A Bombay High Court judge granting bail to three murder accused said that she considered the fact that the victim was Muslim a point in their favour.

What are the implications of Justice Mridula Bhatkar’s January 12 order granting bail to three men accused of killing an unarmed innocent Muslim man in Pune in June 2014?

The Bombay High Court judge, in words now gone viral, argues, “The accused had no other motive such as personal enmity against the innocent deceased…[his] fault was only that he belonged to another religion. I consider this factor in favour of the accused… it appears that in the name of religion they were provoked and have committed the murder.”

So, killing an innocent man because you have been instigated by hate speech is less serious than killing someone for personal reasons.

How valid is that argument?
 

Hate speech and violence

Undoubtedly, ordinary men and women who may never have harboured violent intentions do get stirred up after listening to powerful speakers berating other communities, especially if the speaker’s allegations confirm the former’s prejudices.

To what extent can such speeches provoke violence is not known, but it is noteworthy that after listening to the testimonies of victims, policemen and politicians on the causes and events of Mumbai’s 1992-’93 riots for over five years, Justice BN Srikrishna concluded in Volume I of his inquiry report into the riots that in January, 1993:
 

  “the communal passions of the Hindus were aroused to fever pitch by the inciting writings in Saamna and Navakaal … Shiv Sena pramukh Bal Thackeray like a veteran general, commanded his loyal Shiv Sainiks to retaliate by organised attacks against Muslims…”  
 

Indeed, Thackeray himself described his newspaper Saamna’s role through the riots as having “prepared a burning generation, Saamna’s job is to keep this generation smouldering. Every word of Saamna was like a flame”.

In 2008, when fast-track special courts were set up to try offences of the 1992-’93 Mumbai riots, many ordinary men would turn up to face trial for crimes they had allegedly committed 15 years back. Almost all were acquitted, but a few of those acquitted were guilty. They admitted to this reporter that as youngsters, they had been swayed by the rhetoric of those days.

“God knows what happened to me, I was just 20,” said one.

A Shiv Sainik wept as he clasped the hands of his Muslim victim outside court. The latter had just testified that this accused was not the man who he had named as having attacked his home, thereby paving the way for the Sainik’s acquittal.

Another Sainik, speaking about how his frequent requests for leave to attend court had affected his job, vowed tearfully that never again would he be swayed.

Having seen riot victims struggle in vain for justice for more than a decade, this reporter felt that in the absence of true justice, perhaps these admissions of remorse could be seen as a kind of redressal. But none of these men had committed murder. Their brains addled after reading and listening to Thackeray’s and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s hateful rhetoric against Muslims, they had thrown stones, and damaged Muslim property.
 

Nailing instigators

But can those who, overwhelmed by such poison, kill innocents, be seen as deserving of bail, which would normally be denied to those who have had personal motives for killing? If so, then those who provoke such communal attacks should be considered the greater criminals, for whom jail without bail must be the rule.

In this particular case, the instigator, Dhananjay Desai of the Hindu Rashtra Sena, has been behind bars for two-and-a-half years. His bail application is coming up. If he also gets bail, Justice Bhatkar’s reasoning will become meaningless.

But we have had hatemongers more powerful than Desai. Some have ruled us: Bal Thackeray, who was the remote control of the Maharashtra government for five years, and commanded the state police’s loyalty for decades; LK Advani, who having led a rath yatra in 1990 which left a trail of riots in its wake, and having presided over the demolition of the Babri Masjid, became our home minister in 1998; Narendra Modi, whose inflammatory statements after the 2002 anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat and during his election campaign later that year, led him to victory in his state. None of these three have ever been arrested for hate speech.

Thackeray had cases filed against him, but his party, which ruled Maharashtra in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party from 1995 to 1999, had all but two of them withdrawn. Advani’s days in power ended in 2004. Why didn’t Congress home ministers who succeeded him expedite the Babri Masjid demolition case against him? Why didn’t the Congress, the main Opposition party in Gujarat, file cases for hate speech against Modi all these years?

There’s no doubt that the party that has ruled us for more than 50 years, has preferred to indulge, not punish, hatemongering politicians.

It gave Thackeray a state funeral in 2012. In 2008, it also gave a state funeral to Salahuddin Owaisi, the chief of Hyderabad’s All India Majlis-e-Ittihad-e-Muslimeen, known for his incendiary speeches, which in 1984, were followed by riots. The case against Akbaruddin Owaisi, his younger son and Telangana MLA, is gathering dust since 2013. Congress Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi even justified the massacre of innocent Sikhs in Delhi after another prime minister, his mother Indira, was assassinated by two Sikhs. He then went on to win the biggest ever majority in Parliament, seconded only by our current Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
 

What the law says

Electoral politics may be amoral, but what about the law?

The maximum punishment for hate speech is three years, which goes up to five years if it is made inside a place of worship. In 2008, a Special Court convicted Shiv Sena ex-MP and ex-MLA Madhukar Sarpotdar, party corporator Jaywant Parab, and up-vibhag pramukh (deputy chief of one locality) Ashok Shinde for anti-Muslim speeches made in December 1992. Judge Rajeshwari Bapat-Sarkar ruled that provocative speeches made by elected representatives well aware that they would lead to violence, deserved punishment “to send the correct signal that wrong doing would be punished”.

For the first time, leaders of a party that thrived on hate speech were convicted for it. This was the only riots case conviction upheld in the Sessions Court. Yet, these three hatemongers didn’t get the maximum punishment – the trial court sentenced them to one year in jail, which the Sessions Court reduced to two months.

In 2012, Maharashtra Samajwadi Party president Abu Asim Azmi was convicted for hate speech – and sentenced to two years.

If we accept the argument that demagogues who inspire killings are more culpable than the killers themselves, then punishment for hate speech must be enhanced. But first, politicians who indulge in hate speech must be charged, arrested and deprived of bail.

Neither is likely to happen. Justice Bhatkar’s order therefore, snatches away even the crumbs of justice that our system gives to those killed only for their religion.

Courtesy: Scroll.in

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“I consider this factor in favour of the applicants/accused. More-over, the applicants/accused do not have any criminal record and it appears that in the name of the religion, they were provoked and have committed the murder,” Justice Bhatkar observed.

Shaikh was brutally murdered by members of Hindu Rashtra Sena in June 2014 while he was on his way back from a mosque after offering prayers. 14 of 21 accused have already been granted bail by the court.

A case of murder was registered against the members of HRS at the Hadapsar police station and 21 HRS members, including their leader Dhananjay Jayram Desai alias Bhai, were arrested.

A report in Indian Express said that Justice Bhatkar on 12 January, while granting bail to Vijay Rajendra Gambhire, Ganesh alias Ranjeet Shankar Yadav and Ajay Dilip Lalge, noted that the accused had attended a meeting “prior to the incident of assault. The applicants/accused otherwise had no other motive such as any personal enmity against the innocent deceased Mohsin.”

Her bail order stated, “…Dhananjay Desai was the one who was the speaker in the meeting and he instigated the audience… the transcript of the speech given by Dhananjay Desai was sufficient to show that he had incited feelings of religious discrimination. The meet was held… prior to the incident of assault.”

In its chargesheet, however, the cops quoted at least two witnesses, who heard HRS members plan the attack.

The chargesheet said, “The activists were carrying hockey sticks, wooden batons etc. During the meeting, they started discussing that HRS president Dhananjay Bhai has said that Muslims should be thrashed for posting derogatory pictures of Shivaji Maharaj on Facebook. Their vehicles, shops should be damaged. They should not be allowed to do any business in the area. There should be terror of HRS in Hadapsar.”

While the bail plea of Desai will come up for hearing in Bombay High Court on 1 February, the murder victim’s family plans to challenge the bail order in the Supreme Court.

Courtesy: Janta Ka Reporter
 

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Two years and six days after Mohsin was brutally attacked and dies, a special sessions court will hear this bail plea of Hindu Rashtra Sena (HRS) chief, Dhananjay Desai, in Pune even as the family has received no reparation despite government promises and no job in government for brother, Mubeen, either

Two years and six days ago, in the first case of mob attack, soon after the Modi government came to power; a mob had beaten to death, 24 year old Mohsin Shaikh from Sholapur district who worked as a manager in an IT firm in Pune. Two years down, and a change of government from the Prithviraj Chauhan led Congress-NCP government to the BJP-dominated Devendra Phadnavis government, and neither has the case progressed, not has the compensation amount been paid to Sadiq Shaikh, Mohsin’s father. Soon after the public lynching, Rs 3 lakhs was announced but repeated communications between the family and government have been unsuccessful. Promises of a government job in reparation for Mubeen sheikh, brother of Mohsin are also unrealised. Two years down the line,  lawyers assisting the Mohsin Shaikh family have complained of tardiness on the part of the prosecution in pursuing the case.
 

• Correspondence with State Government from August 2014 regarding a state government job for brother Mubeen​
• MLA, Sholapur, Priniti Shinde’s letter recommending that Rs 10 lakhs be paid in reparation
• Correspondence on reparation amount not being paid (Rs 3 lakhs was assured)
• Letter for Employment
• Note on Issues Related to trial, proper witness protection, prosecution not thorough

Speaking to Sabrangindia.in, Sadiq Shaikh, father of Mohsin expressed concern about the delay in both the criminal case as also in matters related to reparation. “We are very worried that justice may not be done because of the inexplicable delays. Our well wishers in Pune, are assisting the prosecution and there has been such delay. Now with Ujwal Nikam as special public prosecutor, we are hoping against hope.” Special PP Ujwal Nikam brushed away these concerns saying that the matter was going  as per plan and draft charges have been proffered to the special court and will soon be framed.

Hindu Rashtra Sena Chief Dhananjay Desai has made a plea to get bail in this case. He was arrested first in connection with distributing inflammatory pamphlets and thereafter also arraigned in this case. Today, June 8,  a special court will hear the bail plea.

After three rejections in the Pune trial Court, last month,  the Bombay High Court had granted bail to three accused, while imposing severe conditions on the accused who were granted bail.

Lawyer for the accused had argued that the initial FIR lodged by the victim’s father  stated there were unknown people and the police dragged in these accused (Shubnam Dattatrey Barade (19), Mahesh Maruti Khot(24) and Abhishek Chavan (29) all residents of Kalepadal near Hadapsar.

Meanwhile, another accused in the 2014 murder of IT professional Mohsin Shaikh has sought bail on grounds that the trial was hanging fire for over two years.Rahul Kurule (21), a member of the fringe right-wing Hindu Rashtra Sena (HRS), has applied for bail at a special court here saying he had spent two years in jail for a murder in which he had no role.

In June 2014, the brutal killing in the beating to death of young Mohsin, soon after the Modi government came to power was viewed with horror and condemnation. Protests had been held in different cities against the killing.  Allegedly, the mob targeted innocent Mohsin who sported a skull cap, after derogatory pictures of Shivaji and Bal Thackeray uploaded on Facebook triggered communal tension across the city over the weekend, according to the police version..

At the time, seven people, aged between 19 and 24 years, had been arrested. They were associated with the Hindu Rashtra Sena, a radical outfit active in the state, the police had said. At that stage, the Crime Branch also called Hindu Rashtra Sena chief Dhananjay Desai for questioning. He was later arrested in connection with an earlier case at Pune Cantonment police station, relating to distribution of objectionable pamphlets in March this year.

Shaikh was reportedly assaulted near his rented home in Bankar Colony, Hadapsar, as he was returning with a friend, Riyaz, after offering namaz at a masjid, around 9 pm. Riyaz had told the media alleged that Moshin was targeted because he was wearing a skull cap and had a beard. “I ran from the spot and called his brother Mobin for help. However, by the time Mobin came, Mohsin was badly beaten up and the assailants were about to leave,” he told The Indian Express. Mohsin succumbed to the brutal injuries at 1 a.m. on June 3.

The post Mohsin Shaikh, Pune Techie’s Murder: Dhananjay Desai of Hindu Rashtra Sena Seeks Bail appeared first on SabrangIndia.