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Sequel of terror

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February 20, 2008: A bomb is planted at the Cineraj cinema in Panvel town, about 50 km from Mumbai, during a screening of the film, Jodha Akbar. Fortunately, the bomb caused no more stir than a small firecracker and went unnoticed until the end of the show.

May 31 2008: The Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad (BDDS) from the police department defuses a bomb found in a plastic carrier bag at an auditorium in Vashi, Navi Mumbai. The bag contained batteries, gelatine sticks, detonators and ammonium nitrate. Fortunately again, no damage was done.

June 4, 2008: A bomb explodes in the Gadkari Rangayatan theatre in Thane where a Marathi play, Amhi Pachpute, was due to be staged. Seven persons are injured.

Thane, June 2008

Who was targeting cinema halls and auditoriums on the outskirts of Mumbai with such alarming frequency and why? The ATS team of the Maharashtra police suspected that Hindu extremist organisations were behind the blasts, as some of these groups had been protesting against the film and the play for weeks. Their grouse was that Hindu gods and goddesses were being shown in a poor light and permission to stage such plays or films must not be granted.

Working on their assumption, 16 teams of the ATS checked the records of all vehicles that entered the premises of the Gadkari Rangayatan theatre on June 4. After cross-checking the list with the RTO the police pinpointed a motorcycle that was registered in the name of a Hindu trust, the Guru Kripa Pratisthan. The police then traced the organisation’s office to Panvel where it is located in the premises of another Hindu organisation called the Sanatan Sanstha (SS). Set up in 1999, the SS, a revivalist group run by the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, has an ashram in Sukhapur village near Panvel.

By June 23, the ATS had arrested six Hindu extremists belonging to the Sanatan Sanstha and the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS). It later learnt that the two organisations were closely associated. The first two to be nabbed – Hanumant Gadkari (50) and Mangesh Dinkar Nikam (34) – belonged both to the SS and the HJS. Two more sevaks (activists) of the Sanatan Sanstha, Santosh Angre (26) and Vikram Bhave (26), allegedly part of the network that reportedly planted the bombs at the Bhave auditorium in Vashi and Thane’s Gadkari Rangayatan, were the next to be arrested by the ATS. Unemployed, Angre and Bhave were full-time residents of the Sanatan Sanstha ashram.

On June 23, the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) also arrested Dr Hemant Chalke, a member of Sanatan Sanstha, for conducting a recce of Vashi’s Bhave theatre where a bomb was found on May 31.

The ATS also seized 19 gelatine sticks, 20 detonators, two timers and three circuits, which were dumped in the Balganga river in Pen. The police also seized six batteries, one timer and half a dozen detonators from the Satara residence of another accused, Mangesh Nikam.

"We are proud of what we did to deter those who were trying to show our gods and goddesses in poor light," the accused reportedly told the investigators. "We have extracted the names of the places from where the material used in the bombs was bought by the accused. We know where the circuit material, the ammonium nitrate and the timer were bought. We also know the place from where the soldering work was done for the bomb. In fact, the accused had availed of a 10 per cent discount on the timer," said the ATS chief, Hemant Karkare.

‘Our investigation is raising serious questions’


 

Hemant Karkare, head of the Anti-Terrorism Squad, Maharashtra, told the media soon after Gadkari and Nikam had been interrogated by the ATS that the bombings were "definitely terrorist acts as they were carried out by people motivated by an ideology". He added that if the organisations to which the men belonged were found to be involved in the planning or the execution of these incidents, the ATS would "certainly write to the centre and seek that they be banned". CC spoke to Karkare in the second week of August on the progress of investigations. Excerpts from the interview:

Q: What stage have the investigations into the Thane-Panvel-Vashi blasts reached?
A: We are on the verge of filing the charge sheets, which we will accomplish within the legally stipulated 60 days’ time.

Q: Can we expect some major breakthroughs?
A: Some recovery of material is pending. Also, on the basis of the investigations and confessional statements we are still inquiring into the persons who gave shelter to the accused, those who bought the materials that went into making the explosives, etc, the organisational links.

Q: Have any organisational links been established?
A: Our investigation is raising serious questions. The organisations, the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, the Dharmakranti Sena and the Sanatan Sanstha, all have full-timers. Then there is also the Guru Kripa Pratisthan. The SS ashram is large, can house a hundred people, ostensibly learning yoga… The question our investigation is asking is can we charge sheet these organisations? Were these acts furthering the objectives of these organisations? They are all trusts with the charity commissioner. We are investigating the sources of their funding with the charity commissioner. Are there common sources of funding, etc? Can they be linked to the acquisition of violent substances?

The Sanatan Sanstha also publishes a regular newspaper, the Sanatan Prabhat, from four centres – Ponda (Goa), Navi Mumbai, Indore or Khandwa in Madhya Pradesh and North Karnataka.

The ATS is also examining the records of those arrested for the Jalna, Purna and Parbhani mosque blasts to check if there was any connection between the accused in the cases and whether the SS and the HJS have any organisational links.

According to information gathered and made public by the ATS, in early January this year activists of the Sanatan Sanstha, which is known for the ashrams it operates across the state, decided that to stop the ‘wrongful’ portrayal of Hindu gods and goddesses they needed to send out a ‘loud’ message. They tried to put together a crude bomb made of gunpowder and attempted to set it off, using a fuse wire, at a cemetery in Raigad district. The attempt failed. Their choice of location for the trial, a cemetery, is significant.

This was before they met Nikam, who turned out to be the perfect complement to Gadkari. Nikam’s past experience and knowledge in the use of high intensity explosives like gelatine was complemented by Gadkari’s knowledge of electric circuits (he was an electrician). Following some basic research the group assembled its first improvised explosive device (IED) containing two gelatine sticks, 300 gm of ammonium nitrate, detonators and a battery-powered electric circuit as a trigger mechanism. This was the device they exploded at the Cineraj cinema in Panvel on February 20, without much success.

Three months later, according to the ATS, the group had upgraded its skills enough to assemble a second, more sophisticated IED. Though similar in composition to the earlier one, it was operated by a far more refined trigger mechanism – a digital timer controlled by a remote control device. The group planted this IED at Vashi’s Vishnudas Bhave Natyagruha where the play, Amhi Pachpute, was being staged on May 31. But it was found and defused before any damage was done. Gadkari and Nikam are held responsible for the three blasts between February and June. Nikam was allegedly also involved in a February 2006 case in which a bomb was planted outside the home of a Catholic family in Ratnagiri.

The Sanatan Sanstha was quick to deny any organisational responsibility or link to the blasts. At a press conference held soon after the arrests both the SS and the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, the latter claiming to be an ‘umbrella organisation of many bodies’, said: "We cannot deny their association with us but we had nothing to do with the blast. Sanatan Sanstha will never support such violent acts," said Abhay Vartak, the organisation’s spokesperson. "Our protests have always been peaceful, through dialogue," said Dr Uday Dhuri, coordinator of HJS’ Mumbai chapter.

The SS also condemned the blast through an editorial in its SS newspaper, Sanatan Prabhat, but with a rider: "Though we condemn the act, the mind-set and the anger of these (arrested) people should be understood and the mocking of Hindu gods should be stopped."
The HJS, whose declared aim is "uniting Hindus globally", has no headquarters or formal membership. But it has a strong online presence. It owes its genesis to an October 2002 meeting where Hindu deities were "blasphemously criticised" and the lone man who protested was attacked. "With a view to protest against this attack, all Hindu organisations came together and the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti was established on October 13, 2002 [at the] initiative of seekers of Sanatan Sanstha," says the outfit’s website. Currently, the group’s global agenda is to protest against the "anti-Hindu" Hollywood movie, The Love Guru, and "anti-Hindu textbooks" for schoolchildren in Goa, and to save the Ram Sethu.

Media investigations and reports of a sinister network of hard line Hindu outfits across Maharashtra and Goa pose a particular challenge to investigation and intelligence agencies. According to a report in The Indian Express (June 22):
"The five men were members of the Sanatan Sanstha (SS) and the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS), hitherto little-known groups operating in the hinterland of Maharashtra and Goa. Two of them are also members of another newly launched outfit called the Dharmashakti Sena, pictures of whose inaugural rally in April show young men dressed in military fatigues.

"These groups, which work like wheels within wheels, have been quietly mobilising Hindus on a cocktail of Ramrajya (Rama’s rule), Hindu dharma and ‘dharmakranti’ (religious revolution) in and around Mumbai for a few years now.
"While the SS and the HJS are both registered in Goa as charitable organisations, the Dharmashakti Sena was set up in 16 Maharashtra towns and cities on Gudi Padwa day this April. Its stated aim: establishing ‘Ramrajya’ and to make Hindus ‘capable of action’.
"Publications linked to the three groups say the Dharmashakti Sena offers free training in self-defence and the training involves inculcating ‘mental courage’. It also reminds readers of the ‘armed battle of revolutionaries and saints’, RSS guru Golwalkar’s work on ‘protecting Hindus’ and his teaching that ‘weapons should be countered with weapons’.

 

Thackeray: Hindu suicide squads needed

A Hindu fidayeen band is necessary to combat Muslim fundamentalism, Shiv Sena mouthpiece, Saamna, edited by party boss Bal Thackeray, said on June 19.

In a leader comment, the paper said a "Hindu bomb" was needed to combat the "Muslim bomb", in response to the arrest of those allegedly involved in the bomb blasts in Vashi and Thane.

"Think big", advised the editorial, describing the low intensity bombs as "phuskya" (timid") and targeting of fellow Hindus by the extremists as "ridiculous and stupid".

"The need of the hour is to plant a strong bomb in Bangladeshi bastis that have mushroomed in Thane and elsewhere in Maharashtra," it added.

Responding to the outrage over the Saamna editorial, Thackeray convened a press conference two days later to reiterate his appeal to militant Hindus to form suicide squads to counter Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. He said that he was not worried about the legal implications of his appeal.

BJP vice–president Gopinath Munde said no case could be made against Thackeray since the Sena chief had spoken against terrorism and not against any section of the population. What Thackeray preached was nothing but pure patriotism, he added.

"‘Conversions of Hindus’, ‘genocide’, the Congress government’s alleged poor track record against Islamic terrorism, ‘persecution at the hands of anti-Hindus’, are recurrent themes alongside a call for Hindus and Hindu organisations to unite. Unlike leaders of the RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal, the men and women behind these new outfits are low-profile activists who have been quietly chipping away at the mind-set of Hindus in Maharashtra and Goa. The founder of the SS, the oldest of the three groups, is Dr Jayant Athavale, a clinical hypnotherapist who practised for two decades and also set up the Indian Society of Clinical Hypnosis and Research. A former resident of Goa, Dr Athavale is now a resident of New Bombay. His students are quick to exonerate his role in present activities, however.

"HJS and SS leaders are also cagey talking about Dharmashakti Sena chief Vinay Panvalkar, thought to live in the Dadar area of Central Mumbai and who has travelled extensively across Maharashtra after the outfit was launched. At a ‘dharmajagruti sabha’ (religious awakening conference) in Pune in mid-May 2008, Panvalkar is quoted as saying: "Hindus are cornered from all sides but there is no retaliation from them." At a later meeting in Thane he said, "The war in future will be a dharmayudh (religious war) and Dharmashakti Sena will be the guiding force."

The Indian Express investigation shows that the linkages to these groups from Maharashtra and Goa go all the way to Australia and the United States with centres in New Jersey, Brisbane, Melbourne and Dubai.
The top leaders of these organisations are: Dr Jayant Balaji Athavale, founder of Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, Virendra Marathe, managing trustee of Sanatan Sanstha, Vinay Panvalkar, chief of Dharmashakti Sena, Dr Durgesh Samant, national spokesman of HJS, Abhay Vartak, Mumbai spokesman of Sanatan Sanstha, and Shivaji Vatkar, Mumbai convenor of HJS.

Archived from Communalism Combat, July-August 2008. Year 15, No.133, Maharashtra, Cover Story 7

Bloodstains

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Major terrorist attacks in India over the past decade

July 26, 2008: Seventeen low intensity bombs explode in several areas of Ahmedabad, leaving 58 people dead and over 100 others injured.

July 25, 2008: A string of nine synchronised bomb blasts during the busy lunch hour in Bangalore leave two dead and injure 12 others.

May 13, 2008: Eight bomb blasts in the span of 12 minutes rock Jaipur, leaving 67 dead and over 277 others injured.

January 1, 2008: A pre-dawn terrorist attack on a Central Reserve Police Force camp in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, kills eight, including seven security men, and injures five others.

October 11, 2007: A bomb blast during the month of Ramadan at the Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti dargah in Ajmer kills two and injures 17.

August 25, 2007: Twin bomb blasts, at an open-air auditorium and a popular eatery in Hyderabad, leave 42 dead and injure 50 others.

May 18, 2007: A bomb blast at the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad kills 11 people and injures 50 others. Five people are also killed in subsequent police firing.

February 18, 2007: Two fire bombs explode on the Samjhauta Express bound for Pakistan, killing 68 passengers, most of them Pakistanis, and injuring 50 others.

September 8, 2006: Twin bomb blasts go off after Friday prayers near a mosque in Malegaon, Maharashtra, killing 40 people and injuring 125 others.

July 11, 2006: Seven bomb explosions rip through crowded commuter trains and stations in Mumbai, killing 200 people and leaving about 700 others injured.

July 11, 2006: Five hand grenade attacks in Srinagar kill eight people, including tourists and pilgrims, and injure 43 others.

June 1, 2006: Three militants are killed in an exchange of fire with security personnel during an attempted attack on the RSS headquarters in Nagpur.

May 25, 2006: A powerful bomb explosion kills four tourists in Batpora, Srinagar.

May 21, 2006: Seven people, including two terrorists, are killed as militants attack a Congress party rally in Srinagar.

May 1, 2006: Thirty-five Hindu villagers are killed in two separate terrorist attacks in the districts of Doda and Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir.

April 14, 2006: Two explosions rip through the Jama Masjid in Delhi, injuring 14 people.

March 7, 2006: Twin bombings at the Sankat Mochan temple and at the Cantonment railway station in Varanasi kill 23 people and injure over 100 others.

December 28, 2005: One person is killed and five others are injured when a heavily armed assailant opens fire and lobs grenades on the Indian Institute of Science campus in Bangalore.

October 29, 2005: Three bombs explode in busy New Delhi markets a day before Diwali, killing 65 people and injuring 210 others.

October 18, 2005: Jammu and Kashmir minister of state for education, Ghulam Nabi Lone, is shot dead by a militant while CPI(M) state secretary, MY Tarigami, escapes unhurt during a similar bid in Srinagar. Two security guards and a civilian are also killed in the incidents.

July 29, 2005: Twelve people are killed and 52 others injured in a bomb explosion on the Shramjivi Express in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh.

July 5, 2005: Six militants are killed during an attempt to storm the makeshift Ram temple in Ayodhya. Two civilians are also killed and three security men are injured in the attack.

May 9, 2005: Three people are killed as terrorists open fire on people coming out of a mosque at Chakka village in the Bhaderwah area of Doda district, Jammu and Kashmir.

August 27, 2004: Bomb blasts at local mosques in the towns of Purna and Jalna in Central Maharashtra injure 18 persons.

August 15, 2004: Three bomb explosions in the Dhemaji district of Assam kill 16 people, mainly schoolchildren, and injure 40 others.

November 21, 2003: A bomb blast at the Mohammadiya Masjid in Parbhani in Central Maharashtra kills one person and injures 40 others.

August 25, 2003: Two powerful car bomb explosions at Jhaveri Bazaar and at the Gateway of India in South Mumbai kill 60 persons and injure about 160 others.

July 28, 2003: A bomb explosion on a BEST bus at Ghatkopar in north-eastern Mumbai kills four people and injures 32 others.

March 13, 2003: A bomb blast shatters the bogie of a local train at the Mulund railway station in Mumbai, killing 11 people and injuring more than 65 others.

December 2, 2002: Two persons are killed and 31 others injured in a bomb explosion in a bus outside the Ghatkopar railway station in Mumbai.

September 24, 2002: Armed terrorists attack the Akhshardham temple in Gandhinagar, killing 39 people and injuring 74 others.

May 21, 2002: Abdul Gani Lone, senior leader of the separatist All Parties Hurriyat Conference, is shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Srinagar.

May 14, 2002: At least 30 people, including women and children, are killed and over 60 injured in a militant suicide attack on an army camp in the Kaluchak cantonment area in Jammu.

March 30, 2002: Seven people, including three security forces men, are killed in a militant attack on the Raghunath temple in Jammu.

January 22, 2002: Militants attack the American Centre in Kolkata, killing four police officers and injuring 21.

December 13, 2001: Armed terrorists attack the Indian Parliament in New Delhi, killing 12 people, including six policemen, and injuring 26 others. All five terrorists are also killed.

October 1, 2001: A car bomb explodes near the Jammu and Kashmir state assembly in Srinagar, killing 38 people and injuring 40 others. The bombing was followed by an armed assault on the assembly premises by three armed terrorists.

June 8, 2001: Unidentified terrorists lob a grenade into the premises of the Charar-e-Sharif mosque near Srinagar. Four persons are killed and 60 others are injured in the incident.

December 22, 2000: Militants attack the Red Fort in Delhi, killing two army men and one civilian.

March 20, 2000: Militants massacre 35 Sikhs in the village of Chattisinghpora in the Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir.

December 24-31, 1999: An Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu to New Delhi is hijacked and flown to Afghanistan where 189 passengers and crew are held hostage for eight days. They are ultimately freed in return for the release of three militants held in Indian prisons. One hostage is killed.

February 14, 1998: Forty-six persons are killed and more than 200 injured as 13 bomb blasts rip through Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu.

Archived from Communalism Combat, July-August 2008. Year 15, No.133, Maharashtra, Cover Story 8
 

Gujarat blasts: Case closed?

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Ahmedabad, July 2008

The so-called breakthrough in the Ahmedabad blasts case  raises more questions than it answers

Repeated terror attacks are invariably followed by near instantaneous polarisation in our public sphere – in class-rooms and mohallas, in buses and train compartments and in our newsrooms. A polarisation that echoes the Hindu vs Muslim divide, carefully fomented by ideological processes that threaten at heart the survival of India as a society and as a nation.

Rational discourse barely gets an edge in as hate hysteria claims our psyche. Peace, reason, dialogue all seem passé as intelligence experts bay for blood and press for a tighter security regime. Overnight the police, intelligence and other investigating agencies – which have been repeatedly hauled over the coals for their failures, rank complicity and unprofessional conduct – emerge unscathed as our protectors in times of terror.

The most recent example of this is in case of the Ahmedabad blasts on July 26 when miraculously, within 21 days of the tragic event, we have a complete solution to the case presented to us by the Gujarat police.

Ironically, both men at the helm in Gujarat, the state’s chief minister, Narendra Modi, and the director general of police (DGP), PC Pande, stand seriously indicted for criminal conspiracy and mass murder of the state’s 2,500 Muslims in 2002. A significant section of the Gujarat police, especially its crime branch, has been found guilty of unprofessional and criminal conduct vis-à-vis the state’s minorities. Unfortunately, such discriminatory policing enjoys highest political sanction in Gujarat.

The swift solution presented to the public by the Gujarat police on August 16, 2008 contains several loopholes that require explanation. We also need to question the ethics of entrusting such a sensitive investigation of bomb terror to a police force and an administration that stands severely tainted by the carnage of 2002. Or are such elementary questions prohibited in today’s India? 

To begin with however we take a look at the investigations into the Ahmedabad bomb blasts of July 26, 2008. Fifty-six people were killed and over 150 injured in the serial blasts that hit Gujarat’s major commercial nerve centre last month. A total of 19 blasts took place in 10 different areas of the city and apart from the minority-dominated Sarkhej and Juhapura all of them occurred in the labour-dominated eastern parts of the old city. Most of these were crowded and congested areas battling peak evening hour traffic: Sarkhej, Maninagar, Bapunagar, Thakkarbapanagar, Naroda, Raipur, Narol and Sarangpur. The Civil Hospital and LG Hospital campuses were the last to be hit, about 40 minutes after the first round of blasts, and 27 people were killed here. 

At a press conference held at the police commissioner’s office late that same evening the chief minister, Narendra Modi said confidently that ammonium nitrate and gelatine sticks had been used in the bombs. He also said that the Ahmedabad Crime Branch would be handling the investigation. Intelligence sources said the needle of suspicion pointed to the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the Lashkar-i Tayyeba. 

A. Outfits named: In Ahmedabad, as elsewhere, the moment the bombs exploded both the political class and “intelligence sources” held SIMI and Lashkar responsible for the attacks even as they admitted their ignorance about how these outfits operate. 

B. Arrests of the alleged accused: By August 16, 2008, when the Gujarat police claimed they had ‘cracked’ the case, 10 persons in all, nine of them Gujarat residents, had been arrested. Mufti Abu Bashar from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh was named as the mastermind.

Abdul Halim, an alleged activist of the banned SIMI who the police claimed was wanted in the 2002 Gujarat riots (we are not told for what offence), was arrested in Ahmedabad (Deccan Herald, July 27, 2008). The police claimed that he had been in hiding since 2002.What is the actual evidence of Halim’s involvement? Reports suggest that far from absconding, Halim was an active community leader in Dani Limda and police claims that he had been absconding were untrue. 

Media reports quoting authorities stated that Abdul Halim allegedly told the Crime Branch that he was associated with Syed Abdul Karim ‘Tunda’, the top Lashkar-i Tayyeba operative wanted in connection with several blasts in the country between 1993 and 1998 (DNA, August 1, 2008).

The Gujarat police must also explain the prompt arrest of Sajid Mansuri, who we are told was the link between the planners and executors of the blasts. The police said he had been on the run for over seven months. How was Mansuri suddenly located and conveniently arrested 20 days after the Ahmedabad blasts? (DNA, August 17, 2008).

When was this information, which is now being offered so readily by the authorities, actually collected? We are talking here of 15 and 12 year-old facts, so what were the authorities doing with this knowledge until now? Incidentally, Halim’s family has denied all the ‘facts’ obtained by the Crime Branch allegedly under torture.

In Ahmedabad, as elsewhere, the moment the bombs exploded both the political class and “intelligence sources” held SIMI and Lashkar responsible for the attacks even as they admitted their ignorance about how these outfits operate

On August 18, 2008 The Times of India reported on the arrests of an alleged ISI agent, Vishal Upadhaya of Jharkhand, an engineering student, in 2007 and of a former jawan, Shailesh Jadhav of Satara, who was arrested in Pune in 2008 for his alleged links with the ISI. Has there been any follow-up of these arrests, any further investigations?

The facts surrounding the arrest, by the Crime Branch, of another alleged accused, Zahid Shaikh, are also under serious dispute. Ahmedabad city Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) officials claim that Zahid attended two terror training camps in Kerala and Gujarat and the two masterminds of the Ahmedabad blasts, Mufti Abu Bashar and Abdul Subban Qureshi alias Tauqir, were constantly in touch with him. Zahid, a resident of Gujarat, owned a mobile (repair) shop at the Alishan Complex in Dani Limda and lived, along with several members of his family, not far from the Sarkhej highway. Zahid’s sister, Saleha, refuted the charges levelled against him. “They (the DCB) say Zahid had gone to various places for training and had arranged for vehicles used in the blasts. But he has not left home for the past five months. They also said some meetings were held at our house but we are not aware of any such meeting,” she said (The Indian Express, August 18, 2008).

C. Substances Used: On the very day the blasts occurred Narendra Modi asserted that ammonium nitrate and gelatine sticks were used in the bombs, also stating that the Ahmedabad Crime Branch would be handling the case (DNA, July 27, 2008). An obvious part of the investigation ought to have been probing the leakage of these volatile substances right from the production stage up to retail sale to the end user (in this case the terrorists). 

The chain begins with industrial producers who are given special licences to manufacture hazardous substances of this nature. Investigations could possibly reveal clandestine sales by producers. Next in line are the retailers, also licensed, who are supposed to maintain a proper stock register precisely because of the potential hazards of the materials they deal in. Here too underhand sales are possible. Investigators should have examined and tallied all the relevant records to determine if any quantity of these substances was not legally accounted for at either stage. 
Nothing in the Gujarat police ‘breakthrough’ makes any mention of any investigation into these leaks.

According to DCB officials, LPG cylinders, each of a five-litre capacity, were used in the blasts at the LG and Civil hospitals. The cylinders were found to have been manufactured at Meerut in UP while their distributors were traced to Kalupur in Ahmedabad. The DCB named at least two manufacturing agencies from Meerut, Mayur and Golden Click, who are said to have sent the cylinders to Ahmedabad. The Kalupur distributor was reportedly detained for questioning (The Indian Express, August 4, 2008).

CC:  How did the Crime Branch conclude that the source of the cylinders used was/is a Kalupur distributor? Do cylinders have any identification marks or serial numbers? 

D. How were detonators leaked from manufacturers?: According to initial media reports, the detonators used both in the blasts at Ahmedabad and in the unexploded bombs in Surat, according to markings recovered from the sites, were manufactured by AP Explosives (P) Ltd, a company based at Bommalramaram village and Mandal in the Nalgonda district of Andhra Pradesh, about 170 km from Hyderabad. AP Explosives makes detonators and detonating fuses. (The Indian Express, July 30, 2008). Nothing in the announced ‘breakthrough’ of the Gujarat police indicates how the detonators had been accessed from AP by the terrorists or what these linkages mean in terms of the network of terror. 

Another report two days later said that an explosives-manufacturing company in Rajasthan, in which the state government has a major stake, may have been the source of the detonators in the 27 bombs defused by police in Surat (The Times of India, August 2, 2008). The detonators found in the unexploded Surat bombs were said to have originated from the Dholpur-based Rajasthan Explosives and Chemicals Ltd (RECL). 

A joint sector company in association with RIICO, a Rajasthan government undertaking, RECL makes more than 25 lakh detonators every month. Integrated circuit detonators, such as the ones used in Surat, are supplied to mines to trigger explosions mainly for stone quarrying and coal mining. Investigators say the terror outfits may have procured these detonators from mining companies who engage a large number of contractors, especially in stone quarrying which is big business in Rajasthan. 

​RECL had reportedly already given the Gujarat police a list of all those who had bought detonators from them. The superintendent of police, Dholpur, Gaurav Srivastava said that batch numbers of product consignments would help identify the dealer from whom the detonators then went to the terror outfits. “As many as 1,500 detonators are usually packed in a single carton on which the batch number is properly written. The manufacturing companies maintain a record of the batch numbers of cartons supplied to the dealers.”

RECL’s senior manager (works), K. Edward Kelly said there are more than 80 approved dealers who sell the detonators to firms involved in mining activity. “Detonators are transported in trucks and are sold through registered dealers. The records are properly documented. The ultimate delivery is the prerogative of the dealers and we have no control over it,” said Kelly. He also said however that his company does take measures to prevent the detonators reaching the wrong hands. Most of the company’s dealers are in Andhra Pradesh. RECL detonators are supplied to states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam and Rajasthan. 


Disposable squad?

This is not the first time that terrorists have used RECL detonators. Police found that they had been used in some of the serial blasts that rocked Coimbatore in 1998 when about 46 people were killed and more than 200 injured in 13 explosions. In another incident, 1,500 detonators from RECL were recovered from a man in the Hazaribagh district of Jharkhand in August 2005. He was said to be a supplier of arms to Maoists in Jharkhand (The Times of India, August 2, 2008).

Forensic investigators have concluded that the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) used in July’s serial bombings in Gujarat were assembled by the same bomb-makers responsible for a string of earlier attacks in AP, UP and Rajasthan. Experts from the Gujarat police and the National Bomb Data Centre have determined that the IEDs deployed in Ahmedabad and Surat were identical in their design to the devices used in the May 2008 serial bombings in Jaipur; the November 2007 attacks on trial court buildings in Lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad; the August 2007 bombings at the Gokul Chat Bhandar in Hyderabad; and the March 2006 attack on the Sankat Mochan temple in Varanasi (The Hindu, August 7, 2008).

Twenty days later we are told at the press conference announcing the “breakthrough” that the “material for the explosions was brought from Madhya Pradesh and assembled in Ahmedabad and Vadodara”.

CC:  Have the AP and Rajasthan leads fallen by the wayside? 

Were any follow-up investigations carried out to probe the Rajasthan connection? Why were they dropped? Why are the Rajasthan and Gujarat police quiet now on the supply of detonators from AP and Rajasthan? Are the 1,500 detonators within each carton properly/serially numbered? If that is the case it should be very easy to trace the source of the leakage which would then lead to the network involved in the terror attack and its modus operandi. 

Did the investigations in the earlier blasts also reveal a common pattern? Were the detonators used in those explosions also manufactured in the Rajasthan and AP factories?

E. The vehicle trail: A ‘failed plan’ to explode over a dozen bombs in Surat put investigators on an interstate trail of vehicles suspected to have been used in the Ahmedabad explosions. The Surat police seized two cars containing RDX and detonators packed in separate bags. The bombs were yet to be assembled. The seized vehicles, it was claimed, bore fake numbers from Vadodara but their authentic registration had been traced to Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra. Both vehicles were CNG-run WagonR cars.

A connection between Surat, Ahmedabad and Navi Mumbai was found. It was a CNG-run WagonR that was reduced to mangled steel outside the Civil Hospital. The car seized by the Surat police, which contained a can of RDX, was also a CNG-run WagonR. The car has enough boot space to carry gas cylinders similar to those found at the Civil Hospital (The Telegraph, July 28, 2008). 

Was the Indian Mujahideen an organisation known to the Intelligence Bureau before the recent spate of bombings? Was this organisation linked to any known terrorist/extremist groups, their activities and their terror attacks? What are the antecedents of Kenneth Haywood? Who within the central IB and the MHA were responsible for letting Haywood leave the country?

The Maharashtra ATS says that it has detained car thieves from Navi Mumbai and Thane but is cagey on all other details (The Times of India, August 18, 2008).

CC: Since vehicles have been seized, why has the vehicle trail been dropped? (The culprits of the 1993 Bombay blasts were traced through vehicle numbers and registrations.) Why are the Gujarat and Maharashtra police suddenly silent on this? The Surat vehicles bear Vadodara number plates yet their registration has been traced to Maharashtra; both the ATS Maharashtra and the Gujarat police are reluctant to release any details about the vehicles’ registration.

F. Missing CCTV records: On August 1, 2008 newspaper reports revealed that vital CCTV data which could have provided useful clues to the identity of those involved in the Ahmedabad terror attacks was missing or tampered with. The ATS’s great hope of putting a face to the Ahmedabad blasts had been dashed said the reports. The hard disk of CCTV footage that it had seized from the Talasari toll naka (check post) was ‘corrupted’ and did not contain any footage of the suspected terrorists crossing the naka in the cars stolen from Navi Mumbai. 

The ATS had seized the hard disk after it received specific information that the suspected terrorists had stolen four cars from Navi Mumbai and crossed the Talasari toll naka while fleeing to Gujarat where explosives were then planted in these cars. Since the Talasari toll naka has an elaborate network of CCTV cameras which not only record the registration number of the vehicles crossing the naka but even take pictures of the driver, the ATS had hoped it could finally put a face to the men behind the terror attacks. The Thane police told the media that a few weeks earlier they had been informed by toll naka officials that the CCTV apparatus was malfunctioning. As the entire apparatus was installed and maintained by a private firm it took some time for the police to fix the problem. Police say it is possible that the cars crossed the naka during this time 
(Mumbai Mirror and The Times of India, Pune).

CC:  From reports appearing in sections of the media it appears that CCTV data at the Talasari toll collection centre were either missing for those crucial dates or tampered with. It is now up to the investigating agencies to verify whether there was in fact some defect in the CCTV or the data was intentionally tampered with. None of this information was made public at the ‘breakthrough’ press conference.

If the CCTVs were malfunctioning, and this had been reported to the authorities, how often has such malfunctioning been reported before this? Who was the person on duty for the relevant dates, operating the CCTV or manning the Talasari toll naka? Who monitors the functioning of toll nakas? Serious questions need to be asked of whichever agency controls the entire toll collection operation, state or private.

G. Terror threat email: In a 14-page manifesto emailed to the media minutes before the serial bombings, an organisation calling itself the “Indian Mujahideen” claimed responsibility for the Ahmedabad attacks. Titled “The Rise of Jihad”, the manifesto said the bombings were carried out to avenge the 2002 anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat. “In the light of the injustice and wrongs on the Muslims of Gujarat,” it said, “we advance our jihad and call all our brethren under it to unite and answer these irresolute kafireen (infidels) of India” (The Hindu, July 27, 2008). The email from the Indian Mujahideen, which reached the media five minutes before the first bomb went off in Ahmedabad, was sent from the Yahoo mail account of “alarabi-gujarat” through an internet connection used in the name of Camp Kell White. The Internet Protocol (IP) address was traced to a Kenneth Haywood, living in Navi Mumbai.

As we go to press, Haywood has been allowed to flee India despite a ‘lookout notice’ against him, which means that his name is intimated to all airports and border checkpoints. Immigration at airports falls under the jurisdiction of central intelligence while airports fall under the purview of the ministry of home affairs (MHA).


Ahmedabad, July 2008

CC:  Was the Indian Mujahideen an organisation known to the Intelligence Bureau (IB) before the recent spate of bombings? (At his August 16 press conference DGP Pande said that SIMI minus the S and I equalled IM – Indian Mujahideen.) Was this organisation linked to any known terrorist/extremist groups, their activities and their terror attacks? 

What are the antecedents of Kenneth Haywood? Who within the central IB and the MHA were responsible for letting Haywood leave the country?

H. Other email threats: An accountant, Deepak Shivshankar Pandey, was arrested by Mumbai Crime Branch officials on July 31, 2008 for allegedly sending an email to a news channel in which he threatened more blasts. Though Pandey hailed from Mumbai, he was arrested in Ludhiana. The police said the email was traced back to the Punjab city from where he was then arrested (The Asian Age, August 1, 2008). According to Pudhari, a prominent Marathi daily published from Pune, Pandey is a committed activist and member of the RSS. Pudhari also reported on August 4 that Pandey had earlier been arrested for sending emails to the Maharashtra chief minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, and deputy chief minister, RR Patil, threatening to blow up religious places.

CC: Is there a link between this arrest and the other terror emails?

I. Farce of the Surat bombs: All the confidence exuded by DGP Pande as he talked of how police had solved the Ahmedabad serial blasts and the arrest of 10 SIMI activists as prime suspects fizzled out when media persons quizzed him about the Surat bombs and why they never went off (DNA, August 16, 2008). Pande was unable to answer whether the bombs were planned before or after the Ahmedabad blasts.

In another strange twist to the case of mysterious live bombs found and defused in Surat over several days the local police revealed that the Surat bombs were actually planted hours before the Ahmedabad serial bomb blasts took place. Surat police commissioner (CP) RMS Brar categorically confirmed that a citizen who had spotted the bombs and informed the police said that he first spotted the bomb at 11 a.m. on Saturday, July 26. (The Asian Age, August 1, 2008). The first bomb blast in Ahmedabad took place at around 6.45 p.m. i.e. nearly eight hours later. 

The Surat CP concluded from this that the Surat bombs were planted before the Ahmedabad serial blasts and that if they had actually exploded they would have caused much more havoc than all the Ahmedabad bombs put together. He also said that fortunately none of the Surat bombs had timers and the live bombs had all been defused by the local bomb disposal squad before they exploded. 

  • On July 29, a bomb was recovered from a treetop at Mini Hira Bazaar in Varachha. 
  • On July 29, a bomb was recovered from a flyover at Hira Baug Circle in Varachha and later defused. 
  • On July 29, a live bomb was recovered from a treetop near Mohan Chawl in Varachha whereas another bomb was recovered from an advertising banner stuck on the Flyover Bridge. 
  • On July 30, a live bomb was recovered from where it was hanging atop a tree near the Surat Municipal Corporation swimming pool in Kapdoara. 
  • On July 30, a live bomb was found hidden near a signboard at Mahidharpura Hira Bazaar. 
  • On August 3, a live bomb was recovered from a billboard at a bus stop in the Athwalines area (The Times of India, August 19, 2008).

CC:  How can the Surat police confidently assert – five days after the Ahmedabad blasts – that they have subsequently defused bombs in Surat that were actually meant for explosion before the Ahmedabad blasts? 

VM Parghi, an officer of the Gujarat police who was seriously indicted by the courts for perjury in the Best Bakery case (see CC, March 2006), is the man from the Gujarat (Surat) police who has been investigating the Surat bombs. Can this investigation have credibility?
The fact that the Surat bombs were defused in such a cavalier manner also prompted a section of the media to raise questions about the nature of these bombs.

J. Alleged phone calls to Pakistan: Police sources said that a life convict in a Sabarmati jail, said to be close to Pakistan-based fugitive Rasool Parti, would be interrogated in connection with the blasts. They said grilling Gulam Mohammed, jailed under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) in connection with the murder of Congress leader Rauf Valiullah (1991), could help them trace the link to Pakistan where they believe the blast conspiracy was hatched. Five months ago the Crime Branch reportedly discovered that Mohammed was making phone calls from the jail to Pakistan and Dubai where many absconding criminals from India are suspected to have fled. (The Telegraph, August 1, 2008).

CC:  How is it that information about phone calls to Pakistan from a jail in Gujarat, a clandestine and illegal act, was not made public before the Ahmedabad blasts?

K. Failure of intelligence: The Gujarat police have been severely criticised for inefficiency or worse in intelligence-gathering (The Times of India, July 27, 2008). 

Maharashtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) suspects that the conspiracy to carry out the bomb blasts in Ahmedabad was hatched by SIMI during a meeting in Gujarat in January. Around 15 SIMI men, including its chief, Safdar Nagori, his deputy, Shibli Abdul, and Sajid Mansoori and Asif Kagzi, two high-ranking activists from Gujarat, are said to have attended the two-day training camp in a forest area near Halol, around 50 km from Baroda, on January 13-14, the ATS said (DNA, August 4, 2008).
According to the Gujarat police, Safdar Nagori, the SIMI Madhya Pradesh unit chief who was arrested along with 12 others on March 27, 2008 from Indore (and has been in a Madhya Pradesh jail since then), had trained SIMI activists in the Halol jungle. Now we are told that another training camp also took place 30 km from Indore while yet another one was held in Kerala.

The Gujarat police’s breakthrough mentions the Halol training camp. It also emerges that the ATS Maharashtra had detained Nagori for almost a month before the Ahmedabad blasts and then sent him back to the Rewa jail where he is still in custody (The Times of India, August 17, and DNA, August 18, 2008).

CC: If the ATS had gained such incriminating evidence of a training camp attended by Nagori and others, including Mansuri, why were these leads not followed through? Why did they not inform the Gujarat police of the training camp when they learnt of it? If they did, how is it that the Gujarat police were clueless about the terror training camp held in the Halol forest in January 2008? Is it at all credible that SIMI, a banned organisation, could hold such arms training camps in Modi’s Gujarat? Besides, how did information about this camp, which took place on January 13-14, 2008, six months ago, miraculously surface through the Mumbai ATS only after the Ahmedabad blasts? What were the ATS Maharashtra and the Ahmedabad Crime Branch doing with this information all this time? What evidence do they have to definitively say that this meeting actually took place in January 2008?

What were the Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala and Maharashtra authorities doing with this collective knowledge of training camps until now?

Why did the Gujarat police not go in for early arrests or impose surveillance on suspects if they did know that the perpetrators were in the state? 

Did the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan lack coordination and fail to share crucial details of the interrogation? 

Was it plain complacency or worse on their part?

The breakthrough claim of the Gujarat police raises more questions than it answers. 

Criminal antecedents of the Gujarat police and administration
The same individuals who occupy top positions in the state executive and administration have now presented us with an open-and-shut case. Of the 10 persons arrested for planning and planting the bombs, nine hail from Gujarat. Apart from Modi and Pande, 66 others (ministers, civil servants and policemen) face serious charges of being part of a mass criminal conspiracy – deliberate dereliction of duty to protect the lives of innocent members of the minority community. Despite glaring evidence of the conspiracy, the Gujarat police have consistently refused to register a first information report (FIR) and the matter is pending before the Supreme Court.

The tragic burning alive of 59 persons in the Sabarmati Express at Godhra was itself manipulated to suit a sinister game plan orchestrated by the state’s chief minister, aided by central intelligence and the country’s home minister at the time, LK Advani. Both tried their hardest to project what the then district collector, Jayanti Ravi, had termed an ‘accident’ as an ‘ISI-led conspiracy’. 

Prompted by members of his sangh parivar and aided by submissive officers like PC Pande, the chief minister allowed the burnt corpses to be carried in open cavalcades into Ahmedabad city thus stoking hatred against the Muslim minority which had already been declared guilty in this diabolical plan for the Godhra burnings. 

An obliging police commissioner delayed the imposition of curfew in Ahmedabad until the afternoon of February 28, 2002 even though 26 violent incidents had already been registered the previous day. In the six-and-a-half years since the genocide of Gujarat 2002 the state administration and police continue in their efforts at subversion of the criminal justice system. This includes instances of perjury on oath before the Supreme Court of India. Given such antecedents, how can one be sure that the same government machinery has functioned professionally and with integrity during investigations into the recent bomb blasts?

Pande’s appointment to the highest police post in the state has been challenged in the apex court. Citizens for Justice and Peace – an organisation of which this writer happens to be secretary – has questioned the decision of the state government to appoint him as DGP when another case charging him of gross dereliction of duty during the genocide in 2002 is pending in the Supreme Court. 

At the last hearing of this writ petition in early August CJP filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court. Attached to it were two letters, written on April 19 and 29, 2002 by Pande, the then police commissioner of Ahmedabad to K. Chakravarti, the then DGP, Gujarat, complaining about the role of sangh parivar leaders, including a BJP minister, Bharat Barot, in the continuing communal violence in the city. While he spoke the truth to the DGP in these confidential letters in April 2002, Pande has continued to delude the Supreme Court even in his counter-affidavit filed on July 31, 2008.

Do we still remember that a big question mark hangs over the Gujarat police for the involvement of some of its senior officers in politically-driven encounter (extrajudicial) killings? Two senior officers of the Gujarat police, Modi’s blue-eyed boy, DG Vanzara, and Narendra Amin are still in custody for these crimes. The Ahmedabad Crime Branch is notorious for the illegal detention of prominent Muslims, especially those who offered relief and shelter to the victims in 2002, detentions that were carried out by officers like Tarun Barot and Vanzara. 

Significantly, Tarun Barot, a police officer indicted by the Concerned Citizens Tribunal – Gujarat 2002 for his close links to international president of the VHP, Praveen Togadia, is part of the crime bureau that probed the recent blasts.

Yet faced as we are with a cynical system that delays judicial trial of gross human rights abuses, a media that reports honestly on the blood on the streets but wears blinkers on the ideological and systemic rot in the system, we are today expected to put aside the unsavoury track record of the Gujarat government, bureaucracy and police and accept, unquestioningly, their claim that they have solved the Ahmedabad blasts case in 21 days.       

Archived from Communalism Combat,  July-August 2008 Year 15    No.133, Gujarat, Cover Story 

Murder by Blasphemy

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A Hindu worker in Pakistan is lynched for blasphemy as punishment for loving a Muslim girl: The Asian Human Rights Commission condemns the incident and demands strict and immediate governmental action against the culprits

A 27-year-old Hindu worker, Mr Jagdish Kumar, was killed by fellow Muslim workers on the charge of blasphemy in the presence of more than two dozen policemen, including an officer. The police and factory management made no attempt to stop the factory workers killing the young man. Some reports suggest that the victim was in love with a Muslim girl which was what angered the Muslim workers who also called for help from outside the factory. The sad truth of the fact is that no political group, not even the one in power, has started to investigate the incident or provide security to the Hindu community who are under tremendous threat and insecurity because of some fundamentalist Muslim groups.

According to the information collected, Mr Jagdish Kumar belonged to a lower Hindu caste and his family lives in Mirpurkhas, a city close to India bordering the Rajasthan state. Jagdish came to Karachi, the capital city of Sindh province, for a better job some years ago and joined the Nova leather factory in Korangi, Karachi, which has 7,000 workers, about 60 of whom are Hindu. Jagdish was very close to a Muslim girl who worked at the factory but supervisory staff and some
workers who are members of Islamic fundamentalist groups were not happy with the close relationship which developed between Jagdish and the Muslim girl. The relationship showed every promise of turning into a lifetime partnership.

On the day of the incident, April 8, 2008, at 10 a.m. some workers and security guards beat Jagdish and warned him not to "involve himself in so many things". They told him that he must remain simply a Hindu worker. After beating him, he was produced before Ms Naushaba, the supervisor of the stitching department where he was working, and Jagdish was accused of saying bad words against the Muslim prophet which he denied instantly. But Ms Naushaba, who was aware of his relationship with the girl, just softly slapped his face and told him to start work. So at that point things were quite normal but at 11.30 a.m. some workers of a religious group started beating him again and after some minutes the security guards of the factory locked him in a security room which had iron gates. The workers who had beaten him started shouting that Jagdish was using bad words against Islam.

In the meantime, Mr Irfan Iqbal, the director of Nova, along with his managers Mr Nadeem and Mr Saleem, arrived at the scene and in their presence the mob, believing that they had the support of the management, broke the iron gates of the room, dragged Jagdish out and beat him with heavy rods, stones and hammers. The management watched the incident without interfering. In the meantime, some people called the police and initially only four policemen turned up in a police jeep. Later they were followed by two more jeeps carrying officers who all stood by and watched the lynching. The police and the management remained spectators while the beating continued from 11.30 to 12.10 inside the factory compound. Witnesses from the Hindu community residing at Lyari town reported that even when the fanatics drove screwdrivers into Jagdish’s eyes neither the police nor the management intervened. When Jagdish was finally handed over to the police, he was dead. The police refused to enter a first information report (FIR) by the family of the victim but later on filed their own FIR after one day had passed.

Jagdish was beaten beyond recognition and as a result his body was not shown to his mother who is still in a state of semi-unconsciousness.

The family was first pressured by the management of the factory and the police not to register the case of killing by lynching. Then some Muslim religious groups persuaded the Hindu community residing in Marwari Mohalla, Lyari town, Karachi, not to file an FIR or report it to the press otherwise the whole Hindu community and particularly the 60 Hindu workers working in the factory would face more bloody incidents in the name of blasphemy charges. The management of the factory has since stopped sending its bus to cater for 40 Hindu workers from Marwari Mohalla. Marwari Mohalla has a population of 2,000 Hindus who reside in more than 200 houses in a big compound. The members of the
community are so scared that they locked themselves inside the compound (fearing attacks from) a Muslim fundamentalist sectarian group known as a militant organisation.

The police have arrested three persons, two from the Sunni Tehreek (ST), a militant sectarian organisation, and one from the Pasbaan organisation. However, the Korangi 4 police station is providing protection to the perpetrators by not arresting the other persons who were very visible in the (video footage of) the whole incident recorded on different cameras installed in and outside the factory. It is alleged that two arrested persons, Mr Waqas and Mr Usman of the Sunni Tehreek, are notorious and have been involved in cases of murder, attempt to murder, rape and other crimes but are employed by the management of the factory. Mr Sarwer Nadeem, the manager, along with these two persons is terrorising the employees, particularly young women who are generally employed on piece rates. The third arrested person, Mr Hashim Makrani, belongs to Pasbaan, also a religious organisation. There is a 300 strong group of ST members in the factory.

It is believed that the police are destroying the evidence against the other perpetrators and arrested persons. The Korangi 4 police station has appointed Mr Ulfat Husain, assistant subinspector, as investigating officer, who is very close to the management of the factory. On the other hand, the factory management says there is no video recording of the incident as their cameras were not working at the time.

One day before his killing, Waqas, Usman and some other persons from the ST threatened Jagdish not to come back to the factory otherwise he would face exemplary punishment. Jagdish complained about this threat to his seniors, particularly his supervisor, but no action was taken.

The provincial government of Sindh has still not started an investigation into this incident. When contacted, the minister for minority affairs, Mr Daya Ram said he had heard about the case but did not have detailed information. Later he said that he had informed the prime minister about the incident and the prime minister had assured him that he would look into the case. After the passing of several days, neither the minister nor the provincial government has done anything about the case. Even the Pakistan Peoples Party, a secular party in power, is not taking up the case, nor has it even issued a statement because of the involvement of powerful religious groups which the party does not want to annoy.

Different Muslim religious parties, including the Sunni Tehreek, Jamaat-e-Islami, have acknowledged the incident but other than condemn the matter, have not taken any action. This is the same situation with different NGOs who claim to represent civil society but who, as yet, have not issued any press statements. Only the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has issued a statement.

The dark aspect of the incident is that extreme militant Muslim organisations will use the tool of blasphemy as the best way to keep religious minority groups under pressure. This will continue if the state does not rein in the misuse of the blasphemy law. The conspicuously indifferent attitude of the coalition government of the Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Muslim League (N) on the issue of
killing a young man just because he was in love with a Muslim girl will turn the country into an intolerant society and no one, not even political parties, will be spared by the militant groups.

The government of Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani should immediately probe this case of the killing of a young Hindu man on charges of blasphemy. The government must take action before the formation of a probe commission by judges from higher courts. The police officers and the factory management that stood by and watched this young man being beaten to death must be brought before the law and punished accordingly.

The demand for a probe commission consisting of judges from higher courts is very pertinent as the incident is of a heinous crime where the government and state has remained inactive. This will be a test case in which the newly elected government will either show its commitment for the rule of law or adopt the course of political expediency.

Archived from Communalism Combat,  May 2008, Year 14, No.131 – Neighbours 4 

Shrill Sounds

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Sloganeering in Srinagar

Hindi is the other name for Indianness’, declares a slogan in Hindi on a board put up on the otherwise bare wall of a makeshift chamber that one passes through as one makes one’s way out of Srinagar’s heavily fortified airport. An odd way, surely, for the Indian state to stress its claims to genuine respect for cultural and linguistic pluralism and to seek to ‘win the hearts of the Kashmiris’ as the tired and trite phrase goes – heavily Sanskritised Hindi of the Government of India variety not only being a totally alien tongue in Kashmir but also being seen as a potent symbol of Hindu chauvinism directed against Muslims. Is it then any surprise that the hegemonic version of Indian nationalism that this slogan represents has few, if any, takers in Kashmir?

Equally shrill slogans greet one as one drives out of the airport through Srinagar’s suburbs and into the heart of town. ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, ‘India is one, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari’, ‘Hindustan Zindabad’, ‘Kashmir, the Crown of India’, ‘CRPF, the Keepers of Peace’ and so on scream these slogans, painted on bunkers located at road crossings, behind which stand gun toting soldiers guarding the Indian flag. Few Kashmiris, needless to say, take these slogans at all seriously and a visitor from Delhi is still referred to as having come from India, for despite the obvious decline in violence in the region, for many Kashmiris India is still a foreign country and its armed forces an occupying power.

‘Thanks to Smt Sonia Gandhi for Nominating Jenab Ghulam Nabi Azad as Chief Minister of J&K State’ announces a sprawling billboard just down the street from the Tourist Reception Centre in the heart of Srinagar. It was obviously hurriedly put up just in time for Sonia Gandhi’s visit to Srinagar in March when she came to inaugurate a tulip garden in town. Care was taken that Ms Gandhi be duly informed about the man behind this outpouring of loyalty to her, his name, his picture and his designation as the president of the Jammu and Kashmir Youth Congress being prominently displayed in the centre of the board. Is one to understand, as the board seems to suggest, that the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir owes his position not to the people of the state but rather, to the munificence of a woman from outside who clearly has no mandate to do so?

Few Kashmiris take these slogans at all seriously and a visitor from Delhi is still referred to as having come from India, for despite the obvious decline in violence in the region, for many Kashmiris India is still a foreign country and its armed forces an occupying power

The tulip garden which Ms Gandhi flew in to inaugurate was greeted with much indignation in large sections of the Kashmiri press although obviously this was carefully left unmentioned by the Indian media that reported on it, which exulted in the claim that this was yet another sign of the conflict torn region returning to ‘normalcy’, with the flowers back in bloom. The sprawling garden, extending over several dozen acres and located in the lap of the thickly forested hills of Zabarwan on the banks of the scenic Dal lake, was the brainchild of the chief minister and has obviously cost the public exchequer an enormous amount of money. Ghulam Nabi Azad, needless to say, strategically chose to name the garden after the late Indira Gandhi and to invite her daughter-in-law to inaugurate it. Obviously, the choice of the name found little or no support among the denizens of Srinagar, most of whom, in any case, cannot afford the hefty entrance fee and were also understandably upset over newspaper reports that government officials were literally forcing schoolchildren to visit the park.

‘Inaugurated by the Vice-Chancellor’, announces a granite slab at the foot of a pillar that forms part of a new boundary wall that has come up at the entrance of Kashmir University. The man who managed to have his name inscribed therein is thankfully no longer in charge of the university but before he left he obviously made it a point to commemorate himself for the sake of posterity despite the fact that he was not known for his academic achievements, my university friends describing him charitably as even less than mediocre.

With elections in Kashmir around the corner, sloganeering politicians have been seeking to make waves by raising issues that they generally promptly forget once polls are over. So, as the Kashmiri press reports, some have demanded that Pakistani currency be allowed to be used in Kashmir, others have called for free trade across the Line of Control and all of them are branding the others as having betrayed the Kashmir cause and as allegedly working as Indian or Pakistani agents or even both, as the case might be.

Heated sloganeering also shrouds the raging controversy over a report recently released by the Srinagar-based Association of the Parents of the Disappeared (APDP) which claims that over a thousand unidentified graves located in the border tehsil of Uri in Kashmir’s Baramulla district might be those of innocent civilians done to death by the Indian armed forces and then branded as ‘terrorists’. The Indian authorities, predictably, have sought to hush up the issue while human rights defenders continue to insist that stern action be taken against the perpetrators of these crimes.

The truth however seems to lie somewhere in between. On a visit to the mountain village of Bijhama, located seven kilometres from the Line of Control, I was informed that while the APDP report speaks of some 200 unidentified graves in the village graveyard, just 13 of these are of men labelled by the armed forces as ‘militants’, mostly intruders from across the border, while the rest are actually of local inhabitants who died natural deaths. That, of course, is not to deny the reality of fake encounters in Kashmir involving the Indian armed forces but, as a human rights activist pressed upon me, if the authors of the APDP report are not to lose their carefully built up credibility they ought to have done their research more carefully.

Two weeks in Srinagar and, as usual, I’ve been subjected to a heavy overdose of sloganeering. We drive down to the airport although I, as always, have mixed feelings about leaving a place that I love so much. We stop at the Iqbal Park to take a photograph of the poet Iqbal (adored by many Kashmiris particularly because he was of Kashmiri origin), set against a strawberry pink board. Below his picture is a verse from him in Persian which talks of Kashmir as being the rose in a garden. Below that, in English, the board declares, ‘Make your own world from the clay of India’. If that is meant to be a translation of the Persian verse, it is obviously erroneous and misleading. But then the board has been put up by the Central Reserve Police Force and so, presumably, no one can dare question it.

The airport is abuzz with activity. Planeloads of tourists and soldiers are heading back to Delhi. Srinagar airport is unique. In no other airport in India is one forced to submit to lessons in Indian nationalism. ‘We are Hindis and Hindustan is Ours’, ‘India is One’ and so on scream slogans painted on little blue plastic boards placed haphazardly all over the waiting hall.

Slogans galore, but then that is part of what the whole war over Kashmir is really all about.

Archived from Communalism Combat,  May 2008, Year 14, No.131 – Agenda

Instruments of Murder

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Pakistan’s bombers: The war of drones

Drones, machine and human, have drenched Pakistan with the blood of innocents. On the one side are US-made drones such as the MQ-1B General Dynamics Predator – a remote-controlled, self-propelled, missile-bearing aerial system. On the other side are the low-tech human drones, armed with explosive vests stuffed with ball bearings and nails.

These lethal engines of destruction, programmed by remote handlers, are very different. But neither asks why it must kill, nor cares about the death and suffering it causes.

On January 13, 2006 a bevy of MQ-1Bs hovering over Damadola launched a barrage of 10 Hellfire missiles at the village below. They blew up 18 local people, including five women and five children. Such cold statistics say nothing about the smashed lives of the survivors or the grief of the bereaved. The blame was put on faulty local intelligence.

Then, on October 30, 2006 a Hellfire missile hit a madrassa in Bajaur, killing between 80-85 people, mostly students. Even if those killed were allegedly training to become al-Qaeda militants, and even if a few key al-Qaeda leaders such as Abu Laith al-Libi have been eliminated, the more usual outcome has been flattened houses, dead and maimed children and a growing local population that seeks revenge against Pakistan and the US.

The human drone has left a far bloodier trail across Pakistani cities.

From six suicide attacks in 2006, the tally went up to 62 in 2007. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, at least 1,523 civilians were killed in terror-related violence in 2007 and more than twice that number injured. The average is now more than one per week – the last week (early March) saw three in a row. Those praying in mosques, imambaras or at funerals have been no safer than others at political rallies or while crossing a road.

It is possible to imagine how an American soldier or CIA operative controlling a Predator drone can distance himself from the death and destruction it causes in a remote country on the other side of the world that they imagine is full of enemies. For them it is a job and a way to defend their country. What is harder to understand is how the Pakistani suicide bomber can kill people who are so close to him in so many ways.

A spine-chilling suicide bomber training video, one of the several videos that freely circulate in Pakistan’s tribal areas, offers the beginning of an explanation. About 30 masked fighters are filmed in this video, speaking a language that is not any of Pakistan’s regional languages, Arabic or Persian. They are training in some barren mountainous area.

One fighter, randomly selected by their leader, proceeds to climb a huge rock, perhaps 100 feet high. He reaches the highest point and then stands motionless. His arms are outstretched as though on a diving board. On a signal from the leader below, without hesitation and without closing his eyes, he hurls himself into the void.

The camera cuts to the body lying on blood-soaked ground. It slowly pans over the faces of the other masked fighters. Their eyes betray no emotion. A second signal from the leader and they trot, military-style, to the body, dig a shallow grave, toss their dead comrade into it and cover it up.

Then, amazingly, they march over the grave several times, chanting Koranic verses. This is astonishing because to trample a grave is the ultimate mark of disrespect in a Muslim culture.

Why sacrifice a human life for a few minutes of footage? English subtitles reveal that this is obviously a propaganda video. Its message: the group’s fighters have overcome the fear of death and have willingly surrendered their lives to the group leader, and their individual powers to reason and decide.

As troubling as the murders is the response of Pakistanis. While the murder of innocents by the MQ-1B has rightly led to condemnation in Pakistan, the even greater carnage by suicide bombers has provoked less criticism. Some editorials, mostly in English language newspapers, have been forthright. But there are few full-throated denunciations to be found in Urdu newspapers.

Why do so many Pakistanis who should know better suddenly lose their voice when it comes to condemning suicide bombings? Is it because the bomber kills in the name of Islam? Are people muted in their criticism lest they be regarded as irreligious or even blasphemous? Or is the silence political?

On the other hand, implicit justifications abound. In January 2008, 30 leading Deobandi religious scholars, while declaring suicide attacks ‘haram’, rationalised these as a reaction to the government’s misguided polices in the tribal areas. They concluded that "a peaceful demand for implementing Shariah was not only rejected but the government was also not willing to give ear to any reasoning based on the Koran and Sunnah in support of the Shariah demand. Apparently, these circumstances led some minds to the frustration that manifested itself in suicide attacks."

What are these ulema telling us? That we should adopt the Shariah to avoid being attacked? This amounts to encouragement and incitement, not condemnation of the suicide bombers’ actions. But even civil society activists, who have bravely protested against the dismissal of the chief justice by General Musharraf, have not held any street protests against these ghastly crimes.

Why do so many Pakistanis who should know better suddenly lose their voice when it comes to condemning suicide bombings? Is it because the bomber kills in the name of Islam? Are people muted in their criticism lest they be regarded as irreligious or even blasphemous?

Or is the silence political? Many choose to believe that the suicide bomber is a consequence of Pakistan’s acquiescence to being America’s junior partner in its war against terror. Conversely, there is a widespread opinion that suicide attacks will disappear if Pakistan dissociates itself from this war. But few admit the brutal fact that even if America retreats or an elected government calls off the army, the
terror of jihadism will remain.

It is true that suicide bombings were a rarity in Pakistan until the army acted against Islamic militants in the tribal areas on US prodding. Army action against the Lal Masjid militants was another turning point. But the majority of today’s dead and wounded are perfectly ordinary people. Many were pious Muslims and some were killed in the act of prayer. They had absolutely nothing to do with American or Pakistani forces.

Even with evidence staring them in the face, most Pakistanis seem locked into a state of denial. They refuse to accept the obvious fact that more and more mullahs have created cults around themselves and exercise control over the lives of worshippers. An enabling environment of poverty, deprivation, lack of justice and extreme differences of wealth is perfect for demagogues.

As the mullah’s indoctrination gains strength, the power to reason weakens. The world of the follower becomes increasingly divided into absolute good and absolute evil. Doubt is replaced by certainty, moral sensibilities are blunted. Reduced to a mere instrument for murder, the bomber-to-be is left with no room for useless things such as judgement, doubt or conscience. As other human beings become mere objects rather than people deserving of love and compassion, the metamorphosis from human to drone becomes complete.

The last thoughts of a suicide bomber cannot be known but remorse or doubt is unlikely. There is no lower depth to which humans can fall to.

Except, perhaps, those who control them – and towards whom we still dare not point a finger at.

Courtesy: Dawn; www.dawn.com
 

Losing my identity

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Diary: Touring Modi’s ‘vibrant’ Gujarat

My plane landed at Ahmedabad airport in the wee hours of the morning. As I emerged from this splendid airport I was surrounded by a herd of taxi-drivers all asking me to get into their taxis. One of them picked up my bags as another literally pushed me into his cab, each compelling me to travel with him. It was a surreal feeling.

I had planned to visit several places in Gujarat on this tour and according to my schedule I was to leave for Anand the same day. I could go either by local train or taxi and I had been advised to use a taxi. The problem was however that while I sat in one taxi my luggage had been loaded into another. This hijack only confirmed that although I was travelling into Narendra Modi’s progressive Gujarat, in fact I stood helplessly in no man’s land.

Last year, under Narendra Modi’s leadership, the BJP won the Gujarat assembly elections with a thumping majority. The BJP’s mega success and absolute majority in the state assembly has already made Modi mightier than his party. As a leader, he ‘helped himself’ and the BJP to retain success. He now rules the state for yet another term, making it four consecutive terms for the BJP.

Following his victory at the polls, Narendra Modi declared that his win was a triumph of the sentiments and prestige of five crore Gujaratis (sic) "including its 50 lakh Muslims". It is however a shameful truth that the Muslims of Gujarat are still outcastes in their own land.

Why did Modi win with a complete majority? Political pundits and analysts in the media have their own explanations for this; the media always seems able to justify ‘worshipping the rising sun’. According to popular opinion in the fourth estate, it was Gujarat’s social, political and economic development under Modi’s "able leadership" through the preceding decade that rewarded him with yet another term in power.

Five years down the line, many media hypotheses and views, voices that the media once espoused, seem to have subsided as many lie forgotten. The one fact that everyone seems to agree on today is that Modi won thanks to the social, political and economic prosperity of his state. Yet his win owes much to his religious chauvinism, his bigotry being a major factor in scripting his "success story". A state that had long been experimenting with religious dogmatism, Gujarat soon turned into a boiling hotbed of Hindu fanaticism. The carnage and riots of 2002 was the chosen battleground where thousands of Muslims were slaughtered, their women brutally raped and murdered, in a genocide that was condemned worldwide.

Ironically, this time around, Narendra Modi was praised for his "statesmanship". Hindutva’s new poster boy for victory made history for the win-win mechanism of Hindu fanaticism. Interestingly, the media seemed to forget his many misdeeds.

As a devout Gujarati, Narendra Modi has developed infrastructure in his state. He appealed to non-resident Gujaratis to maintain ties with their state as true sons of the soil. He has improved the distribution and supply of electricity in Gujarat and supported industrialisation for sustainable growth. But as chief minister he can pick and choose which areas to look after and which ones to avoid. Upon closer analysis it appears that Modi deliberately overlooked Muslim dominated areas of the state, which are instead being looked after by NGOs. Functioning within their own limitations, these NGOs are unable to formulate feasible plans for development; especially without the governmental support they are denied. The very idea that they work for a particular religious group is reason enough to arouse bias against them. Where then do Gujarat’s Muslims and their supporting NGOs fit in such a scenario?

My musings come to a halt as I zero in on a taxi that could drive me to Anand. Appearances speak louder than words, they say. I applied this wisdom to the dilemma at hand, looked deeply into the faces of both taxi-drivers and concluded that one of them was a Muslim. He sported a beard and his typical attire, a salwar khameez, confirmed his identity. I chose to take his taxi because I thought it would be safer travelling in a Muslim’s taxi – my misgivings had transformed me into a communal peer.

Guessing my intentions, the other taxi-driver played his final card. Hoping to change my mind, he used sound fiscal logic to lure me into his taxi instead. Sir! How much are you going to pay that mian (Muslim) chap? It isn’t safe to travel with a Muslim in Gujarat nowadays.

My appearance disguises my religion and I wasn’t easily distinguishable as a Muslim, rather I have often been mistaken for a Hindu.

You ride with me and pay me 100 rupees less than what you would have paid that mian, he said.

Perhaps it would be an adventure to travel in disguise. I chose the taxi driven by Hirabhai Patel, the Hindu taxi-driver, and instructed him to take me on a tour of Ahmedabad before I left for Anand. The architectural beauty of this historical city evoked its golden past, highlighting a bygone era. Its splendid buildings and monuments surpassed my musings. This was no idle reverie.

I had to be careful when I answered incoming calls on my mobile phone, choosing to say “hi” instead of “salaam” to my Muslim friends when they called. I did this not out of fear but because I wanted to hear more of these outbursts from an ordinary if communalised Hindu who had been poisoned by hatemongering

As we traversed a busy city street, Hirabhai Patel asked me my name. Asif Anwar, I replied. He repeated it aloud, with some modifications: Ashish Anup. Yeah, I said, and began to talk of something else. But I was not afraid. So you are a North Indian Brahmin. Would you please shut up and take me to some monuments, I rebuked him. Sure, sir! A little later, Hirabhai’s words, uttered as we drove through another crowded street, grabbed my attention. Sir, look at that place. This is where the biggest ever dhamal had happened. Dhamal! What do you mean? I don’t understand. You wouldn’t since you are a "non-Gujarati Hindu". Dhamal is a riot where devout Gujarati Hindus killed Muslims and showed them their rightful place – the graveyard.

I couldn’t weep. I should not. Apart from anything else, I could have been taken for a Muslim.

A few hours’ journey had suddenly become an exhausting experience.

From my seat in the taxi, I looked out anew at the city’s monuments. To my eyes, most of them seemed to be stained with fresh blood. I looked at Hirabhai who was now driving along in silence. People like him had turned into Hindu chauvinists. But who can blame him for the mischief he gave voice to? He had his arguments. Thousands like him had been instigated to choose the path of hatred.

I toured all of Ahmedabad city in the space of two hours. I was shown each and every temple in the city. I visited a grand temple at the army base camp. Each devotee, including ‘me’, was checked through security. I ate prasad. If they could have, the security guards would have checked my ‘religion and my intentions’ and found that I was not a worshipper but, unfortunately for them, they could not. I didn’t visit a single mosque in Ahmedabad. And I admired the towering architecture of its temples.

By evening I had arrived in Anand. Hirabhai was happy that I was a "devoted Hindu" from North India. Still, he contended, Gujarati Hindus were unsurpassable in their devotion. North Indian Hindus cannot even begin to conceive of what Gujarati Hindus had done. This was all thanks to the "able leadership" of a man of Narendra Modi’s stature, he said.

I kept nodding in mute agreement, yeah, yeah. I was in no mood for a discussion on such weighty issues with a taxi-driver. I had to be careful when I answered incoming calls on my mobile phone, choosing to say "hi" instead of "salaam" to my Muslim friends when they called. I did this not out of fear but because I wanted to hear more of these outbursts from an ordinary if communalised Hindu who had been poisoned by hatemongering.

History flashed back through the centuries, years and years through which Gujarat has encountered the Hindu hatemonger. Viewed against this backdrop, Narendra Modi was no more than an ‘active’ puppet of Hindu fanaticism who deliberately advocated the ‘cause of Hinduism’. One cannot but recall the Gujarat riots of 1714, 1715, 1716, 1741, 1750, 1941, 1946, 1965, 1969, 1982, 1984, 1986, and the more recent ones of 1992, 1993 and 2002. The seeds of hatred have spread unbridled among leaders here.

On entering the precincts of the Institute of Rural Management in Anand, which I was visiting on an official assignment, I paid the taxi-driver’s fare. As he was leaving, he invited me to come back to Ahmedabad and hire his taxi again, saying that it was really nice to have toured his Gujarat with a "North Indian Hindu". By this time I had decided to clarify Hirabhai’s misconceptions. I told the poor chap, enough is enough. Do you know my identity? I am a Muslim, and a devout Muslim. Now, please leave me alone. I had grown increasingly short-tempered.

Hirabhai Patel was plainly stunned. He sped off the campus, probably convinced that he had been deceived by a Muslim – an experience he wouldn’t forget in this lifetime. One that could turn him into either a true Hindu or a full-fledged hatemonger.

I don’t know what happened with him. But a minute or two later when I received a call on my mobile phone I answered the call and, as usual, said salaam.

Hirabhai had reconfirmed my identity. He had disconnected the call.

I had toured Modi’s vibrant Gujarat.

Archived from Communalism Combat,  February 2008 Year 14    No.128-Cover Story 3

The only hope

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Manufacturing a fig leaf of democracy in Pakistan

The Government of Pakistan early in February stopped the Washington-based International Republican Institute (IRI) from performing exit polls on the February 18 general elections. Consequently, the institute, headed by US Senator John McCain, reversed a decision to send election observers for the polls. It was the only US group planning to send observers although European teams still plan to be in place. 

According to an IRI poll in September 2006, Musharraf had a 63 per cent approval rating. But last October 11, the IRI released a poll showing him down at 21 per cent. Thirteen days later, an official letter arrived, telling the IRI that it was not possible to register the group in Pakistan "due to administrative reasons". 

Why was the IRI stopped from conducting the exit polls? The reason appears obvious. The government of President (retd General) Pervez Musharraf does not want exit polls to challenge ‘doctored’ official election results.  

To digress from the subject, General Musharraf was re-elected as president for five years in October last by a parliament whose term expired a month later. Just to refresh your memories, he was chief of army staff when he sought re-election and resigned from the army post only after the controversial re-election which saw many parliamentarians quitting and boycotting the election because constitutionally, a serving general was not eligible to stand for president.  

Not surprisingly, popular perceptions about the integrity of the electoral process in Pakistan are dismal. Only 21 per cent of the country’s voting age population believes elections in the country are free and fair, a percentage that is among the lowest in the world. In a Gallup International study of around 60 countries, Pakistan is ahead of only the Philippines (19 per cent) and Nigeria (nine per cent) in this regard. 

According to Pakistan’s Citizens Group on Electoral Process (CGEP), the past eight elections, from 1970 to 2002, have been marred by rigging in three phases: pre-poll, polling day and post-poll.

Pre-poll rigging refers to a deliberate attempt to selectively tilt the rules of a level playing field in favour of or against any contestant. It includes violation of constitutional requirements such as: 1) Neutrality of the caretaker government; 2) Independence of the election commission and related judiciary; 3) Neutrality of the election administration staff; 4) Violation of freedom of media to approach voters; and 5) Use of public resources to benefit some contestants and/or hurt others, including politically partisan use of development funds through various government agencies such as utility organisations (electricity, gas) and local bodies. 

Polling day rigging refers to violation of the integrity (honesty) of the ballot box. It includes: tampering with/stuffing ballot boxes; impersonation and multiple voting; prevention of voting by certain persons or groups through unlawful means, including coercion; dishonest counting of votes and dishonest tabulation of results. 

Post-poll rigging refers to the absence of fair play in the formation of a government according to popular mandate. It includes the use of public resources (in violation of constitutional provisions) to influence, affect or alter the formation of government. This is particularly acute when the above is done to support the formation of a government by those undeserving according to the will of the people or to demolish a government by those who are upheld by the will of the people. 

President Musharraf has already completed the first phase of election rigging. In November 2007 he imposed emergency rule. One of the first steps Musharraf took under emergency rule was to replace Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry whom he had initially tried to dismiss in March 2007. He sacked dozens of independent-minded judges. Musharraf then moved to crack down on the media, lawyers, social activists and secular and religious political opponents. Under domestic and international pressure, he rescinded the state of emergency but the harsh measures remained in force. 

There can be no two opinions on the fact that without an independent judiciary and a free media, fair and free elections will not be possible. There is a popular demand to restore all sacked judges. However, the US has declined to support popular demand for the restoration of an independent judiciary. Assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher told a congressional panel on January 29 that Pakistan could deal with the dispute involving the judiciary after the elections as it was important to hold the elections first. Tellingly, Boucher admitted that there would be rigging in the elections. "We don’t necessarily accept a certain level of fraud but if history is any guide and current reports are any guide we should expect some," Boucher told the law-makers.  

The last general election of 2002 witnessed unparalleled heights of pre-poll and post-poll rigging. In order to perpetuate the rule of General Pervez Musharraf, a number of illegal rules were framed. Since the country was practically governed under an extra-constitutional arrangement, there was no concern about ensuring a level playing field, neutrality of the administration or independence of the election commission. To this extent, the pre-poll partisan role of the state was a continuation of previous unlawful practice but the 2002 election carried it a step further by engaging a sizeable number of military officials, local government functionaries and other public servants to play an openly political role at the grass roots. Similarly, post-poll interference with the electoral process was massive. In no other election in Pakistan, with the possible exception of 1970 when the electoral result was totally overturned, was the electoral outcome disturbed as ruthlessly and unlawfully as in 2002. This was done through systematic use of rewards, punishments and intimidation by the state apparatus under the leadership of General Pervez Musharraf. 

A rigged election (in 2008) would have serious consequences for domestic stability and regional and wider international security, says the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG). In 2002 the military government rigged the elections and was able to survive with its power, if not legitimacy, intact. This year opposition to centralised, authoritarian rule has grown considerably, particularly in the smaller provinces. To neutralise this, the government will be more dependent than ever on the most problematic of its civilian partners. 

In Sindh, for example, it will have little alternative for countering Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and its predominantly Sindhi constituency other than to use the electoral machinery to favour its MQM (Muttahida (formerly Mohajir) Quami Movement) allies. This would further stoke Mohajir-Sindhi tensions, already high after the May 12, 2007 killings of PPP workers by MQM activists. An MQM government in Sindh, in coalition with Musharraf’s ruling party, would not only fuel anti-military sentiments but could well return the province to bloody ethnic conflict. 

In Balochistan, where the military’s attempts to crush demands for democracy and provincial rights have triggered a province-wide insurgency, the prospects for the Baloch regional parties to win a free and fair election and form the provincial government have increased considerably. Rigged elections could seriously strain the cohesion of the federation even as they benefit the Islamist parties. The Baloch nationalist parties already have an uphill task to convince their young workers that political change can and should come through the ballot box, not the gun. Should the election be rigged, that choice may no longer appear viable to many Baloch dissidents who have borne the brunt of military rule for eight years, the ICG report concluded. 

In the NWFP (North-West Frontier Province) too, the government will have little choice but to give its allies free rein to manipulate the electoral process if it is to retain their support not just in the province but also in the national parliament.  

However, a distorted and rigged electoral process will not ensure regime stability let alone national cohesion. The parliamentary elections are crucial for Pakistan’s long-term viability as a democratic state. If they are free and fair, they will restore public faith in state institutions and constitutional and legal ways of changing governments.
 

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