Sena had later started Maha Aarti, which was meant to mobilize people and give provocation to them. "The Maha Artis were started from 26th December 1992 and kept adding to the communal tension and endangering the fragile peace which had been established. Some (were used to deliver) communally inciting speeches and the crowds dispersing from (them) indulged in damage, looting and arson of Muslim establishments in the vicinity.?
The commission also concluded that blasts had a connection with the violence, which preceded it. Accepting and upholding the testimony of one of the witnesses the commission pointed out, ?Joint Commissioner M N Singh also emphasizes that serial bomb blasts were a reaction to the totality of events of Ayodhya and Bombay?and commission is inclined to agree with him?? Its observations about the carnage itself are very pertinent, it not only shows the mechanism which might have been operative in some youth and others getting brainwashed to take revenge in this insane fashion, Interestingly Shrikrishna Commission also points of the underlying insecurity which led some elements to participate in scheming and implementation of blasts, ?The Muslims felt a feeling of insecurity and anger, on extent of their suffering during the two riot (Dec. 1992 and Jan 1993) period?certain anti national laments abetted by ISI?recruited some of the angry young men by brainwashing them that they should take revenge??
It also shows how the Hidutva parties, Shiv Sena in particular coordinated the whole violence, in which around thousand people lost their lives and 86% of those killed belonged to Muslim minority. Commission meticulously documented the direct involvement of many leaders in instigating and participating in violence. About the second phase of riots, which began from 8th January, commission points out, there is no doubt that Shiv Sena and Shiv sainiks took lead in organizing attacks on Muslims and their properties under the guidance of several leaders of Shiv Sena from the level of shakha pramukh to Shi vena Pramukh Bal Thackeray, who like a veteran general commanded his loyal Shiv Sainiks, to retaliate by organized attacks against Muslims.?
Cases of very minor nature were registered under Thackeray which were later dropped by Shiv Sena-BJP coalition which came to power in the elections held in 1995. The later Congress coalition was threatened, and cowed to the threat, that violence will break out if Thackeray, the main culprit is arrested. Similarly role of other leaders like Madhukar Sarpotdar, Ram Naik, Gopinath Munde and many others was documented by the commission. Shiv Sena-BJP dropped the cases and the Congress alliance which came to power on the promise of implementing the findings of Shrikrishna commission, did not bother to do any thing in this direction. Madhukar Sarpotdar?s case was deliberately put on the weak wicket, attention was not paid on the case details and neither was it pursued in a proper manner, with the result that he was untouched despite being a potential TADA culprit and also for carrying unlicensed arms. The latter is the act under which Sanjay Dutt has been jailed now. The pattern is same in most of these, either cases are not registered, or registered under weak clauses, than dropped and not pursued. So a biased police machinery and shameless political leadership supplement each other to ensure that justice is not done.
Similar points can be made about the police officers. Of the hundred police officers who had negative role, commission named 31 for their lapses or proactive involvement in the carnage. Joint Commissioner of police R.D. Tyagi, Assistant Police inspector Deshmukh, and PI Lahane were found to be guilty of excessive and unnecessary firing resulting in death of nine Muslims in Suleiman Bakery incident. Tyagi was discharged in 2003 and others were exonerated and discharged. In case of Tyagi the matter was not pursued by the government. On the top of that many of them like R.D. Tyagi and Nikhil Kapse were promoted in the course of their careers. In another case the police blatantly opened fire in Hari Masjid, the commission points out the guilty, but the GOvt. is clever enough to protect the culprits.
On the other hand in Coimbtore blasts, Madani who was behind the bars for last eight years has been found not to be guilty. And the fellow spent eight years despite not being the part of the crime. In the wake of verdicts delivered for the bomb blast culprits, one is reminded of the fate of justice as far as the Mumbai carnage is concerned. The inferences from these observations are too disturbing. We seem to be heading for two sets of justice system as a whole. The ones belonging to minority community, suffer maximum in the communal carnage. They get killed, their properties are destroyed. The guilty in these cases are generally not punished. Those aiding and abetting these crimes get away with it and sometimes even promoted.
In other case the blasts and acts of terror, if Muslims are involved the cases are investigated and punishments are meted out in due course. There were many a delegations which went to represent to the government to implement the findings of Shrikrishan Commission, but justice for riots victims has been deliberately buried under the political inaction of different governments.
It is reflective of the political parties, the political system and the bureaucratic structure which is coming to be. While some parties like BJP-Shiv Sena are aggressively pursuing the communal agenda, the others are opportunistic enough not to think of justice in a principled way. Congress, while paying lip service to secular values has mostly compromised with the communal elements and most of the times it does not have the spine to take the challenge of rising communalism. This is having very adverse impact on the socio-psychology of the minority communities. At one level they seem to be loosing faith in the whole system, as the current double standards of the ruling party shows.
7 August 2007)
Editorial
Double Standards: Punishing The culprits of violence
By Ram Puniyani
Indian society has been plagued by two major types of violence. One is that related to the sectarian one, the one which began with Jablapur riots of 1961, which intensified greatly during the decades of 1980s, the one which gradually assumed the shape of pogrom like the ones of 1984 (Delhi), 1992-3 (Mumbai) and Gujarat (2002). The two latter one of these also showed that lot of organization and planning is being put in to the same. In the context of the punishments being pronounced in the Mumbai blast cases, the demand resurfaced that even the guilty of 1992-93 carnage should also be punished. Just to recall after these riots this Commission worked painstakingly for five years and came to various conclusions and also named those who were guilty of violation of laws due to which the violence took such horrendous shape.
The Shiv Sena, many of whose leaders actively participated in these riots immediately came out vehemently against such demands. It argument is that the victims have reconciled to what has happened and reopening of these cases is just being demanded by secularists to spoil the broth. Congress, slippery as ever, first promised that the Government will reopen the cases immediately went back on that saying that already all action has been taken and nothing more is needed. One of its leaders also showed the apprehension that reopening these cases may give the political benefit to the Hindutva parties. Such political calculations are present in deliverance of justice is fairly well known by now.
This became painfully obvious as the punishment was announced for the guilty of Mumbai blasts of 1993 and as preparations were underfoot to file the case for those involved in the train blasts of Mumbai 2006 July, one nagging question haunted those committed to democratic values and also those who have been the victim of 92-93 Mumbai riots, and also probably the victims of carnage of Gujarat, and many other major and minor incidents of violence, where the victims have been those belonging to the minority community. Most of the culprits of blasts so far indicted have been from the Muslim community, while those who suffered maximum during the sectarian violence were also from the same community.
The present punishments have been meted out to the culprits of Mumbai blasts of 93, which followed the Mumbai violence in the aftermath of Babri demolition. The violence which looked to be spontaneous was investigated by sitting judge Shrikrishna, who after five years of painstaking investigation concluded many a things relating to violence and blasts. About the spread of violence it put the square blame on the failure of police machinery, the role of provocative writings in Shiv Sena paper Saamana and another paper Navakaal, and the role played by Shiv Sena-BJP as a whole, Shiv Sena had later started Maha Aarti, which was meant to mobilize people and give provocation to them. "The Maha Artis were started from 26th December 1992 and kept adding to the communal tension and endangering the fragile peace which had been established. Some (were used to deliver) communally inciting speeches and the crowds dispersing from (them) indulged in damage, looting and arson of Muslim establishments in the vicinity.?
The commission also concluded that blasts had a connection with the violence, which preceded it. Accepting and upholding the testimony of one of the witnesses the commission pointed out, ?Joint Commissioner M N Singh also emphasizes that serial bomb blasts were a reaction to the totality of events of Ayodhya and Bombay?and commission is inclined to agree with him?? Its observations about the carnage itself are very pertinent, it not only shows the mechanism which might have been operative in some youth and others getting brainwashed to take revenge in this insane fashion, Interestingly Shrikrishna Commission also points of the underlying insecurity which led some elements to participate in scheming and implementation of blasts, ?The Muslims felt a feeling of insecurity and anger, on extent of their suffering during the two riot (Dec. 1992 and Jan 1993) period?certain anti national laments abetted by ISI?recruited some of the angry young men by brainwashing them that they should take revenge??
It also shows how the Hidutva parties, Shiv Sena in particular coordinated the whole violence, in which around thousand people lost their lives and 86% of those killed belonged to Muslim minority. Commission meticulously documented the direct involvement of many leaders in instigating and participating in violence. About the second phase of riots, which began from 8th January, commission points out, there is no doubt that Shiv Sena and Shiv sainiks took lead in organizing attacks on Muslims and their properties under the guidance of several leaders of Shiv Sena from the level of shakha pramukh to Shi vena Pramukh Bal Thackeray, who like a veteran general commanded his loyal Shiv Sainiks, to retaliate by organized attacks against Muslims.?
Cases of very minor nature were registered under Thackeray which were later dropped by Shiv Sena-BJP coalition which came to power in the elections held in 1995. The later Congress coalition was threatened, and cowed to the threat, that violence will break out if Thackeray, the main culprit is arrested. Similarly role of other leaders like Madhukar Sarpotdar, Ram Naik, Gopinath Munde and many others was documented by the commission. Shiv Sena-BJP dropped the cases and the Congress alliance which came to power on the promise of implementing the findings of Shrikrishna commission, did not bother to do any thing in this direction. Madhukar Sarpotdar?s case was deliberately put on the weak wicket, attention was not paid on the case details and neither was it pursued in a proper manner, with the result that he was untouched despite being a potential TADA culprit and also for carrying unlicensed arms. The latter is the act under which Sanjay Dutt has been jailed now. The pattern is same in most of these, either cases are not registered, or registered under weak clauses, than dropped and not pursued. So a biased police machinery and shameless political leadership supplement each other to ensure that justice is not done.
Similar points can be made about the police officers. Of the hundred police officers who had negative role, commission named 31 for their lapses or proactive involvement in the carnage. Joint Commissioner of police R.D. Tyagi, Assistant Police inspector Deshmukh, and PI Lahane were found to be guilty of excessive and unnecessary firing resulting in death of nine Muslims in Suleiman Bakery incident. Tyagi was discharged in 2003 and others were exonerated and discharged. In case of Tyagi the matter was not pursued by the government. On the top of that many of them like R.D. Tyagi and Nikhil Kapse were promoted in the course of their careers. In another case the police blatantly opened fire in Hari Masjid, the commission points out the guilty, but the GOvt. is clever enough to protect the culprits.
On the other hand in Coimbtore blasts, Madani who was behind the bars for last eight years has been found not to be guilty. And the fellow spent eight years despite not being the part of the crime. In the wake of verdicts delivered for the bomb blast culprits, one is reminded of the fate of justice as far as the Mumbai carnage is concerned. The inferences from these observations are too disturbing. We seem to be heading for two sets of justice system as a whole. The ones belonging to minority community, suffer maximum in the communal carnage. They get killed, their properties are destroyed. The guilty in these cases are generally not punished. Those aiding and abetting these crimes get away with it and sometimes even promoted.
In other case the blasts and acts of terror, if Muslims are involved the cases are investigated and punishments are meted out in due course. There were many a delegations which went to represent to the government to implement the findings of Shrikrishan Commission, but justice for riots victims has been deliberately buried under the political inaction of different governments.
It is reflective of the political parties, the political system and the bureaucratic structure which is coming to be. While some parties like BJP-Shiv Sena are aggressively pursuing the communal agenda, the others are opportunistic enough not to think of justice in a principled way. Congress, while paying lip service to secular values has mostly compromised with the communal elements and most of the times it does not have the spine to take the challenge of rising communalism. This is having very adverse impact on the socio-psychology of the minority communities. At one level they seem to be loosing faith in the whole system, as the current double standards of the ruling party shows.
August 06, 2007
Shhh...Muslim!
Shhh...Muslim!
03-08-2007
By Sagarika Ghose
Hindustan Times:
There is a certain chilling predictability about the list of convicts, a dreadful Orwellian litany of sameness. After a mammoth 14 years of trial and the dramatic sentencing of Sanjay Dutt, the Bombay blasts case of 1993 is closed. Of the 123 accused, 100 have been sentenced, 12 have been sentenced to death, 20 given life terms, 15 of them with rigorous imprisonment (RI). What are the names of those who will die? Among others, Memon, Turk, Tarani, Shaikh, Mukadam, Ghansar, Malik, Pawle, and Khan.
What are the names of those who will serve life terms with RI? Among others, Shaikh, Khairulla, Qureshi, Memon, Rehman and Kadar. In the 1998 Coimbatore blast verdict this week, the main accused Abdul Nazar Mahdani has been acquitted, but SA Basha, founder of al-Umma has been found guilty, along with 157 others. Muslim after Muslim has stepped up to be convicted and sentenced. Soon India’s jails will be choc-a-block with Muslims.
The conspiracy that bombed Mumbai in 1993 and took 257 lives was demonic and destroyed lives. But after the conspiracy of terror, has come a surreal conspiracy of silence. There is a deathly quiet, a floating shroud of bemused acceptance. There is not a shred of sympathy, no trace of introspection, no question of benefit of doubt given to any of the accused in the court of public opinion. To voice any doubts about the long delayed trial is considered ‘anti-national’, ‘unpatriotic’ or ‘pseudo-secular’. Yet senior lawyers have publicly cast doubt on how the blast case is a shame on the judiciary. How can justice be thoroughly done through the mountains of documentation, the sheer bulk of facts and contradictions, the long delayed trial and lapses in human memory that must have faced poor Justice PD Kode. A senior counsel has called the case a “mistrial” and a case of “playing to the gallery”.
Yet, apart from the high voltage debate on Sanjay Dutt, among the larger public, there is only silence. The guilty are Muslims, after all. They killed innocent people, they’ve been brought to justice and that’s the end of that. A softly floating cloud engulfs us in its comforting yet toxic fumes. Is it a phantom? A phantom that is lulling Indian society into a deadly illness of certainty. A society that does not ask questions of itself, a society that does not take itself to task, but wallows in convenient ‘truths’, is a society doomed to death. Hindus and Muslims whisper among themselves in their own ghettos. The cross-religion and cross-community debate is dead or dying.
Judge PD Kode is justifiably hailed as a tough and idealistic judge and his own fairness is not in doubt. The prosecution of Special Public prosecutor Ujwal Nikam has been determined. Yet, in a case where far too many cases were bunched up together, where the sheer volume of paperwork was so huge, isn’t it expecting too much of a single human being to be perfectly conversant with each case? In the prevailing silence, a few voices have sounded. As Muslim after Muslim has walked to his death, as ‘terrorist’ after ‘terrorist’ has been taken away for life, what about the Hindu mobs and Hindu police officers who were named and indicted by the Justice Srikrishna Commission that inquired into the bloodcurdling 1992-93 riots of Mumbai in which 900 died? That horrifying report, indicts 31 “trigger-happy” policemen: among others, the names here are sub-inspector Vasant Madhukar More, police inspectors Patankar and Wahule, Jt Commissoner of Police RD Tyagi, not to mention political names like Gopinath Munde, Madhukar Sarpotdar and Ram Naik of the BJP all accused of inciting mobs. Aren’t riots too not an act of terror? A terrorist is defined as one who kills innocent civilians for a political purpose. So aren’t those Hindu rioters too not ‘terrorists’ and shouldn’t they too face the same law as Muslim ‘terrorists’?
Let’s try and break the conspiracy of silence a little. Rubina Memon is not a celebrity. Instead she is the wife of Tiger Memon's older brother Sulaiman. She has been given rigorous imprisonment for life. Rubina was the woman in the brown burqa who we all saw on television. Rubina has been found guilty under Tada because it was the van registered under her name that was used to carry arms and ammunition for the blasts. She also allowed her house to be used for ‘terror activities’ and had arranged funds from her bank account for the conspirators.
But is there any proof that Rubina actually bought the car that was registered in her name? Did she use the car? Did she actually know what her husband’s brothers were planning to do? Or was it kept a secret from her, as men all over India, keep important secrets from their wives and sisters-in- law? If Afsan Guru, wife of Shaukat Husain Guru, could be acquitted in the Parliament attack case because there was no proof she knew her house was being used for ‘terror activities’, can the same lack of knowledge not have been possible for Rubina? Assuming, she did know, is there proof that Rubina played an active role in the blasts? Or was she the typical uneducated Muslim woman in a household who did what her menfolk asked her to do, even allowing a car to be registered in her name so that her husband could escape tax?
For her crimes, Rubina will serve a life term with rigorous imprisonment while her teenage children seek permission to visit their mother in jail. Tragically, justice may not have still been done to Rubina Memon.
Zebunissa Qazi is 60 and also held guilty under Tada of abetting terrorist acts. She’s been given five years of rigorous imprisonment. What did she do? She says some boys handed her a bag and told her to keep it in her garage. She did not know what was inside the bag. Are Rubina Memon and Zebunissa Qazi terrorists?
Dr Mohammed Haneef, detained for 27 days in Australia is on the other side too. On the other side, distant, far away from Indian mainstream society, from muted civil society groups, distant from the voices of the intelligentsia, bludgeoned into silence by the spectre and reality of the ‘Islamist terrorist’. What factors should have exercised the Indian conscience about Dr Haneef? That it is not a crime to be related to those who are terrorists, only a conspiracy is a crime. That lending a SIM card is not a criminal offence. That a one-way ticket is not a criminal offence. That a beard is not a criminal offence. Australian civil society took its government head on about Haneef. Indian civil society turned its back on Haneef, instead vilifying the Prime Minister when he made the mistake of confessing he had had a sleepless night about Haneef’s parents.
There is suddenly no doubt left in the minds of the majority of Indian society. Political tokenism of three Muslim vice-presidential candidates sits alongside a covert hidden communalism that does not express itself in riots but in quiet determined segregation. The burqa-clad or lungi-clad figures march into the Tada court, yet apart from the publicity circus around celebrity Sanjay Dutt, we are incurious about the individuals behind the burqas and the lungis. The little stories of mothers and brothers are of no interest. The toxic cloud of silence drifts ever closer, lulling us into a dreamless sleep.
The writer is senior editor, CNN-IBN
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=636872d9-e455-4877-997e-60de8d9ccbd9&&Headline=Shhh...Muslim!
03-08-2007
By Sagarika Ghose
Hindustan Times:
There is a certain chilling predictability about the list of convicts, a dreadful Orwellian litany of sameness. After a mammoth 14 years of trial and the dramatic sentencing of Sanjay Dutt, the Bombay blasts case of 1993 is closed. Of the 123 accused, 100 have been sentenced, 12 have been sentenced to death, 20 given life terms, 15 of them with rigorous imprisonment (RI). What are the names of those who will die? Among others, Memon, Turk, Tarani, Shaikh, Mukadam, Ghansar, Malik, Pawle, and Khan.
What are the names of those who will serve life terms with RI? Among others, Shaikh, Khairulla, Qureshi, Memon, Rehman and Kadar. In the 1998 Coimbatore blast verdict this week, the main accused Abdul Nazar Mahdani has been acquitted, but SA Basha, founder of al-Umma has been found guilty, along with 157 others. Muslim after Muslim has stepped up to be convicted and sentenced. Soon India’s jails will be choc-a-block with Muslims.
The conspiracy that bombed Mumbai in 1993 and took 257 lives was demonic and destroyed lives. But after the conspiracy of terror, has come a surreal conspiracy of silence. There is a deathly quiet, a floating shroud of bemused acceptance. There is not a shred of sympathy, no trace of introspection, no question of benefit of doubt given to any of the accused in the court of public opinion. To voice any doubts about the long delayed trial is considered ‘anti-national’, ‘unpatriotic’ or ‘pseudo-secular’. Yet senior lawyers have publicly cast doubt on how the blast case is a shame on the judiciary. How can justice be thoroughly done through the mountains of documentation, the sheer bulk of facts and contradictions, the long delayed trial and lapses in human memory that must have faced poor Justice PD Kode. A senior counsel has called the case a “mistrial” and a case of “playing to the gallery”.
Yet, apart from the high voltage debate on Sanjay Dutt, among the larger public, there is only silence. The guilty are Muslims, after all. They killed innocent people, they’ve been brought to justice and that’s the end of that. A softly floating cloud engulfs us in its comforting yet toxic fumes. Is it a phantom? A phantom that is lulling Indian society into a deadly illness of certainty. A society that does not ask questions of itself, a society that does not take itself to task, but wallows in convenient ‘truths’, is a society doomed to death. Hindus and Muslims whisper among themselves in their own ghettos. The cross-religion and cross-community debate is dead or dying.
Judge PD Kode is justifiably hailed as a tough and idealistic judge and his own fairness is not in doubt. The prosecution of Special Public prosecutor Ujwal Nikam has been determined. Yet, in a case where far too many cases were bunched up together, where the sheer volume of paperwork was so huge, isn’t it expecting too much of a single human being to be perfectly conversant with each case? In the prevailing silence, a few voices have sounded. As Muslim after Muslim has walked to his death, as ‘terrorist’ after ‘terrorist’ has been taken away for life, what about the Hindu mobs and Hindu police officers who were named and indicted by the Justice Srikrishna Commission that inquired into the bloodcurdling 1992-93 riots of Mumbai in which 900 died? That horrifying report, indicts 31 “trigger-happy” policemen: among others, the names here are sub-inspector Vasant Madhukar More, police inspectors Patankar and Wahule, Jt Commissoner of Police RD Tyagi, not to mention political names like Gopinath Munde, Madhukar Sarpotdar and Ram Naik of the BJP all accused of inciting mobs. Aren’t riots too not an act of terror? A terrorist is defined as one who kills innocent civilians for a political purpose. So aren’t those Hindu rioters too not ‘terrorists’ and shouldn’t they too face the same law as Muslim ‘terrorists’?
Let’s try and break the conspiracy of silence a little. Rubina Memon is not a celebrity. Instead she is the wife of Tiger Memon's older brother Sulaiman. She has been given rigorous imprisonment for life. Rubina was the woman in the brown burqa who we all saw on television. Rubina has been found guilty under Tada because it was the van registered under her name that was used to carry arms and ammunition for the blasts. She also allowed her house to be used for ‘terror activities’ and had arranged funds from her bank account for the conspirators.
But is there any proof that Rubina actually bought the car that was registered in her name? Did she use the car? Did she actually know what her husband’s brothers were planning to do? Or was it kept a secret from her, as men all over India, keep important secrets from their wives and sisters-in- law? If Afsan Guru, wife of Shaukat Husain Guru, could be acquitted in the Parliament attack case because there was no proof she knew her house was being used for ‘terror activities’, can the same lack of knowledge not have been possible for Rubina? Assuming, she did know, is there proof that Rubina played an active role in the blasts? Or was she the typical uneducated Muslim woman in a household who did what her menfolk asked her to do, even allowing a car to be registered in her name so that her husband could escape tax?
For her crimes, Rubina will serve a life term with rigorous imprisonment while her teenage children seek permission to visit their mother in jail. Tragically, justice may not have still been done to Rubina Memon.
Zebunissa Qazi is 60 and also held guilty under Tada of abetting terrorist acts. She’s been given five years of rigorous imprisonment. What did she do? She says some boys handed her a bag and told her to keep it in her garage. She did not know what was inside the bag. Are Rubina Memon and Zebunissa Qazi terrorists?
Dr Mohammed Haneef, detained for 27 days in Australia is on the other side too. On the other side, distant, far away from Indian mainstream society, from muted civil society groups, distant from the voices of the intelligentsia, bludgeoned into silence by the spectre and reality of the ‘Islamist terrorist’. What factors should have exercised the Indian conscience about Dr Haneef? That it is not a crime to be related to those who are terrorists, only a conspiracy is a crime. That lending a SIM card is not a criminal offence. That a one-way ticket is not a criminal offence. That a beard is not a criminal offence. Australian civil society took its government head on about Haneef. Indian civil society turned its back on Haneef, instead vilifying the Prime Minister when he made the mistake of confessing he had had a sleepless night about Haneef’s parents.
There is suddenly no doubt left in the minds of the majority of Indian society. Political tokenism of three Muslim vice-presidential candidates sits alongside a covert hidden communalism that does not express itself in riots but in quiet determined segregation. The burqa-clad or lungi-clad figures march into the Tada court, yet apart from the publicity circus around celebrity Sanjay Dutt, we are incurious about the individuals behind the burqas and the lungis. The little stories of mothers and brothers are of no interest. The toxic cloud of silence drifts ever closer, lulling us into a dreamless sleep.
The writer is senior editor, CNN-IBN
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=636872d9-e455-4877-997e-60de8d9ccbd9&&Headline=Shhh...Muslim!
July 20, 2007
Driven to despair
(The Times of India
20 Jul 2007)
Editorial
Driven to despair
by Jyoti Punwani
On January 10, 1993, Hajirabi Qureishi saw her husband and eldest son dragged from her house by Shiv Sainiks who used to hang around the local Sena shakha. When she tried to stop the sainiks, they pushed her off the parapet and she lost consciousness. She never saw her husband and son again.
Much before his inquiry into the 1992-93 Mumbai riots was complete, Justice Srikrishna wrote a letter to the government recommending immediate payment of compensation for missing persons in cases that he had personally investigated. The Qureishis headed that list. Hajirabi should have received Rs 4,00,000; instead she received Rs 2,00,000 eight years later for her husband. Compensation for her son Saleem Qureishi continues to form the subject matter of petitions being heard for the ump-teenth time in the Supreme Court.
Unable to cope with memories of their disappearance, Hajirabi left the Hindu-Muslim chawl that had been home for years to live in a Muslim ghetto. Every known and unknown Muslim organisation had its offices there, including SIMI. Yet they could not recruit Hajira's son Rizwan, his father's favourite.
Farooq Mapkar should have been an ideal candidate for SIMI. Shot in his shoulder on January 10, 1993, while praying inside a mosque, this bank employee saw a namazi being shot dead at point-blank range despite coming out of the mosque with his hands up. Along with the other namazis, Farooq was charged under Section 307.
Fourteen years later, Farooq continues to take leave from his job to attend court hearings in a case declared false by the Srikrishna commission. Contrast this with the case of sub-inspector Nikhil Kapse. The commission found him guilty for unprovoked firing that killed six innocent Muslims. But he was exonerated by a bunch of policemen entrusted with implementing the commission's findings.
The policemen didn't think it necessary to talk to those who testified in front of the commission about the incident involving Kapse. In these 14 years, Kapse hasn't faced a day's suspension. More than Farooq and Rizwan, Abdullah would have made the ideal jehadi. As a 12-year-old, he saw his handicapped father being dragged down the stairs of the madrassa where he taught and shot, pleading for water as he lay dying. Abdullah continued to live in the same madrassa. Eight years later, he joined the legal battle to put behind bars the policemen charged with murder for this incident. When he lost, the entire madrassa felt betrayed.
Even while lashing out at the government's indulgence towards policemen charged with murder, Abdullah was packing his bags for further studies in Deoband. He had graduated from his madrassa with flying colours, with full marks in logic. "Why don't you study law", i asked, "you could fight for your father". "My world is the hereafter", he replied. "He can't get involved in all this", added his teachers.
Mumbai's riot orphans have grown up deprived of their childhood, seen their mothers struggle alone - and often fail - to give them the education their fathers desired for them. They've seen those who led the violent mobs become ministers. A sitting judge pronounced these policemen guilty; his report became an election issue and made ministers out of nobodies, but has yet to be acted upon.
They've seen, over the last year, those who took revenge on their behalf by killing innocent Hindus, being made to pay, some even with life sentences.
Last week, as two Muslim accused in the July 11 train blasts in Mumbai confessed on TV (by a mysterious coincidence, all channels got hold of the footage exactly a year after the blasts), the news anchors screamed: "This man not only betrayed his nation, but also humanity. Doesn't your blood boil when you see this traitor"?
Narendra Modi could be accused of having done the same. No channel asks these questions about him. These double standards are now part of being a Muslim in India's "vibrant" democracy. We should be thankful hundreds of Kafeel Ahmeds haven't produced a swadeshi version of jehad.
The writer is a political commentator.
20 Jul 2007)
Editorial
Driven to despair
by Jyoti Punwani
On January 10, 1993, Hajirabi Qureishi saw her husband and eldest son dragged from her house by Shiv Sainiks who used to hang around the local Sena shakha. When she tried to stop the sainiks, they pushed her off the parapet and she lost consciousness. She never saw her husband and son again.
Much before his inquiry into the 1992-93 Mumbai riots was complete, Justice Srikrishna wrote a letter to the government recommending immediate payment of compensation for missing persons in cases that he had personally investigated. The Qureishis headed that list. Hajirabi should have received Rs 4,00,000; instead she received Rs 2,00,000 eight years later for her husband. Compensation for her son Saleem Qureishi continues to form the subject matter of petitions being heard for the ump-teenth time in the Supreme Court.
Unable to cope with memories of their disappearance, Hajirabi left the Hindu-Muslim chawl that had been home for years to live in a Muslim ghetto. Every known and unknown Muslim organisation had its offices there, including SIMI. Yet they could not recruit Hajira's son Rizwan, his father's favourite.
Farooq Mapkar should have been an ideal candidate for SIMI. Shot in his shoulder on January 10, 1993, while praying inside a mosque, this bank employee saw a namazi being shot dead at point-blank range despite coming out of the mosque with his hands up. Along with the other namazis, Farooq was charged under Section 307.
Fourteen years later, Farooq continues to take leave from his job to attend court hearings in a case declared false by the Srikrishna commission. Contrast this with the case of sub-inspector Nikhil Kapse. The commission found him guilty for unprovoked firing that killed six innocent Muslims. But he was exonerated by a bunch of policemen entrusted with implementing the commission's findings.
The policemen didn't think it necessary to talk to those who testified in front of the commission about the incident involving Kapse. In these 14 years, Kapse hasn't faced a day's suspension. More than Farooq and Rizwan, Abdullah would have made the ideal jehadi. As a 12-year-old, he saw his handicapped father being dragged down the stairs of the madrassa where he taught and shot, pleading for water as he lay dying. Abdullah continued to live in the same madrassa. Eight years later, he joined the legal battle to put behind bars the policemen charged with murder for this incident. When he lost, the entire madrassa felt betrayed.
Even while lashing out at the government's indulgence towards policemen charged with murder, Abdullah was packing his bags for further studies in Deoband. He had graduated from his madrassa with flying colours, with full marks in logic. "Why don't you study law", i asked, "you could fight for your father". "My world is the hereafter", he replied. "He can't get involved in all this", added his teachers.
Mumbai's riot orphans have grown up deprived of their childhood, seen their mothers struggle alone - and often fail - to give them the education their fathers desired for them. They've seen those who led the violent mobs become ministers. A sitting judge pronounced these policemen guilty; his report became an election issue and made ministers out of nobodies, but has yet to be acted upon.
They've seen, over the last year, those who took revenge on their behalf by killing innocent Hindus, being made to pay, some even with life sentences.
Last week, as two Muslim accused in the July 11 train blasts in Mumbai confessed on TV (by a mysterious coincidence, all channels got hold of the footage exactly a year after the blasts), the news anchors screamed: "This man not only betrayed his nation, but also humanity. Doesn't your blood boil when you see this traitor"?
Narendra Modi could be accused of having done the same. No channel asks these questions about him. These double standards are now part of being a Muslim in India's "vibrant" democracy. We should be thankful hundreds of Kafeel Ahmeds haven't produced a swadeshi version of jehad.
The writer is a political commentator.
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