Author: S R Ramanujan
Publication:
Date:
In all probability the wild goose chase that
has been undertaken by the Mumbai Police in the Malegaon blast case would
continue till April next year. More and more people would be interrogated,
many more nacro tests or truth serum tests would be conducted, re-conducted,
never mind even if nothing tangible comes out of it. After all, the purpose
is to establish that right wing extremism is no different from jihadi terrorism.
And that is essential to take the wind out of the sail of NDA which has been
harping on the UPA's soft approach in tackling Islamic terrorism in the country.
This was quite evident when the Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh
taunted the Sangh Parivar "Why are you not talking about POTA now? After
all, law must be the same to everyone". So, you can take it for sure
that the deliberate and vicious leaks by the Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) would
dominate the news headlines till the Assembly elections in Nov-Dec of this
year and the General Elections during the next year are over. That would effectively
neutralise the NDA stand on the issue of terrorism during the poll campaign
which was causing jitters on the Congress camp after Ahmedaabad, Jaipur, Mumbai,
Delhi, Jaipur and Assam blasts. Undoubtedly, the possibility of a witch hunt
was on the air when the Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar remarked
early October and much before the meeting of the National Integration Council
(NIC) that if Muslims were being targeted as terrorists, then he did not see
any reason why action should not be taken against Hindu groups like Bajrang
Dal or VHP. It is a different story that Pawar is trying to outbeat Moulana
Mulayam in projecting himself as an effective pro-minority politician when
he demanded that Babri Masjid should be reconstructed at the very same place
where it stood.
AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh also
echoed a similar demand that some of the saffron groups should be banned as
their members too had been involved in bomb blasts. Mind you, this was much
before the ATS could come out with 'juicy' stories of the involvement of Sadhvi
Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt Col. Srikanth Prasad Purohit.
A major section of the Congressmen, particularly
the ones belonging to minority community was already unhappy over the Batla
House encounter and they made known their unease at the NIC meeting. They
said that the encounter has led to a sense of alienation among Muslims and
there was need for "urgent remedial action". Not to be left out
in this competitive secular politics, the CPI-M also said "the recent
spate of terrorist attacks in areas dominated by a particular community had
raised genuine suspicions of hardline response to some terrorist actions"
Sitaram Yechury said that investigations in the past few years have noted
the involvement of RSS outfits in various blast cases and that internal security
of our country can be strengthened only when all such cases are also probed
impartially.
What was the "urgent remedial action"
demanded at the NIC? That is what you and I are witnessing on the television
channels and in the newspapers and that is what would put the minorities at
ease, especially when they walk into the polling booths.
The "urgent remedial action" was
undertaken under the direct supervision of the home minister of Maharashtra,
the only state on which the NCP chief has direct control, the home minister
RR Patil of NCP being his close lieutenant. The deliberate leaks by the ATS
with a view to malign institutions and individuals have to be read in this
context. We are hearing only one side of the story as told to the media by
the investigators and the media in turn is unquestioningly lapping it up.
Not only that, media is also acting as "super investigating agency",
a description given to the media by the apex court while hearing the Arushi
Talwar murder case. A fine example for this "super investigation"
is how Bhonsla Military School, established in 1930s is painted as an institution
that was set up in the model of Italian fascist schools and after a meeting
the founder of the school had with dictator Mussolini. When we talk about
ATS leaks and its real intentions, let us look at the profile of Malegaon.
This place has been the focus of communal tension in 1984, 1992 and 2001.
In 2001, when there were large scale protests over the US invasion of Afghanistan.
12 Muslim protesters were killed in police firing. The erstwhile Taliban regime
in Afghanistan enjoyed immense support from Muslims of Malegaon. When there
were series of bomb blasts in September 2006 killing 37 people, the Maharashtra
Police said that it was the handiwork of SIMI. ATS for the first time revealed
the role of Pak nationals in the 2006 blast. Seeking police custody for Dr
Salman Farsi Aimi and Dr Farogh Maqdumi, the ATS stated that the duo provided
shelter to the Indian and Pakistani accomplices and were conspirators in smuggling
RDX and other devices into Malegaon in May 2006. But Maharashtra Minorities
Commission chairman Mohd Naseem Siddiqui, who belongs to NCP, demanded CBI
enquiry since there was resentment among the minority community over the direction
of ATS probe.
When CBI took over the investigation in 2007,
the agency questioned a Pak national Taseem Azim who was arrested by the Lucknow
STF 5 days after the serial blasts at Malegaon. His questioning, as reported
in the Indian Express (April 1, 2007), gave lot of information about SIMI
and on that basis SIMI activists were rounded up. At that time, the ATS contended
that the conspiracy was hatched to "infuriate the entire Muslim community
and trigger communal riots." The investigators told at that time that
15 kg of RDX was procured for 2006 blasts and only two kgs were used and that
they were on the look out for the remaining quantity. The initial inference
immediately after Sept 29 blasts was that the remaining RDX was used in 2008
blasts.
Now, the ATS says Col. Purohit was the wholesale
supplier of RDX for all the blasts in the mosques of Maharashtra. Purohit
has been an intelligence officer and how can he have access to RDX which is
normally in the inventory of Ordnance Factories, a question that was never
posed to the investigators by the media. Initially, Sadhvi Pragya was projected
as the mastermind and now that" honour" has been shifted to Purohit.
The ashram of a Swami in Gujrat was raided with due media coverage. What did
the ATS find there was not revealed nor was the media interested in finding
out. The link between the Sadhvi and the Swami is that the latter provided
a vehicle for the Sadhvi to visit places in Dangs district for religious discourses.
So, both are involved in terror activities according to the ATS. One need
not be surprised if all those attended Sadhvi's spiritual discourses are also
branded as terror suspects.
Though the ATS revealed initially that many
more serving army officers of the rank of Col and Major are involved in the
terror act, there was hasty retreat. Now, we are told only Lt Col Purohit
was the serving officer caught in the act. Obviously, this must have been
on a cue from Delhi when it dawned on the powers-that-be about the repercussions
of such a witch hunt on the officers of the Army. Needless to say, it would
have caused a rebellion in the defence forces.
As a strategy, the ilks of Pawar do not want
to put all the eggs in just one Malegaon basket in their efforts to mollify
Muslims on the eve of crucial elections. Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao
Deshmukh said that more Muslims have to be inducted into the Police force
and even the private sector has to emulate this example. At the same time,
fearing whether Shiv Sena would use this to consolidate Hindu votes, Deshmukh
started speaking the language of Raj Thackeray so that he can carry the Marathi
manoos with him. That is, instead of dividing the society on communal lines,
trigger a regional divide. These are the worthies who brand their opponents
as "divisive forces".
Though the initial reports implicated Bangladesh
based HuJI for the Assam blasts that killed more than 80 people, we are now
told that it was ULFA which was responsible so that the Muslim angle is let
off the hook and no one can blame the Central and State governments for turning
a blind eye to the scourge of illegal immigrants which is not only changing
the demography in the North-East, but is the root cause for communal and ethnic
violence in the State.
In Andhra Pradesh, Dr Rajasekhara Reddy applied
soothing balm on the hurt sentiments of the minority community by announcing
compensation for those wrongly detained in connection with terror acts. The
state also played host to the 29th annual meet of Jamait-ul-Ulema Hind where
politically correct noises were made saying terrorism has no religion. What
is the use of our saying it. The perpetrators of terrorist violence should
say so. And if they say so, they lose the basic premise for terrorism.
