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In third week of July (2009)
Maharashtra police arrested several Muslims in Pusad, Akola and
neighboring regions on the charge that they are reviving SIMI under
a new name. It is after a fairly long time that one has heard of
arrests in the name of SIMI. The earlier cycle of arrest of Muslim
youth which was a matter of routine after every blast, Malegaon,
Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad, Jaipur and other places was broken with
the impeccable proof of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur’s motor cycle
being found in Malegaon. The trace of motorcycle link led to Swami
Dayanand Pandey, Lt Col Shrikant Purohit and many others associated
with Hindu right wing organizations, offshoots of or inspired by RSS
ideology.
Society witnessed that after most of
the blasts so far, Muslim youth were arrested on the charge of being
behind the blasts, were harassed for months and then released for
the lack of evidence. This was more or less a routine pattern and it
frightened the whole Muslim community to no end. Many a Muslim
youths’ careers were crushed due to these reckless and baseless
arrests. Many a minority families under went severe problems, were
ostracized from their own community once they were dragged into the
net on the charges which were guided more by the prevalent biases or
stereotypes than any substance. SIMI came to be regarded as the core
organization responsible for fomenting trouble through youth.
Despite the ban on SIMI in 2001, the Muslim youth kept on being
labeled as SIMI activists and were put behind the bar.
It’s not to say that SIMI was holding
ideology which was talking of democracy and secularism. One knows
that SIMI, which began as a student front of Jamat-e-Islami Hind
gradually, came out of its control and became radical in the decade
of 1990s in particular. Yoginder Sikand, an Islamic scholar of
repute gives a very crisp history of this organization (/www.countercurrents.org/comm-sikand150706.htm).
SIMI was founded on the ideology propounded by Maulana Maududi,
according to whom all non Muslims are kafirs and man made systems
like democracy are false and Shariah is the only way. It kept the
goal of spreading Islamic consciousness amongst Muslim students and
peaceful missionary work amongst non Muslims. Some events in the
decade of 1990 were to shape its ideology in a radical and militant
direction. These events were Soviet Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan
and Islamization of Pakistan in particular.
Meanwhile Jamat- e- Islami came to
accept democracy and Secularism as its guiding ideology. SIMI came
out from the control of its parent organization to talk in a
different language. The demolition of Babri Mosque and the post
demolition violence gave it a fillip in the negative direction. It
said that Democracy has failed to protect Muslims so there is a need
for some one like Mohammed Gazni, the destroyer of Somanth. This was
also the theme of the poster released by them in the aftermath of
Babri demolition. It was alleged that SIMI has links with Sikh and
Kashmiri militants. It was alleged that they have links with Osama
and ISI. At the same time SIMI claimed that it wants to work through
peaceful methods, while the worsening communal situation made it to
say that Muslims are a belabored community. Under these
circumstances SIMI was banned in 2001.
The ban on SIMI was challenged, so a
tribunal had to be appointed to review the ban. Ajit Sahi of Tehelka
in his painstaking investigation, followed the tribunal’s sitting
all through (Tehelka, SIMI Fictions, 12th August 2008), the tribunal
did not find any evidence of the charges put against the
organization for banning it. The ban could not be upheld. About this
investigation Ajit Sahi said, “… his investigation is no dry story
rising from lifeless court documents. It has been an emotional
rollercoaster to sit across young boys barely into manhood, their
foreheads creased by sleepless nights worried stiff over the jailing
of a father, a brother, wondering endlessly, “Will this end? Is this
for real? What do I do now? Where do I go now? Will I survive this?”
He further says “as I interviewed countless Muslims, so weathered, I
couldn’t but ask myself, What if this was me? What if it was my
brother, my father in jail?”
With the World scenario tilting
against the Islam and Muslims, courtesy the radical Islamists
trained in the Madrassas set up in Pakistan with US aid, the popular
psyche perceived an average Muslim as a terrorist and police
machinery operated on this understanding. Even when scores of lives
were shattered and the community came under the intimidation of
highest order, the Government did not put any corrective to this
pattern of investigation with which police was pursuing its work.
Disturbed by this situation two
people’s tribunal were set up by the Human Rights groups. The report
and recommendations of both the tribunal are similar and
overlapping. The first one was headed by Justices (Retd) Bhargava
and Sardar Ali Khan, with prominent social activists like Asghar Ali
Engineer and Prashant Bhushan as the jury. The testimonies showed
that a large number of innocent young Muslims have been and are
being victimized by the police on the charge of being involved in
various terrorist acts across the country. This is particularly so
in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and
Rajasthan, though not limited to these States. This victimization
and demonisation of Muslims in the guise of investigation of terror
offences, is having a very serious psychological impact on the minds
of not only the families of the victims but also other members of
the community. It is leading to a very strong sense of insecurity
and alienation which may lead to frightful consequences for the
nation.
The second tribunal set up by
different set of organization s of Rajasthan worked under the
leadership of Justice (Retd) Bhargava. One of it pertinent
observation was that the police authorities investigating the terror
offences appear to be violating all the laws of the land and
directions of the Supreme Court during the conduct of the
investigations. In particular, many persons have been detained for
days or weeks, without showing them to be arrested and without
producing them before any Magistrate. They have been sometimes
tortured and humiliated by the police officers. They have not been
allowed to meet their relatives and lawyers, who have often not even
been informed of their detention. The investigation of the blasts by
the police also appears to be communally motivated and only persons
belonging to the Muslim community have been the target of the
investigations.
The names of HUJI and SIMI have been
bandied about by the police as the perpetrators of the blasts
without any evidence. A number of former members of SIMI have been
arrested and detained without any basis or evidence against them.
The media has also been uncritically repeating and amplifying the
baseless allegations and innuendoes of the police mentioning persons
and organizations belonging to the Muslim community, thus resulting
in ethnic profiling and feeding into the Islamophobia being sought
to be created and reinforced in the minds of the Hindu community by
the Hindutva organizations. In Jaipur this has resulted in the
vilification of the entire Bengali Muslim community who has been
victimized by the Hindutva organizations in complicity with the
police.
Thousands of them have been picked up
after the blasts and forcibly transported to New Jalpaiguri and then
Bangladesh without any due process of law and without giving them an
opportunity to show their Indian Citizenship. This has resulted in
the ethnic cleansing of Jaipur.
One does not know with what
seriousness the administration looks at these people’s tribunal, the
fact is they have put forward profound realities of the society. It
is imperative that the Government takes a serious look at these
reports and instructs the investigation authorities to be more
professional in their approach and sheds its biases while dealing
with minority community.
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