Malegaon
Bomb Blast Trail: Whatever Happened To The 'Fake Beard?'
By Subhash Gatade
07 November, 2006
Countercurrents.org
( Shab-e-Barat, the day
when Muslims pray for their departed ones and visit their graveyards,
saw blood of innocents getting spilled in Malegaon, Maharashtra.It saw
deaths of 31 people and injuries to hundreds.
From day one, there have
been allegations that the police has not remained even handed while
dealing with the case. Apart from providing lax security at the time
of the Shab-e-Barat celebrations, it is also alleged that it did not
follow some vital clues.
Now comes the claim,
as per ATS (anti terrorist squad) in Maharashtra, that a group of Muslims,
supposedly associated with some extremist Muslim organisation, implemented
the gory act. It is understandable that why the latest claim has been
received with lot of disdain. News pouring in from the city inform that
a bandh has been planned on 14 th November to protest the arrests.)
Can
it be now said that the truth is finally out as far as Malegaon bomb
blast is concerned ? And the real perpetrators of the gory carnage have
been apprehended ? Or there are still loose ends which are to be met.
If one goes by the formal
communique from the ATS (anti terrorism squad) of Maharashtra police
then it has finally 'cracked the case' and it wants the rest of the
people also to believe that the three accused under custody and their
(yet to be arrested) accomplices are the real culprits. Interestingly
DGP of Maharashtra while making the announcement of the arrests did
not blame the usual suspects like ISI, Lashkar to be the real kingpin
of the blast.Perhaps the unstated position is that it is an act of the
locals only, supposedly owning allegiance to a radical Muslim outfit,
which wanted to precipitate 'communal riots'. Media is also agog with
news of the 'narco test' which have been conducted on these accused
and the way they have 'revealed' their real game plan under the influence
of medication.
Ofcourse the confidence exuded
by the police officers is no guarantee that they have a foolproof case
against the accused. It may just happen that the case may fall flat
in the court for lack of substantial evidence. There have been umpteen
times before that this has happened. The memory of the poor, hapless
Kashmiri fruit seller who was paraded as the real kingpin of the bomb
blasts in Delhi last year, must be still fresh in people's minds. Presented
as the 'prize catch' by senior police officers before the media, he
was later declared innocent by the same police.
The most recent case showing
the modus operandi of the police in poor light, is related to the four
year old attack on the Raghunath temple in Jammu.Four innocent persons
had to languish in jail for such a long period for no fault of theirs.
The courts have finally absolved all the accused of any charges and
have advised the police to properly use its minds in handling sensitive
cases of such nature.
Coming to the Malegaon bomb
blast, the police version tells us that 'bombs used in the explosion
were assembled at the garage of one Shabbir Ahmad Batterywalla who was
the real kingpin.' It need be noted that this said person was languishing
in police custody since August 2 itself under the infamous 'Unlawful
Activites Prevention Act' for some other offence, more than a month
before the blasts. The other two accused also had been apprehended earlier
for the bomb hoax in Malegaon a few days later after the tragic incident.
One cannot deny that Maharashtra
police which has received lot of flak for its acts of commission and
ommission while dealing with cases of such nature must have been more
careful this time. A close scrutiny of the case may reveal that it is
moving on correct lines. But the biggest problem at hand is that is
that it suffers from a terrific credibility gap vis-a-vis the Muslim
community and therefore its claims have rather failed to generate any
confidence among the people.
Everybody is aware of the way in which it targetted the whole Muslim
community in the immediate aftermath of the recent blasts in local trains
in B'bay and the way it has been less than enthusiastic in following
the Nanded bomb blasts case involving RSS/Bajrang Dal activists. The
partisan role played by the same police in the 1992-93 post Babri Mosque
demolition riots has even been well documented by the Srikrishna Commission.
The state administration
also did not fail to show its anti-Muslim bias even in times of tragedy.
While shading crocodile tears over their plight, it saw to it that victims
in Malegaon blast, majority of whom were Muslims, receive less compensation
(1/5 th) as compared to victims of Mumbai blast, majority of whom were
Hindus. (Iqbal A. Ansari , The Milli Gazette online, 14 th Sept 2006)
The institutional discrimination
against the Muslims was for everyone to see. Whereas the police had
maintained high vigilance in patrolling the town during the Ganpati
festival which ended on the 6 th September, but it failed to provide
similar security on Shab-e-baraat, Friday, 8th September. On this tragic
day there were no police patrolling or security measures in place.
The post-blast investigations
also proved to be far from impartial.After the blast apart from the
extremist Muslim organisations the role and activities of the organisations
associated with the RSS and other formations of the Hindutva brigade
also came under scanner. The role of its activists in various bomb blasts
cases earlier had already become a matter of concern. It was at this
juncture that, when even the Prime Minister himself had clearly stated
that he could not confirm or rule out the possibility of the involvement
of Bajrang Dal in the bloody act at Malegaon, a concerted campaign was
taken up for spreading unsubstantiated rumours. Quoting unnamed sources
the police engaged in investigating the blasts were quick to rule out
the possibility that the bombs might have been the handiwork of Bajrang
Dal, which has been active in the Marathwada region.
Stigmatising of Muslim groups
and formations had already started despite the fact that “…[I]slamic
militant groups in India from the days insurgency began in Kashmir in
the 1990s have not attacked mosques or shops where religious books are
sold’' ( Indian Express, 18 th September 2006)
People seating in the media
sympathetic to the Hindutva cause were also cooking vacuous arguments
to rationalise 'clean chit' to the Hindutva brigade. One of the logic
used was the crudeness of bombs used by the Hindutva groups earlier
and the technical expertise supposedly needed to make/use a RDX. It
did not matter to them that "Outlook' did a cover story on the
same theme making it clear how easy it is to get RDX. The famous lyricist
Javed Akhtar in a meeting held in Bombay under the auspices of CJP rightly
asked with indignation ‘Does RDX have a special stamp establishing
its link to Muslims?’
As far leaving many vital
clues unattended it would be opportune to quote Radhika Koppikar of
the ‘Outlook’ (13 September 2006, Web Only):
“That the investigators should so blatantly rule out involvement
of any Hindutva outfit is cause for concern. …. the fact remains
that the cops are not chasing some clues. Take the case of “fake
beard” as it has come to be known here. A tailor Aqeel Ahmed Ansari
who works near the Bada Kabristan told cops and bystanders that he had
picked up a body from near one of the bicycles and handed it over to
volunteers in the ambulance, that this body did not have the lower part
of the torso and it’s beard had come off in the ambulance. The
suggestion being that it was a fake beard and therefore the body of
a perpetrator. Coincidentally, the two hospitals that conducted post-mortems
said that they had together handled 30 bodies and none was without the
lower half.“
People who are familiar with
the recent communal situation in Maharahstra very well know the significance
of a ‘fake beard’. It was in Nanded only, where the police
had discovered fake beards as well as dresses and caps normally worn
by Muslims, in a raid on a deceased Bajrang Dal-RSS activists house
in the aftermath of the bomb blast in April.
SUBHASH GATADE, [email protected]
Leave
A Comment
&
Share Your Insights