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From: Sukla Sen <suklasen@yahoo.com> Date: Thu Jul 1, 2004 Subject: State has No Right to Murder http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20040628/edit.htm#4 India??™s encounter with Modi The larger lesson should not be lost by J. Sri Raman IT would sound outrageously callous to say that the ???encounter??? killings in Ahmedabad have served a good purpose. But they have. The public reaction to the killings, and to the official case made out for them, has imparted a new strength to Indian democracy itself, no less. This is not the first instance of ???encounter??? killings, claimed to be truly ennobled by the cause that pulled the trigger. Of killings defended in the name of the nation and nationalism. Nor is this the first time such a killing has been condemned and its defence questioned by a minuscule minority of civil liberties activists, either ignored downright or indulged dismissively as mavericks. This, however, is certainly the first occasion in decades when the mantra accompanying such murders has totally failed to work. Either to elicit mainstream support for the persons and powers behind the unheard shots or, at least, to ensure silent, almost all-round acquiescence. The reports about the ???encounter??? killings on June 15,carried out by a force of the Ahmedabad police's unblemished record, had all the expected ingredients. The men in uniform were said to have mown down four young terrorists, all Muslims, one of them a teen-aged girl, and defeated a conspiracy by the dreaded Lashkar-e-Toiba. The plot, ran the story, was masterminded by Pakistan??™s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and aimed at nothing less than the elimination of popular Chief Minister Narendra Modi. And, of course, no details could be divulged in such a delicate matter of national security. What is notable is not only that there was no Pavolvian response to the very mention of Pakistan and the ISI, leave alone LeT. The reports were, actually, greeted with skepticism ??” and more. The holes in the police story ??” as gaping as the ones in what was produced as the getaway car of the ???terrorists??? ??” have been picked several times since then. If the family??™s and friends??™ recollections of Ishrat Jahan touched many hearts, former Delhi police officer Nikhil Kumar supplied the humour by complimenting the ???sharpshooters??? in khaki who had escaped entirely unbruised from the ???encounter??? that had ended in the elimination of all the four enemies of the State with arms of ???foreign origin??? across bodies in a blood-splattered street. State Congress leader Amarsinh Chaudhary, who questioned the credibility of the story and asked for an enquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation, must have been surprised by the support he received from many sides. It was after four days??™ apparently self-incriminating silence that the men who had presided over the liquidation of the four saw the need for some damage control. They came out with ???details??? and two ???diaries??? that, however, did not become case-clinching exhibits at the bar of public opinion. The customary crusaders against ???pseudo-secular scribes???, then, ran once again their tiring, old campaign about the ???anti-national??? essence of a demand for democratic norms in dealing with ???terrorists???. In newspapers and television channels across the country, they talked of the ???double life??? of diminutive Ishrat, dating back to her twelfth year, and quoted extensively from the ???diaries??? of unauthenticated entries. In one simple sentence, their message was: the country must go by the gospel according to the Gujarat police. There is one major reason why the story of the Modi police has not proved a bestseller. But that is also an important reason to stress that the story of India's reaction to the killings should not stop here. The main reason why the police story has not sold is the record and reputation of Mr. Modi and his regime. It has taken over two years of an excruciating Gujarat experience for the country to acquire the ability not to be taken in by the story. It has taken a toll of over 2,000 lives in the Gujarat carnage of 2002 and, subsequently, of judicial and administrative traditions in what was once a model state in many respects. The Chief Minister has continued to combine minority-bashing, in utterances and administrative bias and actions, with attacks on ???Mian??? Musharraf. Eight persons have been declared dead in similar ???encounters??? before in his Gujarat, and four similar attempts on his life have been alleged. Mr. Modi was in deep political trouble, when the diabolical assassination plot was allegedly discovered. The timing of the ???encounter??? ??” coming in the wake of a belated censure of his communal role by ???the tallest leader??? of the Bharatiya Janata Party (as Mr Venkaiah Naidu has described Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee) ??” could not be lost upon anyone. The larger lesson of the story, however, can be lost. It must not be. This lesson is that similar questions should be raised also about similar other happenings elsewhere. ???Encounter??? killings, for example, are not endemic to Mr Modi??™s Gujarat. The summary execution of ???suspects??? in detention is a far from the due process of law that has been practised for long in several states, from Kashmir and Punjab (of the eighties) to Andhra and Tamil Nadu. The question that the people must ask themselves is how they have not only allowed the ???encounters??? to become an established practice but an elevating one elsewhere. If an ???encounter specialist??? like Daya Nayak is a cult figure, a fit subject for adoring films, in Maharashtra and Karnataka, it is because the main sanction claimed for summary police execution of ???suspects??? is not questioned. What needs to be questioned is the ground of ???anti-national terrorism???, cited all too often for such gory displays of State terror. The official alibi must find no ready acceptance or reluctant acquiescence. Even where the high-handedness may seem to be no match for the uniformed hooliganism of Mr Modi's Gujarat. Why must it be presumed as a matter of sacred principle that no questions must be either asked or answered in police cases that are supposed to involve ???national security???? Especially if the dreaded P and I words are as much as whispered? The police has refused to answer questions, except under considerable public pressure, in cases ranging from the Capital??™s Ansal Plaza affair to the Ahmedabad killings. And the public has refrained from asking enough questions about explosive issues including the Coimbatore bomb blasts and even the attack on Parliament, as though the authorities were not answerable after the acquittal of some of the accused in both cases. The public outrage at the Ahmedabad killings is a matter of pride, regardless of what any impartial investigation may reveal. It will be a pity, however, if the issue is reduced, in the end, to an inner-BJP encounter. |
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