NEW DELHI: Ever since May, when the bodies of two women washed up near Shopian, journalists have chronicled the multiple failures of administration and policing that allowed the tragic deaths to spark off some of the worst street violence ever seen in Jammu and Kashmir.
Following the release of the findings of the Justice Muzaffar Jan Commission of Enquiry on Friday, the Jammu and Kashmir government has announced that it intends to prosecute four police officials for some of those failures.
But both journalists and the Jammu and Kashmir government have maintained a stoic silence on one institution blamed by Justice Jan for spreading falsehood and inciting violence: the media itself.
Stories fabricated?
Justice Jan’s report highlights disturbing evidence that some journalists may have fabricated elements of their stories.
Early in June, several Srinagar-based journalists reported that one victim’s husband had received a call from her at 7 p.m. on May 29. During the call, the accounts said, the victim reported that she was being chased by CRPF personnel.
In their testimony to the Jan Commission, though, the victim’s husband and her brother made it clear that she had never owned a mobile phone, a fact first reported in this newspaper. Jammu and Kashmir police investigators attached to the Commission studied 32,686 cellphone calls made in Shopian on May 29, and were able to establish that none was made to or from any phone that may have been in the victim’s possession.
Efforts were also made by sections of the media to suggest that the local police may have sought to hush up the case on the orders of their superior. Journalists in particular turned on Constable Mohammad Yaseen, who was reported to have made several phone calls to superiors even as a search for the victims’ bodies was underway — evidence, it was argued, of the unusual interest of his bosses in the case.
In fact, the Commission found, Mr. Yaseen had made only four calls during the whole day and none between 10 p.m. on June 29, when the search for the victims began, until 6 a.m. on June 30, when the bodies were found.
Local resident Jamal-ud-Din Wani, claimed by the media to be an eyewitness to the killings, was alleged to have been abducted after the bodies were found. The Jan Commission found him living in a tent at the hamlet of Dehgam, close to Shopian, where he works as a watchman at a local seminary.
For the most part, Justice Jan found, the media misrepresented forensic evidence. Media accounts insisted that both women appeared to have been badly beaten and gang raped. However, the Jan Commission states, pathologists found no evidence to support the proposition of gang rape. Moreover, only one victim’s body was found to bear visible external injuries. Claims that one victim was pregnant at the time of her death, Justice Jan states, were also wrong.
Perhaps in order to buttress claims that the two women had been raped before they were killed, some journalists asserted that their clothes were torn. However, witnesses interviewed by the Jan Commission said that the women’s Feran and shalwar were intact.
Most disturbing, though, is Justice Jan’s finding that the media incited hatred by broadcasting communal propaganda.
Based on the accounts of individuals claiming to be eyewitnesses, newspapers said that one victim’s forehead had been smeared with sindoor — an allegation that suggested that the rapists were Hindus, and the rape itself macabre religion-driven hate crime. However, the Commission noted, the red marks on her forehead were in fact blood from a head wound. “The flow of blood,” the report states, “was shamefully distorted and projected as a mark of sindoor.”
Noting that this kind of reporting has fuelled violence in Jammu and Kashmir, Justice Jan has suggested that “firm guidelines are made to ensure that, before publication of any news, the authenticity of the news be verified.”
Monday, July 13, 2009
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Supreme court judge has to apologise to Muslim fundamentalists
Under criticism from Mulsim groups, Supreme Court judge Justice Markandeya Katju today apologised for his controversial comments that Muslim students cannot insist on sporting beards as it would lead to "Talibanisation" of the country.
A bench of Justices R V Raveendran and Markandeya Katju also withdrew the order passed by it on March 30 in which it had dismissed the petition filed by a student challenging the directive of a convent school in Madhya Pradesh that Muslims cannot sport beard.
"During the hearing, certain observations were made by one of us (Justice Markandeya Katju). His intentions were not to offend anyone. However, if any one's feeling has been hurt, he apologises and expresses regret in the matter," the bench said in an order.
The apex court said since the petitioner Mohd Saleem had expressed apprehension that one of the judges (Katju) was biased it was requesting the Chief Justice of India to place the matter before another bench for hearing.
"The review petition expresses apprehension that one of the judges was biased against the petitioner. We are of the view that the matter should be heard by another bench. We therefore, withdraw the order of March 30, 2009," the apex court said while referring the matter to another bench for a fresh hearing.
Nirmala Convent High School, Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, had removed Mohd Saleem, a 10th class student, after he refused to shave his beard on the ground that it was mandatory in Islam.
Saleem challenged his removal in the State High Court which upheld the school's decision after which he appealed to the Apex Court.
However, during the hearing on March 30, Justice Katju had told the petitioner and the advocate Justice B A Khan(retd), who appeared for the student, that Muslims have no fundamental right or religious duty to sport a beard.
The judge further observed that it (apex court) cannot allow Muslim students to sport a beard as it amounted to Talibanisation of the country. According to the bench, if the plea of the student was entertained then tommorow a girl student might insist on wearing only a burqa in the classroom.
"If there are rules, you have to follow it. You can't say that I will not wear a uniform I will wear only a burqa," the bench observed.
The apex court had said that a minority institution has its own set of rules and rights provided by Article 30 of the Constitution and the same cannot be breached by any person.
The court further said if the student was not interested in following the rules then he has the option of joining some other institution.
"You can join some other institution if you do not want to observe the rules. But you can't ask the school to change the rules for you,"Justice Katju said.
Several Muslim groups had reportedly approached the Chief Justice of India seeking withdrawal of the remarks on Talibanisation by Justice Katju
A bench of Justices R V Raveendran and Markandeya Katju also withdrew the order passed by it on March 30 in which it had dismissed the petition filed by a student challenging the directive of a convent school in Madhya Pradesh that Muslims cannot sport beard.
"During the hearing, certain observations were made by one of us (Justice Markandeya Katju). His intentions were not to offend anyone. However, if any one's feeling has been hurt, he apologises and expresses regret in the matter," the bench said in an order.
The apex court said since the petitioner Mohd Saleem had expressed apprehension that one of the judges (Katju) was biased it was requesting the Chief Justice of India to place the matter before another bench for hearing.
"The review petition expresses apprehension that one of the judges was biased against the petitioner. We are of the view that the matter should be heard by another bench. We therefore, withdraw the order of March 30, 2009," the apex court said while referring the matter to another bench for a fresh hearing.
Nirmala Convent High School, Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, had removed Mohd Saleem, a 10th class student, after he refused to shave his beard on the ground that it was mandatory in Islam.
Saleem challenged his removal in the State High Court which upheld the school's decision after which he appealed to the Apex Court.
However, during the hearing on March 30, Justice Katju had told the petitioner and the advocate Justice B A Khan(retd), who appeared for the student, that Muslims have no fundamental right or religious duty to sport a beard.
The judge further observed that it (apex court) cannot allow Muslim students to sport a beard as it amounted to Talibanisation of the country. According to the bench, if the plea of the student was entertained then tommorow a girl student might insist on wearing only a burqa in the classroom.
"If there are rules, you have to follow it. You can't say that I will not wear a uniform I will wear only a burqa," the bench observed.
The apex court had said that a minority institution has its own set of rules and rights provided by Article 30 of the Constitution and the same cannot be breached by any person.
The court further said if the student was not interested in following the rules then he has the option of joining some other institution.
"You can join some other institution if you do not want to observe the rules. But you can't ask the school to change the rules for you,"Justice Katju said.
Several Muslim groups had reportedly approached the Chief Justice of India seeking withdrawal of the remarks on Talibanisation by Justice Katju
Muslims bring India bad name :outrgae modesty of tourist
Three persons, including an autorickshaw driver, were sentenced to jail for kidnapping, cheating and outraging the modesty of a Japanese tourist in Gaya in March.
Additional district and sessions judge A N Rai sentenced an auto driver Mohd Mohid alias Kaka and his two accomplices -- Raja and Shamim for kidnapping and keeping in illegal confinement Yoko Maitu Sushita, who had arrived at the railway station in Gaya from Varanasi on March 15.
Mohid, posing as a guide, had taken her to his residence in Adgilla locality of the pilgrim town where he had kept her in illegal confinement for two days.
The trio had criminally assaulted her and robbed her of Rs 35,000 before she managed to give them the slip.
Sushita had returned to Varanasi on March 17 and got in touch with superintendent of police M R Naik on whose advice she returned to Gaya the next day and filed an FIR.
The three accused were arrested the same day and the charge sheet against them was submitted on March 19 for kidnapping, outraging the modesty of a woman and cheating.
While the judge handed down six years imprisonment to Mohid and a fine of Rs 1000, Raja got three-and-a-half-years in jail and fine of the same amount and Shamim was sentenced to three years imprisonment and fine of Rs 500.
Additional district and sessions judge A N Rai sentenced an auto driver Mohd Mohid alias Kaka and his two accomplices -- Raja and Shamim for kidnapping and keeping in illegal confinement Yoko Maitu Sushita, who had arrived at the railway station in Gaya from Varanasi on March 15.
Mohid, posing as a guide, had taken her to his residence in Adgilla locality of the pilgrim town where he had kept her in illegal confinement for two days.
The trio had criminally assaulted her and robbed her of Rs 35,000 before she managed to give them the slip.
Sushita had returned to Varanasi on March 17 and got in touch with superintendent of police M R Naik on whose advice she returned to Gaya the next day and filed an FIR.
The three accused were arrested the same day and the charge sheet against them was submitted on March 19 for kidnapping, outraging the modesty of a woman and cheating.
While the judge handed down six years imprisonment to Mohid and a fine of Rs 1000, Raja got three-and-a-half-years in jail and fine of the same amount and Shamim was sentenced to three years imprisonment and fine of Rs 500.
When two intlerants Muslims and communists meet
In a report disseminated at 2-30 PM Beijing time (12 noon Indian Standard Time) on July 6, 2009, the State-controlled Xinhua news agency of China has admitted that normalcy has been only partially restored in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang province, which saw the outbreak of violent protests by Uighur students on July 5, 2009, who demanded the arrest and prosecution of the Han Chinese workers who attacked Uighur workers in a toy factory of Guangdong in Southern China on June 25, 2009, killing two Uighurs. The Han Chinese had attacked the Uighurs following the circulation of a report through the Internet alleging that some Uighur workers had raped two Han Chinese women. According to the Chinese authorities, the report of the rape was found to be false.
According to Uighur exile sources, the protesting students carried the Chinese national flag in order to highlight that theirs was a human rights demand and that they had nothing to do with the Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan and other Islamic fundamentalist groups. According to these sources, the protesters did not even shout "Allah is Great" in order not to give a religious colour to their protest.
The exiles allege that despite the peaceful nature of the protest, the Chinese security forces lost their nerves and attacked the protesters. Initially, they attacked them with electrically-charged batons. The protesters then went out of control and started attacking Han Chinese passers-by and shops owned by Han Chinese. They also attacked the public transport system and set fire to a large number of buses and some vehicles of the security forces.
The Chinese authorities moved reinforcements of special police units in armoured personnel carriers into Urumqi. The exiles allege that these units indiscriminately fired on the protesters in many places in the city. In the clashes between the students and the security forces, which continued throughout the night of July 5, many were killed. The Xinhua has admitted at least 140 fatalities.
The Xinhua report was based on a press briefing on the situation held by the Urumqi authorities on the afternoon of July 6, 2009. In the briefing, Liu Yaohua, the police chief of the Xinjiang province, stated as follows:
* The death toll has risen to 140 and was still climbing. Fifty-seven dead bodies were retrieved from Urumqi's streets and lanes, while all the others were confirmed dead at hospitals.
* At least 828 people were injured.
* The rioters set fire to 261 motor vehicles, including 190 buses, 10 taxis and two police cars.
* A preliminary investigation showed 203 shops and 14 homes were destroyed in the riot.
* The Police have arrested several hundred in connection with the riot, including at least a dozen who were suspected of fanning the unrest.
* The police are still searching for about 90 other key suspects in the city. "Police have tightened security in downtown Urumqi streets and at key institutions such as power and natural gas companies and TV stations to prevent large-scale riots."
* More than 100 ethnic officials from adjacent areas have been transferred to Urumqi for interrogating the suspects according to law.
The World Uighur Congress has strongly denied Chinese allegations that it had instigated the violent incidents by disseminating through the Internet exaggerated accounts of the Guangdong incident. In a statement issued from Munich, it has stated as follows: " Instead of addressing the legitimate demands of the peaceful Uighur protesters, the Chinese authorities responded to quell the protest with the deployment of four kinds of police (regular police, anti-riot police, Special Police and the People's Armed Police (PAP)).The Special Police and PAP used tear gas, automatic rifles and armored vehicles to disperse the Uighur protesters. During the crackdown, some were shot to death, and some were beaten to death by the Chinese police. Some demonstrators were even crushed by armored vehicles near Xinjiang University, according to eyewitnesses."
While the Chinese authorities have admitted only 140 fatalities, Uighur exile sources allege that there were at least 600 fatalities as a result of the indiscriminate firing by the security forces.
On July 6,2009, there were reports of protest demonstrations in other towns of Xinjiang too, but the violence has remained confined to Urumqi.
Till now, the local Chinese authorities in Urumqi have been blaming "ethnic separatists" for the riots and not jihadi fundamentalist elements.
According to Uighur exile sources, the protesting students carried the Chinese national flag in order to highlight that theirs was a human rights demand and that they had nothing to do with the Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan and other Islamic fundamentalist groups. According to these sources, the protesters did not even shout "Allah is Great" in order not to give a religious colour to their protest.
The exiles allege that despite the peaceful nature of the protest, the Chinese security forces lost their nerves and attacked the protesters. Initially, they attacked them with electrically-charged batons. The protesters then went out of control and started attacking Han Chinese passers-by and shops owned by Han Chinese. They also attacked the public transport system and set fire to a large number of buses and some vehicles of the security forces.
The Chinese authorities moved reinforcements of special police units in armoured personnel carriers into Urumqi. The exiles allege that these units indiscriminately fired on the protesters in many places in the city. In the clashes between the students and the security forces, which continued throughout the night of July 5, many were killed. The Xinhua has admitted at least 140 fatalities.
The Xinhua report was based on a press briefing on the situation held by the Urumqi authorities on the afternoon of July 6, 2009. In the briefing, Liu Yaohua, the police chief of the Xinjiang province, stated as follows:
* The death toll has risen to 140 and was still climbing. Fifty-seven dead bodies were retrieved from Urumqi's streets and lanes, while all the others were confirmed dead at hospitals.
* At least 828 people were injured.
* The rioters set fire to 261 motor vehicles, including 190 buses, 10 taxis and two police cars.
* A preliminary investigation showed 203 shops and 14 homes were destroyed in the riot.
* The Police have arrested several hundred in connection with the riot, including at least a dozen who were suspected of fanning the unrest.
* The police are still searching for about 90 other key suspects in the city. "Police have tightened security in downtown Urumqi streets and at key institutions such as power and natural gas companies and TV stations to prevent large-scale riots."
* More than 100 ethnic officials from adjacent areas have been transferred to Urumqi for interrogating the suspects according to law.
The World Uighur Congress has strongly denied Chinese allegations that it had instigated the violent incidents by disseminating through the Internet exaggerated accounts of the Guangdong incident. In a statement issued from Munich, it has stated as follows: " Instead of addressing the legitimate demands of the peaceful Uighur protesters, the Chinese authorities responded to quell the protest with the deployment of four kinds of police (regular police, anti-riot police, Special Police and the People's Armed Police (PAP)).The Special Police and PAP used tear gas, automatic rifles and armored vehicles to disperse the Uighur protesters. During the crackdown, some were shot to death, and some were beaten to death by the Chinese police. Some demonstrators were even crushed by armored vehicles near Xinjiang University, according to eyewitnesses."
While the Chinese authorities have admitted only 140 fatalities, Uighur exile sources allege that there were at least 600 fatalities as a result of the indiscriminate firing by the security forces.
On July 6,2009, there were reports of protest demonstrations in other towns of Xinjiang too, but the violence has remained confined to Urumqi.
Till now, the local Chinese authorities in Urumqi have been blaming "ethnic separatists" for the riots and not jihadi fundamentalist elements.
Peaceful tibetans were suppressed but what about uighyur muslims ?
Thousands of security forces have been flooding into the city of Urumqi in China's Xinjiang region to try to end the deadly ethnic clashes. It is a crisis that has forced the Chinese president Hu Jintao to cut short his visit to the G8 Summit in Italy.
The Chinese state television said Jintao was returning due to the situation in northwest Xinjiang province that's seen one of the worst protests China has faced in a decade.
Curfew remains in place in Urumqi after violent clashes between the Muslim Uighurs and the Han Chinese. Hundreds have been injured, many more arrested. Some still don't know what happened to their relatives.
"I went to hospital but was not allowed to see him. I don't know if he is dead or alive," says a woman who says her son was wounded in the clash.
Troops are out on the streets. There's tight security to prevent any further violence.
Both Uighurs and the Han Chinese blaming each other for the violence, fuelling rumours of who's to blame.
Helicopters dropped leaflets appealing for calm. Authorities may have quelled the violence for now as they've done many times before. But there's palpable tension.
The Chinese state television said Jintao was returning due to the situation in northwest Xinjiang province that's seen one of the worst protests China has faced in a decade.
Curfew remains in place in Urumqi after violent clashes between the Muslim Uighurs and the Han Chinese. Hundreds have been injured, many more arrested. Some still don't know what happened to their relatives.
"I went to hospital but was not allowed to see him. I don't know if he is dead or alive," says a woman who says her son was wounded in the clash.
Troops are out on the streets. There's tight security to prevent any further violence.
Both Uighurs and the Han Chinese blaming each other for the violence, fuelling rumours of who's to blame.
Helicopters dropped leaflets appealing for calm. Authorities may have quelled the violence for now as they've done many times before. But there's palpable tension.
From horse's mouth
For the first time, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari admitted that militants and extremists were "created and nurtured" in the country as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives.
But they began to haunt the country in the post-9/11 era, Zardari said in a candid admission during an interactive meeting with former senior civil servants at the presidency on Tuesday night.
Militants and extremists emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralised, but because they "were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives," he said.
"Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities," Zardari said.
"The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryears until 9/11 occurred and they began to haunt us as well," he added.
Labelling Pakistan as a frontline state in the war against terrorism, Zardari pledged to eliminate this scourge from society. "I have taken charge at a difficult time and will come up to the challenges the country is facing."
His remarks came days after his comments in an interview that the Pakistan Army would even target militants it had backed in the past for use as a proxy force against India.
The army is currently engaged in a campaign against the Taliban in the northwestern Swat valley and is gearing up for a push against Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud and his network in South Waziristan tribal region.
Zardari also stressed the need for greater national reconciliation, saying he intended to keep all political forces together because Pakistan cannot afford confrontation at this juncture.
"Dialogue is our most powerful weapon...we defeated a dictator through the power of dialogue and we intend to continue holding dialogue to resolve various issues confronting Pakistan," he said.
"We are on the brink and we must realise that personal political games can no longer be played," he added.
Responding to various suggestions by the former civil servants, Zardari said the government is taking several steps to improve governance, tackle militancy and extremism, improve law and order, agricultural output and power generation, strengthen institutions and devolve power.
But they began to haunt the country in the post-9/11 era, Zardari said in a candid admission during an interactive meeting with former senior civil servants at the presidency on Tuesday night.
Militants and extremists emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralised, but because they "were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives," he said.
"Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities," Zardari said.
"The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryears until 9/11 occurred and they began to haunt us as well," he added.
Labelling Pakistan as a frontline state in the war against terrorism, Zardari pledged to eliminate this scourge from society. "I have taken charge at a difficult time and will come up to the challenges the country is facing."
His remarks came days after his comments in an interview that the Pakistan Army would even target militants it had backed in the past for use as a proxy force against India.
The army is currently engaged in a campaign against the Taliban in the northwestern Swat valley and is gearing up for a push against Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud and his network in South Waziristan tribal region.
Zardari also stressed the need for greater national reconciliation, saying he intended to keep all political forces together because Pakistan cannot afford confrontation at this juncture.
"Dialogue is our most powerful weapon...we defeated a dictator through the power of dialogue and we intend to continue holding dialogue to resolve various issues confronting Pakistan," he said.
"We are on the brink and we must realise that personal political games can no longer be played," he added.
Responding to various suggestions by the former civil servants, Zardari said the government is taking several steps to improve governance, tackle militancy and extremism, improve law and order, agricultural output and power generation, strengthen institutions and devolve power.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Naxals and Jihadis : two faces of same coin
Four years ago, in a newspaper interview that went unnoticed even in West Bengal, ‘Comrade Dhruba’ described plans for a guerrilla campaign that would stretch from Medinipur to Malda. But the Communist Party of India (Maoist) central committee member had words of reassurance for his impeccably bourgeois, English-speaking audience. “We do not plan violence in Kolkata,” he said, “because when we establish our bases there, the people will be forc ed to obey us.”
Marketed as an authentic adivasi rebellion against misrule, backwardness and human rights abuses, the still-unfolding violence in Lalgarh in fact provides graphic insights into exactly how India’s Maoists command obedience. Lalgarh’s key leaders — a caste-Hindu from Andhra Pradesh with a Kalashnikov in hand, and an affluent public-works contractor backed by the Trinamool Congress — have demonstrated that there is an intimate relationship between fear and power.
Fittingly, perhaps, the Lalgarh crisis began with a murderous act of violence — albeit an abortive one. Minutes after West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee left the site of a new steel plant on November 2, 2008, a massive improvised explosive device went off under the road he had just passed over. If rats in the fields around Salboni hadn’t chewed through the kilometre-long wire connecting the IED to the hands which controlled the explosion, Mr. Bhattacharjee would have died.
For months before the bombing, there had been localised protests against the construction of the Rs. 350 billion JSW-Bengal Steel plant at Salboni. No large-scale displacement of local residents was involved. Of the 5,000 acres needed to build the plant, 4,500 acres were owned by the State government, while the remaining 500 were purchased by the JSW-Bengal Steel at relatively high prices. But Maoist-affiliated groups argued that the State had no right to the forest land it was making over to the plant: it belonged, they insisted, to the region’s adivasis.
The police responded to the November 2 bombing by detaining over a dozen Lalgarh area residents for questioning — a far from unusual practice after a major terrorist attack. Many of those detained, predictably, had no connection with terrorists. On November 3, for example, the police held retired schoolteacher Kshmananda Mahato and three teenage school students, Eben Muru, Goutam Patra and Buddhadev Patra. Even though all four were let off the next day, some local residents were incensed.
Clash between police and locals
Matters came to a head on November 5. Early that morning, the police raided the village of Chhoto Pelia in search of Sasadhar Mahato — the fugitive CPI (Maoist) operative alleged to have commanded the attempted assassination of the Chief Minister. Fighting broke out between them and the local residents who the police claim were compelled by the Maoists present in the village to obstruct their way. Fourteen women were injured; one woman, Chhitmani Murmu, lost an eye.
From November 7, the anger transformed into street protests. Led by the Bharat Jakat Majhi Marwa (BJMM), a body of traditional adivasi community leaders, Salboni residents closed roads and blockaded the Lalgarh police station. On November 14, though, the BJMM leadership reached an agreement with the local authorities. But its workers were now attacked by members of the newly-formed Police Santrosh Birodhi Janasadharaner Committee (People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities: PSBJC), which accused the traditional adivasi leadership of selling out the people it represented.
Who constituted the PSBJC? Its principal leader, Chattradhar Mahato, was a long-standing Trinamool Congress supporter who had made a small fortune from public-works contracts — and fugitive Maoist Sasadhar Mahato’s brother. Trinamool leaders claim he was expelled two years ago, but have produced no evidence to back this claim. Notably, Trinamool Congress flags were regularly flown by the PSBJC cadre at their protests; at many places in Lalgarh, the party’s banners still share space with those of the CPI (Maoist).
From the outset, it was clear that the PSBJC had no intention of making peace. Its demands were designed to invite rejection: that West Medinipur’s Superintendent of Police do penance by performing “sit-ups holding his ears;” that all policemen in Lalgarh crawl on all fours from Dalilpur to Chhoto Pelia, rubbing their noses in the dirt; that all those arrested on terrorism-related charges since 1998 be released.
Even then, the State government attempted to stave off a confrontation. On November 27, the day of the deadline set by the PSBJC, the West Bengal police shut down 13 posts and camps in the Lalgarh area. Later, on December 1, two more police posts were abandoned. But West Bengal’s increasingly desperate efforts to make peace failed — and a murderous meltdown followed.
The PSBJC announced the suspension of its struggle — but on ground, formed a parallel administration. Its Maoist allies prevented the entry of the police and administration in the villages of Belpahari, Binpur, Lalgarh, Jamboni, Salboni and Goaltore. From here, the Maoist death squads launched a series of increasingly brutal attacks. BJMM’s Sudhir Mandal, who organised a massive anti-Maoist rally in December, was shot dead. In February 2009, Maoists fired on the funeral procession of the assassinated Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader, Nandalal Pal, killing three. Five more CPI(M) supporters were killed in April, as were four poll staff and police personnel. June brought a fresh wave of attacks.
“The Maoists did not capture Lalgarh,” counter-terrorism analyst Ajai Sahni observes, “the State deserted the people.”
Maoist groups had long been preparing the ground for just such a situation. In 2005, following the assassination of CPI(M) leaders Raghunath Murmu, Bablu Mudi and Mahendra Mahato, the prestigious South Asia Intelligence Review warned of the possibility of a “Naxalbari Redux” — a reference to the Darjeeling district hamlet from where, in March 1967, began a six-year Maoist insurgency that claimed hundreds of lives.
Documents seized from three CPI (Maoist) leaders, researcher Saji Cherian noted in the article, showed plans to attack or blow up police stations. There were also notebooks with details of how adivasis in Bankura, Purulia and West Medinipur were to be educated about their exploitation — and how they could be “freed.”
Starting with an October 14, 2004, attack which claimed the lives of six Eastern Frontier Rifles personnel in West Medinipur district, the CPI (Maoist) launched increasingly ferocious attacks.
Political allies
It also made political allies. In February last year, the West Bengal police arrested Himadri Sen-Roy, the Bengal state secretary of the CPI (Maoist). From Roy’s interrogation, the police acquired a mass of details on how the Maoists were developing a symbiotic relationship with the Trinamool Congress and the welter of so-called civil society movements that had sprung up to oppose West Bengal’s industrialisation drive.
Top Maoist leaders, Sen-Roy is said to have told the police, visited Nandigram in 2006, soon after the Trinamool Congress and Islamist groups initiated what would turn into a bloody confrontation. They sensed opportunity. Sen-Roy claims to have persuaded a range of political figures that their interests and those of the CPI (Maoist) were similar: among them, Trinamool leader Subendhu Adhikari and eminent writer and activist Mahashweta Devi.
Early in 2007, Sen-Roy is alleged to have said, Maoist military commanders purchased Rs. 8 lakh worth of weapons — six .315-bore rifles and ammunition — to set up an armed unit in Nandigram. Dozens of locally-made weapons were also purchased to arm new cadre. The weapons were stored at Sonachura in East Medinipur, an area which saw some of the worst violence during the Nandigram agitation.
Meanwhile, top CPI (Maoist) commander Molajella Koteswar Rao set about constructing military infrastructure in the Lalgarh area. According to Sen-Roy’s testimony to the police — which, under the law, is not admissible in a court — Rao extorted between Rs. 8 lakh every month from roads, construction and forest-produce contracts operating in the districts of Paschim Medinipur, Bankura and Purulia. In addition, CPI (Maoist) units outside West Bengal pumped in a further Rs. 1.5 lakh a month to train recruits in Jharkhand and Orissa’s Mayurbhanj forests.
By 2008, the Intelligence Bureau was reporting Maoist activity in all but one of West Bengal’s 18 districts. Three districts — Bankura, West Medinipur and Purulia —were graded among the most affected in the country. Between January and October 2008, 21 fatalities were reported from the districts in 34 Maoist attacks.
Like the Lalgarh violence, these killings did nothing for the poor adivasis in whose name they were executed: but the CPI (Maoist) doesn’t seem to care.
In one recent interview, Koteswar Rao candidly admitted that his party was willing to endorse almost any form of violence: “We do not support the way they attacked the Victoria station [sic.]”, he said of the Lashkar-e-Taiba jihadists who executed November’s carnage in Mumbai, “where most of the victims were Muslims. At the same time, we feel that the Islamic upsurge should not be opposed as it is basically anti-U.S. and anti-imperialist in nature. We, therefore, want it to grow.”
West Bengal will be a test of whether democratic institutions prove capable of resisting this cult of death.
Marketed as an authentic adivasi rebellion against misrule, backwardness and human rights abuses, the still-unfolding violence in Lalgarh in fact provides graphic insights into exactly how India’s Maoists command obedience. Lalgarh’s key leaders — a caste-Hindu from Andhra Pradesh with a Kalashnikov in hand, and an affluent public-works contractor backed by the Trinamool Congress — have demonstrated that there is an intimate relationship between fear and power.
Fittingly, perhaps, the Lalgarh crisis began with a murderous act of violence — albeit an abortive one. Minutes after West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee left the site of a new steel plant on November 2, 2008, a massive improvised explosive device went off under the road he had just passed over. If rats in the fields around Salboni hadn’t chewed through the kilometre-long wire connecting the IED to the hands which controlled the explosion, Mr. Bhattacharjee would have died.
For months before the bombing, there had been localised protests against the construction of the Rs. 350 billion JSW-Bengal Steel plant at Salboni. No large-scale displacement of local residents was involved. Of the 5,000 acres needed to build the plant, 4,500 acres were owned by the State government, while the remaining 500 were purchased by the JSW-Bengal Steel at relatively high prices. But Maoist-affiliated groups argued that the State had no right to the forest land it was making over to the plant: it belonged, they insisted, to the region’s adivasis.
The police responded to the November 2 bombing by detaining over a dozen Lalgarh area residents for questioning — a far from unusual practice after a major terrorist attack. Many of those detained, predictably, had no connection with terrorists. On November 3, for example, the police held retired schoolteacher Kshmananda Mahato and three teenage school students, Eben Muru, Goutam Patra and Buddhadev Patra. Even though all four were let off the next day, some local residents were incensed.
Clash between police and locals
Matters came to a head on November 5. Early that morning, the police raided the village of Chhoto Pelia in search of Sasadhar Mahato — the fugitive CPI (Maoist) operative alleged to have commanded the attempted assassination of the Chief Minister. Fighting broke out between them and the local residents who the police claim were compelled by the Maoists present in the village to obstruct their way. Fourteen women were injured; one woman, Chhitmani Murmu, lost an eye.
From November 7, the anger transformed into street protests. Led by the Bharat Jakat Majhi Marwa (BJMM), a body of traditional adivasi community leaders, Salboni residents closed roads and blockaded the Lalgarh police station. On November 14, though, the BJMM leadership reached an agreement with the local authorities. But its workers were now attacked by members of the newly-formed Police Santrosh Birodhi Janasadharaner Committee (People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities: PSBJC), which accused the traditional adivasi leadership of selling out the people it represented.
Who constituted the PSBJC? Its principal leader, Chattradhar Mahato, was a long-standing Trinamool Congress supporter who had made a small fortune from public-works contracts — and fugitive Maoist Sasadhar Mahato’s brother. Trinamool leaders claim he was expelled two years ago, but have produced no evidence to back this claim. Notably, Trinamool Congress flags were regularly flown by the PSBJC cadre at their protests; at many places in Lalgarh, the party’s banners still share space with those of the CPI (Maoist).
From the outset, it was clear that the PSBJC had no intention of making peace. Its demands were designed to invite rejection: that West Medinipur’s Superintendent of Police do penance by performing “sit-ups holding his ears;” that all policemen in Lalgarh crawl on all fours from Dalilpur to Chhoto Pelia, rubbing their noses in the dirt; that all those arrested on terrorism-related charges since 1998 be released.
Even then, the State government attempted to stave off a confrontation. On November 27, the day of the deadline set by the PSBJC, the West Bengal police shut down 13 posts and camps in the Lalgarh area. Later, on December 1, two more police posts were abandoned. But West Bengal’s increasingly desperate efforts to make peace failed — and a murderous meltdown followed.
The PSBJC announced the suspension of its struggle — but on ground, formed a parallel administration. Its Maoist allies prevented the entry of the police and administration in the villages of Belpahari, Binpur, Lalgarh, Jamboni, Salboni and Goaltore. From here, the Maoist death squads launched a series of increasingly brutal attacks. BJMM’s Sudhir Mandal, who organised a massive anti-Maoist rally in December, was shot dead. In February 2009, Maoists fired on the funeral procession of the assassinated Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader, Nandalal Pal, killing three. Five more CPI(M) supporters were killed in April, as were four poll staff and police personnel. June brought a fresh wave of attacks.
“The Maoists did not capture Lalgarh,” counter-terrorism analyst Ajai Sahni observes, “the State deserted the people.”
Maoist groups had long been preparing the ground for just such a situation. In 2005, following the assassination of CPI(M) leaders Raghunath Murmu, Bablu Mudi and Mahendra Mahato, the prestigious South Asia Intelligence Review warned of the possibility of a “Naxalbari Redux” — a reference to the Darjeeling district hamlet from where, in March 1967, began a six-year Maoist insurgency that claimed hundreds of lives.
Documents seized from three CPI (Maoist) leaders, researcher Saji Cherian noted in the article, showed plans to attack or blow up police stations. There were also notebooks with details of how adivasis in Bankura, Purulia and West Medinipur were to be educated about their exploitation — and how they could be “freed.”
Starting with an October 14, 2004, attack which claimed the lives of six Eastern Frontier Rifles personnel in West Medinipur district, the CPI (Maoist) launched increasingly ferocious attacks.
Political allies
It also made political allies. In February last year, the West Bengal police arrested Himadri Sen-Roy, the Bengal state secretary of the CPI (Maoist). From Roy’s interrogation, the police acquired a mass of details on how the Maoists were developing a symbiotic relationship with the Trinamool Congress and the welter of so-called civil society movements that had sprung up to oppose West Bengal’s industrialisation drive.
Top Maoist leaders, Sen-Roy is said to have told the police, visited Nandigram in 2006, soon after the Trinamool Congress and Islamist groups initiated what would turn into a bloody confrontation. They sensed opportunity. Sen-Roy claims to have persuaded a range of political figures that their interests and those of the CPI (Maoist) were similar: among them, Trinamool leader Subendhu Adhikari and eminent writer and activist Mahashweta Devi.
Early in 2007, Sen-Roy is alleged to have said, Maoist military commanders purchased Rs. 8 lakh worth of weapons — six .315-bore rifles and ammunition — to set up an armed unit in Nandigram. Dozens of locally-made weapons were also purchased to arm new cadre. The weapons were stored at Sonachura in East Medinipur, an area which saw some of the worst violence during the Nandigram agitation.
Meanwhile, top CPI (Maoist) commander Molajella Koteswar Rao set about constructing military infrastructure in the Lalgarh area. According to Sen-Roy’s testimony to the police — which, under the law, is not admissible in a court — Rao extorted between Rs. 8 lakh every month from roads, construction and forest-produce contracts operating in the districts of Paschim Medinipur, Bankura and Purulia. In addition, CPI (Maoist) units outside West Bengal pumped in a further Rs. 1.5 lakh a month to train recruits in Jharkhand and Orissa’s Mayurbhanj forests.
By 2008, the Intelligence Bureau was reporting Maoist activity in all but one of West Bengal’s 18 districts. Three districts — Bankura, West Medinipur and Purulia —were graded among the most affected in the country. Between January and October 2008, 21 fatalities were reported from the districts in 34 Maoist attacks.
Like the Lalgarh violence, these killings did nothing for the poor adivasis in whose name they were executed: but the CPI (Maoist) doesn’t seem to care.
In one recent interview, Koteswar Rao candidly admitted that his party was willing to endorse almost any form of violence: “We do not support the way they attacked the Victoria station [sic.]”, he said of the Lashkar-e-Taiba jihadists who executed November’s carnage in Mumbai, “where most of the victims were Muslims. At the same time, we feel that the Islamic upsurge should not be opposed as it is basically anti-U.S. and anti-imperialist in nature. We, therefore, want it to grow.”
West Bengal will be a test of whether democratic institutions prove capable of resisting this cult of death.
KPS gill on Naxals
The suspension of common sense and the astonishing embrace of nonsense
KPS Gill reports on Lalgarh for The Telegraph, Armed with the experience that tackled Punjab militancy
Truth about Lalgarh1
KPS Gill at Bhadutala in West Midnapore on June 27. Picture by Samir Mondal
ON ASSIGNMENT
K.P.S Gill, dubbed ‘Supercop’ for bringing the Punjab militancy to its knees, reached Calcutta on June 26 on the invitation of The Telegraph to assess the Lalgarh operation against the backdrop of his strategic and tactical experience in the field. Gill spent the day in Calcutta, doing “extended homework” on Lalgarh. “Till now, I have been watching the situation from afar. Now I will be following the developments more closely,” he said before interacting with some people in the city familiar with the Lalgarh operation. The next morning, when the security forces were trying to recapture Ramgarh that fell later in the day, Gill proceeded to Lalgarh. As Gill’s vehicle entered Midnapore town, police personnel waved the vehicle down and asked him to follow them to the police superintendent’s office. Gill was called in with a request to stay away from Lalgarh but soon the session became a full-fledged discussion with a steady stream of officers walking up to him, saluting him and sharing their experiences with him. The administration told Gill that he would be escorted back to Calcutta after lunch because of his Z-plus security tag and because the roads were heavily mined. However, setting out for lunch, Gill made a detour and travelled towards Lalgarh, interacting with several people on the way.
Eventually, at a check post, Gill ran into a wall of police and paramilitary personnel. By then, the veteran who once sent shivers down extremist belts had collected enough information to fulfil his assignment for The Telegraph.
As I briefly toured West Midnapore district during the police action in Lalgarh (I was prevented from going into the affected area on “security” grounds), the most dramatic lessons of the crisis, through all its phases — the slow build-up over seven months of state denial, appeasement and progressive error; paralysis in the face of rising Maoist violence; and the final, almost effortless resolution, as the rebels simply melted away in the face of the first evidence of determined use of force — were abundantly clear to me: the complete absence of historical memory in the institutions of the state, and the need for each administration to repeatedly reinvent the wheel.
The West Bengal government is not the first to go through this fruitless cycle; or the first to allow immeasurable harm to be inflicted on its citizens as a result of what is nothing more than the suspension of common sense. Right from my days in Assam, I have seen this cycle afflict virtually every administration confronted with the threat of terrorism across the country — even in theatres of eventual and exceptional counter-terrorism success.
After visiting Midnapore and talking to various people, including police officers, I learned that the operations essentially comprised marching into areas supposedly infested by Naxalites. In the early 1970s, when the Naxalites started setting up cells in the district that I was then heading in Assam, we had relied on building up intelligence so as to pinpoint the hideouts of the Naxalite leadership. I recall that we had identified 85 such places, and when we raided these places, we were able to arrest 74 Naxalites, virtually breaking the back of the movement in the state.
In the current situation, the operations are not intelligence-based but only aimed at area dominance. This is a strikingly inferior response to intelligence-based operations. I still remember a remark made by the last British inspector-general of Assam in an inspection note at the Sonari police station, that “one proper arrest is equivalent to six months of patrolling by a company of policemen”. This, incidentally, had been written shortly after a movement launched by the Revolutionary Communist Party of India (well known for the Dum Dum-Basirhat raid in West Bengal) had been put down by Assam Police.
The government and its agencies go into a state of denial during initial manifestations of extremist violence and terrorism — and “initial” here may mean years and decades. Administrative inaction is couched in a wide range of alibis; agencies connected with the state and the “intelligentsia” add to this by putting forward “solutions” which serve as apologetics for anti-state forces. The debate is taken over by these knee-jerk, inchoate “political” and “developmental” solutions and by the “root cause” argument: that extremism is the result of national issues like poverty and injustice rather than being driven by any ideological motive.
Indeed, the Marxist leadership in West Bengal has been exceptionally imaginative in the invention of false histories, claiming that the Naxalite movement of the 1967-75 phase was defeated by their government’s administrative and land reforms that cut away the Naxalite recruitment base (the CPM-led Left Front incidentally came to power in 1977). Anyone who is even superficially familiar with the history of that phase would, however, immediately recall that the Naxalites were crushed — indeed, brutally crushed — by the Congress government of Siddhartha Shankar Ray. If at all reforms had a salutary impact, it was only after the capacities of the rebels had been comprehensively neutralised by relentless police action.
As the Maoists now restore progressive ascendancy in parts of the state, however, such nonsense continues to be given wide publicity, not only by ill-informed “intellectuals”, but, astonishingly, by the Marxist party leadership as well, even as the real magnitude of the threat is denied, and the basics of policing and wide deficits in police and intelligence capacities are ignored.
I have seen this, again and again, in theatre after theatre. The state and police paralysis witnessed at Lalgarh was, for instance, much in evidence in the early phases of the Khalistani movement in Punjab. Among the hundreds of incidents illustrating the collapse of administration, perhaps the most humiliating was the February 1984 episode, when six fully armed policemen were dragged into the Golden Temple by militants. The response — 24 hours later — came from senior police officials who begged Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale to release the men and hand over their weapons.
After protracted negotiations, the dead body of one policeman was handed over, and five policemen were released. Their weapons were never returned. No action was ever taken on the murder of the policeman.
Andhra Pradesh has now become a model of effective police response to Naxalism, but few recall the decades of Maoist dominance in wide areas of this state, and the apologetics that were advanced in favour of the extremists in the highest echelons of government. Then chief minister N.T. Rama Rao, for instance, described the Naxalites as “true patriots”; he and his successors, across party lines, found it expedient (as the Trinamul Congress recently has), to form opportunistic electoral alliances with the Naxalites — to the inevitable advantage of the rebels.
Those who now celebrate the prowess of the Greyhounds forget that this force was created as far back as in 1989, and it is only under unambiguous political mandate after 2005 that an enormously empowered Andhra Pradesh police and this special force have been able to inflict near-comprehensive defeat on the Maoists in the state.
Political leaders in West Bengal must see through their own platitudes and falsifications to comprehend the core of state infirmity that constitutes the foundations of the Maoist power. The absurd alibis that have been advanced to evade the necessity of response must be abandoned at the earliest, and not after the sheer quantum of the loss of innocent lives — as has been the case in other theatres — simply forces the state to respond.
Top
KPS Gill reports on Lalgarh for The Telegraph, Armed with the experience that tackled Punjab militancy
Truth about Lalgarh1
KPS Gill at Bhadutala in West Midnapore on June 27. Picture by Samir Mondal
ON ASSIGNMENT
K.P.S Gill, dubbed ‘Supercop’ for bringing the Punjab militancy to its knees, reached Calcutta on June 26 on the invitation of The Telegraph to assess the Lalgarh operation against the backdrop of his strategic and tactical experience in the field. Gill spent the day in Calcutta, doing “extended homework” on Lalgarh. “Till now, I have been watching the situation from afar. Now I will be following the developments more closely,” he said before interacting with some people in the city familiar with the Lalgarh operation. The next morning, when the security forces were trying to recapture Ramgarh that fell later in the day, Gill proceeded to Lalgarh. As Gill’s vehicle entered Midnapore town, police personnel waved the vehicle down and asked him to follow them to the police superintendent’s office. Gill was called in with a request to stay away from Lalgarh but soon the session became a full-fledged discussion with a steady stream of officers walking up to him, saluting him and sharing their experiences with him. The administration told Gill that he would be escorted back to Calcutta after lunch because of his Z-plus security tag and because the roads were heavily mined. However, setting out for lunch, Gill made a detour and travelled towards Lalgarh, interacting with several people on the way.
Eventually, at a check post, Gill ran into a wall of police and paramilitary personnel. By then, the veteran who once sent shivers down extremist belts had collected enough information to fulfil his assignment for The Telegraph.
As I briefly toured West Midnapore district during the police action in Lalgarh (I was prevented from going into the affected area on “security” grounds), the most dramatic lessons of the crisis, through all its phases — the slow build-up over seven months of state denial, appeasement and progressive error; paralysis in the face of rising Maoist violence; and the final, almost effortless resolution, as the rebels simply melted away in the face of the first evidence of determined use of force — were abundantly clear to me: the complete absence of historical memory in the institutions of the state, and the need for each administration to repeatedly reinvent the wheel.
The West Bengal government is not the first to go through this fruitless cycle; or the first to allow immeasurable harm to be inflicted on its citizens as a result of what is nothing more than the suspension of common sense. Right from my days in Assam, I have seen this cycle afflict virtually every administration confronted with the threat of terrorism across the country — even in theatres of eventual and exceptional counter-terrorism success.
After visiting Midnapore and talking to various people, including police officers, I learned that the operations essentially comprised marching into areas supposedly infested by Naxalites. In the early 1970s, when the Naxalites started setting up cells in the district that I was then heading in Assam, we had relied on building up intelligence so as to pinpoint the hideouts of the Naxalite leadership. I recall that we had identified 85 such places, and when we raided these places, we were able to arrest 74 Naxalites, virtually breaking the back of the movement in the state.
In the current situation, the operations are not intelligence-based but only aimed at area dominance. This is a strikingly inferior response to intelligence-based operations. I still remember a remark made by the last British inspector-general of Assam in an inspection note at the Sonari police station, that “one proper arrest is equivalent to six months of patrolling by a company of policemen”. This, incidentally, had been written shortly after a movement launched by the Revolutionary Communist Party of India (well known for the Dum Dum-Basirhat raid in West Bengal) had been put down by Assam Police.
The government and its agencies go into a state of denial during initial manifestations of extremist violence and terrorism — and “initial” here may mean years and decades. Administrative inaction is couched in a wide range of alibis; agencies connected with the state and the “intelligentsia” add to this by putting forward “solutions” which serve as apologetics for anti-state forces. The debate is taken over by these knee-jerk, inchoate “political” and “developmental” solutions and by the “root cause” argument: that extremism is the result of national issues like poverty and injustice rather than being driven by any ideological motive.
Indeed, the Marxist leadership in West Bengal has been exceptionally imaginative in the invention of false histories, claiming that the Naxalite movement of the 1967-75 phase was defeated by their government’s administrative and land reforms that cut away the Naxalite recruitment base (the CPM-led Left Front incidentally came to power in 1977). Anyone who is even superficially familiar with the history of that phase would, however, immediately recall that the Naxalites were crushed — indeed, brutally crushed — by the Congress government of Siddhartha Shankar Ray. If at all reforms had a salutary impact, it was only after the capacities of the rebels had been comprehensively neutralised by relentless police action.
As the Maoists now restore progressive ascendancy in parts of the state, however, such nonsense continues to be given wide publicity, not only by ill-informed “intellectuals”, but, astonishingly, by the Marxist party leadership as well, even as the real magnitude of the threat is denied, and the basics of policing and wide deficits in police and intelligence capacities are ignored.
I have seen this, again and again, in theatre after theatre. The state and police paralysis witnessed at Lalgarh was, for instance, much in evidence in the early phases of the Khalistani movement in Punjab. Among the hundreds of incidents illustrating the collapse of administration, perhaps the most humiliating was the February 1984 episode, when six fully armed policemen were dragged into the Golden Temple by militants. The response — 24 hours later — came from senior police officials who begged Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale to release the men and hand over their weapons.
After protracted negotiations, the dead body of one policeman was handed over, and five policemen were released. Their weapons were never returned. No action was ever taken on the murder of the policeman.
Andhra Pradesh has now become a model of effective police response to Naxalism, but few recall the decades of Maoist dominance in wide areas of this state, and the apologetics that were advanced in favour of the extremists in the highest echelons of government. Then chief minister N.T. Rama Rao, for instance, described the Naxalites as “true patriots”; he and his successors, across party lines, found it expedient (as the Trinamul Congress recently has), to form opportunistic electoral alliances with the Naxalites — to the inevitable advantage of the rebels.
Those who now celebrate the prowess of the Greyhounds forget that this force was created as far back as in 1989, and it is only under unambiguous political mandate after 2005 that an enormously empowered Andhra Pradesh police and this special force have been able to inflict near-comprehensive defeat on the Maoists in the state.
Political leaders in West Bengal must see through their own platitudes and falsifications to comprehend the core of state infirmity that constitutes the foundations of the Maoist power. The absurd alibis that have been advanced to evade the necessity of response must be abandoned at the earliest, and not after the sheer quantum of the loss of innocent lives — as has been the case in other theatres — simply forces the state to respond.
Top
Channel 4 documentray on taj attack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edsRBijAx_U
some pertinent questions :
1. after helping terrorists during attacks and now making an hero out of kasab what did Indian media do ? did it follow on victims in Israel? foreigners who were caught in taj? Indian victims and policemen? how politicians of different hues like deshmukh in maharshtra, or patil at delhi or kerala CM in karnataka mocked sacrifice of our heroes? why marine commandos were unable to do anything?
some pertinent questions :
1. after helping terrorists during attacks and now making an hero out of kasab what did Indian media do ? did it follow on victims in Israel? foreigners who were caught in taj? Indian victims and policemen? how politicians of different hues like deshmukh in maharshtra, or patil at delhi or kerala CM in karnataka mocked sacrifice of our heroes? why marine commandos were unable to do anything?
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
trusted ally of America continues to fools all the people all the time
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Zafar Hilaly
The army is fast acquiring a credibility problem with its claims of dead, injured and captured Taliban. At first there were mere mutterings, sotto voce suspicions, that not all is as claimed. These doubts are increasing; the chorus of suspicion is more voluble and before they acquire the dimensions of a scream the Army had better attend to it.
The pleasant and able and composed DG, ISPR in fact alluded to these suspicions on June 22 when he said that the army had not wanted to show pictures of the dead lest the public become upset but, presumably, in response to public demand, he showed 54 pictures of dead Taliban. All of whom appeared very much as one would expect those killed in battle. I doubt if anyone was upset by those images. Actually, for Pakistanis fed on a rich diet of Taliban videos showing gory executions of soldiers, with the sound on, they were rather tame. In fact most watching probably relished seeing their tormentors dead.
Noticeably, there were no photos of injured Taliban and only a desultory few of those claimed to have been captured have ever been shown on TV. In contrast the Taliban paraded their victims, allowed interviews and generally made a great show about their capture and their own prowess. Of course, it was done with the aim of terrorising the populace just as for the army to show their captives in all poses would hopefully also terrorise the enemy.
Some Taliban practices may be worth adopting because photos of a mere 54 dead while claiming that the actual number is 2000 do not wash. Especially as not a single one of the first tier leaders has been killed, wounded or captured and rumours are circulating that the Taliban leadership have been evacuated away from the danger zone, along with Al Qaeda leaders to Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan and would return in due course.
Pakistanis are a suspicious lot when it comes to evaluating official claims, perhaps because they tend to deceive even when it is easier to tell the truth; or because they have learnt from experience that "official speak" is invariably wrong or comes with a spin; or because the claims are so fatuous as to defy credulity. For example, after every air strike the number of dead militants ranges from six to 14 militants, seldom more. All of them are supposed to be insurgents, rarely civilians, presumably because, unlike the Americans, we have very discriminating "Taliban seeking" missiles. Considering the difficult terrain and the risk to be incurred by the usually "reliable" sources reaching the site of the bombing it is remarkable how quickly the numbers of dead and injured are counted, processed and reported in the press the next day. Whoever does such an efficient job should be asked to lead our flaying attempts to cope with the IDPs problem.
It was also revealing that the BBC correspondent who was taken on a tour of the battle zone, he termed it "bandit country," said that while he was shown a half dozen or so of "captured Taliban" he saw none of the 2000 dead nor any graves or other signs of death. Instead BBC viewers last night got to see what the Taliban had allowed him to film which was the hanging corpse of a beheaded soldier and another who had been killed, with boastful Taliban standing nearby. Clearly there is something wrong with the optics of this war as far as Pakistan is concerned.
Of much greater concern was a news report carried in Dawn of 23 June entitled "Efforts on for patch- up between Darra Taliban, Adezai lashkar," which states that "Some "invisible" forces( normally a euphemism for we know who) are out to narrow the differences and broker an understanding between the Darra Adam Khel-based Taliban and leaders of the Qaumi Lashkar of Adezai on the outskirts of the provincial capital – the Taliban conditions included that their men would freely move in parts of Peshawar and would take action against those found involved in 'un-Islamic' activities and the Lashkar would not object to their actions. Secondly, the Taliban want the lashkar not to create hurdles while they recruit new members. Another condition of the Taliban is that the lashkar will not support security forces in case of any clash between the Taliban and law enforcing agencies."
Apparently two rounds of negotiations have already been held and members of the "Tableeghii Jamaat were active to broker an understanding between the two sides". When the local police chief was asked about these negotiations he denied all knowledge of them. Both are probably telling the truth. The left hand in Pakistan often does not know what the right hand is doing. Or the left side of the mouth, in the case of the Interior Minister, who claimed that Fazlullah had been "trapped," does not have a clue what the right side, which denied he had made any such statement, is saying.
Such reports, if true, damage the sincerity of the army's efforts and rob its actions and claims of credibility. It is difficult to believe that even while the army is engaged in fighting and dying in Swat another arm of government is negotiating deals with the same blood thirsty foe of murderers, kidnappers and drug peddlars. The report further negates the claim of the Tableeghi Jamaat that it is a purely religious organisation rather than one with a political agenda, as many have long suspected. (I recall being summoned to the Yemeni Foreign Office in 1988 and being asked why the Tableeqi Jamaat chose Yemen to spread the word of Islam. In the words of the Yemeni official: "Excellency, this is our religion, we gave it to you, please don't try and teach us the proper Islam. Ask them to go somewhere else. Or do they have some other agenda.")
Mr Zardari has written a column in the Washington Post emphasising that democracy and democracy alone is the panacea for Pakistan's problems. Unfortunately many of his countrymen are not so certain. Pakistanis are as sceptical about democracy as they are about dictatorship. Both have failed to deliver. Both speak with forked tongues. Similarly, Mr Zardari has claimed that he will fight terrorism to the bitter end. "Fight" should be the operative word and not "negotiate" deals of the sort being hustled in Peshawar.
The writer is a former ambassador. Email: charles123it@hotmail.com
Zafar Hilaly
The army is fast acquiring a credibility problem with its claims of dead, injured and captured Taliban. At first there were mere mutterings, sotto voce suspicions, that not all is as claimed. These doubts are increasing; the chorus of suspicion is more voluble and before they acquire the dimensions of a scream the Army had better attend to it.
The pleasant and able and composed DG, ISPR in fact alluded to these suspicions on June 22 when he said that the army had not wanted to show pictures of the dead lest the public become upset but, presumably, in response to public demand, he showed 54 pictures of dead Taliban. All of whom appeared very much as one would expect those killed in battle. I doubt if anyone was upset by those images. Actually, for Pakistanis fed on a rich diet of Taliban videos showing gory executions of soldiers, with the sound on, they were rather tame. In fact most watching probably relished seeing their tormentors dead.
Noticeably, there were no photos of injured Taliban and only a desultory few of those claimed to have been captured have ever been shown on TV. In contrast the Taliban paraded their victims, allowed interviews and generally made a great show about their capture and their own prowess. Of course, it was done with the aim of terrorising the populace just as for the army to show their captives in all poses would hopefully also terrorise the enemy.
Some Taliban practices may be worth adopting because photos of a mere 54 dead while claiming that the actual number is 2000 do not wash. Especially as not a single one of the first tier leaders has been killed, wounded or captured and rumours are circulating that the Taliban leadership have been evacuated away from the danger zone, along with Al Qaeda leaders to Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan and would return in due course.
Pakistanis are a suspicious lot when it comes to evaluating official claims, perhaps because they tend to deceive even when it is easier to tell the truth; or because they have learnt from experience that "official speak" is invariably wrong or comes with a spin; or because the claims are so fatuous as to defy credulity. For example, after every air strike the number of dead militants ranges from six to 14 militants, seldom more. All of them are supposed to be insurgents, rarely civilians, presumably because, unlike the Americans, we have very discriminating "Taliban seeking" missiles. Considering the difficult terrain and the risk to be incurred by the usually "reliable" sources reaching the site of the bombing it is remarkable how quickly the numbers of dead and injured are counted, processed and reported in the press the next day. Whoever does such an efficient job should be asked to lead our flaying attempts to cope with the IDPs problem.
It was also revealing that the BBC correspondent who was taken on a tour of the battle zone, he termed it "bandit country," said that while he was shown a half dozen or so of "captured Taliban" he saw none of the 2000 dead nor any graves or other signs of death. Instead BBC viewers last night got to see what the Taliban had allowed him to film which was the hanging corpse of a beheaded soldier and another who had been killed, with boastful Taliban standing nearby. Clearly there is something wrong with the optics of this war as far as Pakistan is concerned.
Of much greater concern was a news report carried in Dawn of 23 June entitled "Efforts on for patch- up between Darra Taliban, Adezai lashkar," which states that "Some "invisible" forces( normally a euphemism for we know who) are out to narrow the differences and broker an understanding between the Darra Adam Khel-based Taliban and leaders of the Qaumi Lashkar of Adezai on the outskirts of the provincial capital – the Taliban conditions included that their men would freely move in parts of Peshawar and would take action against those found involved in 'un-Islamic' activities and the Lashkar would not object to their actions. Secondly, the Taliban want the lashkar not to create hurdles while they recruit new members. Another condition of the Taliban is that the lashkar will not support security forces in case of any clash between the Taliban and law enforcing agencies."
Apparently two rounds of negotiations have already been held and members of the "Tableeghii Jamaat were active to broker an understanding between the two sides". When the local police chief was asked about these negotiations he denied all knowledge of them. Both are probably telling the truth. The left hand in Pakistan often does not know what the right hand is doing. Or the left side of the mouth, in the case of the Interior Minister, who claimed that Fazlullah had been "trapped," does not have a clue what the right side, which denied he had made any such statement, is saying.
Such reports, if true, damage the sincerity of the army's efforts and rob its actions and claims of credibility. It is difficult to believe that even while the army is engaged in fighting and dying in Swat another arm of government is negotiating deals with the same blood thirsty foe of murderers, kidnappers and drug peddlars. The report further negates the claim of the Tableeghi Jamaat that it is a purely religious organisation rather than one with a political agenda, as many have long suspected. (I recall being summoned to the Yemeni Foreign Office in 1988 and being asked why the Tableeqi Jamaat chose Yemen to spread the word of Islam. In the words of the Yemeni official: "Excellency, this is our religion, we gave it to you, please don't try and teach us the proper Islam. Ask them to go somewhere else. Or do they have some other agenda.")
Mr Zardari has written a column in the Washington Post emphasising that democracy and democracy alone is the panacea for Pakistan's problems. Unfortunately many of his countrymen are not so certain. Pakistanis are as sceptical about democracy as they are about dictatorship. Both have failed to deliver. Both speak with forked tongues. Similarly, Mr Zardari has claimed that he will fight terrorism to the bitter end. "Fight" should be the operative word and not "negotiate" deals of the sort being hustled in Peshawar.
The writer is a former ambassador. Email: charles123it@hotmail.com
root of australian anger : vote bank policy of UPA
There always existed some anger against Indians among Australians because of snobbish behaviour of NAM besotted Nehru and Indira Gabdhi.
I have many near and dear ones in Australia .Their observation is that Aussies were highly offended by the churlish outbursts of UPA Ministers against Aussi Police who were investigating Dr.Haneef and links with his cousin brothers who were involved in the Air Port Jeep Bomb attack in Glasgo UK .Dr Hanif moved to Australia and had taken up job in a Hospital a week before the Terror attack.Aussies resented the unwanted interefence in thier Police investigations.
Final straw was Manmohan's statement that he was so disturbed by Dr Hanif's and Cousin Kafeel's arrests that he was unable to sleep at all.
Aussies were angrily and openly asking whether Indians wanted to turn their Country into another soft State towrds Islamic Terror like India ?? Aussies could never understand the constraints of Vote Bank Politics in an election year . They were and are still bewildered by Manmohan's offer of job to Hanif .
Immediate reaction was that Aussies refused to be treated by the Indian Doctors irrespective of their Religeon.Hospitals did withdrew Indian doctors from their panels.
Has any other Nationality been targeted even much smeared Pakistanies ??? Why Indians who pour in nearly USD 8.5 Billions per year in Australia ???
Mr Raman please check up with your sources there and you will be shocked to know that you too are quite off the mark .I will be a very very relieved person if I am proved wrong as millions of Indians are living or studying there and their interets ,safety and welfare is of paramount concern for all of us .
I have many near and dear ones in Australia .Their observation is that Aussies were highly offended by the churlish outbursts of UPA Ministers against Aussi Police who were investigating Dr.Haneef and links with his cousin brothers who were involved in the Air Port Jeep Bomb attack in Glasgo UK .Dr Hanif moved to Australia and had taken up job in a Hospital a week before the Terror attack.Aussies resented the unwanted interefence in thier Police investigations.
Final straw was Manmohan's statement that he was so disturbed by Dr Hanif's and Cousin Kafeel's arrests that he was unable to sleep at all.
Aussies were angrily and openly asking whether Indians wanted to turn their Country into another soft State towrds Islamic Terror like India ?? Aussies could never understand the constraints of Vote Bank Politics in an election year . They were and are still bewildered by Manmohan's offer of job to Hanif .
Immediate reaction was that Aussies refused to be treated by the Indian Doctors irrespective of their Religeon.Hospitals did withdrew Indian doctors from their panels.
Has any other Nationality been targeted even much smeared Pakistanies ??? Why Indians who pour in nearly USD 8.5 Billions per year in Australia ???
Mr Raman please check up with your sources there and you will be shocked to know that you too are quite off the mark .I will be a very very relieved person if I am proved wrong as millions of Indians are living or studying there and their interets ,safety and welfare is of paramount concern for all of us .
Monday, June 29, 2009
Lashkar agents were at site of Taj attack . who??
Under its Newsnight programme, the British Broadcasting Corporation 2 is reportedly planning to show tonight an investigative story on last year's Mumbai [Images] terrorist attacks by Richard Watson, its correspondent.
An advance version of the programme disseminated to the media in the UK and India shows that as a result of his investigation, Watson came to the conclusion that spotters belonging to a Mumbai-based sleeper cell of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba [Images] must have been communicating to the LeT's controlling officers in Pakistan details of the police deployments and movements in and around the targeted areas on the basis of which they were able to give precise instructions to the terrorists participating in the multiple attacks. He questions the Mumbai police version that the controllers were able to give such instructions purely on the basis of their visual observations from the TV coverage of the attacks as they were taking place.
As reported by The Telegraph, Watson says as follows: "How did the leaders know the police positions in such detail? Mumbai police say they were watching live TV in Pakistan. But these instructions seem remarkably precise for that. I know the kind of live-shots used in these situations and they would be unlikely to yield that kind of detail. It is far more likely that they had spotters on the ground, who were feeding back information to their leaders about the police movements. If this is true then it means a Lashkar e-Tayiba cell in Mumbai which played a crucial role in the attacks which is still undiscovered."
His conclusion is based on his assessment of the communications intelligence collected by the police and not on the basis of any independent evidence collected by him in addition to what the Mumbai Police had collected.
The fact that the LeT has been having sleeper cells in Mumbai is well known since the twin explosions of August, 2003. It is also a reasonable possibility that the Mumbai Police has not been able to identify and neutralise all the sleeper cells of the LeT in Mumbai. That is why acts of terrorism keep taking place from time to time despite the neutralisation of many cells in Mumbai and other cities. Recently, a sleeper cell headed by a Nepal-based LeT operative was neutralised by the Delhi [Images] Police.
To say that the LeT must still be having unearthed sleeper cells in Mumbai is one thing and to assert that the spotters of an LeT sleeper cell in Mumbai must have been passing on details of police deployments around the targeted areas to the controllers in Pakistan during the attacks is something totally different.
The Mumbai terrorist attack lasted nearly over 60 hours. Nationals of many Western countries and Israel were among those taken hostage by the terrorists. The intelligence agencies of at least India, the US and Israel were electronically monitoring the telephone calls from and to the attacked areas on a minute-to-minute basis. Of all the intelligence agencies of the world, the National Security Agency, the electronic intelligence agency of the US, has deployed the maximum technical assets in the Af-Pak region since 9/11 to monitor the communications of Al Qaeda [Images], the LeT and other associates. Once the terrorist attacks started, the NSA must have turned all its assets in the region towards Mumbai to monitor all in-coming and out-going communications. So too the Indian intelligence.
The Indian and the US intelligence agencies were able to intercept all communications passing between the terrorists who had occupied the two hotels and Nariman House and their controlling officers in Pakistan. In addition to contemporaneously monitoring telephone conversations, intelligence agencies have also arrangements for automatic recording of all conversations in a terrorism situation so that if they contemporaneously miss any conversation, they can refer to the recordings.
Had there been LeT spotters around the areas targeted, who were in independent communication with the controllers in Pakistan their conversations -- whether through the Internet or otherwise -- must have also been intercepted contemporaneously or recorded and noticed subsequently. No intelligence agency -- neither Indian nor the US nor of any other country -- has spoken of any such conversation with Pakistan by elements not participating in the attacks. This would show that apart from the 10 terrorists of the LeT, who participated in the attacks, nobody else was in independent communication with the controllers in Pakistan.
The terrorist attacks were covered from different camera angles by camera teams from over 50 TV channels of the world. If the controllers in Pakistan had been able to see all their live transmissions, they would have had the minutest details of the police deployments.
During the Black September kidnapping of some Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics [Images] in 1972, the terrorists, who had taken up position with the hostages inside a house in the games village, were able to get details of the police deployments by watching TV inside the house. At that time, there were hardly half a dozen channels and their technical equipment was not very good. If they were able to get so many details by watching so few channels, it should not be surprising that the Pakistan-based controllers of the Mumbai attacks were able to get a lot more details in such precision.
An advance version of the programme disseminated to the media in the UK and India shows that as a result of his investigation, Watson came to the conclusion that spotters belonging to a Mumbai-based sleeper cell of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba [Images] must have been communicating to the LeT's controlling officers in Pakistan details of the police deployments and movements in and around the targeted areas on the basis of which they were able to give precise instructions to the terrorists participating in the multiple attacks. He questions the Mumbai police version that the controllers were able to give such instructions purely on the basis of their visual observations from the TV coverage of the attacks as they were taking place.
As reported by The Telegraph, Watson says as follows: "How did the leaders know the police positions in such detail? Mumbai police say they were watching live TV in Pakistan. But these instructions seem remarkably precise for that. I know the kind of live-shots used in these situations and they would be unlikely to yield that kind of detail. It is far more likely that they had spotters on the ground, who were feeding back information to their leaders about the police movements. If this is true then it means a Lashkar e-Tayiba cell in Mumbai which played a crucial role in the attacks which is still undiscovered."
His conclusion is based on his assessment of the communications intelligence collected by the police and not on the basis of any independent evidence collected by him in addition to what the Mumbai Police had collected.
The fact that the LeT has been having sleeper cells in Mumbai is well known since the twin explosions of August, 2003. It is also a reasonable possibility that the Mumbai Police has not been able to identify and neutralise all the sleeper cells of the LeT in Mumbai. That is why acts of terrorism keep taking place from time to time despite the neutralisation of many cells in Mumbai and other cities. Recently, a sleeper cell headed by a Nepal-based LeT operative was neutralised by the Delhi [Images] Police.
To say that the LeT must still be having unearthed sleeper cells in Mumbai is one thing and to assert that the spotters of an LeT sleeper cell in Mumbai must have been passing on details of police deployments around the targeted areas to the controllers in Pakistan during the attacks is something totally different.
The Mumbai terrorist attack lasted nearly over 60 hours. Nationals of many Western countries and Israel were among those taken hostage by the terrorists. The intelligence agencies of at least India, the US and Israel were electronically monitoring the telephone calls from and to the attacked areas on a minute-to-minute basis. Of all the intelligence agencies of the world, the National Security Agency, the electronic intelligence agency of the US, has deployed the maximum technical assets in the Af-Pak region since 9/11 to monitor the communications of Al Qaeda [Images], the LeT and other associates. Once the terrorist attacks started, the NSA must have turned all its assets in the region towards Mumbai to monitor all in-coming and out-going communications. So too the Indian intelligence.
The Indian and the US intelligence agencies were able to intercept all communications passing between the terrorists who had occupied the two hotels and Nariman House and their controlling officers in Pakistan. In addition to contemporaneously monitoring telephone conversations, intelligence agencies have also arrangements for automatic recording of all conversations in a terrorism situation so that if they contemporaneously miss any conversation, they can refer to the recordings.
Had there been LeT spotters around the areas targeted, who were in independent communication with the controllers in Pakistan their conversations -- whether through the Internet or otherwise -- must have also been intercepted contemporaneously or recorded and noticed subsequently. No intelligence agency -- neither Indian nor the US nor of any other country -- has spoken of any such conversation with Pakistan by elements not participating in the attacks. This would show that apart from the 10 terrorists of the LeT, who participated in the attacks, nobody else was in independent communication with the controllers in Pakistan.
The terrorist attacks were covered from different camera angles by camera teams from over 50 TV channels of the world. If the controllers in Pakistan had been able to see all their live transmissions, they would have had the minutest details of the police deployments.
During the Black September kidnapping of some Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics [Images] in 1972, the terrorists, who had taken up position with the hostages inside a house in the games village, were able to get details of the police deployments by watching TV inside the house. At that time, there were hardly half a dozen channels and their technical equipment was not very good. If they were able to get so many details by watching so few channels, it should not be surprising that the Pakistan-based controllers of the Mumbai attacks were able to get a lot more details in such precision.
Taliban are now in bangladesh
DHAKA: A 40-year-old widow was whipped 202 times along with a man, following an edict issued by a local religious leader for her alleged
involvement in "anti-social activities" in southeastern Bangladesh, prompting police to arrest six persons.
Piara Begum, a mother of five, was whipped 202 times while 25-year-old Mamun Miah was executed 101 lashes before hundreds of people in Comilla on Saturday.
The woman, who fell unconscious after the lashings, was admitted to a local hospital, where her condition was said to be critical, the Daily Star said.
The two were also fined Tk 30,000 each for their involvement in "anti-social" activity, the paper said.
The incident led to local protests even as the police arrested six persons in connection with case, including the local religious leader who presided over the village arbitration and the man who executed the whippings.
The widow had earlier filed a case under the women and children repression prevention act accusing eight persons including the arrested six and 10 to 12 unidentified people.
Dudmiah, who executed the whippings, said on being produced in the court: "I executed the fatwa issued by local religious leaders; I was given the task as a senior villager."
involvement in "anti-social activities" in southeastern Bangladesh, prompting police to arrest six persons.
Piara Begum, a mother of five, was whipped 202 times while 25-year-old Mamun Miah was executed 101 lashes before hundreds of people in Comilla on Saturday.
The woman, who fell unconscious after the lashings, was admitted to a local hospital, where her condition was said to be critical, the Daily Star said.
The two were also fined Tk 30,000 each for their involvement in "anti-social" activity, the paper said.
The incident led to local protests even as the police arrested six persons in connection with case, including the local religious leader who presided over the village arbitration and the man who executed the whippings.
The widow had earlier filed a case under the women and children repression prevention act accusing eight persons including the arrested six and 10 to 12 unidentified people.
Dudmiah, who executed the whippings, said on being produced in the court: "I executed the fatwa issued by local religious leaders; I was given the task as a senior villager."
Saturday, June 27, 2009
DDA approves mosque even if there are no Muslims
निर्माणाधीन धार्मिक स्थल के विरोध में किया प्रदर्शन
Jun 27, 12:09 am
बाहरी दिल्ली, जागरण संवाददाता : रोहिणी सेक्टर-16 स्थित ब्लॉक बी1 में निर्माणाधीन धार्मिक स्थल का मामला उग्र रूप लेता जा रहा है। शुक्रवार दोपहर 12 बजे स्थानीय रेजीडेंट वेलफेयर सोसाइटियों द्वारा संयुक्त रूप से धार्मिक स्थल के निर्माण के विरोध में प्रदर्शन किया गया। प्रदर्शनकारी आज भी इस मांग पर अड़े थे कि धार्मिक स्थल का निर्माण ऐसे स्थान पर कराया जाए जहां उनके अनुयायियों की तादाद अधिक हो। खास बात यह थी कि मामले को तूल देकर राजनीतिक रोटियां सेकने वाले राजनेता प्रदर्शन स्थल से नदारद दिख रहे थे।
ज्ञात हो कि पिछले चार दिनों से रोहिणी सेक्टर-16 स्थित बी-1 ब्लॉक में धार्मिक स्थल बनाए जाने के विरोध में लोग प्रदर्शन कर रहे हैं। डीडीए द्वारा मस्जिद निर्माण के लिए भूमि आवंटन करने से क्षेत्रीय लोगों में रोष है। रोहिणी सेक्टर-11,16 व 17 की समस्त आरडब्ल्यूए द्वारा संयुक्त रूप से धार्मिक स्थल के निर्माण का विरोध किया जा रहा है। ऐसे में शुक्रवार को भी आरडब्ल्यूए के अध्यक्ष सुभाष बंसल के नेतृत्व में निर्माणाधीन धार्मिक स्थल से महज 500 मीटर की दूरी पर प्रदर्शन जारी था। इस मौके पर किसी भी अप्रिय घटना को रोकने के लिए भारी संख्या में पुलिस बल की तैनाती की गई थी। ऐसे में रोहिणी सेक्टर-15 व 16 डिवाइडिंग मार्ग व रोहिणी सेक्टर-16 मुख्य सड़क पर बैरिकेड लगाकर यातायात रोक दिया गया था। वहीं निर्माणाधीन मस्जिद परिसर के आसपास का पूरा क्षेत्र छावनी में तब्दील कर दिया गया था। रेजीडेंट वेलफेयर के सदस्य मस्जिद निर्माण रोकने की बात कह रहे थे। उनका कहना था कि मास्टर प्लान-2021 के अंतर्गत जिस भूमि पर धर्मस्थल बनना है उसके आसपास उसी धर्म के पांच हजार अनुयायी होने आवश्यक हैं। रेजीडेंट वेलफेयर सोसायटी के सदस्य हरीश जोशी ने कहा कि वे क्षेत्र की सुरक्षा व्यवस्था को देखते हुए धार्मिक स्थल का निर्माण कहीं अन्य स्थान पर करवाने के पक्ष में हैं जहां उस धर्म के अनुयायी अधिक संख्या में निवास करते हों। वहीं दरगाह-ए-इसलामिया इंतेजामिया कमेटी के अध्यक्ष इक्तेदार हुसैन मंसूरी का कहना है कि मस्जिद निर्माण का विरोध करने से देश की धर्मनिरपेक्ष छवि को ठेस पहुंचेगी। उन्होंने कहा कि मस्जिद निर्माण में कहीं कोई तकनीकी अड़चन नहीं है। डीडीए ने जमीन संस्था को आवंटित की है। इसकी सारी प्रक्रियाएं पूरी होने के बाद ही यहां निर्माण शुरू किया गया है। कमेटी के सदस्य सलीम खान ने बताया कि एमसीडी व स्थानीय पुलिस को भी भूमि से संबंधित कागजात जमा करवा दिए गए हैं।
Jun 27, 12:09 am
बाहरी दिल्ली, जागरण संवाददाता : रोहिणी सेक्टर-16 स्थित ब्लॉक बी1 में निर्माणाधीन धार्मिक स्थल का मामला उग्र रूप लेता जा रहा है। शुक्रवार दोपहर 12 बजे स्थानीय रेजीडेंट वेलफेयर सोसाइटियों द्वारा संयुक्त रूप से धार्मिक स्थल के निर्माण के विरोध में प्रदर्शन किया गया। प्रदर्शनकारी आज भी इस मांग पर अड़े थे कि धार्मिक स्थल का निर्माण ऐसे स्थान पर कराया जाए जहां उनके अनुयायियों की तादाद अधिक हो। खास बात यह थी कि मामले को तूल देकर राजनीतिक रोटियां सेकने वाले राजनेता प्रदर्शन स्थल से नदारद दिख रहे थे।
ज्ञात हो कि पिछले चार दिनों से रोहिणी सेक्टर-16 स्थित बी-1 ब्लॉक में धार्मिक स्थल बनाए जाने के विरोध में लोग प्रदर्शन कर रहे हैं। डीडीए द्वारा मस्जिद निर्माण के लिए भूमि आवंटन करने से क्षेत्रीय लोगों में रोष है। रोहिणी सेक्टर-11,16 व 17 की समस्त आरडब्ल्यूए द्वारा संयुक्त रूप से धार्मिक स्थल के निर्माण का विरोध किया जा रहा है। ऐसे में शुक्रवार को भी आरडब्ल्यूए के अध्यक्ष सुभाष बंसल के नेतृत्व में निर्माणाधीन धार्मिक स्थल से महज 500 मीटर की दूरी पर प्रदर्शन जारी था। इस मौके पर किसी भी अप्रिय घटना को रोकने के लिए भारी संख्या में पुलिस बल की तैनाती की गई थी। ऐसे में रोहिणी सेक्टर-15 व 16 डिवाइडिंग मार्ग व रोहिणी सेक्टर-16 मुख्य सड़क पर बैरिकेड लगाकर यातायात रोक दिया गया था। वहीं निर्माणाधीन मस्जिद परिसर के आसपास का पूरा क्षेत्र छावनी में तब्दील कर दिया गया था। रेजीडेंट वेलफेयर के सदस्य मस्जिद निर्माण रोकने की बात कह रहे थे। उनका कहना था कि मास्टर प्लान-2021 के अंतर्गत जिस भूमि पर धर्मस्थल बनना है उसके आसपास उसी धर्म के पांच हजार अनुयायी होने आवश्यक हैं। रेजीडेंट वेलफेयर सोसायटी के सदस्य हरीश जोशी ने कहा कि वे क्षेत्र की सुरक्षा व्यवस्था को देखते हुए धार्मिक स्थल का निर्माण कहीं अन्य स्थान पर करवाने के पक्ष में हैं जहां उस धर्म के अनुयायी अधिक संख्या में निवास करते हों। वहीं दरगाह-ए-इसलामिया इंतेजामिया कमेटी के अध्यक्ष इक्तेदार हुसैन मंसूरी का कहना है कि मस्जिद निर्माण का विरोध करने से देश की धर्मनिरपेक्ष छवि को ठेस पहुंचेगी। उन्होंने कहा कि मस्जिद निर्माण में कहीं कोई तकनीकी अड़चन नहीं है। डीडीए ने जमीन संस्था को आवंटित की है। इसकी सारी प्रक्रियाएं पूरी होने के बाद ही यहां निर्माण शुरू किया गया है। कमेटी के सदस्य सलीम खान ने बताया कि एमसीडी व स्थानीय पुलिस को भी भूमि से संबंधित कागजात जमा करवा दिए गए हैं।
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Racist attacks on Indians in Australia OR Lebanese attack Indians OR TRUTH Muslims attack Hindus in Australia
What Indian pseudo secular media is carefully avoiding that it is attack by Muslims of Lebanese descent on Hindus of Indian descent.
Some comment from relevant article of economist
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13871945&mode=comment&sort=recommend#commentStartPosition
The Economist, like other media, fails to mention what kind of Lebanese-Australians are apparently attacking Indians in Australia.
Officialdom calls this a “law-and-order” issue, and the Indian press rants about “racism” in Australia. No one, it seems, is asking what kind of Lebanese these assailants are.
Are they Christians? Or, more likely, are they Muslims? The Indians are mostly, one would assume, Hindus. Maybe this is a religious issue? Muslims, given Islamic tenets regarding polytheists and idolators, have a long, sordid, intolerant, and murderous history of “Hinduphobia.”
Two years back, I was studying for my MBA in Sydney. At my University every Indian student I knew was aware that we were supposed to avoid neighborhoods where young Lebanese men congregated. Since it was no secret then, I am assuming it's no secret now.
What political correctness gone amok is preventing this weekly, the Indian and Australian civil society and media from acknowledging and discussing is that, a majority of the attacks on the Indians were/are being carried out by Australians of Lebanese descent, who happen to be Muslim.
The Lebanese young men are not doing this because a majority of Indian students down under happen to be Hindus; they are attacking Indians because they believe that we are "soft" targets.
And, until the attackers are disabused of this perception, I am afraid the attacks will continue.
@James in Sydney / @Liveinhope / @Modern Malthusian
Thank you for your comments.
We have established, something the media hasn’t, that the Lebanese youths are Muslims. Apparently, they drink alcohol and sell drugs. That does not necessarily, however, mean that they do not share their religion’s inherent prejudices against non-Muslims. Ramming a screw driver into someone's head suggests a certain passion, don't you think?
In the U.S., Lebanese traffic in cigarettes (and other things), a very “unMuslim” thing to do, yet the profits wind up in Hezbollah’s coffers or better equipped arsenals. Taqiyya is a Muslim concept of deceiving non-Muslims by behaving like them – some of the 11 September jihadist terrorists engaged in some rather “unMuslim” personal behavior before chanting “allahu akbar” and murdering 3000 people. The Lebanese communities in West Africa and the three borders area of southern Brazil traffic in other things (diamonds, drugs, etc). Guess where some of the profits go.
So, @James in Canberra, my contention is neither “pure rubbish” nor does it fall apart. What is required is an objective analysis of the Lebanese youth gangs, their motivations, prejudices, etc., something which the international media, including The Economist and possibly the Australian media, too, has yet to undertake. That requires peeling the onion, even if it makes PC eyes wince.
Check very carefully - Little Johnny's subtle racism was mainly directed at islam.
Before he came along there was a lot of unease about the quality of migrants and asylum seekers coming in.
In evidence , I point to the famous Imam of Lakemba. That man was only allowed to stay because of the muslim votes that went with him
Some comment from relevant article of economist
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13871945&mode=comment&sort=recommend#commentStartPosition
The Economist, like other media, fails to mention what kind of Lebanese-Australians are apparently attacking Indians in Australia.
Officialdom calls this a “law-and-order” issue, and the Indian press rants about “racism” in Australia. No one, it seems, is asking what kind of Lebanese these assailants are.
Are they Christians? Or, more likely, are they Muslims? The Indians are mostly, one would assume, Hindus. Maybe this is a religious issue? Muslims, given Islamic tenets regarding polytheists and idolators, have a long, sordid, intolerant, and murderous history of “Hinduphobia.”
Two years back, I was studying for my MBA in Sydney. At my University every Indian student I knew was aware that we were supposed to avoid neighborhoods where young Lebanese men congregated. Since it was no secret then, I am assuming it's no secret now.
What political correctness gone amok is preventing this weekly, the Indian and Australian civil society and media from acknowledging and discussing is that, a majority of the attacks on the Indians were/are being carried out by Australians of Lebanese descent, who happen to be Muslim.
The Lebanese young men are not doing this because a majority of Indian students down under happen to be Hindus; they are attacking Indians because they believe that we are "soft" targets.
And, until the attackers are disabused of this perception, I am afraid the attacks will continue.
@James in Sydney / @Liveinhope / @Modern Malthusian
Thank you for your comments.
We have established, something the media hasn’t, that the Lebanese youths are Muslims. Apparently, they drink alcohol and sell drugs. That does not necessarily, however, mean that they do not share their religion’s inherent prejudices against non-Muslims. Ramming a screw driver into someone's head suggests a certain passion, don't you think?
In the U.S., Lebanese traffic in cigarettes (and other things), a very “unMuslim” thing to do, yet the profits wind up in Hezbollah’s coffers or better equipped arsenals. Taqiyya is a Muslim concept of deceiving non-Muslims by behaving like them – some of the 11 September jihadist terrorists engaged in some rather “unMuslim” personal behavior before chanting “allahu akbar” and murdering 3000 people. The Lebanese communities in West Africa and the three borders area of southern Brazil traffic in other things (diamonds, drugs, etc). Guess where some of the profits go.
So, @James in Canberra, my contention is neither “pure rubbish” nor does it fall apart. What is required is an objective analysis of the Lebanese youth gangs, their motivations, prejudices, etc., something which the international media, including The Economist and possibly the Australian media, too, has yet to undertake. That requires peeling the onion, even if it makes PC eyes wince.
Check very carefully - Little Johnny's subtle racism was mainly directed at islam.
Before he came along there was a lot of unease about the quality of migrants and asylum seekers coming in.
In evidence , I point to the famous Imam of Lakemba. That man was only allowed to stay because of the muslim votes that went with him
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