Aakar Patel, well known columnist and former executive director of Amnesty International India, has stated on Twitter that he was arrested and then let out on bail earlier this week for allegedly posting “offensive” tweets against the Ghanchi community in Gujarat. It was the  Surat City police registered an FIR against Patel, filed by Purnesh Modi, a ruling Bhartiya Janata Party MLA from Surat West constituency and president of the Samast Gujarati Modhvanik Samaj.

Was arrested and bailed yesterday for an FIR filed by BJP citing sections incl 153A (promoting enmity). Will fight it.

— Aakar Patel (@Aakar__Patel) September 22, 2020

The criminal complaint-FIR- registered on July 7 states that on June 24 and June 27, Patel had posted three tweets that were objectionable and against the community. Patel has been booked under Sections 153 A, 295 A, 505 (1) B, 505 (1) C, 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code. Most of these sections are non-bailable. The complainant has listed three tweets posted by Patel. In the first two tweets, Patel mentioned that Prime Minister Narendra Modi belonged to the Ghanchi caste, which was added to the Other Backward Caste list in 1999 by then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s regime. Patel goes on to say that the community is “well-off” and is “meat-eating” and that Modi has taken on the manner of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and has turned vegetarian.

In another tweet that followed, Patel has alleged that those involved in the 2002 Sabarmati train carnage belonged to the Muslim Ganchi community.

On June 27, in this third tweet, Patel wrote, “The RSS and BJP always profit by the violence against other Indians, especially Muslims. Vajpayee more than Upadhyaya, Advani more than Vajpayee and Modi more than Advani benefitted from this. We have to stop this cycle of violence and blood profit by the RSS and BJP.”

Ghanchi Caste: Background

Patel’s claim that the crowd involved in the Godhra train fire of 2002 comprised Ghanchi Muslims is not something new, it has been reported widely in the media before. It is also unclear what offence the police believe his first tweet has caused, even though there was a factual inaccuracy.

The Surat police on September 21 recorded Patel’s statement and has now asked for the devices used to tweet to be handed over to the police. Patel says he will soon be handing them over soon.

Although this is not the first time that a criminal case has been registered against the columnist for his vocal stand against the current dispensation, he told the media that he was surprised when he was informed about the FIR. “I was surprised it was filed. The tweets are factual,” he responded in an email. Patel says he will defend himself and will be weighing his options to see if the FIR can be quashed.

In the past sixweeks, Patel has been informed of at least two police cases against him and he says both of them were registered in BJP-ruled states. “The state has become quite intolerant of dissent. This (the tweets) is not an original observation and is not a new phenomenon. What is new is the extreme to which it is taken, especially at a time when the government ought really to be focussed on its work,” Patel shared.

While Patel has been individually targeted, in the past, when he was associated with Amnesty International India, both he and the organisation had been targeted several times by both the state and central machinery. “There are other cases (I have lost count of the number) related to the organisation (Amnesty International India) I was working for until last year, which continues to be harassed through the (Central Bureau of Investigation) CBI, Enforcement Directorate and (Ministry of Home Affairs) MHA and through cases like sedition filed by the (Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad) ABVP,” Patel alleges.

In 2002, Aakar Patel, along with Dilip Padgaonkar and BG Verghese had authored the Editor’s Guild report on media coverage of 2002, Rights and Wrongs. The report had meticulously documented what had gone wrong within the media coverage (build up and fall out) of the communal carnage, also highlighting individual efforts that stood out for fair reporting upholding the ethics of the profession.

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The just released Amnesty International India field investigation has documented several human rights violations allegedly committed by the Delhi Police during the 2020 February communal riots. Their allegations include Delhi Police officers indulging in violence with the rioters, torturing detainees in custody, using excessive force on protesters, dismantling protest sites used by peaceful protesters and being mute bystanders as rioters wreaked havoc. 

Amnesty International India interviewed several survivors who witnessed the carnage when communal violence erupted in residential neighbourhoods of North East Delhi, where Muslims and Hindus had lived peacefully as neighbours for decades. The hate speech triggered communal riots spread fast, and it later came to light that in the wake of delayed responses from government emergency services, most survivors were left to fend for themselves over a period of six days of violence in Delhi, from February 23 to 29, 2020. The riots claimed at least 53 lives and injured more than 500. During these six months, the Delhi Police in their investigations into the riots have filed more than 750 First Information Reports (FIRs) and at least 200 chargesheets.

Amnesty India investigated and spoke to riot survivors from both Hindu and Muslim communities. Almost all eye witness accounts recorded and analysed have led to the Amnesty report holding Delhi Police responsible for multiple “human rights violations.” Survivors and eyewitnesses told Amnesty International India that the Delhi police could have stopped the violence, if they had responded in time.

These are the memories the survivors now have to live with, as noted in the report. (Excerpted from the Amnesty India investigation report that can be read here)

Moinuddin, whose shop at Maujpur was burnt  down by rioters, told Amnesty that he  witnessed Bharatiya Janata Party politician Kapil Mishra’s speech at Maujpur Chowk on February  23. “From my shop, Maujpur Chowk is about 100 meters. Over there, I saw Kapil Mishra come and give an inflammatory speech. After his speech, the public which was listening to him started gathering sticks and other weapons. I got scared and shut my shop. Within hours, I came to know that my shop was set on fire. I called the fire brigade but they did not even respond to my phone calls. I live in Brahampuri, where both Hindus and Muslims have shops. We have lived peacefully till the riots. I do not understand what is  happening now in Delhi”.

Amnesty has recorded that the riot claimed “almost three times the number of Muslim casualties compared to Hindus. Muslims also bore the brunt of loss of business and property.” However, even though, “the percentage may be lower but establishments and homes owned by Hindus were not left completely untouched,” it stated. One of the most prominent Hindu owned establishments in the area, DRP Convent Public School, Shiv Vihar was targeted, allaegedly by a ‘Muslim mob’.

Roop Singh, the caretaker, and security incharge of the DRP Convent Public School, Shiv Vihar, recalled what he saw: “They were raising slogans of ‘Nara-e-takbeer Allah o Akbar’ (God is Great)”. The DRP Convent Public School was vandalised during the riots on February 24 and 25. Singh recalled that he “saw two ropes hanging into our compound from Rajdhani School next door and about 40-50 men climbing down. They were raising slogans of ‘nara-e-takbeer allah o akbar’ (God is Great). They opened the gate and more men came in. They fired in my direction with a locally made pistol. They said, ‘There is a Hindu, kill him’,” he recalled that the “rioters did not let the police enter”. 

Kamlesh Uppal, also recounted her horror of calling the police in vain. “In the afternoon, they broke the locks and burnt my house. We were living there for the last 22 years and they didn’t leave anything. We built our home with so much hard work but the people burnt it down. We tried calling the police, we thought they would come and control the law and order situation but it took them more than three days to come to our locality,” she said. 

Image Courtesy:amnesty india

Amnesty also took note of a video that went viral on social media, where Delhi Police officers are seen kicking and hitting a group of five wounded men, ordering them to sing the Indian National Anthem. After the video was shot, the men were taken to the police station on the same day and detained. 

Kismatun the mother of 26-year-old Faizan, one of the men in the video, told Amnesty she had seen the video several times but did not realise until much later that her son was also there in the video. “I went to the police station along with my son’s photograph. I showed them his photograph and asked if he was there and they said yes. I asked them if they would let me see him and if they would let him go. The policeman said no. But I still waited there till 1 o’clock in the night,” she said. Faizan was detained by the police for close to 36 hours without any charge. He was handed over to his mother at 1 AM on 26 February after his condition deteriorated. The police refused to give any paperwork to the family to show that he had been detained, stated Amnesty.

“I asked them why they were allowing me inside the police station late in the night when just the previous night they had told me that women were not allowed. I said this after they handed over my son.” The policeman told her “to be grateful that I had got my son back and told me to go,” Kismatun told Amnesty International India. She took her son to a clinic where the doctors told media houses that he had “an open wound on his head and blood clots everywhere” and that his “pulse was fading”. His family admitted him to the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan hospital in New Delhi on the afternoon of February 26. He died the same night.

Despite multiple video evidence, the Delhi Police have denied that they tortured Faizan or unlawfully detained him, states Amnesty. Lack of investigation into the torture and subsequent death of Faizan signals towards the multiple violations committed by the Delhi Police that remain to be investigated. 

Babu Khan’s two sons were killed in the violence that followed immediately after Ajit Doval’s visit. The Delhi Police have arrested 11 people, all Hindus so far in the case. He recalled the horror, “after everything had calmed down, Ajit Doval came here. He told us that we had nothing to worry about and that the Central Reserve Police Force had been deployed. The [mainstream] media played that up in a big way. My sons were too young to assess the situation. Had they spoken to me, I would have told them to not come home. When they were coming back home the next day, the rioters made my sons lie down on a bike and beat them on their head and face. There were deep wounds. There is no count of the number of times they were hit on their heads with a sword. It was the handiwork of at least 10-15 people”. 

Most riot survivors recalled that the common response from the police when the victims tried calling was “Ye lo Azaadi (Take your Freedom)”, evidently a response to the popular slogan of ‘Hum Kya Chahte? Azaadi (We want freedom)’ used by protesters. 

Shahida, a riot survivor who saw rioters setting mosques on fire and throwing bottles inside people’s homes to set them ablaze said, “We called the 100-emergency number so many times but not even once did anyone answer. When they did answer our phone they said, ‘you wanted Azaadi (freedom), here take your Azaadi now”. 

Amnesty International India interviewed several survivors who said that the Delhi police was unsympathetic towards the grave risks’ survivors were facing during the violence. 

Nawab Ali, a riot survivor said, “We kept calling them but they did not come. From 4 PM to 1 AM, we were calling them. We just wanted to come out of this alive. Those people were very dangerous. It  wasn’t merely an organic crowd. It was a massive crowd and they had all sorts of weapons”. 

Shabnam, a riot survivor who lost her house to the arson during the riots said, “My husband called the police, my father called them, several times. They asked, ‘Tell us your address, tell us where you live’. We told them our address, but they did not respond, and no one came to our help. When our house was burnt, even then we called the police at about 1 AM. Then, the police said, ‘How much will you disturb us? We are sending the police vans.’” 

Syed Zahir Hussain, Naib Imam & Muezzin, Masjid Maula Baksh recalled, “ We kept calling the 100-emergency number but we were not able to connect with the police.” He said the rioters broke down the whole mosque and set it on fire. They also broke down my house. After everything had been reduced to ash, they found out that we were seeking shelter in the house next door and reached there as well. They broke open the door and started climbing upstairs. We had mixed chilli powder with water to use for our protection. We kept calling the 100-emergency number throughout but we couldn’t get through. We were not able to connect with the police,” he told Amnesty. 

Related: 

Establish independent review of Delhi Police’s role North East Delhi riots: Amnesty
Hate Speech and Delhi Pogrom 2020
Delhi Violence case: Court reprimands police for failure to get video footage
North-East Delhi Riots: Minorities Commission investigations reveal role of Delhi Police, politicians 
Hate Speech by BJP’s Top Brass fuelled Build Up to Delhi Violence: Minorities Commission

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Image Courtesy: Kashmir Life

On Monday afternoon, Amnesty International India released a statement strongly condemning the reading down of Article 370 by the Government of India.  It notes that the Centre’s move is bound to cause unrest and wide spread protest and also fears the grave human rights violations that are likely to follow. It also criticised the placing of the state under indefinite lockdown: the cutting of communication lines, curfew and the arrests of senior political leaders. Highlighting the manners in which human rights have been repeatedly violated, it expresses deep worry that this will only increase in intensity. The entire statement has been republished below:

The unilateral decision of the Government of India to revoke the special status of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) under the Constitution of India without consulting J&K stakeholders and amidst a complete clampdown on civil liberties and communications blackout is likely to inflame prevailing tensions, alienate the people in the state and increase the risk of further human rights violations, said Amnesty International India today.

“What J&K has been witnessing over the last few days – the additional deployment of thousands of security forces, a blanket blockade of telephone and internet services, restrictions on peaceful assembly – has already pushed the people of J&K to the edge. To make matters worse, key political stakeholders have been placed under house arrest. Important decisions about J&K are being decided by the Parliament without absolutely any consultation with the people,” said Aakar Patel, Head of Amnesty International India.

The Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which was proposed to be scrapped by the Government of India guarantees special autonomy to the state of Jammu and Kashmir and gives independence over matters excluding foreign affairs, defence and communication. The article was seen as an essential provision to maintain the democratic relationship between India and Jammu & Kashmir. The central government has also proposed to break up the state in two union territories, which will give it an enhanced role in governance.

Former chief ministers, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti have claimed that they are detained and placed under house arrest. Mehbooba Mufti, who was the first woman Chief Minister until the President’s Rule was imposed in the state in June 2018 tweeted “Already under house arrest & not allowed to have visitors either. Not sure how long I’ll be able to communicate. Is this the India we acceded to?” While Omar Abdullah in his official statement, said, “Those of us who gave democratic voice to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, are incarcerated as lakhs of armed security personnel have been put on the ground.”

The revocation of Article 370 is expected to cause unrest and wide scale protests in the state. So far, the government’s response to dealing with protests in the state has been heavy-handed and have led to gross human rights violations such as blinding, killing and traumatizing people over the past few years. Amnesty International India, in its earlier briefing titled ‘Losing Sight in Kashmir: The Impact of Pellet Firing Shotguns’ had documented and highlighted the use of pellet guns and other weapons in defiance of international human rights standards. While the authorities have the right to maintain public order, they must respect the right of the people to protest peacefully.

Blanket and indefinite suspensions of telecommunications services in J&K are also not in line with international human rights standards. These shutdowns affect the ability of people in Kashmir to seek, receive, and impart information, which is an integral part of the right to freedom of expression. These blackouts also impede the ability of friends and relatives to reach out and inform about their safety further increasing tensions and feelings of insecurity. “An end to the abuses in J&K cannot come without the involvement of its people,” said Aakar Patel.

First published in Amnesty International India.
 

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