IMC-USA Weekly News Digest – June 7th, 2010

by Publisher on June 7, 2010

In this issue

News Headlines

Opinions & Editorials

News Headlines

Civil rights activists demand probe into Rajasthan

blasts (May 31, 2010, The Hindu)

Civil rights activists organised a symposium on “Rajasthan in the

grip of saffron terrorism” and took out a rally here on Sunday demanding

a thorough and exhaustive probe into the October 2007 Ajmer dargah and

May 2008 Jaipur blasts to catch the real culprits and masterminds, who

they said were still at large. The rally from Shaheed Smarak to Civil

Lines was organised by the Social Democratic Party of India, which also

demanded immediate release of innocent Muslim young men put behind bars

on charges of involvement in unlawful activities and payment of

compensation to those wrongfully detained.

SDPI national president

E. Abu Bakar said the State Government had itself admitted that the 13

persons charged with unlawful activities were not involved in the

blasts. The rallyists submitted a memorandum addressed to Chief Minister

Ashok Gehlot demanding a fresh investigation into the Jaipur blasts

following the Ajmer blast probe which has thrown up the names of

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ‘pracharaks’. Speakers at the symposium,

analysing the investigation of Ajmer blast, said the Anti-Terrorism

Squad of Rajasthan police was not collecting hard and clinching evidence

against RSS, while the three accused arrested by it were active members

of Abhinav Bharat supported by the Sangh Parivar. Even after cracking

the Ajmer case, the ATS is silent about its connection with the Malegaon

and Hyderabad’s Makkah Masjid blasts.

Feroze Mithiborewala of

Mumbai-based Bharat Bachao Andolan said the investigators should pay

attention to “political context” of each terror attack in the country to

reach their masterminds. He said the Hindutva terrorism coming to light

had international ramifications with the geo-political map of the world

being redrawn by imperialist forces.

Delhi-based activist Subhash

Gatade expressed surprise over the lack of follow-up on Rajasthan Home

Minister Shanti Dhariwal’s charge against RSS about involvement in the

Ajmer blast. He said the innocent Muslims framed in both the Ajmer and

Jaipur cases should raise their voice for compensation and punishment to

the guilty police officers.

Kavita Srivastava of People’s Union

for Civil Liberties said the arrest of three accused having links with

the Hindu outfits in the Ajmer case had proved that an Abhinav Bharat

module was active in the State. Rajasthan High Court lawyer A. K. Jain

said the State police had found “open and clear leads” in 2008 pointing

to the involvement of Hindutva groups in the Ajmer bombing, but it

picked up innocent Muslim youths and tortured them. “The recent removal

of three officers from the team indicates that the ATS wants to hide

some facts.”

http://www.hindu.com/2010/05/31/stories/2010053157880700.htm

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Rajasthan Govt. accused of shielding Balesar

rioters (Jun 3, 2010, The Hindu)

Muslim groups in Rajasthan on Wednesday expressed concern over the

Congress-led Government allegedly shielding the culprits of recent

communal violence at Balesar village in Jodhpur district and demanded

immediate arrest of the rioters, besides rebuilding of the Idgah

demolished by them. The Rajasthan Muslim Forum, an umbrella organisation

of Muslim groups, said in a statement here that the Government’s

failure to act in accordance with the law had sent across a “disquieting

message” creating doubts about its sincerity in controlling communal

elements and rendering justice to the victims of violence.

Muslim

Forum convenor Qari Moinuddin said the law had not caught up with the

rioters. The Forum described as “outrageous” the financial assistance

given to the rioters killed or injured in the police firing at Balesar.

The 4,000-strong crowd of rioters was allegedly led by four Sarpanches

of the region. Three of them have been named in the FIRs lodged by

Muslim residents of the village.

The State Government has shunted

out Jodhpur Rural Superintendent of Police Sharat Kaviraj. Forum member

Mohammed Salim pointed out that the previous BJP regime too had removed

an SP of Udaipur in a similar case of firing on rioters at Sarada

village. “The similarity in the approach of both Congress and BJP is

baffling,” said Mr. Salim, who is also the State unit president of

Jamat-e-Islami Hind.

Association for Protection of Civil Rights

convenor and Rajasthan High Court lawyer Paikar Farooq – also a Forum

member – said the delay in reconstruction of Idgah was likely to create

legal complications as the matter could be taken to court and dragged

for years. Malis have already declared that the Idgah was an

encroachment and would not be allowed to be rebuilt.

The violence

erupted on May 22 allegedly over the construction of an NREGA project

road with Mali and Muslim localities situated on opposite sides. While

the two communities earlier agreed to give land for the road equally

from their sides, the Sarpanch started construction work taking land

only from the Muslim side. Malis allegedly attacked the Muslim locality

when the latter objected to the construction.

http://www.hindu.com/2010/06/03/stories/2010060360520700.htm

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VHP meet in Ayodhya after 18 yrs rings alarm bells

(Jun 5, 2010, Times of India)

Meetings, marches or ‘morchas’, Ayodhya has seen them all. However,

this one event is making the temple town a little wary. Even as VHP

veterans play down the coming five-day conclave of the Prabandhan Samiti

starting July 12 in Karsevakpuram, as a mere follow-up event to the

Kumbh resolution approved by assembled ‘dharmacharyas’ (seers), others

citing history, sound unconvinced.

Last such meet of the VHP in

Ayodhya took place 18 years ago – in September 1992 – just three months

ahead of Babri demolition. Now, with the Allahabad high court judgment

on the demolition case likely to be pronounced within three months,

their concern may not entirely be exaggerated.

The high profile

jamboree, in the meantime, offers enough to keep the nearly defunct and

much discredited VHP unit busy. Karsevakpurm, which houses the mandir

workshop and the ready to use 65% parts of the new model, is already

bustling with activities. Two hundred fifty delegates from national,

regional, and local levels are expected to participate in the conclave,

says Sharad Sharma the spokesperson and in-charge of VHP in Ayodhya.

“The meet after such a long gap will chart out future strategy on Ram

Mandir movement, primarily the delegates will mull over how to make the

Hanumat Shakti Jagran a nation-wide movement to invoke the power of lord

Hanuman a success,” he told TOI.

The mass awakening by

recitation of Hanuman Chalisa for 11 consecutive times, coupled with

yajna and ‘havan’ could only be a precursor to actual construction, says

Sharma. “We have a mammoth task ahead and it needs proper planning and

mobilisation,” he added. The meeting will also discuss problem of forced

conversion and measures to protect Ganga and Gau, he added. Sources

however hint that the listed agenda leaves much unsaid. The Babri case

in the high court is nearing completion and the judgment is likely to be

pronounced latest by October. The saffron camp is gearing up for the

finals – either way, and the supreme body will have the blue print

ready.

Interestingly, the coming bout of muscle-flexing leaves

the minority committee untouched. Dismissing the conclave as yet another

drama, Haji Asad, city corporator nephew of Haji Mehboob, one of the

defendants in the Babri title suit, said that Muslims in Ayodhya were

used to such pointless exercises – only difference being this one comes

after 18 years. “This, he said, “no more scares us. The community knows

how to take care of itself.” Leave aside Muslims, even Hindus don’t

notice such events now, said convener Babri Action Committee, Zafaryab

Jilani, who advised his adversaries to get real.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6012980.cms

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Sohrab case: CBI opposes Chudasamas interim bail

plea (May 31, 2010, Yahoo)

The CBI, probing the alleged fake encounter of Sohrabuddin Sheikh,

today opposed the interim bail plea of accused IPS officer Abhay

Chudasama who claimed that he had to undergo hip replacement surgery. In

reply to the interim bail plea of Chudasama filed in the court of CBI

Judge G K Upadhyay, the agency said that Chudasama had earlier tried “to

monitor” the investigation in an unauthorised manner.

Chudasama

had tried to influence key witnesses in the case, the CBI alleged. The

CBI contended that since investigation in the case was at a very crucial

stage, granting Chudasama interim bail would hamper the probe. With

regard to Chudasama’s need for hip replacement surgery, CBI said that

such operations can be done in a government hospital for which there is

no need for bail.

Chudasama’s advocate Rohit Verma had sought time

from the court to file a rejoinder to CBI’s reply. The court fixed June

10 for the next hearing. According to Chudasama’s application, he had

met with an accident in 1994 and had to undergo hip replacement surgery.

But due to continuous regression, he had to undergo surgery again in

2000.

Chudasama stated that since December 2008 he was having pain

in his right leg and was facing problem in “walking, sitting as well as

sleeping”. According to his application, just before his arrest last

month, Chudasama was advised to undergo the surgery again. During his

stay in jail, he was examined by doctors and later referred to the Civil

Hospital. The doctors’ committee opined that if pain persisted, he

would require to undergo surgery for revision of hip prosthesis.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/20/20100531/1416/tnl-sohrab-case-cbi-opposes-chudasama-s.html

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We will fight terror root and branch: Manmohan

(Jun 2, 2010, The Hindu)

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised the nation on Tuesday that his

government would not flinch from frontally battling Maoist violence,

communalism and terrorism. He was releasing the United Progressive

Alliance’s annual report card, marking the end of its first year in its

second tenure.

Dr. Singh’s opening remarks set the tone for the

release of the 107-page Report to the People 2009-10, which kept the

message of social inclusion in sharp focus, as it stressed the UPA’s

progress to a rights-based governance, while sending out the assurance

that the economy would grow at 8.5% this year. “In dealing with

Naxalism, we will pursue a policy that genuinely seeks to address

developmental concerns at the grassroots, while firmly enforcing the

writ of the state,” Dr. Singh told an audience consisting of Congress

president Sonia Gandhi, senior party functionaries and members of the

Union Council of Ministers at his 7, Race Course residence.

He

said: “We will fight against the scourge of communalism and political

extremism. We will fight terrorism root and branch. We will ensure that

this great, liberal and plural nation of ours is not weakened by hatred

and bigotry.” If the structure of the report is any indication, the UPA

clearly puts education, health and child rights at the top of its list

of priorities, with the first chapter entitled “Enabling Human

Development,” dealing with these subjects.

Official sources told

The Hindu that Dr. Singh, whose early years were spent in a village, is

very conscious of the transformative role that education played in his

own life. It is for this reason that this government, much more than its

predecessors, has made a huge outlay for scholarships for the SCs, the

STs, the OBCs and the minorities.

Topping the priorities in the

section on “Social Inclusion” are the proposed Food Security Act and

empowerment of women, through reservation of seats in legislatures and

local bodies as well as through “inter-sectoral convergence of all

pro-women/women-centric programmes cutting across minis

tries/departments, states and Panchayati Raj Institutions.”

http://www.hindu.com/2010/06/02/stories/2010060260120100.htm

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1984 riots case: Court notice to CBI against

Tytler (Jun 1, 2010, Indian Express)

A Delhi Court on Tuesday issued notice to the CBI on a petition

challenging an order of a lower court accepting the closure report in a

1984 anti-Sikh riots case against former Union Minister Jagdish Tytler.

Additional Sessions Judge V K Khanna sought a response from the probe

agency by July 24 on the revision petition filed by riot victims.

Lakhwinder Kaur, whose husband was killed in the riots, sought further

investigation by the CBI into the case following claims about emergence

of fresh evidence.

Senior advocate H S Phoolka, appearing for

Kaur, contended that the trial court had wrongly dismissed a petition

protesting CBI’s decision to give a clean chit to the senior Congress

leader. An additional metropolitan magistrate had on April 27 accepted

the closure report filed by the CBI in the case against Tytler saying

there was no sufficient evidence to send him for trial. “There is

nothing which suggests that accused Tytler was seen on November eight,

1984, near Gurudwara Pulbangash or incited a mob for killing Sikh

people,” the magistrate had said.

The court, which had heard

arguments for several days on behalf of the CBI and Kaur, whose husband

was killed in the riots, had termed the testimony of one witness as

having “no relevance” and another as “self contradictory”. The alleged

role of Tytler in the case relating to the killing of three persons,

including one Badal Singh in 1984, near Gurudwara Pulbangash in north

Delhi was re-investigated by CBI after a court had in December 2007

refused to accept a closure report filed by the agency.

The court

had allowed CBI’s arguments that Tytler was present at Gandhi’s

residence at Teen Murti Bhavan and was not at the scene of crime saying

that its contentions were justified by material, including some visual

tapes and versions of some independent witnesses. Witness Jasbir (now

residing in California), in an affidavit, had claimed before the

Nanavati Commission that he had heard Tytler on November three, 1984,

rebuking his men for “nominal killings” carried out in the riots. The

court rejected Jasbir’s version saying he had deposed for something

which took place on November three while the case related to an incident

of November one, 1984.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/627896/

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Ministers spar over Jamias minority status (May

30, 2010, Hindustan Times)

The controversy over whether Jamia Millia Islamia is a minority

institution or not, currently pending the decision of a commission, has

taken a new turn with minority affairs minister Salman Khurshid hitting

out at HRD minister Kapil Sibal after mails exchanged by the two became

public. “Ministers should not debate, discuss and disagree in public,”

Khurshid said, hinting that the HRD ministry had leaked the letters.

Khurshid’s

ministry has marshaled numerous arguments to underscore that Jamia -

set up in 1920 and a Delhi-based central university – deserves minority

status. Such a status would allow the university to reserve half its

seats for the minority Muslim community. The HRD ministry opposes

granting this. “The PM is our judge and I can tell you I’m going to

win,” Khurshid told HT. Sibal was not available for comment.

Khurshid’s

letter to Sibal said both ministries must take ‘a consistent position’

before the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions,

which will decide the matter. It said this should be done through ‘a

mutually agreed upon, appropriate affidavit’ filed by the HRD ministry.

Sibal’s response on May 14 was cold: The government’s intention is to

“maintain the historical character of Jamia Millia Islamia and not to

accord minority status thereto”.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/550503.aspx

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Capital shame: 185 women raped this year (May 31,

2010, Hindustan Times)

A total of 185 women were raped in the national capital in the first

five months of this year. However, police say that the rate of such

incidents has come down in the city compared to 2004.

According

to Delhi Police statistics, the city recorded 185 rape cases till May 15

this year, up from 170 such incidents reported during the corresponding

period last year. However, this year’s figure was less than that in the

corresponding period in the past seven years, from 2004, except for

2009.

A senior police official said the rate of rape incidents

per one lakh population was coming down in the capital in the past seven

years despite an increase in population by 25.49 lakh.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/550958.aspx

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Homeless in city, Mirchpur Dalits wait for justice

(Jun 2, 2010, Indian Express)

A month after 150 Balmiki families fled Mirchpur village in Hissar

(Haryana) to Delhi, their miseries remain unaddressed. Around 50 more

people joined the community’s protest in the Capital on Tuesday and are

camping at the Valmiki Mandir against the alleged atrocities by the Jat

community in their village.

The protest was sparked off by an

attack on the Dalit families on April 21, allegedly by Jats in Mirchpur,

that left two dead and 35 homes torched. The families say they were

forced to leave the village after repeated threats from the Khap

panchayat and the Jat community. One of the protesters, Darshana, mother

of a five-year-old, says they cannot live in the village under the

reign of constant terror. “My child has no education, no future and no

shelter,” she says.

The families are being funded and taken care

of by the Haryana Dalit Bachao Sangharsh Samiti. Its convenor O P Shukla

says, “We want the removal of Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s government.

Despite repeated assurances, the Haryana government has failed to

provide any relief. We have had several meetings with senior Congress

leaders – Prithviraj Chavan, Oscar Fernandes and Kumari Selja. The

matter is still being considerd by the Centre.” The families who have

migrated now want to be relocated to a 500-acre unused government land

in Talwandi Rana village of Haryana.

Satyawan (30), one of the

protesters, says, “An FIR has been lodged against 107 Jats. The

criminals must be punished. The attack was pre-planned and supported by

the police. We want a proper judicial inquiry.” Similar torching

incidents have also been reported earlier from Gohana, Duleena and

Jhajjar villages of Haryana, where Dalits had to face atrocities. The

cases are pending in the court. The families reportedly met CM Dikshit

on Tuesday morning, who assured them that their demands would be

forwarded to Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/628124/

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Rathore trying to distort facts: CBI (Jun 2, 2010,

Indian Express)

In its detailed reply filed in the Punjab and Haryana High Court on

Tuesday, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has rubbished the

accusations levelled by former DGP S P S Rathore in his revision

petition. In the 18-page reply, the CBI termed the arguments of the

former DGP as “false, baseless and misleading” and that he was trying to

“distort and confuse” the prosecution’s case. Further, the agency has

termed Rathore’s accusations against several individuals, witnesses and

media as “vague, ambiguous and lacking clarity”. The reply, filed by S P

Klair, Superintendent of Police (SP), CBI, Delhi, reads: “Rathore had

intentionally and deliberately, with prior planning, molested Ruchika on

August 12, 1990.”

The agency has requested the High Court that

the convicted DGP “does not deserve bail and his application for bail is

liable to be rejected”. “Rathore is trying to distort and confuse the

facts of the prosecution case regarding the visit of Aradhana and victim

Ruchika to the office of Haryana Lawn Tennis Association (HLTA). There

is no room for any suspicion/doubt about the happening of the incident

on the fateful day,” the CBI has stated. The investigating agency has

submitted that the convicted DGP was trying to distort the evidence by

giving twist to the facts on the basis of his personal “surmises,

conjectures, observations”. Referring to the direct evidence produced by

Aradhana, the reply reads: “She (Aradhana) has personally seen the

overt acts of Rathore while molesting Ruchika and the fact that Ruchika

narrated the entire incident to Aradhana is the crux of the case.”

Terming

Aradhana an “independent, balanced and justified” witness, the CBI has

stated that “her deposition runs into 152 pages which in itself is a

proof of her integrity and soundness”. Responding to Rathore’s

contention in his revision petition that Ruchika did not immediately

disclose the incident to her father, the CBI has stated, “Human psyche

differs from individual to individual. Some individuals having (an)

extrovert behaviour immediately disclose such happenings to their near

and dear ones, whereas others, being introvert, keep silent. Thirdly, in

the Indian society most girls do not share such incidents under fear of

loosing/tarnishing the social status/family respect earned by their

parents through generations.”

In response to the allegations of

personal vendetta levelled by Rathore against several individuals and

witnesses, the agency has said the list of persons mentioned by Rathore

“were not inimical towards him (Rathore)”. With regard to R R Singh,

former Haryana DGP, who had given an adverse report against Rathore, the

CBI has submitted that the inquiry “conducted by R R Singh was fair and

impartial, which is evident from the testimony. R R Singh did not

record the statement of Rathore, as the convict insisted (on the)

presence of his lawyer during the inquiry, which R R Singh did not

allow”.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/628284/

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Opinions and Editorials

Rings A Bell? – By Ajit Sahi (Jun 12, 2010,

Tehelka)

Last week, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested one of

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s key police officers in the state

for alleged complicity in a fake encounter of 2006. Now, Modi’s bete

noire, Mumbai-based activist Teesta Setalvad, has fired a fresh salvo

invoking telephone records to show how his government and police

connived to allow rampaging Hindu zealots to kill about 2,000 Muslims in

Gujarat in 2002. According to documents that Setalvad submitted last

month to a commission of two retired high court judges, Modi’s office

and various police officers of the state networked with each other

through the massacre on February 28 and March 1 that year. She has

sought to establish this through phone calls made by and received by 44

people, including the police officers, and demanded that these be

examined. The officers that Setalvad has fingered include Gujarat’s then

Director-General of Police (DGP), K Chakravarti, and PC Pande, then

Ahmedabad Police Commissioner who Modi later promoted as DGP. Pande had

held the post of Police Commissioner in Ahmedabad at the time of the

massacre, and is widely accused of willfully allowing the killings to go

unchecked. Setalvad has now demanded that the commission summon

officers of the Central and Gujarat IB as also of the Indian Army who

had been deputed to quell the killings. She has also asked the

commission to summon top police officers of the time, including Pande,

to depose.

The list includes many of Modi’s favourite police

officers, such as then Joint Commissioner of Police (JCP) MK Tandon,

Additional Commissioner of Police Shivanand Jha and three deputy

commissioners of police. By targeting these police officers, Setalvad is

indeed attacking the core of Modi’s government apparatus, widely

accused of complicity in the massacre. As TEHELKA’s expose of October

2007 clearly established, there was a direct nexus between Gujarat

Police and killer mobs of the Hindu right-wing Bajrang Dal, the Vishwa

Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the BJP. Indeed, Setalvad once again lays the

blame at Modi’s door, citing the case of three officials who worked with

Modi’s Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) then. All three – Sanjay Bhavsar,

OP Singh and Tanmay Mehta – filed “hurried” affidavits before the

Commission this year but have evaded appearing before it. In addition,

Setalvad wants the commission to force BJP and VHP leaders to depose

before it too. Pande received 15 calls from Modi’s office on the morning

of February 28, the day the massacre of Muslims began. Setalvad says

that the fact that Pande did not leave his officer after 11 am indicates

that these calls were made by the “top echelons” to instruct him that

the police must not interfere with the rampaging mobs. Indeed, at the

same time, Bhavsar and Mehta in Modi’s office were talking on the phone

to VHP’s Gujarat General Secretary Jaideep Patel, an accused in the

massacres at Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gaam. For the CM’S office to be in

touch with Patel is indeed intriguing. It may be recalled that Patel

was in charge from the VHP to escort dead bodies of 56 people, many of

them Hindu activists, who had been charred to death in a fire in a train

that was bringing them to Ahmedabad from Uttar Pradesh. The train had

caught fire outside Godhra town’s railway station, and it is the

contention of Modi’s government and the BJP-VHP that the local Muslims

deliberately started the fire.

It was primarily the VHP’s

shutdown to protest the train deaths which stoked the violence against

the Muslims and spiralled it out of control. “For the chief minister’s

office to be directly in touch with the man accused of leading and

inciting the massacres and rapes… suggests collusion in the violence at

the highest level,” says Setalvad. Even then Health Minister Ashok Bhatt

was also talking on the phone with Patel that day. Gujarat’s then

Minister of State for Home, Gordhan Zadaphia – who Modi has since forced

out of the BJP – had been in communication with both Patel and Dinesh, a

VHP activist and brother of VHP leader, Praveen Togadia. Another person

who was in touch with then JCP Shivanand Jha is Amit Shah. Shah is

today Modi’s embattled home minister who, as TEHELKA reported last week,

has been running to evade arrest by the CBI in the fake encounter case.

Indeed, Modi’s woes on the 2002 massacres have worsened since the CBI

arrested his former Minister for Women and Child Welfare Maya Kodnani

over a year ago. Then an MLA, Kodnani and another minister, Kaushik

Jamnadas Patel, too, had been in touch with JCP Jha as also several

other police officers, right down to police inspector KG Erda, who is

accused of facilitating the massacres of Muslims in the locality of

Meghaninagar.

Another police inspector KK Mysorewala, and BJP

State President, Rajendrasinh Rana too were in touch with Kodnani and

Patel, among others. Two questions arise. One, why would so many police

officers, from JCP down to inspectors, be talking to so many leaders of

the VHP and the ministers? And two, why would the police still fail to

bring an end to the violence, especially if it was in constant touch

with these bigwigs in the government and the partisan outfit that had

called the shutdown? The connection appears self-evident. Modi has

always said that Hindu mobs attacked the Muslims as a spontaneous

reaction to the train fire in which Hindus were killed. But so many

members of the VHP-Bajrang Dal-BJP stand accused of leading the mobs

that killed the Muslims that records of their numerous telephonic

conversations on that day suggests collusion among them, as Setalvad

suggests. Indeed, phone calls records also show that VHP men such as

Babu Bajrangi, who is accused of the violence in the two massacres at

Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gaam, and Atul Vaidya, who is accused of

complicity in the massacre at Gulberg Society where former Congress MP

Ehsan Jafri was killed, were in touch with each other, too. Bajrangi,

who confessed before TEHELKA’s hidden cameras of his involvement in the

massacre, was also in touch with Patel and two others of the VHP.

Another

question that Setalvad has raised is about the presence of six persons

from Modi’s office in the Meghaninagar area of Ahmedabad on February 27.

According to the telephone call records, they were in the area during

2-5 pm that day, while Modi was visiting Godhra. Then Health Minister

Bhatt and Mehta from Modi’s office were at Narol Naroda between 9 am and

5 pm. “It was at these locations that violence spilt over in broad

daylight the next day as policemen watched,” Setalvad says. In fact, on

the day of the massacres at Gulberg Society, Naroda Patiya and Naroda

Gaam, phone records show that the officials from Modi’s office, and

ministers Bhatt and IK Jadeja, and even DGP Chakravarti were located in

these areas. The question arises: what were these bigwigs doing in those

areas, and why could they not stop the killings? There are also graphs

showing the locations of officers from Modi’s office and senior

policemen in and around his residence in Gandhinagar, Gujarat’s capital,

“corroborating the fact that secret/illegal meetings did take place,

where instructions to allow free reign to the organised mobs led by men

of the VHP/Bajrang Dal are alleged to have been given,” says Setalvad in

her statement to the commission. Now the ball is in the Nanavati

Commission’s court. Given that the Commission gave a near-clean chit to

Modi in an interim report in September 2009, Setalvad may be staring at

an uphill trudge.

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main45.asp?filename=Ne120610rings_a.asp

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RSS rejects terrorists – Editorial (Jun 5, 2010,

Economic Times)

The RSS, apparently worried about the implications of some of its

members being involved in terrorist activities, has decided to distance

itself from such individuals and also sent a message to its rank and

file that no one should expect protection if involved in such acts. On

the face of it, this is a positive development. But the organisation

must, if it is sincere in its opposition to all forms of terror, also

ponder and revisit some of the central tenets of its ideological

framework. The issue isn’t just that the tag ‘Hindu terror’ has come

into currency with some individuals from a community being linked to or

arrested for terrorist attacks.

The point is they, along with the

arrested RSS members, belong to groups that share a certain set of

beliefs about Indian identity and have the common goal of redefining

Indian nationhood as Hindutva. The host of organisations ranging from

the Sanskrit-chanting RSS to the warmongering Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa

Hindu Parishad, all draw sustenance from the self-same ideology of

hatred that refuses to accept the composite, multicultural nature of the

Indian state. So long as the RSS does not openly and comprehensively

abandon this mother lode of communal hatred, all talk of its

dissociation from individual acts of violence would remain just talk. A

clear link of culpability exists between the perpetrators of all such

forms of violence and those that provide not just logistical support but

the ideological framework for it.

It is this that the RSS must

mull, it must realise the truth of the adage that terrorism has no

religion. And thereby revisit, if it can, those aspects of its core

ideological beliefs that can be said to fan hatred, or are patently

majoritarian and based on exclusion of other communities from the idea

of India. Such beliefs had led RSS ideologue M S Golwalkar to a sense of

appreciation for Nazi Germany’s attempt at ‘racial purification’ . As

history, including our own, proves, destructive violence and terrorism

attend on such ideas. A rejection of such beliefs, along with all forms

of violence, would go a long way in isolating terrorists.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6013693.cms

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How naive is this party? – Editorial (Jun 1, 2010,

Hindustan Times)

Shibu Soren’s resignation affirms that the BJP’s efforts to reinvent

itself have failed. In the end, the BJP proved that it was neither the

driver nor the navigator in the sordid Jharkhand drama that has now

ended with the resignation of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha supremo and Chief

Minister Shibu Soren. The party with a difference was led a merry dance

by Mr Soren who voted against it in Parliament, then claimed that this

oversight was due to an illness that causes memory loss. The BJP,

normally quick to seize the high moral ground, tripped on its own feet

trying to cobble together a power-sharing arrangement with the mercurial

Mr Soren, who after initially agreeing to it, went back on his word.

The

manner in which the Soren saga was played out suggests that the BJP’s

efforts to reinvent itself to become more relevant today and counter the

Congress challenge has gone awry. For Mr Soren, this is a win-win

situation. He has convincingly demonstrated that he can run rings around

the BJP politically and could dictate the timing of his stepping down.

Irrespective of who forms the next government or whether the state is in

for a spell of President’s rule, the BJP has not come out of the crisis

smelling of roses. If this is the new BJP chief Nitin Gadkari’s idea of

projecting his party as a counterweight to the Congress, he seems out

of sync with reality.

Another instance of bad political judgement

was the spectacular inaction on the part of its Karnataka Chief

Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa after the Sri Rama Sene sting operation in

which its obnoxious chief Pramod Muthalik is caught on camera agreeing

to organise riots for money. The chief minister was quick to distance

himself from the Sene but that is not the point. He should have acted

against such rabble-rousers instead of issuing wishy-washy statements.

These problems have meant that the party is not in a position to bask in

the Allahabad High Court’s verdict that dropped the CBI’s charges of

criminal conspiracy in the Babri Masjid demolition case against L.K.

Advani and other top BJP leaders. Despite all this, the BJP tried in

vain to trip up the UPA government on its performance over the last

year.

True, the government’s report card could have read much

better. But the BJP must also ask itself what it has been able to do to

keep the government on its toes this last year despite several golden

opportunities presenting themselves. If anything, the party is in worse

shape than at the start of the last Parliament session. Mr Gadkari, once

famed for his organisational footwork, seems to have got off the blocks

far too hesitantly. It will do the party a great deal of good and give

it a new lease of life if it were to refocus its agenda. But for that it

will have to settle to be the long distance runner for the time being.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/551278.aspx

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Pure Act of Terrorism – Editorial (May 31, 2010,

Nav Hind Times)

Friday’s derailment of Gyaneshwari Express in West Bengal in which at

least 141 lost their lives is a pure case of cold blooded murder of

innocent people by the leaders and activists of Communist Party of India

(Maoists). Those killed were not class enemies. Who knows some of them

even empathised with the Naxalites and their movement. One thing is also

absolutely clear that no amount of “sorry” is going to appease even

Karl Marx and Mao Zedong and make them endorse their crime as a

Marxist-Leninist action. Any action should have a rationale. Will the

Maoists spell out the rationale behind attacking the railways? The only

answer they could come up with is; by attacking railways they want to

destabilise the economy of India. Fine. But let us look at the real

content and nature of the attack.

During the last one and half

year the Maoists have targeted railways on at least 19 occasions and

killed not less than 300 innocent passengers. Their action is quite

similar to the 26/7 Mumbai train attacks in which hundreds of commuters

were killed. One can understand the logic behind terrorist attack. They

want to create panic and also destabilise the Indian economy. While

terrorists have been carrying out their operations without any

pretentions, the Maoists have been doing it under the facade of serving

the poor and proletariats. Will the Maoists tell the people what they

have achieved by firing at Tatanagar Express last week and also blowing a

train carrying oil in which 14 freight cars caught fire?

Mao

had said “take lessons from the history”. But our Maoists are so

obsessed with the success of their anarchic actions that history has

become irrelevant for them. Even the founder leader of Naxalism, Charu

Majumdar was against such anarchic killings. He was even opposed to

killing of individual class enemies. In this background how could these

Maoists claim that they are followers of Charu Majumdar? Their attack on

trains also reflects on their poor understanding of the strength of the

Indian state. They are simply jeopardising the lives of the ordinary

people who have to undertake a journey only in extreme urgency. By

attacking trains; do they intend to send the message to a common people

not to come out of their houses? They should realise this would give

rise to more animosity and hatred towards them in the common people.

This indiscriminate attack on common people and train passengers also

puts a question mark on the integrity of the Maoist leaders. Eight years

back when the Maoists had killed 14 adivasis in Andhra Pradesh, the

general secretary of the organization, Ganapathy had apologised for the

action. In some cases the Maoists have even offered compensation. But in

the incidents that are happening outside AP and in which innocent

persons are killed, no leaders offers any condolence or apology. Why

this duality? What does it imply? Probably they have not realised that

their indiscriminate actions have alienated them from vast section of

the population and situation has come to such a stage that even their

friends are unwilling to defend them publically. There is no denying the

fact that the Maoists were digging their own graves by pursuing

terrorist line.

http://www.navhindtimes.in/opinion/pure-act-terrorism

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SOS from Manipur – Editorial (Jun 1, 2010, Indian

Express)

If the Northeast has occupied the farthest nook of mainland India’s

consciousness, the state of Manipur has been given the tiniest toehold

on that nook. That is why the rest of the nation, as a rule, doesn’t

think of the eight states (including Sikkim) beyond the chicken’s neck,

except for news of death and gore. But gory news is largely and

thankfully past, and tales from the Northeast, except about Chinese eyes

on Arunachal, hardly arrest our attention. Imagine then Manipur,

compromised by geography and demographics, located literally at the

farthest end of the Union and fractured by ethnic divisions. Imagine

this state, covering the last stretches of two national highways – the

NH 39 and NH 53 – and those two blockaded, with the population deprived

of everyday essentials. (The third, NH 150, is so roundabout that nobody

ever wants to use it for supplies.)

The trouble had begun with

the state government’s decision to hold district council polls,

including in the Naga-dominated districts; it came to a crisis with

Manipur’s refusal to let National Socialist Council of Nagaland

(Isak-Muivah) leader Thuingaleng Muivah visit his ancestral village in

Ukhrul. When NH 39, Manipur’s lifeline, was blockaded by Nagas first on

April 11, Manipuris believed that, as always, a settlement would be

reached soon. It is still on and people are paying as much as Rs 150 for

a litre of petrol or nearly Rs 2000 for an LPG cylinder in the

blackmarket. The diversion of some trucks through the longer and

less-preferred NH 53 brought in under escort some supplies a few days

ago; but with counter-blockades threatened to block goods from the

Imphal valley to the Naga hills, Manipur’s crisis could jeopardise the

Northeast.

The Centre must act to rescue the crippled state and

prevent an escalation of the confrontationist attitudes into a full

confrontation. Manipur being blocked out does not evoke an automatic

response because of the zero impact it has on the rest of the country.

That unconcern is inhuman. Moreover, the political basis of the trouble

must be resolved for a permanent peace in the region, and that cannot

happen unless the Centre settles with the NSCN and brings them into the

mainstream.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/627682/

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Death, Be Not Ironbound – By R.K. Raghavan (Jun 7,

2010, Outlook)

Ajmal Kasab falls undoubtedly under the now famous ‘rarest of rare

cases’ category of murderers who richly deserve to be hanged until

death. This one time I am inclined to suppress my abhorrence of capital

punishment. National sentiment should perhaps prevail over any other

predilection on the subject whenever such mass murders take place.

Having said that, I am not sure how many of my brethren know how wrong a

judicial verdict (jury in the case of America) can go sometimes while

sending a man or woman to the gallows. The history of criminal justice

in the US is replete with instances of those on death row being saved on

the eve of their execution by a DNA report that has just reached the

state governor or the prison authorities. Such a report more or less

conclusively proves that the man in custody is not the murderer or the

rapist who has been found guilty by the court. Law in the US provides

for a DNA test at the request of a convict, especially where such

testing has not been done earlier during the investigation or where the

prisoner feels there has been a horrible mistake during the first test.

The

number of prisoners receiving such reprieve keeps creeping up.

According to one recent estimate by the Innocence Project – launched by

the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, New York, in 1992, mainly to

assist convicts who genuinely feel they have been grievously wronged -

there have been as many as 254 prisoners on the death row who were taken

off it thanks to the conclusion of a DNA expert that the particular

prisoner’s DNA sample does not match the one collected at the scene of

the crime or from a victim. Seventy per cent of these belonged to

minority groups. The average time spent in prison by those who were

released after post-conviction DNA testing was 13 years. Many who are

intensely opposed to the death sentence often cite this phenomenon.

After all, is there not an ancient golden principle, which runs

something like this: Let several guilty persons escape, but not one

innocent be punished for a crime that he did not commit.

My

immediate provocation for appealing to those who gloat over judicial

executions to reflect on the possibility of a mistake is the case of

Raymond Towler, a 52-year-old musician from Ohio who was acquitted by a

Cleveland judge on May 5 after he had spent 30 years in prison for the

alleged rape of an 11-year-old girl. Judge Eileen Gallagher had no doubt

in her mind that the DNA sample put up to her was different from the

one picked up from the victim’s undergarment. There was so much emotion

in her voice when she told Towler that he was free to go. She didn’t

stop with that. She went on to read out a blessing which one normally

hears at Irish weddings: “May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be

always at your back. May the sun shine warm on your face, may the rain

fall softly upon your fields. May God hold you in the palm of his hand,

now and forever.”

Can there be a better way to say ‘sorry’ without

actually calling out that five-letter word abused ad nauseam by those

who are poles away from contrition. The judge did not stop with the

blessing. Wiping tears from her eyes, she extended her arm to the

prisoner and wished him luck. This was a poignant moment. As for Mr

Towler, there was not a trace of bitterness on his visage. When mediamen

asked him how he felt, he merely said that a crime had in fact been

committed and it took a while for the authorities to sort out who

exactly was guilty. Grace and equanimity at their supreme best?

I

would like to cite this in all my lectures to IPS officers and judicial

officers, if only to prove that in real life, there is nothing like

total guilt, and there is always a case for giving the benefit of the

doubt to someone who has been arraigned before the law. This is why -

many would say – our criminal justice system crawls rather annoyingly.

But is there an alternative? Do we want those like Towler to languish in

prison for a crime they were wrongly believed to have perpetrated? We

definitely need justice that is laced with mercy. Or else we are not fit

to call ourselves a civilised nation.

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?265594

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Related posts:

  1. IMC-USA Weekly News Digest – June 28th, 2010
  2. IMC-USA Weekly News Digest – June 14th, 2010
  3. IMC-USA Weekly News Digest – June 21st, 2010
  4. IMC-USA Weekly News Digest – June 1st, 2009
  5. IMC-USA Weekly News Digest – June 8th, 2009

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