Kashmir: 20 Years Later Normalcy is a dangerous smokescreen. Beneath it, the valley is in the grip 0f a psychological siege. It needs political balm, not military might, saysHarinder Baweja. Photographs byAbid Bhat Cordoned off Armed forces guard the street during a shutdown in Srinagar SOON, DECEMBER 8, 2009, will be a date in the past — another reminder of Kashmir’s long history of violence. For the record, it marks 20 years of insurgency. It was on this day, two decades ago, that Rubaiya Sayeed — daughter of the then home minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed – was kidnapped. It was also the day when tens of thousands of ordinary Kashmiris took to the streets, shouting azadi. A day when the youth openly brandished their Kalashnikovs and mothers took pride in putting mehendi (henna) on their sons’ hands, kissing them on their foreheads and sending them paar (across the border into Pakistan) for training. Twenty years ago, young Kashmiri boys were garlanded and feted when they returned as trained warriors; warriors who everyone thought would help ‘liberate’ them from India, then seen only as a brutal occupational force. In those heady, romantic days, Jawaharlal Nehru’s unkept promise of a plebiscite took centrestage and the Valley began its long tryst with violence; mass-backed violence that took the state government headed by Farooq Abdullah and the Central government by VP Singh by total surprise. But this piece is not about the past. It is about the present. It is about the deep psychological siege that envelopes the Valley like a shroud. Death, destruction, unending periods of curfew and hartals have transformed what was once jannat into a place that now boasts of a vocabulary unknown to other parts of the country. The administration and the large security apparatus describe it variously as having “surface normalcy” and a conflict zone that has been “contained”. On the surface – 20 years later – Srinagar can well pass off for any other city. Fortified bunkers still dot the landscape and armed jawans, their fingers always on the trigger, are a common sight. But the state capital appears to have fought its way out of its cold and bare look. A new visitor or a first-time tourist can well be taken in by the traffic snarls, the stark beauty of multi-coloured chinar leaves that are so a part of Kashmir’s early winter and the busy look that the boulevard facing the weed-laden Dal lake wears – but it all fits into the ‘containment’ that the babus in North Block pat themselves for. Scratch the surface and, for a moment, forget the images of the saffron fields, the majestic mountains that ring the Dal lake, the early snowfall over Gulmarg’s meadow, and a whole new reality will stare you in the face. Try and make sense of this reality and you will see what 20 years of violence have done to an entire population of five million. Every family in this large conflict zone is an example of collateral damage. Every member carries scars of being an endless prisoner of war. Everyone’s speech is littered with words like mujahid, bandook (gun), graves, yateem (orphan) and bloodshed.
On the surface, Srinagar can pass off for any other city. But this fits into the ‘containment’ policy that North Block babus now pat themselves for
The words come easy. They are a part of the local vocabulary. Meet young Ashfaq Mir. He is only 11 years old and now lives in Raahat Manzil, an orphanage on the outskirts of Srinagar. Most part of his day is now spent in the company of 460 boys — all orphans of violence; all bound by a common sense of fear and grief. And listen to Ashfaq talk: “They came through the forest holding Kalashnikovs. They stood in the street near our home and asked my father for directions. Abbu didn’t want to go with them but they forced him. You can’t argue with them, not when they are wielding Kalashnikovs. There is an army camp around our house because it is not far from the border with Pakistan. The mujahideen were not scared that an army camp was nearby.Mujahideen ne fire mara (the militants opened fire) and killed my abbu. I don’t know why he was killed but others near my house said he was killed because the mujahid said he was a mukhbir (informer). My mother goes to his grave and cries. She has now started teaching drawing. She comes here sometimes to meet me and says I am better off here because she also has a sister and brother to look after. I get free education and food here. The day passes easily but at night I feel scared and have bad dreams. A djinn kills a man and I can see blood all over this man. I have spoken to a doctor and he has given me some medicines but the dream persists…” Wailing wall A mother breaks down as she looks at the photograph of her son among the missing Notice the choice of words. It is not just that the vocabulary of young Ashfaq is striking or that it is littered with words like guns, firing, crackdown, death and graves. It is the ease, the matter-of-fact manner in which these words are delivered that is stunning. Ashfaq was only seven when his father was killed. He hails from Karna in Tangdhar, a 90-minute drive from Srinagar, but he could have been from anywhere in the Valley. From a remote village in Kupwara, four hours from Srinagar, or from Anantnag, 50 km from the state capital. There is no town or village in Kashmir that hasn’t been touched by violence; no child whose young mind has not been scarred. Ashfaq is not the only midnight’s child. Nor the only one who has dropped out of childhood and grown up in quick time, mostly to personal brushes with violence and its consequences. Shakib Dar, a friend of Ashfaq’s, speaks in a language that breaks your heart. He is only six and when asked about his father, he says, “They have kept a big stone, a very big stone slab on top of my father so he can’t come home from the Idgah. I keep telling my mother to remove that slab but she doesn’t listen. She just cries.” His mother lives in one of Srinagar’s downtown localities, which was home to scores of Kashmiri Pandit families. When Ashfaq goes to visit his mother, he plays in the ruins of homes that once belonged to these Pandit families, but he is unaware about the original occupants of these homes. Once it was impossible to think of a Kashmir without Pandits. Today, it is difficult to find one there.
Would a blanket ban on prepaid mobile phones in any other state of India be acceptable? Harinder Baweja Illustration: Anand Naorem FIRST THINGS first – the powerful government of India and its agencies do not sewem to consider Kashmiris as their own citizens. Too strong a statement, some would say, but here are some choice examples of insensitivity: a Kashmiri model incarcerated for months before being let off for lack of evidence, the Services team refusing to go to Srinagar to play a match and now, 39 lakh innocent Kashmiris — Indians, we keep repeating — without mobile connectivity, only because Home Minister P Chidambaram has decided that pre-paid SIM cards are a security risk. This is not the first time communications in the Valley have been curtailed. For some years now, phone lines between Kashmir and Pakistan have been jammed and families divided by the Line of Control for no fault of theirs have no means of talking with each other. Every now and then, when troops are being moved in and out of the Valley, Internet connectivity is frozen. But this summary ban of pre-paid connections has literally left Kashmiris speechless. Consider the timing too — the ban was imposed immediately after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi returned from the state where the Prime Minister offered a dialogue for peace. That they also inaugurated a railway line between Qazigund and Anantnag for better connectivity is irony that has not escaped the Kashmiris and Kashmiri youth, the constituency that the Prime Minister tried to reach out to. Sensitivity and compassion apart, the Home Ministry’s order lacks common logic – supposedly, the standards of proof of identity required for pre-paid connections are not stringent enough. How come all the babus in North Block could come up with no plan to strengthen these standards short of a blanket ban? And if post-paid numbers can be monitored, why does the same principle not apply across the board? The problem is that we are either a wimp state or a plain paranoid one Either way, it shows us up as an unthinking lot. Some years ago, when the bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad was still on the table, the Home and External Affairs ministries were concerned that terrorists would be its main passengers. Perhaps Ajmal Kasab and his nine accomplices could have saved themselves the trouble of going through marine training – if they had bothered merely to purchase a bus timetable.
The SIM cards used in the 26/11 attacks were procured not from Srinagar, but from Delhi and Kolkata
If Manmohan Singh’s recent trip to the Valley was aimed at addressing the deep-seated alienation that every Kashmiri feels, his advisors should be letting him know that the Home Ministry’s move has touched a raw nerve. If mobile connectivity is important to each one of us — no matter which part of the country we live in — it is of that much more importance in Kashmir. In all the years of the insurgency, when cellular phone towers had not scaled the Valley, men would not leave home without tucking a scrap of paper with their address on it into their pockets. Unsure of returning home safely, they carried those pieces of paper with them so that if they were killed, at least their bodies could reach home. In today’s smothering atmosphere of insecurity that still surrounds Kashmiri families, the mobile phone has replaced that piece of paper. But this is not something that will strike the bureaucrats occupying the corridors or power. For them – Kashmir remains a piece of prime real estate; the crown on India’s head; an unalienable part that has to be kept at any cost. Surely Chidambaram knows that the 10 terrorists of 26/11 carried Indian SIM cards that they activated as soon as they reached Mumbai. Those cards had not been procured from Srinagar but from Delhi and Kolkata. Does the solution lie in banning mobile connectivity for 39 lakh people or in improving intelligence? The answer is a no brainer.
The struggle in the sprawling forests of Chhattisgarh tells the bloody story of the state, the naxals and the people caught in the crossfire Ajit Sahi, Editor-at-Large Cockfight Op Green Hunt is bound to create uncertainty for tribals Photo: Vijay Pandey FIRST, A DISCLAIMER: I do not support, justify or approve of the Naxals’ creed of violence. I don’t even believe that they can secure for their peoples the lofty goals of liberty, justice and equity by the means of violence. As Mahatma Gandhi powerfully argued through his public actions and in his copious writings on human history, no one — not even a State — can sustain a moral order using the immoral means of violence. Indeed, Gandhi’s refusal to seek from the British a pardon for Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdeo brought him ridicule at the time, and is still unforgiven by millions of followers of the Shaheed-e-Azam. But Gandhi — pardon the expression — stuck to his guns in opposing the creed of violence, irrespective of the practitioner. On March 23, 1931, after the British hanged the trio, Gandhi wrote: “These heroes had conquered the fear of death. Let us bow to them a thousand times for their heroism. But we should not imitate their act. In our land of millions of destitute and crippled people, if we take to the practice of seeking justice through murder, there will be a terrifying situation. Our poor people will become victims of our atrocities. By making a dharma of violence, we shall be reaping the fruit of our own actions.” Gandhi could well be speaking for the millions of Chhattisgarh’s tribals, who today face a terrible fate as both the Naxals and the State have adopted the dharma of violence and arguably stare at the worst face-off in the Naxals’ 40-year insurgency. It would be futile to indulge in crystal ball gazing on the likely outcome of Operation Green Hunt, the all-out paramilitary offensive against the Naxals that’s already dug in heels in south Chhattisgarh and is expected to turn full-blown in November. Watchers fear that the State will end up killing far more non-Naxal innocent tribal people than the Naxals, who have been entrenched in the deep forests for over four decades. But this is not about condemning the Naxals’ or the State’s violence. This is about asking hard questions about why the Naxal violence exists. Again, Gandhi’s writing on the day of Bhagat Singh’s martyrdom could well describe both the Naxal and her supporters among the tribal populations. Wrote Gandhi: “Bhagat Singh was not a devotee of non-violence, but he did not subscribe to the religion of violence. He took to violence due to helplessness and to defend his homeland”(italics mine). Gandhi could be speaking of the “helplessness” of thousands of Chhattisgarh tribals who’ve been driven into the arms of the Naxals due to the terrorist violence let loose since 2005 by the controversial police-backed tribal militia Salwa Judum (literally: Peace March), who have killed, maimed, burnt, hacked, raped the tribals and continue to do so. This is news that you are never likely to hear from PM Manmohan Singh or Home Minister P Chidambaram, who only tell you that the Naxals are the biggest terrorist threat to India. They and their echo chambers in the media resonate with a singular narrative, crassly distilled by our learned home minister as “you-are-either-with-‘us’-orwith- the-Naxals”. Anyone who so much as questions the justness or even the efficacy of Operation Green Hunt is decried as a double-faced ‘Leftist intellectual’ who must be condemned for supporting the insane violence of “India’s worst enemies”. This narrative goes like this: the Naxals are gun-toting, crazed ideologues who reject the State and have vowed to replace it with a non-democratic Maoist-Communist State. (“I would not like to live in a Naxal State,” said filmmaker Sudhir Mishra — who’s made a movie on the Naxal quagmire — on a CNN-IBN show last week. Ergo, he seemed to suggest, the take-no-prisoners Operation Green Hunt is justified.)
Anyone who so much as questions the justness or even the efficacy of Operation Green Hunt is decried as a double-faced‘Leftist intellectual’
The narrative further says that these terrorist Naxals are hardened beasts that kill our policemen with utter brutality, ambushing them, beheading them. Who in their right minds could ever even appear soft on such hateful beings? After 9/11, when US President George Bush facetiously argued that the terrorists attacked his country because “they hate our freedoms”, veteran British reporter of the Middle East war theatre, Robert Fisk — the world’s only journalist to have interviewed Osama bin Laden thrice — said that if the inquiry into a robbery must begin with the motive, the question to ask is: why did the 9/11 perpetrators carry out these heinous acts? Similarly, India deserves to know: what is the Naxals’ motive in relentlessly killing the police and security agencies like beasts? Here’s why.
The villagers who had found an answer in Gandhian methods of resistance are now being pushed towards the Naxals due to State oppression
On October 12, 2009, police swarmed the district collector’s office in Jagdalpur, a small town in south Chhattisgarh. They were there to prevent thousands of villagers from storming a jan sunwai (public hearing) called to debate the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report for a proposed Tata steel plant in the district. Legally, this meeting should have been open to all, especially to the 6,000-odd people of the 10 villages near Jagdalpur that the steel plant will gobble up. THERE IS strong resistance in at least six of these 10 villages to be displaced from their lands for the project. Most people have refused to accept compensation for land. Four of these six villages (Kumbli, Dhuragaon, Takaraguda and Sirisguda) passed resolutions in gram sabhas during October 2-6 asking the district administration to postpone the public hearing due to the climate of uncertainty created by Operation Green Hunt. About 1,000 letters on these resolutions were sent to the district collector. The helpless A tribal woman whose husband was killed by the SPOs Photo: Himanshu Kumar Of course, the district collector didn’t postpone the hearing. Instead, the police set up barricades along the 30-km stretch from the villages to Jagdalpur, and stopped all buses so that villagers who might protest the Tatas’ project don’t reach the public hearing. About 25 villagers, led by former CPI MLA Manish Kunjam, did reach the public hearing. “We asked them, where would the effluence from the steel plant be dumped?” Kunjam told me over the phone. “They had no answer.” Kunjam says the Tatas’ EIA report (prepared by Dastur & Co) has failed to meet the standards set by two crucial policies that govern the displacement of tribals for industrial projects: the National Rehabilitation Policy and the Panchayat Extension to the Scheduled Areas Act. According to both, the EIA report for an industrial project that would displace tribal people must also look into the “social impact” besides the environmental impact. “There is no mention of the ‘social impact’ in the report,” says Kunjam. The Indian Constitution, through Schedules 5 and 6, gives special status to the tribal people. Further, by signing a UN treaty in 1957, India had promised that displaced tribals would be given good land in lieu of that acquired. Of course, this guarantee didn’t work for the poor tribals of the Narmada Valley earlier this decade, as the Supreme Court allowed dams on the river which displaced millions of villagers, on the grounds that such action met “overriding national interest”. But such an argument could hardly be pressed in the courts in favour of a steel plant. No wonder then that the Centre and the Chhattisgarh government are restive as the Tatas’ project is delayed because of the villagers’ refusal to part with land. Technically, the Tatas have completed the ‘land acquisition process’. Some villagers have initiated a Chhattisgarh High Court lawsuit arguing against the Tata project, but few have faith in the outcome of the judicial process, knowing how slowly that wheel always turns. It must be said that the steel plant has support in and around Jagdalpur town, perhaps due to the belief that it will bring jobs. Two months ago, the Naxals killed a local politician, Vimal Meshram, who had vociferously supported the steel project. Activists working in Bastar for long say the Naxals had little presence in Lohandiguda, where the 10 villages are located, until the Tatas’ project controversy warmed up. Today, unsurprisingly, the Naxals are said to have struck roots in the region. ON THE day — October 12 — the government turned the public hearing on the Tata EIA into a farce, long-time Bastar resident and Gandhian activist Himanshu Kumar had visitors late at night at his makeshift ashram in the smaller town of Dantewada, west of Jagdalpur. These were survivors of attacks by the police and Special Police Officers (SPOs) drawn from the Salwa Judum. While the media highlighted the Naxals’ beheading of policemen, allegations that the police and Salwa Judum-SPOS have been killing tribals and creating terror in Bastar forests have been consigned to the media’s black hole. Sitting through the night to take their testimonies, Kumar prepared a list of people who have been killed in two attacks in the last three weeks, on September 17-18 and then on October 1. Here are just some of them: • SPOs killed Madvi Deva of village Gachhanpalli at a rivulet on September 17. Another village’s Patel claimed seeing Deva being buried in the Chintagupha police station compound. • CRPF men and SPOs cut off the breasts of 70-year-old Dudhi Muye, an invalid who could not walk, and stabbed her to death on September 17. • CRPF and SPOs caught Madkami Muke of village Gachhanpalli and tied her up with her own sari. They beat, stabbed and shot her husband in front of her. Muke saw the attackers stab and shoot Madvi Joga, 60, in his field. She saw them strip 35-year-old Madvi Hidma, stab and shoot her. • Also in Gompad village, four of a family — Madvi Bajar, 45, his wife Madvi Subbi, his married daughter, Kartam Kanni, 20, and younger daughter Madvi Mutti, 15 — were killed by SPOs. The attackers cut off the tongue and fingers of Kartam Kanni’s two-year-old son. • Muchaki Aanda of Bhandarpadar village and his nephew, Madvi Deva, were returning from Andhra Pradesh when the police caught them. They were hacked to death with axes and knives, their bodies dumped near corn fields. Two villagers informed Deva’s mother, Madvi Joge, of their killing. On October 11, Kumar and several other activists and lawyers travelled south of Dantewada to visit Nendra village. Until last year, Nendra had been a ghost town, after the Salwa Judum burnt it down two years ago, forcing residents to flee. Kumar’s NGO, Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (VCA), had had it rebuilt and persuaded the villagers to return. Within hours of the activists’ visit to the village, news of their presence spread quickly. More than 200 people from villages nearby assembled there, converting the meeting into a people’s tribunal. Since September the SPOs have killed wantonly in Nendra. Six people have gone missing. In the last two months, as a precursor to Operation Green Hunt, police have harassed VCA activists. One volunteer has been jailed and tortured on false charges. Ironically, the Naxals, too, distrust Kumar, especially because of his efforts to repopulate the villages burnt down by Salwa Judum. You see, the people of those villages have found an answer away from both the Naxals and the Indian State, in Kumar’s Gandhian methods of resistance. Many of those who have gone back to their villages had been eager to turn the Naxals away. But now, of course, the renewed Salwa Judum violence and Operation Green Hunt could once again quickly fatten the Naxals’ enrollment registers. Such is the scale of the Indian State’s violence that it is turning even Kumar increasingly despondent. “I stare dumbly at all these people who come to me, the old man who saw his daughter raped and son shot dead, the young wife who was raped repeatedly, the family whose house was burnt down,” Kumar said to me one night on the phone from Dantewada, unable to sleep. “They keep saying to me: help us. I keep quiet. Because how do I help them?” And then, he added: “I am too much a son of Mahatma Gandhi and Vinoba Bhave to ever leave the path of nonviolence. But I look at these people and wonder, if I were a tribal person, raped, shot, abused, humiliated, wouldn’t I, too, pick up the gun to defend my family, my home, my lands, my forests?”
A Dalit Organisation In Kerala Is Accused Of Terrorist Links Ajit Sahi,Editor-at-Large Men in black DHRM activists Photos: Ajit Sahi AT FIRST sight, 27-year-old VV Selvaraj looks more the assistant manager with Idea Cellular that he was until six years ago than the firebrand — and controversial — dalit leader he has quickly turned out to be in Kerala. He appears even less the man with the dubious distinction of being India’s first dalit activist the police say they are probing for possible links with terrorism, as they indeed are. It all started on the morning of September 23, 2009, when Siva Prasad, 61, a retiree in an idyllic suburb 50 km north of the state capital Thiruvananthapuram, was brutally attacked with swords on his morning walk and died on the way to the hospital. Once a driver for US Embassy officials in New Delhi, Prasad earned enough to build a house in this suburb of Varkala, where he returned 13 years ago to join his wife, daughter and son. By evening, police had arrested K Das, a top functionary of the Dalit Human Rights Movement (DHRM), a quasi-political outfit floated by Selvaraj in December 2007, and accused him of masterminding the killing. Over the next few days, six others, including DHRM’S legal adviser, known as ‘Advocate Asokan’, were picked up for Prasad’s murder. Then, on September 29, Kerala Director- General of Police (DGP) Jacob Punnoose made a stunning claim. “We know the existence of the organisation [DHRM] and its activities,” he told reporters at Kochi. “We are now looking into [allegations] whether it has any terrorist links.” The state’s topmost police officer’s sensational claim brought sharp focus on Selvaraj’s fledgling outfit. The police are yet to offer any evidence to back the DGP’s claim. (The DGP’s office said he was travelling overseas and unavailable for comment.) Prasad’s widow, Saraswati S, told TEHELKA that her husband had no political interests, and she hadn’t heard of the DHRM until the police told her that the group had killed her husband. Varkala police chief, P Anil Kumar, refused to divulge their leads on DHRM’S involvement in the murder. “They killed Prasad to get public attention and prove their strength in their ranks,” Kumar told TEHELKA.
‘DHRM teaches against drug addiction and alcoholism and encourages dalit education. How can it be a terrorist organisation?’ SHASHIKALA, 44, DHRM Member
In Varkala, a clutch of villages with roughly 40,000 people, the divide among dalits over the DHRM has got sharper since the murder. Shiv Sena activist N Babu — yes, Bal Thackeray’s party has struck roots here — claims that DHRM men regularly attack dalits, including him, who refused to join them. “They are criminals,” Babu says. Several women in his municipal ward, with about 300 dalit families, claim DHRM men often roughed them up. Hapless DHRM members Podiyan and Shantha, whose son Shivalal is among the missing But then, many others in the same ward swear by the DHRM. “My husband would drink all day and was a total waster,” 29-year-old Kochumol, a mother of three, says. “He turned a teetotaler after attending DHRM study circles.” Soon, she followed him to these Sunday gatherings where, over five hours, Ambedkar’s life would be recalled and advice given on daily affairs. Cultural shows at the end were a big hit. Despite their meagre earnings as wage labourers — they call themselves ‘coolies’ — everyone would gladly pay Rs 30 for the events. But today, Kochumol’s husband, also named Babu, has gone underground, fearing arrest. Selvaraj says 35 DHRM men are in police custody or jails, picked up over the last three weeks. Hundreds have possibly run away. In village Thachode, Podiyan, 52, and his wife, Shantha, are clueless on the whereabouts of their son, Shivalal. All three are DHRMmembers. The say that on September 22, a day before Prasad’s murder, two plainclothes policemen dragged Shivalal away. “My son has never caused anyone harm,” says Shantha. “I beg the police to free him.” (Varkala police chief Anil Kumar denied that Shivalal was in their custody.) For now, DHRM has stopped all activities. Having taken anticipatory bail, Selvaraj is lying low. He called this reporter to a village in Ernakulam district, 260 km north of Thiruvananthapuram along the coast, to a house not his own. After the interview (see box), he quickly left the area. Selvaraj’s fear of the police may not be entirely misplaced. When I visited dalits in Podiyan’s village on October 12, about a dozen policemen landed up suddenly and began questioning me. “Your T-shirt had us worried,” their boss said.
‘DHRM activists are the prime accused in Siva Prasad’s murder. Now people want to have nothing to do with them’ V SIVANKUTTY, BJP District President, Thiruvananthapuram
HIS REFERENCE is to the black T-shirts with Ambedkar’s face, which Selvaraj made mandatory for DHRM members. Selvaraj also mandated they wear jeans, a practice few follow since the arrests began. Selvaraj may have a point in saying that neither the political parties nor the government has taken kindly to the DHRM. In a state where centuries old anti-dalit violence is legendary, DHRM has spread its influence quickly by articulating the dalits’ desire for dignity. DHRM also issued I-cards to its volunteers. Selvaraj says its total membership topped 10,000. Alarmingly for the political parties, it has political ambitions. A DHRM activist fought — and lost — this year’s Lok Sabha elections as an Independent from the Attingal constituency, winning about 5,000 votes. Perhaps the BJP, striving to grow influence among Kerala dalits, feels the greatest threat from the DHRM. “I was once a BJP member,” says Selvaraj. “But dalits need to be on their own because every political party treats them as pawns.” For now, though, Selvaraj’s social reform and political ambitions are subordinated to the needs to extricate his and his outfit’s name from charges of terrorism.
Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed has a strategy and an army full of faithfuls. Harinder Baweja tracks the 26/11 mastermind Safe Custody Hafiz Saeed leaves court under police protection after an appearance in a case Photo: Reuters At first sight, he easily passes off as a cleric, a scholarly-looking man, a pious elder seldom seen without a walking stick in his hand and a cap on his head. He is a familiar face on Pakistani television screens, but were it not for his acerbic tongue, few would pause to look at him a second time. His is not a face that draws attention, but his views do. Each time this ‘pious’ man addresses a congregation, he can hold a crowd of one lakh spellbound. The powerful orator is clear-headed about his interpretation of the Koran and believes that killing is “every pious man’s obligation” and the destruction of non-islamic forces a duty assigned by allah, the almighty. The closest an Indian journalist can currently get to this very pious professor, Hafiz Saeed, the Amir of the Lashkar-e- Taiba (LeT), India’s most wanted man are his lawyer, AK Dogar and his son-in-law, Khalid Waleed. Speak to the lawyer and the conversation goes something like this: You’re representing a man the Indian government thinks is the mastermind of 26/11. If Karl Marx is the mastermind of all socialists, then Hafiz Saeed is a mastermind. He is a masterly religious scholar who runs 140 schools all over Pakistan. But Hafiz Saeed openly calls for jihad. I have read books about Mahatma Gandhi… Are you comparing Hafiz Saeed to the Mahatma? I can’t dare to do that. Muslims have a different point of view. We don’t go by Jesus Christ’s principle of turning the other cheek. Hafiz Saeed is well known as the founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was behind the Mumbai attacks… The Indian government has not a shred of evidence, no tangible proof that Hafiz Saeed was in any way connected to the Mumbai attacks. Jihad is a word that means struggle, even if it done through monetary assistance and charity work. All over the world, there is a feeling that Muslims are terrorists… Lets talk specifics. Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist captured alive has testified to the role of your client.
[box] MUMBAI CONNECTION 1 Kasab first meets Saeed in December 2007 at Muridke during preliminary training 2 Kasab meets Saeed again during advanced training in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan Occupied Kashmir 3 Kasab trained to use sophisticated arms and GPS navigation aids over eight weeks by a man referred to as ‘Major General’ 4 Saeed personally chooses the ten 26/11 attackers. Gives Kasab the codename Abu Mujahid 5 Kasab and other 26/11 attackers given sea training. Saeed questions team about training given 6 Saeed tells Kasab and other attackers that Mumbai is their target. Along with the ‘Major General’, conducts final test 7 Saeed divides group of ten attackers into pairs. Kasab and teammates are given detailed orders about routes and attack plans 8 Saeed tells Kasab that foreign tourists must be targeted and killed, to embarrass India 9 Saeed orders the final attack
[/box] My dear lady, such evidence will not even be admissible in an Indian court of law. Any statement made by an accused is not credible evidence… Aftermath Bodies and baggage lie strewn in CST terminus, Mumbai Photo: AP Waleed, the son-in-law, is not as glib, perhaps because of his close proximity to the pious professor, the Amir of the Lashkar, also known as the Army of Allah. Waleed admits, now, as he did a few months back when he escorted me through the sprawling Muridke complex just off Lahore — known worldwide as the headquarters of the Lashkar-e-Taiba — that the Amir’s message to this Army of Allah on the issue of Kashmir, at least, is very clear: they don’t respect the Line of Control, they are working towards the accession of Kashmir to Pakistan and for that they actively help the LeT with propaganda, money and arms. But ask Waleed about Hafiz Saeed’s link to 26/11 and he is quick to dismiss it as ‘Indian propaganda.’ He refers to the 60-year-old Saeed as ‘bazurg’ (an older man) and in chaste Punjabi says, “Bazurgan nu badnaam kita hai India ne (India is besmirching the reputation of the old man. The Indian Home Minister asking for Saeed saab to be investigated and sent to Mumbai for trial is like Pakistan asking that Narendra Modi be brought here because he masterminded the killings of so many Muslims in Gujarat.” ANY THAW in India-Pakistan relations, which went into deep freeze after 26/11, now hinges on the progress India expects its neighbour to make on the terror investigation. Hafiz Saeed lies at its core. Home Minister P Chidambaram and his counterpart in South Block, Minister for External Affairs SM Krishna have been vociferous in demanding that Hafiz Saeed be interrogated and prosecuted on the basis of what National Security Advisor MK Narayanan calls, “Grade One evidence.’’ Chidambaram, in fact, is leading the campaign against Hafiz Saeed and believes the government has shared enough information — through six dossiers — with Pakistan. What exactly is the government’s case against Saeed and what details do the dossiers contain? Reaper Prime accused Ajmal Kasab at CST terminus during the attacks Photo: AP A lot of the ‘credible evidence’ has been garnered by senior officers of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) through elaborate and detailed hours-long conversations with Ajmal Kasab. Kasab, who opened fire at Chhatrapati Shivaji Stadium and then at Cama Hospital, was subsequently also responsible for killing former ATS Chief Hemant Karkare and his colleagues Kamte and Vijay Salaskar before the Mumbai Police overpowered him. What IB, RAW and the Mumbai Police have been able to piece together is the back-end story of the planning and training that went on for a whole year prior to the attacks on 26/11. According to Kasab, Hafiz Saeed masterminded the entire conspiracy and paid individual attention to the finest detail, choosing the ten who eventually landed at Badhwar Park, overseeing their target practice, dividing them into pairs and overseeing the hijacking of an Indian trawler, the MV Kuber. In the dossiers, Kasab implicates Saeed with specific details of time and location: • Kasab first met Saeed at Muridke during the course of the 21-day Daurae- Sufa (preliminary training) between December 2007 and January 2008, where a batch of thirty recruits was explained the meaning of jihad. The batch was introduced to Hafiz Saeed and the operation commander Zakiur- Rahman. Saeed addressed the batch: “You mujahideen have to fight to liberate Kashmir,’’ and Lakhvi said, “Ab jihad ka waqt aa gaya hai (the time for jihad has come). Our group has been fighting in Kashmir for the last fifteen years, but Hindustan is not freeing Kashmir. We now have to wage a war to get Kashmir. Are all of you ready for this battle? We are planning to target big cities to weaken India.”
‘If Karl Marx is the mastermind of all the world’s socialists, then Hafiz Saeed, too, is a mastermind,’ says his lawyer, AK Dogar
• The batch was then inducted for the Daura-e-Khas (advanced training) at a fortified Lashkar camp in Muzaffarabad, where Kasab and the others were trained to use Kalashnikovs, rocket launchers, pistols and grenades. They were also familiarised with the use of GPS navigation devices and map-reading and were given survival training – how to stay hungry and how to climb mountains while carrying heavy backpacks. During the course of this training, an unknown man was also present. At that time, Hafiz Saeed and Lakhvi came there and met and hugged the unknown man, who was referred to from then on as ‘Major General’. The Major General supervised the eight-week long training during which Kasab says they were converted into ‘pucca jihadis’. • Kasab and others then met Hafiz Saeed at the Beit-ul-Mujahideen (Home of the Mujahideen) camp, where they were shown CDs of fidayeen attacks in Kashmir.
Chidambaram wants Pakistan to do more: investigate locations pinpointed by Kasab, examine LeT operatives’ call records
• According to the dossier, Kasab also revealed that it was Hafiz Saeed who chose the final ten who were sent via sea to Mumbai. Saeed also personally gave them new names. Ajmal Kasab was named Abu Mujahid. Imran Babar from Multan, for example, was named Abu Akash. • The group then came back to Muridke for Daura-e-Ribat (intelligence training) in August 2008. The Major General visited the group again to motivate them and asked Kasab if he knew how to swim. The senior army officer then told Kafa, the course commander, that the group was now ready for sea training (“ab inko samundari training do’’) • In September 2008, the group was taken to Karachi by train and kept at a house in Ajizabad locality. After two days, they were taken out to sea in two boats and then transferred onto a motorboat for three days during which they were trained in how to use GPS devices at sea. They were taught how to use fishing nets “so they could pass for fishermen in case they were questioned by the Indian Navy.”
Hafiz Saeed took credit for the deadly attack on Delhi’s Red Fort in December 2000. He still calls for jihad against India
• On their return, they were taken to the Beit-ul-Mujahideen camp where Hafiz Saeed and Lakhvi personally questioned them about their sea training. Here, they were also introduced to three other mujahideen. Saeed told them, “They are also fidayeen like you and have been similarly trained. They will be accompanying you to India for the attack.’’ He also said, “Ab jihad ka waqt aa gaya hai’’ and Lakhvi told them that they had decided that Mumbai would be the target and that they would be going to Mumbai via sea. The Major General came to this camp and after hugging Saeed and Lakhvi, took them aside for a private chat. When the trio returned to where Kasab and the others were assembled, Lakhvi said that the Major General wanted to test their preparedness. According to the dossier, Kasab and the group were given a Kalashnikov and a magazine each and the Major General told Hafiz Saeed, “Saeed saab, aap target lagao.” Saeed told Kafa (the course commander) to place ten targets and told Kasab and his nine companions, “When I say fire, all of you should fire single shots and when I say fire twice, open rapid fire.” As per the cue, all ten of them opened fire and hit the target, except for Imran Babar, who was reprimanded by Hafiz Saeed. When the Major General said “fire” twice, the mujahideen opened rapid fire. The Major General wanted to know who had fired at target number four. Kasab, apparently, earned praise from both the Major General and Hafiz Saeed. Neighbours good?Prime Ministers Yousuf Raza Gilani and Manmohan Singh at Sharm-el-Sheikh in July 2009 • The group was then introduced to Zarar Shah, the computer and media expert. Soon after, Hafiz Saeed broke the group of ten up into five pairs and said, “We now have to hijack an Indian boat to go from Karachi to Mumbai. A lot of foreign tourists come there and they have to be targeted and killed to embarrass Hindustan.” • Hafiz Saeed, Lakhvi and Zarar Shah then took the group to a big hall which Zarar Shah called ‘the media room.’’ Here, they were shown CDs of CST train station and Malabar Hill. The CDs also contained detailed information of which roads and routes to take to CST from Badhwar Park. This was shown to them on Google Earth.
Saeed is an improvised explosive device in the hands of his mentors. His hatred for India stems from religious and personal reasons
• They then returned to the Bait-ul- Mujahideen camp. There, they were asked to shave their beards. Mobile phones with Indian SIM cards and watches set to Indian time were given to them and they were also asked to tie a red thread around their wrists, so as to pass off as Hindus. The group was ready to set sail for Mumbai and were given identity cards with Indian names. Kasab was dubbed Sameer Chaudhary and given a Bengaluru identity card with Arunoday Degree College written on it. Local support Supporters of the banned Jamaat-ud- Dawa, an alleged front of the LeT at a rally in Islamabad on August 14 Photo: AFP All of this could well be rejected as a confession forced out of Kasab through third degree torture. Pakistan has been dismissing the dossiers saying they only contain information and not evidence. India, however, believes that if serious, Pakistan’s investigative agencies can visit the places named by Kasab. Chidambaram has been asking for more. He says Lakhvi and Saeed’s phone records should be analysed. The sixth dossier — which contains the most information against Saeed — notes: “Pakistan cannot continue to remain in a state of denial over the involvement of Hafiz Saeed. Evidence on record together with the evidence that may be gathered in the course of investigations would — and should — certainly lead to the prosecution of Saeed.” SINCE PAKISTAN is repeatedly rejecting the Indian government’s request, the question that gains relevance is this: Why is Pakistan reluctant to move against Hafiz Saeed? Pakistan was quick to investigate and arrest both Lakhvi and Zarar Shah. Why not the ‘pious’ professor himself? Saeed, after all, has given open calls for jihad against India and, after it happened, personally took credit for the attack on the Red Fort in Delhi in December 2000. Hafiz Saeed, according to Pakistan’s own strategic experts, is not just a plain terrorist, but also an asset in the hands of the establishment. Unlike a Baitullah Mehsud — the Taliban leader who was recently slain by a Predator drone missile — Saeed neither runs riot within Pakistan nor trains his guns on his mentors within the Army and the ISI. Says Lt Gen Hamid Gul, former ISI Chief, “Why doesn’t India address the issue of Kashmir? People like Hafiz Saeed will remain important till then. The bull will keep charging as long as the red rag is there.”
Saeed is placed under ‘house arrest’ for western consumption. The recent FIRs against him have nothing to do with 26/11
Incitement Hafiz Saeed addresses a rally of his supporters on August 31 Photo: AP Gul is not Saeed’s only supporter. He is just one among many officers from the ISI and the Pakistani army — serving and retired — who is a vocal supporter of the Lashkar-e-Taiba. This is endorsed by Ahmed Rashid, well-known journalist and author: “Retired ISI officers are helping the jihadis and have become more Lashkar than the Lashkar,” he says. The core reason why Hafiz Saeed and his fighters have deep linkages and continuing support from the establishment is linked to the battle Pakistan is being forced to fight on its western border. He comes in handy for Pakistan to be able to raise the Kashmir card with the US. As Rashid points out, “Musharraf used to put Hafiz Saeed under house arrest for Western consumption, but little was done to curtail the LeT’s activities within Pakistan. They continue to recruit and train people.” The Lashkar is estimated to have 1,000 offices across Pakistan and Hafeez Saeed’s army now hides under the alias of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Kasab’s arrest is proof of the fact that ‘non-state actors’ can use Pakistani soil for terror activities, particularly if they are aimed at India. In India, the US ambassador is politically correct. Timothy Roemer has endorsed the dossiers, saying there is a lot of proof in them. However, the reason why the US is not pushing the case with the Pakistan government is simply because Washington needs the Pakistani Army to fight its global war against terror. Perhaps this is the reason why Pakistan continues to be able to stall the FBI from investivating 26/11 leads. Hamid Gul puts it bluntly: “India has made the childish mistake of hanging the 26/11 case on one man (Hafiz Saeed) and it is now making a second mistake by trying to push the case through the Americans. They are losing the war in Afghanistan and frankly, the US needs Pakistan more than it needs India.” Arm’s length Foreign ministers SM Qureishi and SM Krishna before inconclusive talks in New York on September 27 This need keeps Hafiz Saeed in business. He, in fact, is an armed improvised explosive device in the hands of his mentors. His hatred for India — also openly echoed by his son-in-law during our tour of Muridke — stems from reasons personal and religious. His ‘cause’ for revenge is linked to his past — thirty of his family were murdered during Partition when his father, an ordinary landlord, moved from Simla to Pakistani Punjab’s Mianwali district. Saeed himself is a father of two – a son and a daughter. He grew up on the Koran and pursued religious studies in Saudi Arabia, from where he got a Masters in Islamic studies. The professor, who speaks only Urdu and chaste Punjabi, taught Islamic Studies at the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore. Like many in Pakistan, Saeed too participated in the US-sponsored jihad against the Russians in Pakistan. He now asks a difficult question when he appears on television screens in Pakistan: “If we were not terrorists at that time, then why are we terrorists now?’ Saeed is quick to answer his own question and the answer invariably is, “Allah has ordained every Muslim to fight until His rule is established. We have no option but to follow Allah’s order. The blow struck by jihad does not come from man, it comes from Allah.” Ajmal Kasab was motivated enough, to follow Hafiz Saeed’s orders. Perhaps more are being indoctrinated, even as India continues to build the pressure on Pakistan to investigate the man who figures as number one on the list of the 35 people ‘most wanted’ for 26/11. The Pakistani Establishment, however, continues to shield him. Typical of the schizophrenic manner in which Pakistan operates, the Professor continues to be a free man despite Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s recent assertion that he had been placed under house arrest. The PM, in fact, was contradicted by an Inspector General of Police, who vowed that Saeed was a free bird. In the last two months alone, he has given two sermons condemning India and the US, accusing both of masterminding 9/11 and 26/11. Two FIRs have now been lodged against him but neither have anything to do with the Mumbai attacks. On both these occasions, Saeed reiterated that “the time has come to stand united and come forward to take part in the jihad.” His defence no doubt will be that he has not called for an armed jehad but a spiritual one. The pious Professor has an agenda and he is, clearly, still at work.
ON SEPTEMBER 7, 2009, lawyer Mukul Sinha ran to a news conference he had called at sundown in Ahmedabad, excitedly clutching a copy of a report a local judge had signed minutes ago. The 247-page report, handwritten by Metropolitan Magistrate SP Tamang, would grab headlines nationwide, sending shivers down the backs of the BJP government in Gujarat with its unprecedented claim – that the “encounter” of “Lashkar-e-Tayyeba terrorists”, Ishrat Jahan and three others, carried out early on the morning of June 15, 2004, in Ahmedabad, was the cold-blooded murder of innocent people. “We hadn’t yet read the report, so we were as stunned as the journalists when we began reading it, translating from Gujarati,” says Sinha, still marvelling that a three-week probe revealed what he has been fighting to uncover for years. Of course, the next day, Gujarat High Court judge Kalpesh Jhaveri stayed Tamang’s report. He demanded to know why the magistrate had conducted a probe when Jhaveri was already hearing a petition by Shamima, Ishrat Jahan’s mother, who has sought an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged encounter. At the time of going to press, Shamima was readying to move against the stay. “We are filing a petition in the Supreme Court to pray that the stay on Tamang’s report be vacated,” Supreme Court lawyer Vrinda Grover, who represents Shamima, told TEHELKA. The High Court’s stay certainly gave some political respite to the beleaguered Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi. This relief strengthened on September 14 when the BJP won the Gujarat Assembly by-election in five of the seven seats that polled days earlier. BJP leader Arun Jaitley quickly claimed that “siding with Ishrat Jahan” proved costly for arch-rival Congress party, which lost three seats it had won in the 2007 assembly elections. Ahmedabad-based political analyst Achyut Yagnik, however, dismisses the claim. “That’s propaganda. The BJP wants to prove that the Gujarati middle-class and the people are with them,” he told TEHELKA. “The fact is that the Congress lost this election because of overconfidence and the wrong selection of candidates rather than because the voters rallied for the BJP in view of any negative fallout of the Tamang report.” Anti-hero Former DIG Vanzara waves to supporters after appearing at a courtPhoto: AP Characteristically, Modi declared his party had won on the plank of development. Because he hadn’t campaigned in the by-election, he claimed his party was no longer dependent on him to draw the votes. But analysts say Modi is at his most vulnerable in his seven years as chief minister, due to his continuing and upcoming legal troubles. These troubles have only added to the political damage to his standing after the BJP’s nationwide loss four months ago in the Lok Sabha elections, during which he was a star campaigner and projected as a future BJP prime ministerial aspirant. At the BJP’s botched brainstorming at Shimla last month, Modi had kept an unusually low profile, not the least because the Supreme Court had ordered that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) directly investigate his role in the 2002 massacre of Muslims in Gujarat during his tenure. The lies of others Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Kausar Bi (above); The body of Sameer Khan (below) Photo: Trupti Patel Tamang’s report set the proverbial cat among Modi and his clutch of loyalist police officers, several of whom have allegedly acted as his henchmen from the time the police actively connived in or stood by and allowed the Muslim killings. Retired IPS officer RB Sreekumar, who has relentlessly fought to expose Modi’s alleged complicity in the 2002 pogrom, says these police officers are now threatened by the likely exposure of their roles in fake encounters. Tamang has named 21 policemen, including top officers such as the then Ahmedabad police commissioner KR Kaushik (who later became Gujarat’s Director-General of Police) and the then Crime Branch Joint Police Commissioner PP Pandey, for conspiring to murder Ishrat Jahan and the three others. “Some cops Tamang has named have conveyed to Modi that they won’t keep quiet like Vanzara has,” a source said speaking on the promise that he won’t be identified. “They have threatened that if a court finds them guilty, they would not hesitate to say that killing innocent Muslims was a state policy.” DG Vanzara, a former Deputy Inspector General of Gujarat Police, is in jail since 2007 after being accused of masterminding the killing of Muslim businessman Sohrabuddin and his wife in 2006 and passing them off as terrorists. A widely known Modi loyalist, Vanzara headed the Ahmedabad Crime Branch when most encounters were carried out. Tamang has named him for planning the Ishrat Jahan encounter. While Tamang’s findings have been widely reported, little is known of the behind-the-scenes bid since June to scuttle any probe into the encounter. After Tamang’s report became public, Gujarat government spokesman Jaynarayan Vyas denounced the magistrate — which might well be contempt of court because Tamang is a judicial officer — and claimed the encounter was genuine. The government told the High Court it didn’t know who had ordered the Tamang probe. The truth is it was the Gujarat government that directed Ahmedabad’s Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM), DM Patel, to speed up the magisterial inquiry. “A certain official in the Home Department made a phone call on August 12,” says a court official. “The same afternoon, CMM Patel assigned the inquiry to Tamang.” Patel promptly dispatched all the case documents, such as forensic reports and the FIR, to Tamang with the instruction to “immediately” complete the inquiry. (Patel was transferred out two days after the report hit the headlines.) SO WHY did the Gujarat government seek a magisterial inquiry more than five years after the encounter? The answer lies in the trajectory of Shamima’s petition before the High Court, which came to life earlier this summer after languishing for nearly five years. On June 26, High Court judge Jhaveri ordered that the CBI be made a party in the case. This stunned the police officers behind the encounter who began pressuring Modi to scotch any CBI probe.
Arun Jaitley claimed that ‘siding with Ishrat Jahan’ proved costly for the Congress Party
At this point, two strategies were set into motion. One was to pressure the Union Home Ministry to tell the High Court that the encounter was genuine. The police officers involved reportedly contacted Rajendrakumar, a top official with the Intelligence Bureau (IB) based at New Delhi. He had been the Centre’s IB Joint-Director in Gujarat in 2004 when the encounter was carried out. (New Delhi-based rights activist Shabnam Hashmi says she had long ago communicated to the Centre that Rajendrakumar was close to Modi and Vanzara and played a key role in the fake encounters.)
THE TAMANG REPORT’S FINDINGS
How a three-week inquiry blew open a five-year conspiracy about the death of Ishrat Jahan
1The exit wounds of bullets were larger than the entry wounds. This proves they were shot from a close range. Many entry wounds were also higher than the exit woundsFinding: Those killed were sitting when they were shot. The killers stood next to them when they fired the shots
2Not one of the 70 bullets the police allegedly fired were found. Police said they shot at the car’s left side and burst a tyre, after which it hit the divider on the rightFinding: This is an obvious lie, because the car would have swerved left and not right if the left tyre was shot
3The wounds were from an AK-56 rifle and a 9mm pistol, which police didn’t own. These guns were instead found on those killed. Forensic tests found no remains of “exploded ammunition” on the deadFinding: The police planted the same guns on the dead men with which they killed them
4Only I-cards were found in their pockets. Why was Ishrat Jahan wearing her college I-Card around her neck at that hour? Not a single rupee was found on them. An unlocked briefcase with Rs 2 lakh was found in the bootFinding: The police planted the I-cards and cash after killing them
5The post mortem at 3.40pm on June 15, 2004 found that rigor mortis had set in. The deaths had thus occurred 12 to 24 hours earlier, that is, before 3.40am. But the police gave 4am as the time of the encounterFinding: The police killed the four people elsewhere and brought them to the site
It was on Rajendrakumar’s watch that the Central IB had sent a controversial “input” about possible terrorists of the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba coming into Gujarat to kill Modi. The Ahmedabad Crime Branch had cited this “input” to justify the encounter. Sources say Rajendrakumar now reached out to Union Home Minister P Chidambaram and “personally vouched” that the encounter was genuine. Chidambaram reportedly agreed that his ministry should file an affidavit in the High Court. Unwary pawn Ishrat Jahan, 19-year-old Mumbai resident killed in an encounter Meanwhile, things were moving fast at the High Court. On August 7, judge Jhaveri ruled that he would “explore the possibility of handing over the investigation to higher officer/s, that is, officer/s above the rank of Deputy Commissioner of Police, more particularly, from the cadre of Additional DG”. He adjourned this decision to the next hearing on August 12. Shortly, the Union Home Ministry filed an affidavit in Jhaveri’s court supporting the state’s claim on the encounter. An aside to this affidavit. Sources say the Centre’s lawyer in Ahmedabad, Assistant Solicitor General PS Chapaneri, first refused to back the affidavit when a Union Home Ministry official, VS Mani, brought it. The reason? During an earlier hearing in the case, Chapaneri had verbally told the judge the Centre would be willing to hold a CBI probe. (Ever scared of being politically outmanoeuvered by Modi, the UPA government is in a characteristic flipflop over the question: which side does it stand on? Chidambaram last week said an intelligence input is “no license to kill”. This week, the Centre developed cold feet after deciding to appeal the Supreme Court against the stay on Tamang’s report.) The second strategy was to hasten pending inquiries into the encounter. As it happened, a magisterial inquiry routinely begun in 2004 had never been completed. At that time, this inquiry was with an executive magistrate named Gaurav Prajapati, who was not a judicial officer. In 2006, following amendments to procedural law, the state government handed the inquiry to the judicial side. For three long years, this inquiry lay dormant, until the morning of August 12, the day Jhaveri was to rule on setting up a new probe.
The officers involved in the encounter began pressuring Modi to scotch any CBI probe
Jhaveri could take up the matter only on August 13, when he swiftly announced the setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT), consisting of three top police officers of Gujarat with the mandate “… to consider all the aspects from every angle, which are relevant for the purpose of finding out whether the incident was a genuine encounter or a fake one.” This SIT must file its report by November 30, the next date of hearing in the case. It must be pointed out that the Gujarat government did not once denounce the formation of this SIT or insist that the Ishrat Jahan encounter was genuine, as it did after Tamang’s report came out. Is it because judge Jhaveri chose the police officers for the SIT from a list submitted by Advocate General KB Trivedi? Big question: if the Gujarat government believes that the encounter was genuine, then why hasn’t it approached the Supreme Court against the High Court order setting up the SIT?
Ihe UPA government is in a flip-flop over the Ishrat question: on which side does it stand?
(A month later, the SIT hasn’t started work because the Gujarat government is yet to issue relevant orders. The SIT includes at least one officer of dubious antecedent: Gujarat Police Inspector General JK Bhatt. Bhatt was one of the three officers whose investigation had claimed a conspiracy by Godhra’s Muslims to set the Sabarmati Express on fire on February 27, 2002. The theory stands discredited, including by a TEHELKA sting operation. Earlier this year, the Gujarat High Court ruled that the now lapsed Prevention of Terrorism Act was wrongly applied to about 100 Muslims charged for the train fire as no conspiracy had been established.) On record Tehelka’s May 2007 exposé of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s involvement in the Sohrabuddin ‘fake’ encounter NO DOUBT the SIT’s job is harder now. To find the encounter genuine it would have to trash Tamang’s report, which really makes the encounter an open-and-shut case, based on the forensic examinations. “If there had been no Tamang report, the SIT could well have found the encounter genuine basing it entirely on the intelligence inputs,” says a lawyer connected with the case. “But now, the SITwill have to prove that the forensic discrepancies Tamang has exposed are wrong if it wants to find the encounter genuine.” But if the SIT upholds Tamang’s findings — that the 21 policemen conspired to kill Ishrat Jahan and three others in cold blood and falsely pass them off as terrorists — it could create a legal and political Frankenstein for Modi, for this would be the second encounter after the Sohrabuddin case to be questioned as genuine. And that begs the question: Were “fake encounters” of Muslims a state policy under Modi? Retired IPS officer Sreekumar, who headed the state Intelligence Branch (State IB) during April-September 2002, claims that the then Director General of Police of Gujarat, K Chakravarty, called him up on May 1, 2002, and told him that the state government wanted such encounters to take place. “Chakravarty told me that [the then Gujarat Chief Secretary] Subba Rao had told him that some Muslims should be eliminated,” Sreekumar told TEHELKA in Gandhinagar. “I told Subba Rao that if there is an encounter, I will do an inquiry and speak out against my colleagues if I find the encounters are fake.” Sreekumar says he began documenting such daily conversations in a diary, which he has put away at a secure place. Sreekumar was shunted out in September 2002. The first encounter took place the next month. Over the next four years, the Crime Branch killed some 17 alleged terrorists. In most cases, the police claimed that the terrorists had sneaked in with the purpose to kill Modi, BJP leader LK Advani and Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Praveen Togadia. Such encounters stopped after the arrest of Vanzara and several other police officers in the Sohrabuddin case. Modi’s detractors have long admitted to his amazing political skills to overcome nearly all the legal troubles since the killings of Muslims, which made him India’s most controversial politician. But with the Supreme Court-appointed SIT set to investigate the chief minister’s role in the 2002 pogrom, and now the Tamang report calling the Ishrat Jahan encounter as fake, is it possible that the cat is about to use up its ninth life?
ajit@tehelka.com
YOU WOULD never think this of Lal Krishna Advani — the grand charioteer of Indian politics — but this politician, known for the Ram rath yatra, is not on a regimen of yoga, meditation or prayer. Ask Deepak Chopra, Advani’s long-standing private secretary of over two decades, about the 81-year-old neta’s routine and he says, proudly, “Advaniji suffers from good health.’’ Lal Krishna Advani Age: 81 Profession: Veteran politician, former deputy prime minister Confession: Has a weakness for sweets and for Ekta Kapoor’s K serials, particularly Kyun Ki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi Photo: AFP He should know. He is always around Advani – including at the 200-plus rallies that Advani hopped, skipped and jumped to in the May general elections as the BJP’s prime minister-in-waiting. The only sign of fatigue Advani betrayed — if it can be thus put — was his throat letting him down a couple of times. “That’s the only weak spot that cracks under campaign pressure,’’ says Chopra. Advani, in fact, displays a stamina for work and was willing to continue being the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha for a full five-year term, and if he is now talking of donning an elder’s role, it’s because of what the RSS wants and not due to any signals from his body. The one signal that he absolutely succumbs to is his love for sweets. He is more disciplined about his food intake and as Deepak put it, “I have observed something unique. He has developed a habit of getting up from the dining table with hunger still within him.’’ This never-say-die politician is most peaceful around his family. And yes, Jinnah is not the only Pakistani legend Advani admires. He loves listening to Mallika Pukhraj and Ghulam Ali too.
I WANT TO hang on but I know it’s close,’’ the grand old sardar had said of death – four years ago. In a rare moment then, he had discussed death for over an hour and, looking out of the window, had said, “I often look at that tree and wonder how long I’ll be able to see it. I’ve seen it grow with me. I’d like to hang on but I question what will remain of me — some memory, some book. I’m mentally fit but am losing my strength. I saw my wife lose her mind and then I saw her become a vegetable. I have to prepare for that possibility.” Khushwant Singh Age: 94 Profession: Possibly India’s best known writer. His column ‘With Malice Towards One and All’ continues to be popular In the pipeline: He is currently writing another book. What it’s about, the world will have to just wait and see Photo: Shrad Saxena He may be preparing for it, but Khushwant Singh, the raunchy raconteur and author of 30 books, is firmly focussed on life. Ask his son, Rahul Singh, what keeps his father going and the reply is quick: “Two shots of whisky every evening and all his women friends who drop in to seek his advice on their romantic lives.’’ Every evening — without fail — the former editor of The Illustrated Weekly puts his feet up on a stool (by the same window) in his living room and plays host to a select crowd of visitors between 7-8 pm. The bar at this elite central Delhi address has strict happy hours and there is a board at the main entrance that says, “Do not ring the bell, unless you are expected.” Save for that one hour, Khushwant follows a strict regimen. He wakes up at 4 am before the crack of dawn and does all the crosswords in the daily newspapers, writes his column, takes a two-hour nap at noon, looks forward to the ‘happy hour,’ finishes his dinner by 8.30 pm and is fast asleep by 9. He’s up again at 4 am the next day, and though he needs the support of a wall to walk and though he often picks up the landline at home only to say, “I am deaf, I can’t hear you, please send me a letter,’’ Khushwant is of perfect mental health and it’s not just his female friends who boost his energy. Urdu poetry and humour are steady, everyday companions and he needs them in equal doses. Sikhs are known to be able to laugh at themselves, and recently when the grand old sardar found he was “bleeding from his bottom’’, as his son Rahul put it, Khushwant laughed about it, just as he now jokes about his inability to have sex. In the same interview four years ago, when asked what he misses most, he’d said, “Good sex. I already miss good sex and it’s been missing for some time. The day you can’t have sex is really the time for a man to go. But yes, I fantasise.” Irreverence is one principle he’s measured his own life through, even writing his own obituary when he was in his 20s. His weekly column, ‘With Malice Towards One And All’ bears testimony to the fact that he is still in love with life. And life is what he’s focussed on, having already shed what he calls, “emotional baggage.’’ He has given everything away and says, “I have not a penny with me.” He has much more to share, and that he does, week after week, even if it is with malice!
Julio Ribeiro Age: 80 Profession: Was DGP Punjab Police. He survived an assassination attempt while he was ambassador to Romania On weekends: He is a regular at Sunday mass. He also loves going to the races Photo: Himmat Singh Shekhawat AGE? “The best way to deal with it is to forget about it,’’ chuckles Julio Ribeiro. The former cop who became famous for his “bullet for bullet” policy in Punjab has long retired from uniform but not from policing, it seems. He is 80 and going strong and his mantra is simple – keep busy by doing something for society. The anti-Muslim riots left a deep scar on this proud Mumbaikar who has relentlessly been working to combat communalism through mohalla committees. It is not unusual to spot Ribeiro in different slums, talking about communalism, corruption and domestic violence. The only person who can slow down the unstoppable energy that so envelopes Ribeiro, is his wife Melba. Mention her name and his tone softens as he says, “She comes with me even for the slum meetings. We are separated only for about six hours everyday.’’ Love, too, has kept this man going.
ASK KPS Gill, the veteran cop who is a household name from his Punjab days, if he feels like he is on the wrong side of age and the reply is an immediate and emphatic, “Certainly not’’. Ask him what still keeps him going and his list is long — his love for poetry, his liking for good company, the various challenges thrown at him from time to time, and yes, mental stimulation. Tease him about his love of female company and he laughs, saying, “men, women and children.” KPS Gill Age: 75 Profession: Former DGP, Punjab. Daily dose: He insists on cycling for an hour every day. As a man guarded by gun-toting commandos, he is forced to limit the cycling to the confines of his lawns Photo: Shailendra Pandey Known as the man responsible for containing the Punjab insurgency in its most violent phase when the demand for ‘Khalistan’ saw grisly bus massacres — Hindu passengers were segregated and shot — Gill has courted controversy for violating human rights, for allegedly pinching the bottom of a senior bureaucrat and for being an advisor to Narendra Modi soon after the 2002 carnage. Retirement has not seen the six-feet tall ‘super cop’ pale into the shadows, and as if in pure celebration of life, he pointedly says that if he is not penning a series of articles on Naxalism for a daily newspaper, he is in Vrindavan, spending time with poor children whom he gives free medical aid. In between, he finds he’s ‘breaking news’ on television channels for his controversial tenure as the President of the Indian Hockey Federation. He is not living life at the same pace — the speed of a bullet — as he did through his challenging police assignments in Assam and Punjab, but Gill is enjoying his 70s; even if it is within the sometimes claustrophobic confines of his Lutyen’s bungalow in Delhi. He is a marked man and is constantly under the watchful gaze of gun-carrying commandos – even when he is cycling on the lawns, which he does regularly for an hour every day. That’s a must and an important part of his daily regimen. He lives life king-size, he says, and like when he was a Director General of Police and people came calling on him at his office, visitors still turn up at his house. Once a regular at Delhi’s India International Centre — often referred to as the place where octogenarians meet — Gill now prefers his books as companions. “They never fail to stimulate me,’’ says the man who can look back on life and turn out several books himself. Perhaps a thought he might soak in, over his next tipple.
