SACW | Oct. 1 - 2, 2006 | Pakistan Bounty market ; India: Security mania, Save Afzal Guru; Malaysia: secular status threatened

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | October 1 - 2, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2296


[1]  US fuels Pakistan bounty market (Tom Burgis)
[2]  Pakistan: General in His Labyrinth (Arif Azad)
[3]  Anti-terrorism and Security Laws in India (Anil Kalhan et al.)
[4]  India: On the Death Sentence to Mohammad Afzal
(i) Does Afzal deserve the death penalty? (Humra Quraishi)
(ii) We haven't even heard Afzal's story (Nandita Haksar)
(iii) Save Afzal Guru Campaign (JKCCS)
(iv)  Petition against Mohammad Afzal Guru's Death Penalty
[5]  India: Reaping The Harvest: Images of Terror (Nalini Taneja)
[6]  India: A vicious cycle (AG Noorani)
[7]  Malaysia's secular status quo threatened by Muslim groups (Maznah Mohamad)

____


[1] 

Financial Times
September 28 2006

US FUELS PAKISTAN BOUNTY MARKET

by Tom Burgis in London

Bounties offered by the US for suspected 
terrorists have created a black market in 
abductions in Pakistan, according to a report 
published on Wednesday.

People have been seized by Pakistani police, 
border guards and bounty hunters eager to claim 
rewards offered for suspected terrorists, 
evidence compiled by human rights organisation 
Amnesty International shows.

Many were handed to Pakistan's Inter-Services 
Intelligence, which in turn passed at least 369 
detainees to American operatives, writes 
Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, in his 
book In the Line of Fire, also published this 
week. Amnesty's report says people abducted in 
Pakistan account for about two-thirds of the 759 
past or present inmates at Camp X-Ray, the US 
military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The report - "Pakistan: human rights ignored in 
the 'war on terror'" - found "hundreds of people 
have been arbitrarily detained".

Incentives for bounty hunters came in leaflets 
dropped from American aircraft after the invasion 
of Afghanistan in November 2001 and recovered by 
locals and reporters. Rewards included $5,000 
(¤4,000, £2,700) for information on al-Qaeda or 
Taliban fighters and up to $25m for alleged 
terrorist masterminds such as Khalid Sheik 
Mohammed.

The CIA on Thursday declined to comment. The 
State Department did not respond to repeated 
requests from the FT for a comment. A Pentagon 
spokesman said: "The rewards programme is 
effective in helping to protect Americans and 
citizens around the world from terrorists, 
including those who harbour or aid the enemy."

Professor Shaun Gregory, a UK expert on Pakistani 
security at Bradford University's Department of 
Peace Studies and a visiting fellow at 
Islamabad's Institute for Strategic Studies, 
Pakistan's leading military think-tank, said 
leaflets dropped in Afghanistan spread into 
Pakistan.

The market in abductees was at its most frenetic 
in late 2001, Amnesty said. Pakistan's security 
services continue to deny the existence of such 
detainees when pressed by relatives of the 
disappeared. The bounty trade "is the logical 
working-through of the notion that the CIA will 
pay for 'bad guys'," Prof Gregory said.

Prisoners in Pakistani jails have allegedly been 
"groomed" to appear more like potential 
terrorists before being sold to American 
personnel, Angelika Pathak, one of the report's 
authors, told the FT.

Mark Denbaux, professor of law at Seton Hall 
University law school, New Jersey, and a lawyer 
representing two Guantánamo detainees, said his 
client, Rafiq Alhami, a Tunisian Arab resident in 
Afghanistan, was bundled into a van during a 
medical visit to Pakistan in late 2001.

Mr Alhami, 40, a honey broker with a heart 
condition, believes his captors were paid a 
bounty, Prof Denbaux said. He remains in Camp 
X-Ray, not charged with any offence.

Gen Musharraf writes that since the September 11 
2001 attacks his agents have rounded up hundreds 
of suspected terrorists: "Some are known to the 
world, some are not. We have captured 689 and 
handed over 369 to the United States.

"We have earned bounties totalling millions of 
dollars. Those who habitually accuse us of 'not 
doing enough' on the war on terror should simply 
ask the CIA how much prize money it has paid to 
the government in Pakistan."

Western diplomats said the allegations would dent 
the image of martial democrat cultivated by Gen 
Musharraf, who dined with President George W. 
Bush and Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, on 
Wednesday. The guests, who blame each other for 
the Afghan insurgency, refused to shake hands.

Gen Musharraf arrived in London on Thursday, and 
spent the afternoon with Tony Blair, the prime 
minister. On Friday he will address the Oxford 
Union.

Additional reporting by Farhan Bokhari, Islamabad

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006

_____


[2] 

Economic and Political Weekly
September 16, 2006

PAKISTAN: GENERAL IN HIS LABYRINTH

The charter of democracy agreed on by Pakistan's two leading
opposition politicians has given a fillip to the long dormant
democratic process in Pakistan. If the campaign sustains and
gathers momentum, Musharraf, who has thus far held to power by
subverting constitutional norms and reaching an unsavoury
alliance with fundamentalist religious parties, may find the going
tough. The promised elections of 2007 now appear full of
unexpected possibilities.

by Arif Azad

Nay, but this dotage of our general's
Overflows the measures.
- Opening line of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra London has become
the hub of Pakistani politics lately, at least 
since the arrival of Nawaz Sharif
in December 2005. The ousted prime minister and head of Nawaz-faction of
the Pakistan Muslim League took up a "flexible" exile in London...

Complete article at:
http://www.epw.org.in/showArticles.php?root=2006&leaf=09&filename=10551&filetype=pdf


_____


[3]


Press release and a couple of wire stories about 
a recently released study by the New York City 
Bar Association on human rights issues arising 
from Indian anti terrorism and security laws:

<http://www.nycbar.org/PressRoom/PressRelease/2006_0919.htm>http://www.nycbar.org/PressRoom/PressRelease/2006_0919.htm
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060926/india_nm/india269401>http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060926/india_nm/india269401
<http://in.news.yahoo.com/060925/210/67x69.html>http://in.news.yahoo.com/060925/210/67x69.html

The NYC Bar has actively worked on this range of 
issues for some time in a variety of countries, 
including Northern Ireland, Hong Kong, and of 
course the United States since 2001. 

ANTITERRORISM AND SECURITY LAWS IN INDIA: A
REPORT TO THE ASSOCIATION OF THE BAR OF THE CITY
OF NEW YORK ON A RESEARCH PROJECT FOR THE
COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS

by Anil Kalhan, Gerald P. Conroy, Mamta Kaushal,
Sam Scott Miller, and Jed S. Rakoff*

The full, 135-page report is available at:

<http://www.nycbar.org/pdf/ABCNY_India_Report.pdf>http://www.nycbar.org/pdf/ABCNY_India_Report.pdf

_____


[4]  ON THE DEATH SENTENCE TO MOHAMMAD AFZAL

(i)

The Tribune
October 1, 2006

DOES AFZAL DESERVE THE DEATH PENALTY?
by Humra Quraishi

The big question now is whether Mohammad Afzal 
ought to be put to death or saved from the 
gallows. I got in touch with the well known 
lawyer ND Pancholi, who is one of those lawyers 
who has been regularly meeting Afzal. Along with 
a team of senior advocates, he is currently 
preparing a mercy petition on his behalf.

Reacting sharply to the death sentence, ND 
Pancholi set out the facts which are likely to 
form the main points in the petition:

"I feel it is important to know certain facts 
regarding this case - Afzal did not have the 
assistance of any lawyer at the trial stage. The 
lawyers sought by him were not provided by the 
Court. Amicus Curie advocates were given by the 
court, some of whom withdrew from the case and 
the one who remained was there only for the name 
sake.

"The court asked Afzal to cross examine the 
witnesses, which he did, but this is a task which 
can be performed by a lawyer and no litigant can 
be expected to cross examine the witnesses 
against him. In absence of a proper advocate, he 
was not able to demolish the evidence fabricated 
by the police. The Supreme Court and High Court 
have held that the police version of the arrest 
of the accused was not believable, i.e., the time 
and day of the arrest of the accused as claimed 
by the police was false.

"The Supreme Court has admitted that there is no 
direct evidence against Afzal but certain 
circumstances if taken together can give a safe 
presumption that he was involved in the 
conspiracy to attack Parliament, though he 
himself did not participate in the attack. The 
three main accused, i.e., Mohd. Azhar, Gazi Baba 
and Tariq are stated to be in Pakistan. Three 
were given death penalty i.e. Geelani, Shaukat 
and Afzal. Afsan Guru (wife of Shaukat) was given 
ten years imprisonment. In the High Court Geelani 
and Afsan Guru were acquitted. In the Supreme 
Court the death sentence of Shaukat was commuted 
to ten years imprisonment. In such a situation, 
giving death penalty to one accused on assumption 
of circumstantial evidence is not justified."

Pancholi adds: "In America, with regard to of 
9/11, one accused, Zakaria Mosvi, has been given 
life imprisonment because he was not directly 
involved. Similarly, in the Mahatma Gandhi 
assassination case, Nathuram Godse was given the 
death penalty but his brother was given a life 
sentence because he was not directly involved. 
The same is the case with Afzal, as he was not 
directly involved. "

o o o

(ii)

Indian Express
September 30, 2006

WE HAVEN'T EVEN HEARD AFZAL'S STORY
by Nandita Haksar

Hanging him will be a blot on Indian democracy

  Mohammad Afzal has been sentenced to death by 
hanging for the offence of conspiring to attack 
the Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001. The 
news that the date for his hanging has been fixed 
for October 20, 2006, has been greeted by most of 
the media with approval, if not celebration. But 
before we endorse the decision to hang Afzal we 
need to inform ourselves of the hard facts of the 
case without emotion. It is important to remember 
that we are not discussing whether Afzal was or 
was not a part of the conspiracy to attack the 
Parliament. He has already been found guilty of 
the crime and convicted. The question is on the 
sentence.

There are three principal reasons why hanging 
Mohammad Afzal would violate basic principles of 
natural justice and equity. First, the charge 
sheet was against 12 persons: three Pakistanis 
(Masood Azhar, Tariq Ahmed and Gazi Baba) who 
were said to have master-minded the attack (none 
of the three were arrested or brought to trial. 
If Pakistan were to extradite them they would be 
protected from death penalty); five Pakistanis 
who actually attacked Parliament and were 
responsible for the death of nine members of our 
security forces; and the four people who actually 
stood trial. Afzal was not responsible for 
anyone's death or injury. He did not mastermind 
the attack. The Supreme Court has noted that 
there is no direct evidence of his involvement. 
Second, all the three courts, including the 
Supreme Court, have acquitted him of the charges 
under POTA of belonging to either a terrorist 
organisation or a terrorist gang. Third, he was 
denied a fair trial. The investigation was full 
of illegalities and the courts noted with concern 
that evidence was fabricated and he never had a 
lawyer who represented him. The Designated Judge 
passed an order giving Afzal the right to 
cross-examine witnesses but even a person with 
legal training without knowledge of criminal law 
would find it difficult to conduct such a trial. 
The Supreme Court has held that "The incident, 
which resulted in heavy casualties, had shaken 
the entire nation and the collective conscience 
of the society will only be satisfied if capital 
punishment is awarded to the offender." Can the 
collective conscience of our people be satisfied 
if a fellow citizen is hanged without having a 
chance to defend himself? We have not even had a 
chance to hear Afzal's story. Hanging Mohammad 
Afzal will only be a blot on our democracy .

The writer is a civil rights activist, closely 
associated with the rights of defendants in the 
Parliament attack case and is leading the public 
campaign for mercy in this case

o o o

(iii)

October 1, 2006

Dear Friends,

Mohammad Afzal Guru, 35, a resident of a north 
Kashmir town of Sopore, was arrested in December 
2001 in connection with the attack on the Indian 
parliament in New Delhi. Afzal is presently 
lodged in New Delhi's high security Tihar jail 
and is facing death penalty, the date for which 
has been fixed as 20th October 2006.

We condemn Mohammad Afza's capital punishment and 
therefore appeal you to join our efforts for the 
withdrawal of death sentence.

Keeping in view the international humanitarian 
standards, we are of the opinion that the Afzal 
Guru's trial was not satisfying the standards 
laid out for fair trial. In his case the 
confession that was basis of his conviction in 
trial court was rejected by the Supreme Court of 
India and according to the evidence produced by 
the State he was accused as a facilitator and not 
directly involved in the attack. Thereby, the 
death penalty is disproportionate even according 
to the Indian Supreme Court's different 
judgements and the case doesn't even fall under 
the "rarest of rare" cases in which the Supreme 
Court of India has observed death penalty should 
be awarded. The trial was completely influenced 
by the propagandist Indian media, which had 
pronounced its verdict even before the trial had 
actually begun. The Kashmiris perceive the death 
sentence to Afzal Guru as an act of appeasement 
to the jingoistic pride of India. Also the timing 
and date fixed by the Court seems to be motivated.

Attached is the appeal for signature campaign 
[http://www.sacw.net/hrights/Appeal.jpg]. We also 
appeal you to either write in your individual or 
the organisational capacity the protest letters 
to the Indian President or send a copy to us.

Please send a copy of your letters to us [at <ccs at jkccs.org>].

In struggle,

SAVE AFZAL GURU CAMPAIGN
Organised by: JK Coalition of Civil Society


o o o

(iv)

Dear Friends,

Here is a template of a petition addressed to the 
President of India, which is self-explanatory.
You're earnestly requested to act on it and send a copy to <ccs at jkccs.org>.

Sukla

To
The President of India,
Rashtrapati Bhavan,
New Delhi.
<presidentofindia at rb.nic.in>

Sub: PETITION AGAINST MOHAMMAD AFZAL GURU'S DEATH PENALTY

Respected Sir,

It is to bring to your kind notice that one 
Mohammad Afzal Guru, 35, a resident of Sopore, a 
town in north Kashmir, was arrested, to our 
knowledge, in December 2001 in connection with 
the armed assault on the Indian Parliament on 
Decmeber 13 2001. He is presently lodged in the 
Tihar Jail, New Delhi waiting to be hanged on 
20th instant as per the verdict delivered by the 
Hon'ble Supreme Court of India.

In this connection we'd like to draw your 
attention further to the fact that under 
international human rights standards people 
charged with crimes punishable by death are 
entitled to the observance of strictest fair 
trial guarantees in view of the irreversible and 
most extreme nature of the penalty. Hence meting 
out of death penalty upon conclusion of a trial 
in which the provisions of International Covenant 
on Civil and Political Rights had not been 
respected, which can no longer be remedied by 
appeal, would constitute a gross violation of the 
right to life as per the article 6(1) of the 
aforesaid Covenant.

Keeping in view the above international 
humanitarian standards, we are of the firm 
opinion that Afzal Guru's trial was not according 
to the standards laid out for fair trial.  In his 
case the Supreme Court of India has rejected the 
confession that is the basis of his conviction in 
the trial court. And according to the evidence 
produced by the prosecution, he was accused as a 
facilitator and not as one directly perpetrating 
the said crime. And thereby death penalty is 
grossly disproportionate to the alleged crime 
committed by him according to the prosecution. By 
no stretch of imagination it falls under the 
category of the "rarest of rare" cases. It is 
also highly pertinent that the trial, from the 
word go, was highly influenced by the sustained 
propaganda of the Indian media, which had 
pronounced him guilty even before the trial 
started.  It is no wonder and highly significant 
that under the circumstances the people of 
Kashmir valley perceive this verdict nothing but 
as an act of appeasement to the jingoistic pride 
of India.
The verdict has come at a time when there is 
global campaign going on against capital 
punishment. So far 128 nations have reportedly 
abolished it from their statutes and more are 
expected to follow.

In this context the impact of hanging Mohammad 
Maqbool Bhat, another Kashmiri, in 1984 in the 
same Tihar Jail, at the end of a trial which was 
perceived as patently unfair by the people of the 
valley, radically aggravating the sense of their 
alienation with hugely tragic consequences must 
also be kept in mind.

In view of above we the undersigned earnestly 
urge you to exercise your Constitutional 
prerogative to set aside the said death sentence 
and also institute a judicial enquiry to find out 
the real truths behind the dastardly attack on 
the Indian Parliament, as facts have been clearly 
fudged and fabricated by the investigation agency 
which have been clearly acknowledged by the 
higher courts, and the flawed investigations 
carried out thereafter.  This would not only set 
a healthy precedent and reinforce the common 
people's trust and faith in Indian democracy but 
also go a long way to soothe the inflamed 
feelings of the people of the Kashmir valley and 
thereby help the "peace process" now under way.

Yours sincerely,

Sukla Sen,
EKTA (Committee for Communal Amity),
Mumbai


_____


[5]

People's Democracy
September 24, 2006

REAPING THE HARVEST: IMAGES OF TERROR

by Nalini Taneja

The recent bomb blasts in Malegaon should force 
us to reflect on the constructed images of terror 
prevalent in our media and among the 
intelligentsia and the political leadership of 
this country. The RSS and its affiliated 
organizations have achieved such unprecedented 
success on this score-with a little help from the 
right wing western political leadership of 
course-as they would never have imagined. The 
gradual rise to dominance of right-wing, 
'embedded' journalists, and kar-sevaks in the 
name of journalists, in India has ensured this 
for them.

Most people look on and react to bomb blasts in 
the way that the RSS would like them to. Bomb 
blasts are no longer perceived as just violent, 
abhorrent, and unacceptable forms of 
action/intervention, which they are; they are in 
the main identified in the minds of most people 
with Muslim fanatics. And the pictures of Muslim 
fanatics they evoke could as well be of any poor, 
bearded, lungi-clad or pajama-wearing Muslim, 
such as one sees anywhere on the sub-continent; 
and increasingly now, also, of burqa-clad women, 
who, simply by virtue of hiding their faces are 
seen as having much more to hide.

The images of AK-47 rifles have been replaced by 
the mention of RDX, and bombs now equal Muslims, 
be it in any part of the world. It would seem 
that bombs are special weapons made by and for 
Muslims, unheard of by others and certainly never 
used by anyone else, if we are to go by what our 
media tells us. This of course then provides 
justifications for humiliating searches, and much 
more. They dull us to sights of Muslims being 
specially searched-whether at airports, railway 
stations or simply anywhere-of having their 
mobile phones cross checked, and of having the 
little pleasures of life denied and many human 
rights trampled on, simply because they are 
Muslims.

From descriptions of bomb blasts there it is an 
automatic slide into their identification with 
the highly potent and destructive cocktail of 
anti-nationalism and separatism, which finds its 
expression through a very 'legitimate' anger 
against Pakistan. Pakistan then represents 
everything we abhor and have a right to act 
against in the spirit of 
'all-is-fair-in-love-and-war', and anything that 
reminds us of Pakistan justifiably deserves our 
anger and resentment. And who reminds us of 
Pakistan, if not Muslims, identified in popular 
mind with the creation of Pakistan in the first 
place? And so it goes on, from one stage to 
another, until we are ready to accept any 
atrocity on Muslims, by seeing it as brought on 
them by their own actions.

The Malegaon blasts had barely happened when 
headlines screamed "Terror hits Malegaon", 
supremely confident of providing the cue for what 
was to follow. Few readers of newspapers in this 
country would have imagined these terrorists to 
be other than Muslim terrorists. Even perfectly 
secular people refer only to Muslim militants as 
terrorists, and have a different vocabulary to 
account for the terror and violence perpetrated 
by Hindutva forces, even if they are equally 
critical of them.

Therefore, apart from a few secular activists who 
have been talking of the use of bombs by the 
Hindutva forces in the recent past, and an 
initial report in The Hindu, which recalled the 
Bajrang Dal's role in the recent bomb blasts at 
Nanded and then several mosques in Maharashtra, 
there would be little doubt in the minds of 
readers and listeners of news on TV channels, 
that other Muslims could be involved in the 
Malegaon killings via bombs. The CPI(M) Polit 
Bureau statement (September 13, 2006), asking for 
an enquiry in the context of the earlier Nanded 
bomb blasts has simply been ignored.

This is not to argue that those who planted those 
bombs in the mosques and in the kabristan in 
Malegaon, killing and wounding several people, 
could not have been Muslims simply because the 
place chosen was mosques and the targets were 
Muslims (just as the RSS could well get it own 
people killed for political gain). They could be 
Muslim groups, but what one needs to ask is: why 
was the Indian, and most western, media so 
anxious to pin it on Muslims, without proof, and 
without using elementary reasoning? It seemed 
from media discussions and news reports that 
there simply could be no one involved except 
Islamic terrorists. 'Indian Express' actually 
went so far (in its front page coverage a few 
days later) as to argue that the presence of RDX 
pointed to Muslim terrorists, and that the 
material used in the house of the Bajrang Dal 
activist was different and of a cruder variety.

So now, when evidence of bombs used by Hindutva 
forces is beginning to emerge, we will have 
'Muslim' bomb material and 'Hindu' bomb material 
being dissected-with no prizes for guessing whose 
bombs are more deadly, and whose bombs are 
'benign'(?)! And no questions asked of course, 
that if one set of bombers wanted the blame put 
on the other side, could they not choose their 
targets and bomb material accordingly. Does it 
not achieve the same purpose, and are they all so 
dumb, and so foolish as not to think of this? 
What is being implied, and gently suggested to us 
instead, subtly, and through poignant pictures of 
victims is that Muslims are heinous enough to 
kill their own. The same may not apply to the 
Hindutva forces. Muslims are the killer agents 
when bombs explode in mosques, and of course they 
are the killer agents when bombs explode in/near 
temples. It could not be otherwise in the former 
case, and more certainly not in the latter case!

It is amazing how, despite the activism of 
Hindutva forces in Maharashtra, and the long 
legacy of violence by the Shiv Sena in the state, 
the possibility even, of other leads is not being 
considered, by the police or in the media. That 
this should be so tells us something about the 
state of politics of this country today, the 
rightward shift that the entire polity has taken, 
and the complicity and acquiescence of most 
mainstream bourgeois politics in communalism, and 
a concern with the Hindu vote bank, particularly, 
the middle class Hindu vote bank, and is 
explainable if not understandable or justifiable 
in the context of the twin assaults from 
imperialism and fundamentalism (of all kinds). 
What needs to be noted and is a matter of grave 
concern is the naturalness with which people in 
this country accept the equation of terror and 
Muslims, and the success of the carefully 
constructed and nurtured images authored by the 
right wing western media and our own home grown 
fascist forces. They have successfully utilized 
religion and fractured historical memory to 
demonise an entire community. We need to be alert 
that we do not imbibe some of these images within 
ourselves.



_____


[6] 

Hindustan Times
September 25, 2006

A VICIOUS CYCLE

by AG Noorani

'Though the law itself be fair on its face and 
impartial in appearance, yet, if it is applied 
and administered by a public authority with an 
evil eye and unequal hand, so as practically to 
make unjust and illegal discrimination, as 
between persons in similar circumstances material 
to their rights, the denial of equal justice is 
still within the prohibition of the 
Constitution." The United States Supreme Court 
delivered this stinging rebuke in 1868 in the 
celebrated case of Yick Wo vs Hopkins.

Of San Francisco's 320 laundries, 240 were run by 
Chinese nationals in buildings constructed of 
wood, as were nine-tenths of the houses in the 
city. The country ordained that licences were 
required "except the same be located in a 
building constructed either of brick or stone." 
All applications for licence by Chinese 
laundrymen were rejected. All others, bar one, 
were accepted.

The order was struck down. "The court held that 
the very idea that one man may be compelled to 
hold his life, or the means of living, or any 
material right essential to the enjoyment of life 
at the mere will be another, seems to be 
intolerable in any country where freedom 
prevails, as being the essence of slavery 
itself." How much greater should be the outrage 
if 'the public authority' happens to be the 
police force with wide powers of arrest and 
detention and extra-legal powers of harassment?

The indiscriminate arrests of Muslims in the wake 
of the Mumbai blasts of July 11 this year were a 
repeat of a similar performance by the police 
after the 1993 blasts. They were grave enough for 
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ask the Chief 
Ministers, on September 5, to "embark immediately 
upon a proactive policy to ensure that a few 
individual acts do not result in tarnishing the 
image of an entire community and remove any 
feelings of persecution and alienation from the 
minds of the minorities."

Five days after he spoke, came the Malegaon 
bombings near a major mosque and a graveyard, on 
an auspicious day when Muslims throng these 
places for prayer. It also happened to be a 
Friday.

People recalled recent events in Maharashtra 
which had a bearing on Malegaon. At Nanded, on 
April 6, two Bajrang Dal activists, Naresh 
Rajkondwar and Himanshu Phanse, were killed while 
attempting to make a bomb in the former's house 
along with three others. The police reportedly 
recovered a second bomb, timers, switches, 
detonators and gunpowder, as well as evidence 
that they had struck before. A diary recovered 
had pictures of all ex-RSS chiefs and notes on 
bomb-making techniques. It also had mention of 
the Bajrang Dal-sponsored camps that Himanshu had 
attended. Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) 
Joint Commissioner of Police KP Raghuvanshi told 
Communalism Combat that the incident could have 
"frightening repercussions".

The warning was overdue. Kondwar and Phanse were 
suspected to be key figures in a bombing incident 
at Parbhani that very month, in which 25 persons 
had been injured. It was at a mosque, as were the 
bombings at Parbhani and Jalna in April 2004, 
where 18 persons were injured.

These incidents obviously formed a pattern. A 
reasonable, though not conclusive, presumption 
arises that Malegaon formed part of this pattern. 
Pointing fingers while investigations are on is 
unfair and hazardous. Fingers accustomed to 
pointing in one direction, however, pointed in 
the same direction after Malegaon.

From the very next day, 'sources' in the police 
began pouring out pet theories. On September 9, 
Raghuvanshi of the ATS said "our probe would 
include not only Simi but consider all other 
groups that might be involved." An unattributed 
source in the ATS said Simi activists committed 
the crime to create communal tension. This became 
a running theme in later 'disclosures'. 'Police 
sources' told the press that "the police are 
beginning to rule out the possibility of the 
Bajrang Dal's involvement in the Malegaon blasts" 
because "the bombs used in Parbhani were of the 
crude variety. The Hindutva organisation does not 
have access to the type of sophisticated bombs 
and timers used in Malegaon".

On September 13, two unidentified packages of 
fake bombs were discovered. The Additional 
Commissioner of Police, ATS, Subodh Jaiswal, gave 
the following explanation. "The aim was to 
unleash panic". The motive: to create "rage 
against the police and Hindu residents so that 
riots could break out". With equal speed he 
asserted: "They were planted by the same terror 
outfit that triggered the Friday blasts." This 
gave the game away. By then no 'outfit' had been 
identified officially. Evidence was admittedly 
scant. The investigators seemed to be groping in 
the dark. Yet, Subodh Jaiswal was all certitude.

On September 16, the Additional SP, Rajwardhan, 
attacked the media: "There seems to be a 
deliberate attempt in a section of the media to 
pressurise the police into taking a line of 
investigation - of Hindu fanatics being involved 
- but we will go by the ground reality and the 
rule book, and explore all the possibilities."

Precisely what he had in mind became clear when 
he added: "But it seems to be the handwork of 
organised terrorists who want to destabilise the 
country and incite communal violence." The 
patriotic Bajrang Dal was exonerated.

An informed correspondent found, however, that in 
Maharashtra, "the problem is that the 
intelligence gathering mechanism is focused on 
Islamic terrorist outfits.  The Maharashtra 
police have few dossiers on Right-wing Hindu 
militants". Despite the arrest of a Bajrang Dal 
activist, Sanjay Chaudhari, in Nanded for the 
bomb blast outside the Parbhani mosque, "the 
probe has not progressed."

What has 'progressed' is the confidence in police 
assertions. 'Local police backed by the ATS' 
flatly told a noted correspondent that the 
Malegaon blasts "resemble the handiwork of 
Islamic terrorist organisations". According to 
one correspondent, the Intelligence Bureau is 
also "working on the theory" that the LeT was 
behind those blasts and its men were at large

These pronouncements do nothing to narrow the 
trust deficit. None of the 32 police officers and 
men named in the Srikrishna report on the 1993 
riots in Mumbai has been convicted.

Muslim MPs called on the PM after the Mumbai 
blasts and on Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh 
after the Malegaon blasts to represent the 
community's grievances. They were entitled to do 
so and discharged a duty. But they must not stop 
there.

Every injustice to any group is a deviation from 
Indian ideals. The communal bias of some 
policemen is part of a wider problem affecting 
secular values as well as the probity and 
effectiveness of the police force. It concerns 
all Indians.

_____


[7] 

MALAYSIA'S SECULAR STATUS QUO THREATENED BY MUSLIM GROUPS
by Maznah Mohamad

Monday, Sep 25, 2006,Page 9

`Efforts to Islamicize the state come at a time 
when conflict in the Middle East has further 
politicized Muslim movements in Malaysia.'

Malaysian society is now gripped by a fundamental 
question: is the country, which is more than half 
Muslim, an Islamic state?

In practice, various religious and ethnic groups 
give Malaysia a distinctly multi-cultural 
character. But the Malaysian Constitution 
provides room for arguments on both sides of the 
question, and the relatively secular status quo 
is facing a serious challenge.

Drafted by a group of experts in 1957, under the 
auspices of the country's former British rulers, 
the Constitution includes two seemingly 
contradictory clauses. On the one hand, Article 3 
states that Islam is the religion of the 
federation, and that only Islam can be preached 
to Muslims.

On the other hand, Article 11 guarantees freedom 
of religion for all. As a result, Malaysia has 
developed both a general civil code, which is 
applied universally, and Islamic law, which is 
applied only to Muslims in personal and family 
matters.

Recently, however, some Muslim groups have 
pressed the government to proclaim Malaysia an 
Islamic state, on the basis of Article 3 and the 
Muslims' population majority. Ultimately, they 
would like Malaysia to be governed by Islamic law.

For years, there was little need to resolve this 
constitutional issue. For example, if a Muslim 
decided to renounce his faith, the matter would 
be handled outside the legal system, or 
conversion records would be sealed.

Today, however, every Malaysian must declare a 
religious affiliation, which is registered with 
the government -- a requirement that has made it 
difficult for a Muslim to leave Islam without 
formalizing the change of status through the 
legal process.

The country is now riveted on the fate of 
ordinary citizens like sales assistant Lina Joy 
and former religious teacher Kamariah Ali, who 
are trying to change their religious affiliation 
through the legal system. Muslim professional 
organizations and the Islamic opposition 
political party hold the view that renunciation 
of Islam is punishable by death.

Likewise, the defense by Malaysian civil reform 
movements of individuals' freedom of conscience 
has been denounced by some religious leaders as 
an attack on Islam. Currently, Malaysia has no 
law that would impose the death penalty on 
apostates. Yet public movements have been formed 
to highlight this Islamic tenet. If it is not 
applied, the argument goes, there will be a 
massive exodus of Muslims to other faiths. The 
immediate goal is to keep the courts from 
allowing Lina Joy or Kamariah Ali to convert.

Attempts by other democratic civil society groups 
to debate this issue in peaceful public forums 
have been thwarted by threats of violence from a 
coalition of Muslim non-governmental 
organizations calling themselves BADAI (the Malay 
acronym for Coalition against the Inter-Faith 
Commission).

Concerned about sparking an ethnic clash, 
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi 
has proclaimed a ban on open discussion of these 
issues, threatening to arrest Internet news 
providers and activists if they continue to fan 
such debates.

Badawi is right to be worried. Since 
independence, national politics in Malaysia has 
reinforced group identity, especially among 
ethnic Malays, an exclusively Muslim community. 
Identity politics allowed ethnic Malays to assert 
their claims to control over land, language, and 
religion.

All attempts to reduce Malay influence serve to 
mobilize this community -- in both ethnic and 
religious terms. Malay politicians have learned 
how to play this card very effectively.

Ethnic Malays' special status has long been 
codified in affirmative action policies giving 
them special economic benefits. However, as 
Malaysia engages with the global economy, these 
privileges may eventually be removed in order to 
heighten the country's competitiveness. As a 
result, many Malay-Muslims increasingly worry 
about the loss of familiar economic and political 
safeguards.

In particular, tensions have grown between the 
Malay majority and the country's large Chinese 
minority, which has been quicker to benefit from 
Malaysia's economic opening to the world.

Moreover, efforts to Islamicize the state come at 
a time when conflict in the Middle East has 
further politicized Muslim movements in Malaysia. 
They view themselves as counter-forces to 
cultural domination by the West, asserting their 
religious identity in the face of what they 
regard as imperializing ideas like secularism and 
human rights.

Small disputes are magnified by this underlying 
conflict. Disagreements are increasingly depicted 
as being rooted in an East-West divide, as a 
struggle between believers and apostates.

Many Muslims are wary of this brand of identity 
politics. They recognize that the intolerance of 
Islamist groups can easily be turned against 
moderate Muslims.

But all Malaysians must learn how to manage 
pressures that seem to be pushing their country's 
constituent communities away from one another. 
Defending a multi-cultural national identity in 
the face of religious intolerance is thus the 
great challenge facing Malaysia's state and 
society.

Maznah Mohamad is deputy dean of graduate studies 
at the School of Social Sciences of Sains 
University Malaysia.

Copyright: Project Syndicate

_____


[10] 





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Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South
Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
SACW archive is available at: bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.