Bomb Blasts: Indians - Half truths, Full lies and lots of rumours

The last few days have been very crucial for the investigators of the pan India bomb blasts. They seem to have found some leads after the humiliating 4 years where they were running around in circles (like a dog trying to jab its tail). As usual the police and the public gave different version of things which most of the media was quick to show as “Breaking News”. The media content swung like a pendulum moving from India’s Osama Tauqeer to Azamgarh being India’s Waziristan. One channel showed Tauqeer and others with devils ears and tongue. Please for god sake “SHUT UP”. If this is the level of media coverage then I and other sane people will support going back to the days of “Dukhdarshan” (Doordarshan).
As being slightly more “knowledgeable” and “Level minded” (pun intended) than our electronic media journalists, there are a couple of points that I wish to communicate out on these bomb blasts, their investigation and also take the liberty of commenting on some allied issues.

The Delhi – Batla House Encounter

Please for god’s sake, this was not a fake encounter. Fake encounters are not done in broad day light in the middle of a colony, nor does the mission leader tell his family that he is going to be back in a couple of hours leaving behind his critically ill son. Please accept the encounter story of the Delhi police as they are saying the truth (at least this time). Any sceptic can watch a very balanced coverage on headlines today news channel which was able to procure the actual encounter footage shot either with a mobile phone camera or a normal camera with low quality digital zoom. It clearly showed a below par police action where casualty was nearly 100% sure. As has been reported in some creditable media that the cops were of the opinion that this would be a “QUICK ARREST” operation and before other people realise it, they would be back at their Lodhi Road office. Some Police officers want to join such raids for the lure of medals; some for promotions but some do have genuine team spirit and all these scenarios’ can lead to mistakes and lots of them were committed on that fateful day. As for the shots having hit Inspector Sharma from the back, the headlines today clip clearly shows the volley of fire coming from the house and the ill equipped and ill prepared raiding party rushing downstairs to escape that gun fire. As for the escape of the terrorist, well if such was the planning of the arrest, then escapee of 2 -3 or all the terrorists is no big deal. Having myself seen visuals and also read about the manual of procedures employed by a raiding party in U.K, I can tell that this was a shoddy work by the special cell. The blame if any goes to the concepts in training for such operations that Indian police employ in which a false sense of bravado and complete sense of recklessness gets groomed into them. In this age of the internet and you tube, just look into clips of such raids by U.K and U.S police and one can appreciate my view on this. I do not doubt the bravery or the team spirit of these policemen but just sacrificing one’s life leads to nothing. What if the court tomorrow says that no the encounter was not perfect or the captured people are not terrorists? These scenarios can happen and the only reason is that our police hardly go with an effort to create a case against the accused. The entire exercise is to capture an accused and then “Break” him down to reveal everything. This does sensationalise the news of that day but when the story goes to the inner pages of the newspapers, the terrorists go scot free. This is totally opposite to the procedure employed by the U.K police who operate in a scenario where the suspects are trailed for months and only when enough legally admissible evidence is accumulated, the cell is busted. This is the biggest reason that police in such countries enjoy far higher credibility than our police do. Such credibility not only leads to better moles in the terrorist cells but also in improved convictions.

Month of Ramdan – There were murmurs at the Batla house area that a Muslim could not do something so un-Islamic during the holy month of Ramdan. The terrorist have no knowledge of Islam or love for it. They only know the language of hate and nothing else. This was reaffirmed as within a couple of days the terrorist and that too the wahibi’s (purist) nearly blew up the Marriott in Islamabad and that also when an iftar dinner was being organised. This is their level of knowledge of Islam and their thoughts for a Muslim Ummah or an Islamic Caliphate.

What can be done to assure the sceptical people of India that such encounters are genuine?

1. Give raiding party helmet cams (U.K police has started using them). This if needed can show if the raiding party was following the set procedures or not. Army has been doing this for a long time and it is time that the police forces start the same also.
2. All deaths natural and unnatural needs be verified by a system called Coroner’s Inquest. This simple process goes a long way in clearing the air about encounters. The system is presently working in the U.K and has been able to produce wonderful results. The Coroner is somewhat like a constitutional figure and he/she goes beyond the role of a post mortem expert. He/She also enquires about the conditions leading to the death and also what could and should be done to prevent such a loss of life. Lots of changes have been bought into the emergency management system in the U.K by such inquests.
In the U.K even the Armed Forces are under the preview of the Coroner’s Inquest which might not be possible so we could have a separate Coroner for Armed forces directly reporting to the Defence Minister. We need this openness not only for keeping the Armed Forces record clean but also to make sure that generals who are responsible for the life of the front line jawans and officers give them the best quality tools to achieve their missions. Right now jawans and officers who lay down their lives for this nation are quickly termed Saheed and no institutional effort is made to address the root causes of their deaths. Lots of deaths in Indian Armed forces are attributed to malfunctioning of ammunition or poor quality of communication equipment or weapons or body armour and nothing is done quickly enough to correct these issues.
3. Please allow press briefings to be done by professionals and not regular policemen and women. Train your P.R cops in what P.R means. For someone who has wielded lathi all his life, words would not be the easiest things which would flow from his/her mouth.
4. Rumour mills work over time at such places especially where the majority of the people are either illiterate or semi educated or like most Indian’s - Born sceptics. What the police and their P.R fellows need to do is to make sure that their voice is heard. Tools that You Tube, Orkut, Face book and Internet chat rooms offer a quick and easy way to disseminate your point of view. These days even royal family of U.K, U.N, etc have their own video channels on the You Tube.
5. Order a Coroner’s Inquest and publish its finding or even updates on the internet.
6. Train and prepare your men and women on such missions well enough. Equip them well and show your evidence gathered to a magistrate before a raid is started (Italy does that – A Magistrate leads the police campaigns against mafia’s, terrorist or other shady characters). This will allow the encounter specialists to access if the evidence gathered is good enough or more needs to be done under the existing laws to nail the terrorist in a court of law.
7. Pick up more people from smaller communities into the force especially Delhi Police in the lower rung. There are hundreds of young retired ex Army men and women including Muslims who could be immediately absorbed into the force. This will allow some credibility and increase professionalism into the police forces.

As I have reported in my earlier blogs that intelligence agencies and police forces are busy doing “bandobast” for their “bade sahibs” and their free loader relatives rather than trailing the terrorists. A quick reading of Maj. Gen V.K Singh’s book on R&AW reveals the same, 90% of all information in R&AW is purely technical and that is shocking. Human assets remain and will remain your best bet in thwarting any sinister plans of the terrorists.

Religion from a modern perspective is the right to practise your rituals and beliefs without any fear until and unless they impede on the other person’s right of existence. If you look at these terrorists this is not what they want, they are hell bent on forcing their beliefs on people lesser capable of defending themselves which include groups like women, economically downtrodden, etc. Forcing religious beliefs leads to different problems and that is pretty well seen in Muslim countries. If you starting discriminating than people have a habit to take such acts to levels beyond the comprehension of sane people. Glaring examples are Muslims in Iraq; first the division was between Iran and Iran, then it was divided between Iraqis and Kurds and the Iraqis subdivided themselves between Iraqis and marsh Arabs; then Iraqis got divided into Shia’s and Sunni’s and then Shia and Sunni’s got divided into different factions and then these factions would finally get divided into different factions as per each household. Gen. Petreus of the U.S ARMY did nothing extraordinary but just divided people as per their wishes and some kind of peace was restored in Iraq.

A proof of forcing people to follow a certain philosophy is that a few days back I read an interesting fact about Pakistan. Lots of Sunni Muslims write their faith as Shia Muslims to escape the compulsory Zakat during the months of Ramdan that Gen. Zia had introduced in that country. This Zakat amount is compulsorily deducted from the salaries for all Sunni Muslims and exempted for Shias and other Minority groups. Also anybody flying into Bangkok can find Saudi jets with their billionaire owners are parked in Bangkok and other places of pleasure for days at end – Do not think for prayers (As far as I know Bangkok is NOT famous for that).

Trust me if Hindu’s think that their saviour in the current times is Dr. Praveen Togadia or Raj Thackeray and Muslims think that their saviour is Osama or some Paki funded politician or “Amar Chitra Katha of Dalal Salam fame and his Netaji or the very “Punny” Chara Eater – Laloo, Aloo, Balu and his family including his railway platform changing brother in Laws” then all the best to those who believe in this. I would to stick myself to reading books and writing by blog.

Live together we have to, so better it is that we start quickly.

p.s – Ignorance breeds even more ignorance: I asked a friend of mine if he knew who was ABU FAZL. The answer even before I could end the question was TERRORIST (As all terrorists change their names to Abu something). All I can say is the fact is that Abu Fazl was one of the most learned scholars that Akbar had in his court. Abu Fazl wrote Akbarnama, translated Bible into Persian and also was instrumental in changing Akbar’s temperament to a modern outlook.
Now there are two ways of looking at this answer, one all is lost and now Muslims are doomed. The other way is that such things need to be highlighted. Firstly accept that there is a problem and this cycle of violence that can be stopped if and only if people from within the Muslim community wake up and tell not only other Indians but also young boys and girls of their community that their ideals need to be Abu Fazl or Dara Shikoh and not osama’s of this world.

Please also read: Muslim Freedom Fighters of India/edited by S. Ganjoo. ISBN 81-261-1281-6