Opinion |
PM Narendra Modi’s Achilles heel was that he did not delegate his power, so did Amit Shah. To kill in encounter the order for which Vanzara waited came through a complicated process of Vanzara speaking to the ‘black beard’ (Shah) who got through to the ‘white beard’ (Modi) and then Shorabuddin’s wife was taken away, again the order from the black beard to kill who had spoken to the white beard and then Ishrat Jahan was shot dead along with three others.
But what about the machination that is with the RSS? It is like nine blind who try to describe the elephant. Most of their time in office was to prevaricate and hide their deeds. But time has its own way to reveal. The arrest of Davinder Singh is unraveling the fact that the long arms of the law have ultimately caught up with all the three and the chink in their armour is looming larger.
Afzal Guru was tasked with similar criminal assignment without his knowing it what he was tasked by the Special Task Force
The arrest of Davinder Singh opens up chink in the armour of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah who have together fought off the accusation of terrorism as in the fake encounters in their own state where the duo lived and ruled like the duke and the king of Mark Twain’s rogue characters known for their quick-fix and quick-closure of their show.
This should not by any means be construed to be any slander to them because cases are still pending in courts including the SC and after what Davinder did there is no hurry to obtain a closure report and a clean chit yet again. Gujarat cops of ill repute of fake encounters Vanzara and PP Pandey and Narendra Amin also followed the official policy of killing like in the case of Shohrabuddin, Ishrat Jahan, Ahsan Jafri and the long fall out of it in the alleged murder of High Court judge, Loya.
All of them including Shah had spent times in jail. The PM is still not called to chamber No. 1 of the SC where he could face trial if at all it does take place. As Davinder boasted, Torture is the only deterrent for terrorism. I did it for the nation. Shorabuddin’s wife was not only tortured but raped and burnt by Vanzar at his palacious mansion in his village Iliol and Haren Pandya was shot through his testicles and his body was left in his car which bore no blood marks!
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If Davinder Singh is a Ferrier of the terrorists today he was and must have been a Ferrier of terrorists then in 2001. The same year Modi coined ‘Islamic terrorism’. The PM of that time was Vajpayee who quoted the theory of the clash of civilization and found that Muslims do not live peacefully with their neighbours. Afzal Guru was tasked with similar criminal assignment without his knowing it what he was tasked by the Special Task Force.
That now in these heady days gives substance to the rebirth of learning in JNU when the students’ leaders Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Shela Rasheed sang in protest against the injustice meted out to Afzal Guru. I wrote in my book Renaissance at JNU (20161) “The rebirth of learning or knowledge at the JNU in February 2016 is epoch-making as far as India and also the subcontinent is concerned.
The implications are far wider than is realized. When Kanhaya Kumar asks his audience his voice reaches far beyond the borders of India. It is like learning spreading out all over Europe after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. “Forget Pakistan Bangladesh, we say that the whole world’s poor should unite, workers should unite. We salute the humanity of the world, the humanity of India. We have today identified the group that stands against this humanity.
A terror attack! It automatically leads to syllogism that could the Pakistanis set fire to Samjahuta Express in 2007 to kill their own fellow Muslims from their own country
This is the most serious issue before us today. We must not forget this identification”. The Renaissance in Europe and now in India at JNU has the theme of humanity in common. Till then in Europe it was scholasticism. The most renowned scholar Erasmus spread this spirit of humanism. Prof Noam Chomsky’s concern over the entry of police in JNU is credible and worthy share of the same spirit.”
The latest discovery of Davinder Singh is in the same line. If you are talking about torture no one bore more than AfzalGuru into whose mouth Davinder Singh had pissed when he cried for water and he forced Afzal to eat up his excrement from his pants! The rulers of India were PM AB Vajpayee and home and deputy-PM LK Advani. They mobilized the army to attack Pakistan in retaliation.
What Kanhaiya Kumar said then deserves quoting today: Kumar had said clearly that his ideal was Rohith Vemula and not Afzal Guru. But he concedes that Guru was an Indian and how humanism is denied in the case is concern of importance. To give two opinions on this shows up inhumanity.
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Arundhati Roy: Afzal “extruded through the sewage system of the hell that Kashmir has become. He surfaced through a manhole, covered in shit (and when he emerged, policemen in the Special Cell pissed on him.” Kanhaiya Kumar refers to connotation and denotation. “Today it’s an era of Islamophobia. Leave aside the words of terrorism and terrorist. The moment these words will come to your mind, imprints of face of a Muslim person will be there in your mind. This is Islamophobia.
The provenance of RDX was in Jammu where Lt Col Prasad Purohit and Dayanand Pandey were staying for years. Their sojourn provided them opportunity either to steal RDX from the army stock or seize it from other sources and make bombs and attack targets in India itself. This requires scrutiny and careful consideration as well as critical thinking.
Martha Nussbaum in her study of The Clash Within wonders at how people who speak the same language and provide water from their taps to extinguish the fire in the Sabarmati Express on February 27 2002 could also be the same people who burnt the two compartments of the same train. Even the first officer to reach the site of burning the train Signal Falia and observe the scene was the collector of Godhra Jayanti Ravi, she maintained that it was an accident.
The acquittal of an innocent man is not an occasion for celebration but a cause for reflection. There are thousands innocent still languishing in jails across India.
Then who changed it into a sabotagde? A terror attack! It automatically leads to syllogism that could the Pakistanis set fire to Samjahuta Express in 2007 to kill their own fellow Muslims from their own country! Or a more convinving inference, did the Muslims in Malegaon(2006) make bombs to kill other fellow Muslims at the graveyard mosque on the most solemn day of prayer of Shab-e-Barat and then at Bhiku chowk (2008)in the month of Ramzan?
How Indian police and ATS have framed innocent Muslims in terrorism charges like that of the 9 arrested in Malegaon blast of 2006 reflects policy of India for decades as is seen in the words of Afzal Guru: “In special cell custody I told them everything regarding Mohammad etc. but they told me that I Showkat his wife Navjot (Afshan) Geelani are the people behind parliament attack. They too threatened me regarding my family and one of the inspector told me that my younger brother Hilal Ahmad Guru is in STF custody. They can lift the other family members too if I don’t co-operate with them.
“They tried me and forced me to implicate Showkat his wife and Geelani but I did not yield. I told them this is not possible. Then they told me that I should not say anything about Geelani (be about his innocence). After some days I was presented before media hand cuffed.
Read more: Pakistani survivor files case against RSS Terrorists responsible for Samjhauta Express Blast
“I was never given an[a] chance in [the] designated court to tell the real story. The judge told me that I will be given full opportunity to speak at the end of case but at the end he even did not recorded my all statements neither the court gave me whatever even court recorded. If phone numbers recorded will be seen carefully the court would have come to know the phone numbers of STF.”
Guru was not found to be a member of any terrorist organization and yet the SC enjoyed ‘impunity’ to award him death penalty because of the collective conscience “The incident… had shaken the entire nation, and the collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded to the offender.” Another such occasion that came to India was when Modi relied on the collective conscience in allowing the police to let the Hindus vent their anger for three days in February-March 2002.
It is the height of hypocrisy that a man who was born in Pakistan and migrated to India, Deputy PM LK Advani, had the temerity to say that that the attackers on Parliament “Looked like Pakistani terrorists.”Advani was the same man who called Modi to visit the site of the Sikh massacre in Kashmir valley and Modi spoke against Pakistan. 18 long years have passed and yet till a week ago the collective conscience of India remained silent over these matters and therefore time for thinking and pondering what another accused said when he was released from jail, Prof SAR Geelani “The acquittal of an innocent man is not an occasion for celebration but a cause for reflection.” There are thousands innocent still languishing in jails across India.
Read more: Pakistan has arrested another Indian spy
And what can you make of the sinister hypocrisy of PM Vajpayee on December 12 2001that there was imminent attack on Parliament! Was he also a part of it?
Mustafa Khan holds a Ph.D. on Mark Twain. He lives in Malegaon Maharashtra, India. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Global Village Space.