The Praful Bidwai Column
Delhi encounter raises tough questions
INDIA is witnessing an increase in the incidence of both anti-minority violence and terrorism. Christians are under attack in Orissa, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and even Kerala, long held up as a model of pluralism.
Leading the attacks are Hindu-extremist groups like the Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Shiv Sena.
The Indian state has failed to protect the Christians. The Orissa and Karnataka police seem to have bought the myth that most Christians are victims of unscrupulous proselytisers and must be helped to "re-convert" to Hinduism, although that may not have been their original religion.
Even more ludicrous is the idea that the Indian church is primarily devoted to religious conversion. Official records show education to be its largest activity.
The response of India's political leadership to anti-minority violence has been appallingly inadequate. It has failed to reassure the minorities that the state will protect their rights as citizens and not shield majoritarian groups.
In parallel with this is the state's attitude to terrorism. Under the influence of National Security Adviser MK Narayanan, it has come to view terrorism largely through a religious-communal prism. Its anti-terrorism strategy remains strongly Islamophobic.
The term "terrorism" is never used in respect of Hindu-extremists like the Bajrang Dal, VHP or the Shiv Sena despite their self-confessed killing of innocent non-Hindu citizens. Hindu-extremists have been repeatedly found making/planting bombs in Nanded in Maharashtra, Tenkasi in Tamil Nadu, and Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh.
Typically, the authorities' knee-jerk presumption in respect of a terrorist attack is that it must be the work of Muslims.
The police round up and interrogate Muslims, and detain them for long periods -- in violation of the Supreme Court's guidelines that the detainee must be told the reasons, his/her relations must be immediately informed, and he/she be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours.
As the government comes in for increasingly hysterical attacks by the Bharatiya Janata Party for its "weak-kneed" attitude towards terrorism, it's tempted to display machismo by taking ever-stronger measures against Muslims -- to the point of staging fake "encounters" in which the police summarily kill suspects.
Many states have anti-terrorist cells, with dozens of "encounter specialists," with a licence to kill, and huge funds to obtain "sensitive" information.
As the BJP's demand for tough anti-terrorist action reaches a crescendo, the government's reactive, but irrational, response is to arbitrarily arrest hundreds of Muslims, interrogate them with third-degree methods, and extract false confessions.
This has created a climate of intimidation, insecurity and terror -- starkly evident in Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Delhi, and even villages in UP's much-maligned Azamgarh..
Take the alleged September 19 "encounter" in the Batla House area in Delhi, in which two terrorists, Atif Ameen and Mohammed Sajid, were killed, one was arrested, and two escaped.
The Delhi police say Atif was Indian Mujaheedin's topmost leader, who organised all major recent terrorist bombings. The Mumbai police contradict this and say the "mastermind" is Mohammad Sadiq Shaikh.
The Delhi "encounter" occurred less than a week after Delhi's multiple bomb blasts. It conforms to a familiar pattern like the Ansal Plaza and other encounters figuring Rajbir Singh.
The "encounter" story would have provoked a sceptical public response but for the fact that Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma was also killed.
However, the Delhi police version is inconsistent. It claims Atif was the mastermind behind the bombings in Varanasi, Jaipur and Ahmedabad. But those cities' police name others: respectively, Waliullah, Shahbaz Hussain, and Abu Bashar-Abdul Subhan Qureshi, alias Tauqeer, also publicised as the "IM mastermind."
The Delhi police say that Atif led a shadowy existence and recently stashed away Rs.3 crores in an Azamgarh bank. But the bank says his account had Rs.1,400.
Atif recently rented an apartment in Batla House. He registered the deed and got himself duly verified by the police.
A "terrorist mastermind" wouldn't practise such openness -- especially because the police had been watching the area for a week.
The police accuse Atif's associate, Saquib Nissar, of planting bombs in Ahmedabad on July 26. But records show that Saquib took an MBA examination in Delhi from July 22 to 28.
According to an eyewitness account of the "encounter," there was an altercation when the police entered the 4th floor apartment where Atif and Sajid lived.
They dragged the two unarmed men down to the ground, where heavily armed Special Cell policemen were present. They severely beat up the two after cordoning off the area. In the ensuing scuffle, a policeman's gun went off and three bullets hit Sharma in the back and exited from the side/front.
After this, the police apparently fired at Atif and Sajid point-blank. A picture of Sajid just before burial shows at least four bullet-holes in the front portion of the skull. Even one bullet would have proved fatal. But the assailant pumped more, presumably out of vengeance.
Post-mortem reports, obtained by a private TV channel, disprove the police claim that Sharma was killed in frontal firing by Atif and/or Sajid as he entered their apartment. Newspaper pictures showed that the front of Sharma's white shirt wasn't bloodstained.
Atif and Sajid's autopsy reports show severe bleeding from beatings. The police claim that two terrorists escaped. But given just one narrow entry/exit point, nobody could have escaped.
Even assuming that Atif and Sajid were terrorists, there's no reason why they couldn't have been smoked out of the apartment, properly interrogated, tried and punished. All this calls for a ruthlessly independent judicial inquiry.
It's shameful that India's anti-terrorist police cells haven't managed to rise above the suspicion that they prefer brutal, even barbaric, methods over due process of law. Unless their anti-terrorist strategies and operations undergo radical reform, the minorities whom they selectively target won't feel secure or part of the national community as full citizens.
And that's the last thing India can afford if it's to have a modicum of social cohesion, and respect for human rights and the rule of law.
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