Sept. 29-30, 2008 / Bangladesh: constitution vs Mullah's / Nepal's Kumari's / India: Fascist Mobs and Bombs

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at gmail.com
Mon Sep 29 22:17:22 CDT 2008


South Asia Citizens Wire | September 29-30, 2008 | Dispatch No. 2574  
- Year 11 running

[1] Bangladesh: Jamaat's charter in clash with country's constitution  
(Shakhawat Liton)
[2] Bangladesh and elsewhere: Woman Alone (Shabnam Nadiya)
[3] Nepal: The Monarch is gone but new the secular republic continues  
to perpetuate obscurantism
[4] Pakistan: Ominous absence (Adeel Pathan)
[5] India: frying pan to fire
     (i) Orissa: More Shame on India
      - Nun was gang raped and priest brutally assaulted in Kandhamal
      - Victim of anti-Christian mob describes experiences
     (ii) Why if 'masterminds' have been held, do the bombs keep  
going off ? Is the Police ignoring the bombers from Hindutva?
     (iii) Warning of bloodshed over parliament notice to Bal Thackeray
[6] Announcements:
    (i) Discussion : Lessons Learned from Mahatma Gandhi & Badshah  
Khan (New Delhi, 2 October 2008)
    (ii) People's March against communal violence and fanatics (New  
Delhi, 2 October 2008)
    (iii) 'Hotel Mohenjodaro' performed by Ajoka Theatre (Karachi, 15  
October 2008)

______


[1]   Bangladesh:

The Daily Star
September 29, 2008  	

JAMAAT'S CHARTER IN CLASH WITH COUNTRY'S CONSTITUTION

by Shakhawat Liton

Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh will have to bring fundamental changes to  
its constitution to get registered with the Election Commission (EC)  
so that it qualifies for participating in parliamentary polls. If the  
party changes its constitution to conform to the registration  
criteria, it will definitely lose its characteristics as an Islamic  
political party.

Among the registration criteria laid down in the revised  
Representation of the People Order (RPO), two conditions infuriated  
Jamaat leadership as those put the party's very existence as a  
hardline Islamic party at stake.

One of the significant criteria for registration says that a  
political party shall not be qualified for registration if the  
objectives laid down in its constitution are contradictory to the  
constitution of the People's Republic of Bangladesh.

Jamaat's constitution clearly contradicts the objectives laid down in  
the country's constitution, the supreme law of the land. All other  
laws, actions and proceedings must conform to the Bangladesh  
constitution and any law, action and proceedings, in whatever form  
and manner, is void if made in violation to the constitution.

The preamble to the constitution reads: "…. it shall be a fundamental  
aim of the state to realise through the democratic process a  
socialist society, free from exploitation, a society in which the  
rule of law, fundamental human rights and freedom, equality and  
justice, political, economic and social will be secured for all  
citizens."

But the aims and objectives laid down in Jamaat-e-Islami's  
constitution are to establish rule of Islam through all out efforts  
and for establishing peace all over the world and welfare of mankind.

The party constitution also urges to end all types of repressions,  
injustice by establishing rule of Allah and rule of honest people  
through organised efforts.

In its preamble, Jamaat's constitution says that Allah has sent  
mankind with the responsibility to establish Khelafat (Islamic rule)  
and made mankind responsible for following and practising Allah- 
directed life style without following and practising man-made ideology.

The Jamaat constitution disagrees with the aims and objectives laid  
down in the Bangladesh constitution and it also rejected the  
country's constitution saying "it was man made". There are many other  
provisions in Jamaat's constitution that contradicts with the  
country's constitution.

Article 7 (1) of country's constitution says all powers in the  
republic belong to the people and their exercise on behalf of the  
people shall be effective only under and by the authority of the  
constitution.

To get registered with the EC, the Jamaat will have to change its  
aims and objectives, laid down in its constitution, in line with the  
objectives laid down in the preamble of the country's constitution.

Another significant registration criterion says that a political  
party shall not be qualified for registration if any discrimination  
regarding religion, race, caste, language or sex is apparent in its  
constitution. The text of the criterion was taken from Article 28 (1)  
of the country's constitution.

According to the constitution of Jamaat, only religious Muslims can  
join the organisation and be members or leaders of the party.

To join Jamaat one will have to swear in as member or leader of the  
party expressing total allegiance to Allah and his prophet (sm) and  
promising to give topmost priority to abide by the order of Allah and  
his prophet.

This means none but religious Muslims are eligible for being a member  
or leader of Jamaat-e-Islami.

Legal experts say that this is absolutely discriminatory and  
contradictory to the Article 28 (1) of the country's constitution.

They said if any organisation wants to discriminate based on religion  
and claim such discrimination as its rights, the constitutional  
guarantee against non-discrimination will obviously have to be thrown  
away.

If Jamaat now wants to get registered with the EC meeting the  
criteria, it will have to change its constitution allowing non- 
Muslims to join Jamaat.

Jamaat also opposed the criterion that says that a political party  
willing to get registration shall have a specific provision in its  
constitution fixing the goal of reserving at least 33 percent of all  
committee positions for women including central committee and  
successively achieving this goal by the year 2020.

After the new provisions in the RPO were incorporated in an ordinance  
promulgated on August 19, Jamaat's Secretary General Ali Ahsan  
Mohammad Mojahid filed a writ petition with the High Court (HC)  
challenging the three provisions.

In the writ Jamaat claimed that the provisions are unconstitutional.

Following the writ, the HC issued a rule up on the government and the  
EC on August 28 asking them to explain within two weeks as to why the  
three sections of the RPO, 2008 should not be declared illegal.

The rule remains pending while the EC's timeframe for applying to it  
for registration is running out. Political parties must apply to the  
EC by October 15 for registration.

In this situation, Jamaat, a key partner of BNP-led electoral  
alliance, now wants cancellation of the registration process and it  
has also successfully made the BNP to back its stance. BNP, however,  
does not have any such problem and it can easily bring changes to its  
constitution and apply for registration.

Interestingly, the Special Powers Act (SPA), 1974 does not allow  
Jamaat and other Islamic political parties to run their activities in  
the name of or on the basis of religion. The parties have been going  
on with their activities for the last three decades due to non- 
enforcement of the laws.

The 1972 constitution banned formation and functioning of any  
association or union or political party based on religion. Jamaat,  
which opposed the country's birth in 1971, was automatically banned  
by the constitution. The provision for ban was later repealed during  
the rule of Ziaur Rahman allowing Jamaat to resume its activities.

However, the SPA, 1974 is still in force and calls for ban and  
punishment for violation of the provision.

All successive governments since August, 1975 changeover used the SPA  
to suppress opponents but turned a blind eye to banning political  
activities in the name of or based on religion.


o o o

(ii)


Daily Star
Eid Supplement
October 2008
			

WOMAN ALONE

by Shabnam Nadiya

The first time I was sexually molested I was about six. I remember  
the incident precisely; I can even smell the petrol fumes in the air.  
It was by the filling station at Nilkhet, beside the row of lep- 
toshok shops, where we used to wait for our Jahangirnagar University  
bus. Most of the shopkeepers knew us and would even offer us stools  
to sit on if the wait got too long. I was with my father that  
particular day. We had just crossed the road from New Market where  
I'd had a cupcake slathered with purplish-pink frosting from Lite  
Bakery. The crossing and then the petrol pump were a bit traffic-mad  
as only Nilkhet can be and my dad had to be careful negotiating them  
with a child. We had just climbed onto the slightly raised pavement  
when it happened. It wasn't much of a molestation actually as these  
things go, just an intrusive hand that forced itself into the crack  
of my butt over my printed-denim skirt very briefly and was gone. I  
did not tell my father what had happened.

The second time was years later, on the Jahangirnagar bus. I was with  
my mother. It was the 8 o'clock trip from Dhaka. It was probably a  
“community bus”, because there were both students and teachers on the  
bus and it was very crowded. Usually students weren't allowed on the  
“teacher buses”. My mother found a seat for me at the end of a three- 
seater and then went to the back of the bus, certain that as she was  
a teacher someone would vacate a seat for her. On my right sat a  
female student. The drivers habitually turned out the lights during  
the nighttime trips as the light inside bothered their vision, so it  
was almost dark in the bus. It was very hot, I remember -- the warmth  
of too many bodies in too small a space. There was hardly room to  
stand for those unluckies who had no seats -- students naturally.  
They stood bent over the seats, grabbing onto the seatbacks to  
maintain balance. At some point I felt a hand on my left breast. A  
skinny little runt, I hardly had any breasts at 14, but the hand  
seemed to be satisfied with what it found since it decided to remain.

The trip was usually around 70 minutes. The long, mostly uninhabited  
stretch of road between Dhaka and Jahangirnagar was the darkest. The  
hand explored my breast for about half an hour in that darkness,  
possibly more. It seemed an eternity. Several times I tried twisting  
away my torso, to shield myself with my shoulder or my back, but that  
didn't work. My movements made my adult seatmate turn to me with a  
warm smile, “It's so crowded, are you uncomfortable?” Like a fool, I  
blurted out, “That guy's touching me.” The swiftness with which she  
whipped her head away would've made Muhammad Ali proud. I realize now  
that she herself was barely an adult then, that back then one didn't  
acknowledge in public that these things happened -- to oneself or to  
others. For the rest of the trip she didn't turn to look at me once.

I don't remember how I felt at six, but that evening I remember  
taking a l-o-n-g shower when I got home.

***

Before I read Taslima Nasrin, I read bits and pieces of Beauvoir,  
Millet, Friedan and Greer. A compilation of excerpts from their work  
was one among the hundreds of books in our household. The book also  
included Wollstonecraft, Mill, Woolf. My version of Feminism 101 came  
from a secondhand bookstore in a cheap, slightly soiled, old- 
fashioned green paperback. It would be years before I would actually  
manage to get hold of copies of The Second Sex, The Feminine  
Mystique, Sexual Politics. Added to all this was the deceptively  
gentle subversion of our own Rokeya. But before I got to those  
classic tomes, blessedly I discovered Taslima's NirbachitoKolum.

I was a teenager when Nirbachito Kolum first came out in book form.  
I'd heard of her of course, and even read a few pieces here and  
there. But to me, back then -- rabidly in love with words -- Taslima  
was more the radical poet Rudra's ex-wife than a feminist writer. It  
was the book that exploded her into my life.

As much as I had tried to absorb the Western feminists, the history  
of the suffragettes, second wave feminism, even Rokeya's words --  
their writing was consumed, judged and digested at some intellectual  
level, connected to but not truly part of what it meant being woman  
in Jahangirnagar, in Dhaka, on the bus, in rickshaws, in school, at  
home everyday. But Taslima! Taslima was the real thing, she was the  
ashol chini for me and countless others of my generation. We might  
not have agreed with everything she said, but that she said those  
things at all was, for then, enough.

There were those of us who stood hours waiting at Boi Mela to get a  
glimpse of her. And not just girls either -- there were the Notre  
Dame boys who searched out her house to knock on her door on a  
winter's morning to say, “Apa, we read your book, we wanted to see  
you, just once.” Boys who admitted that if Taslima had asked they  
would cheerfully have jumped off a building. We would have done the  
same.

I wept when I read Taslima describing a young man burning her arm  
with a cigarette in public. Or when I read, “Women who emerge from  
the home to set foot in the street; those women -- not only me -- are  
all prepared to bear silently any obscene remark in the streets.”  
This was the first time I realized that what had happened to me on  
that bus and later as well, happened to others, and was NOT MY FAULT.  
I cannot begin to describe what that meant to a guilt-ridden teen,  
who lacked the knowledge that sexual harassment or molestation was  
not an isolated incident, that it happened everywhere everyday, that  
it could happen to anyone. Twenty years ago -- these were not things  
discussed in bhodro society.

***

The literary quality of Taslima Nasrin's oeuvre has been discussed  
and questioned by many. For me, as a reader, Taslima's strength has  
always been her non-fiction: her topical columns intertwined with her  
personal experience is what granted her writing such visceral power.  
Her discussions on religion -- apart from several choice quotes from  
a number of religious texts -- lacked the depth and reflection  
necessary to germinate impetus towards interrogation and examination.  
However, when she writes about the soon-to-be-abandoned young wife  
made infertile because her husband had her first pregnancy  
terminated, or the poetry-quoting friend of her youth lost to a bad  
marriage, or when she speaks of her aunt (one of the countless women  
raped by the Pakistani soldiers) who committed suicide, for her  
return from war was a matter of shame and sorrow unlike the  
triumphant return of Taslima's guerilla uncles -- it is our hearts  
she holds in the palms of her hands.

These days it seems that a lot of her non-fiction is over- 
generalized, catering to certain audiences. She remains strangely  
silent on certain issues that should arouse a writer worth the  
calling, and then overly and needlessly voluble over others. Some of  
the choices she has made over the years remain open to question.

I met Taslima last year at a colloquium of women writers, in Delhi. I  
was disappointed. The self-preoccupation, the endless recounting of  
the same saga (which most of us knew anyway), the insipid  
regurgitation of her victimhood was not what I wanted to come back  
with. Where was the belly-cleansing fire? Where the searing empathy  
for our bee-stung hearts? I wanted that other Taslima, the Taslima of  
the Nirbachito Kolum. The one who could make the radical proposal  
that all men be tested for syphilis prior to marriage, who knew that  
the “kick of manmade laws” descended on both the women of the slums  
as on the women “empowered” through education, who called upon women  
to become “hungry” enough to attack their aggressors, who declared  
that she had thickened the soles of her shoes because she would have  
to traverse the long path of this life by herself, who questioned an  
actor who had committed suicide when her husband divorced her, “Why  
should this rough terrain assail you so, when the rest of us women  
are used to this roughness, grow speedy and lively upon it?”

But that Taslima seemed to have disappeared in a confused welter of  
self-pity, the essence of her words consumed by a careful crafting of  
columns and essays redolent of repetitious expediency, a  
simplification of issues that are complex and intertwined. The  
machinations of a fearful government bent on placating  
ultraconservative forces in the trash-pile of Bangladeshi politics  
led to her exile; Taslima's dismissal of what she derisively calls  
“tactics” isolated her further, not only from the land of her birth,  
but from the heartland from which her writing emerged. Not for her  
the full flowering of her intellect, the free flow of thought and  
ideas that contain the possibility of rebirthing known reality on  
alien soil. The resulting disconnection from language, culture and  
community has muted the thunder of Taslima's eloquent rhetoric. I  
find it tragically ironic that she had once written, “…I am not  
growing. Sometimes I feel so suffocated within these tiny confines  
that even if I make the rounds of this city seven times, this city,  
this country seem as miniscule as a matchbox.” The exiled Taslima  
traveled to distant and vast metropolises, but what borders were  
crossed in the landscape of her imagination?

Exile for an artist can be soul-sapping in many ways. To the extent  
that Taslima's writing seems to be a rollercoaster ride spiraling  
inwards, it seems that the mollas have, unfortunately, won after all.  
The sharp blade of her rhetoric has transformed into a blunt weapon  
of intent; where she had stormed onto our consciousness, the enforced  
cloister of exile has snapped the thread of continuity with her land  
and her people.

Taslima opened a lot of doors for the likes of us. It's a pity that  
she has become a travesty of who she used to be.

***

As I reread Nirbachito Kolum today, I am struck by the datedness of  
some passages and this, I think, is a good thing for a book of its  
kind. It indicates that some areas that she wrote about have  
progressed, moved ahead; that these issues demand a reappraisal in  
the altered landscape of our social, political and cultural reality.

At the same time it's true that the revolutionary way of looking at  
ourselves, our bodies, that we learnt from her, the exigencies of the  
good girl-bad girl divide, is still, I think, as appropriate and  
needed in today's Bangladesh as it was two decades ago when I was a  
teenager. Women still chat on shallow shangsharik issues, girls still  
judge each other, themselves and boys at levels superficial such as  
clothes, appearance, money -- and men continue to remain boys (too)  
late into life. But here, perhaps, I over-generalize.

Yet those are the kinds of over-the-top statements which made me both  
adore and disagree with Taslima Nasrin so strongly. Taslima's writing  
then and now is not the place to seek sociological analysis,  
intellectual conceptualization, a true representation of the state of  
things or the state of womanhood in Bangladesh or South Asia. Her  
value resides in how jubilantly she flung open doors that had been  
shuttered by genteel conservatism, by niceness, by ignorance and  
denial, to clear the way for understanding and discussion of issues  
that so desperately needed to be addressed.

Yet the question begs to be asked: is that enough anymore? For  
someone who has gained Taslima's stature, someone who had come to  
represent a certain face of Bangladesh, she seems curiously oblivious  
to the nuances or the politics of her situation. Her pop-shot  
remarks, “Before me, women would write love stories or advice on  
childcare and cooking.” (interview with Irshad Manji, 2002); “I don't  
find any difference between Islam and Islamic  
fundamentalists.” (interview with 'Free Enquiry' magazine), her not  
acknowledging how her warped upbringing in a severely dysfunctional  
family shaped her as a person, her discounting the efforts of  
countless men and women within Bangladesh who hid and spirited her  
out of the country during volatile times, who protested at the  
mindless injustice of her exile -- none of these attributes serve to  
heighten our sense of her dependability and veracity either as a  
writer or as a social reformer. Not to mention the allegations of  
pandering to certain tastes in the marketing of her books (can one  
not think of Amar Meyebela being translated/re-titled as Meyebela: My  
Bengali Girlhood: A Memoir of Growing Up Female in a Muslim World by  
her Western publisher?), a charge which she dismisses offhand.

Are these instances of naiveté or artifice? The banalities with which  
she faced Karan Thapar in last year's Devil's Advocate interview,  
especially in her evasion of his succinct questioning of her personal  
ethics in “compromising third parties” gives one pause. In this  
interview -- as well as in others -- this woman who is so soft-spoken  
in person bulldozes her way through discussion and debate through  
simply stating a monosyllabic positive or negative, or a single  
sentence that is essentially no more than sloganeering and sticking  
to it no matter what.

In some respects Taslima seems as uncompromising and rigid as the  
mollas she opposes. But does this ideological inflexibility come  
across as strength of purpose? Or as a stubborn refusal to take into  
consideration a viewpoint that differs even slightly than her own  
version of truth? Her truth seems to have lost it's Bengali small  
town beginnings in recent years; despite her claims to the contrary,  
her truth seems to have acquired a capital T, transforming itself  
into an inalienable, transfixed Truth.

Taslima's discounting of her writerly lineage, of collectivity in the  
context of Bangladeshi feminism and -- more hurtful perhaps to women  
not directly related to either academia or the writing community --  
the impassive denial of any experience that belies her own diminishes  
her. Yes, abusive, transgressive sexual practices are often the lot  
of girl children, brutalizing fathers/father figures are not rare,  
nor are women who find aberrant religious practices the only recourse  
to the crises of life. But are these the only norms of Bangladeshi  
society? I myself grew up in a fairly liberal family, my mother a  
professional woman, my father not given to deciding our lives for us.  
Yet if I extrapolate my own experiences to pronounce on the “normal”  
lives of all middle-class Bangladeshi families, I do a disservice not  
only to myself but to others as well. And if my stated aim of writing  
is to “change society,” I place myself in an even more contentious  
position.

***

And yet I cannot help but remember. I remember walking through the  
Boi Mela gate arm in arm with other young girls so would-be molesters  
got no chance to jostle and molest us at the overcrowded gates. I  
remember the anger shaking me as I held a college friend weeping as  
she described how her old chacha had raped her for years and her  
parents had refused to believe her when she told. I remember marching  
in rallies at Dhaka University to support the anti-rape movement in  
Jahangirnagar. I remember walking into Boi Mela, Gausia market,  
Gulistan with opened up large-size safety pins to stick into male  
hands daring to come near our breasts, our buttocks. I remember  
staying up late munching chanachur-makha, trading stories and  
laughter on how we had and how we could deal with remarks, leers,  
invasive hands in public and private places.

There were others who helped, other writers, other activists, other  
women -- women who worked, walked the streets, who cooked, cleaned,  
and taught us what it meant to be female, what potential that word  
had. And there was Taslima. Who stormed the barricades of bhodro  
feminist discourse, with her graphic detailing of abuse, her  
unflinching depiction of the eternal exile of being an articulate,  
affirmative woman, who suffered no injustice gladly. Taslima was  
right when she said “woman has no country” -- this was true for her  
perhaps even before she was forced into exile; at some level, true  
for the rest of us as well.

***

This essay is not just about Taslima Nasrin. This essay is about me.  
This essay is also about Farah, who I am honored to call my friend  
because she once grabbed and displayed a male hand in a crowded  
London tube to ask, “Does anyone know who this hand belongs to?  
Because I just found it on my tit!”; about the tiny but wonderfully  
feisty Shilpi from Bangladesh-Kuwait Maitree Hall who once took her  
shoe off and jumped up repeatedly to smack the cheek of the tall old  
man who had touched her butt on the New Market overbridge; and the  
young women who organized the “stoning” of a man who would come to  
stand on the boundary wall at the back of Bangladesh-Kuwait Maitree  
Hall to flash the residents. This essay is about the beginnings of  
courage, the glimmerings of hope, of understanding that although for  
some of us gender is destiny, gender need not be all of destiny.

Books have always been very important to me -- too important some  
would say. There were books that I read and reread simply for the  
beauty of what they had to say, for the sheer joy of the words; books  
that opened my mind and my heart to new ideas, different ways of  
thinking, to the very process of thinking itself. I felt such  
admiration for these, that they spawned within me a lifelong ambition  
to be a writer myself. And there were books that impacted me so  
deeply as a person that what they aroused within me was simply a  
sense of abiding personal gratitude.

Nirbachito Kolum set off fireworks at various levels, in spaces both  
public and intensely private. For me it was a connection between my  
reading and my everyday lived life -- a bridge spanning the wild  
waters of tradition, culture and community and the relatively  
rational shores of a mind that rejected unexamined acceptance of  
conventionalities. It was from that book that I -- and so many others  
my age -- first learnt in terms that we could relate to that our  
bodies and our urges were not things to be ashamed of, that the words  
we spoke, how we related to the world and the world to us were  
gendered down to the minutest detail. Taslima Nasrin wrote in  
Nirbachito Kolum, “I know that my path is not smooth. I have to walk  
removing stones in the way. Not only me, so does every woman.”  
Despite our disenchantment, disappointment and dashed hopes, there  
are those of us who forever hold close to our hearts the moments when  
Taslima helped us remove some of the stones littering our paths.

© thedailystar.net, 2008. All Rights Reserved

______


[3] NEPAL:  The Monarch is gone but new the secular republic  
continues to perpetuate obscurantism

BBC News - 29 September 2008

Maoists appoint 'living goddess'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7642798.stm


______


[4]

The News on Sunday
21 September 2008


OMINOUS ABSENCE

The killing of the two members of Ahmadi Jamaat in Nawabshah and  
Mirpurkhas has triggered a fresh debate on the treatment of  
minorities in the region and is a poor reflection on the role of the  
authorities in helping matters

by Adeel Pathan

Sindh is popularly hailed as the land of sufis and saints like Lal  
Shahbaz Qalandar, Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, Sachal Sarmast and  
Abdullah Shah Ghazi, all of whom spoke of peace and stood for  
tolerance before its multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society.  
Unfortunately, this very message seems to have become lost on the  
Sindh that we see today. Incidents where the people belonging to  
'minority' groups have become victims of 'intolerance' at the hands  
of the religious extremists are growing ominously. The recent  
'target' killing of two office bearers of the Ahmedi Jamaat (Qadiani)  
in interior Sindh is one inglorious case in point. It has triggered a  
fresh debate on the treatment of minorities in the region and is a  
poor reflection on the role of the authorities in helping matters.

The first victim of religious intolerance (read extremism) who was  
gunned down in Mirpurkhas -- Dr Abdul Mannan Siddiqui -- was the  
Sindh chief of Ahmadi Jamaat and ran a medical hospital named Fazal-e- 
Umar Medical Centre (FUMC).

Dr Raj Kumar, who had the chance to work with (late) Dr Siddiqui,  
talked to TNS about the incident. He said that he had heard of two  
unknown assailants who waylaid Dr Siddiqui as just as he arrived at  
the medical centre.

"It appears that they (culprits) were lurking around the place,  
waiting to attack Dr Mannan Siddiqui. They wanted to take no chance  
and fired 17-odd bullets at him. Dr Siddiqui expired on the spot. It  
was quarter to two in the afternoon. Dr Siddiqui's guard and two  
other people were also wounded but they survived."

Dr Kumar who has been employed at FUMC for the past seven years, also  
spoke of Dr Siddiqui's "untiring efforts" in the upkeep of the  
centre. "For over three decades, it has been providing medical and  
health facilities to the people of Mirpurkhas and adjoining areas.  
Today, the centre is a bigger, 60-bed facility."

When asked whether the members of the Ahmadi Jamaat protested against  
the murder of Dr Siddiqui in broad daylight, Dr Kumar said, "No, but  
the civil society and human rights activists did. Besides, a case was  
registered by the administrator of the medical centre against the  
unknown culprits."

The Ameer of Ahmadi Jamaat was killed in Mirpurkhas, while the 65- 
year-old Yusuf succumbed to injuries at a local hospital in  
Nawabshah, the hometown of President Zardari.

According to the report registered by his brother, Yusuf was heading  
towards his prayer place in Liaqat market, in the centre of the city,  
when two assailants opened fire at him, killing him there and then,  
and fled the scene on a motorbike.

The case was registered against two unknown culprits in the wake of  
protests by the people belonging to the Ahmadi Jamaat.

The president of Nawabshah Press Club, Anwar Sheikh notes that 400 to  
500 people in the city have their affiliations with the Jamaat.

Discussing the reasons behind the killing of the 65-year-old, Anwar  
is categorical, "It is target killing.

"Such incidents might've been motivated by some monetary concern,  
especially considering the fact that the Ahmadi Jamaat is facing  
several challenges -- internally -- because it gets foreign aid and  
works like a missionary organisation," he adds.

Sanaullah Abbasi, Deputy Inspector General (DIG), Police, Hyderabad  
region, also spoke to TNS about the incidents. He said, "It is too  
early to arrive at a conclusion as to who is behind these killings.  
But one thing is clear that this is an act of terrorism.

"In this regard, we have arrested 22 suspects who are associated with  
the banned jihadi outfits. We are monitoring them and also probing  
the Nawabshah killing which has its obvious link to the other  
incident of killing that occurred in Mirpurkhas."

In response to a question, Abbasi said that there had been complaints  
from the Ahmadis living in Badin and Jamshoro district who attributed  
these incidents to the law-and-order situation. "But I see them as  
pure terrorist attacks.

"We tried to address the issue on a local level," he continued,  
"After these incidents we have revamped our security network and are  
guarding the places of worship of the Ahmadis."

Abbasi said that the police had taken all necessary preventive  
measures. He claimed that after they arrested a number of banned  
jihadi outfits, the police had managed to contain the incidents of  
target killings.

However, he was of the view that different investigation teams had  
been assigned to investigate the matter and the outfits belonging to  
banned jihadi organisations had been asked to submit their daily  
itinerary in the local police stations to keep track of them on a  
regular basis.

"We have been able to restrict the scope of these killings. After the  
security was tightened around the Ahmadis' places of worship and  
their residential areas, things are under control."

Sarwan Kumar, human rights activist based in Mirpurkhas, informed TNS  
that the family of the deceased was not willing to speak to the media.

He said that those who had killed Dr Mannan Siddiqui had actually  
killed a generation of people that had benefitted from the services  
of the deceased's medical centre. He added that there had been a  
series of protests in Mirpurkhas after Dr Siddiqui's murder and  
termed the tragic incident as a result of religious extremism. A  
religious seminary close to the FUMC was also attacked several times.

The deceased was the Sindh chief of Ahmadis and his dead body was  
taken to Rabwah (near Faisalabad) for burial, the rights activist  
revealed.

Despite claims by the authorities, the incidents of target killings  
continue to haunt the resident minorities that were earlier leading a  
peaceful co-existence in the province.

For its part, the government will have to devise a solid mechanism to  
avoid any future incident of crime in the region. The religious  
scholars have already condemned such killings and called for a show  
of tolerance.

TNS tried to get in contact with the media representative of the  
Ahmadi Jamaat in Mirpurkhas and Nawabshah, but to no avail. The  
people were not willing to talk to the media.

More recently, the issue of the Ahmadi Jamaat being victimised  
acquired a new significance as Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief  
Altaf Hussain claimed that the killings were linked to the rise of  
Talibanisation in Sindh.


______


[5] India: from frying pan to fire

(i) HINDUTVA'S HORRORS IN ORISSA

Concerned Citizens’ Independent Fact- Finding Mission
Kandhamal, September 2008, Orissa
http://www.sacw.net/article61.html

Nun was gang raped and priest brutally assaulted in Kandhamal
FIRs filed but no arrests by State government; no response from  
Centre; Sister Nirmala wrote to CM and PM appealing for protection to  
Christians
http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/30/stories/2008093050460100.htm

Victim of anti-Christian mob describes experiences
‘Why did you kill the swamiji? How much have you given to the  
killers?’ the armed crowd asked as it assaulted Father Chellan
http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/30/stories/2008093050030100.htm

o o o

(ii) WHY IF 'MASTERMINDS' HAVE BEEN HELD, DO THE BOMBS KEEP GOING OFF ?

[Blasts again kill in certain areas in Maharashtra and Gujarat, In  
Ahmedabad the police find dozens of bombs that go off, unusual this.  
There are serious doubts and obvious questions that lead many in the  
direction of Hindutva activists and their violent record, since all  
the SIMI masterminds have already all been arrested. The state must  
crackdown now on the Hindu right. A public campaign is needed now  
asking for a ban on The RSS / VHP and Bajrang Dal with immediate  
effect.]

Restoring the confidence of Muslims
by Vidya Subrahmaniam

Muslims fear a witch-hunt, and are in denial of terrorism. For this  
to change, police investigation must become transparent and the  
innocent should be offered full protection of the law.
http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/30/stories/2008093055671000.htm

Indian Police Accused Of Using Undue Force On Terror Suspects
by Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 29, 2008; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/28/ 
AR2008092802415.html


(iii)

Indian Express, September 30, 2008

RAJ SETS CAT AMONG TIGERS, WARNS BLOODSHED OVER LS NOTICE TO THACKERAY

Mumbai, September 29 Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray may be facing a  
Lok Sabha privilege committee summons, but it is the unstoppable Raj  
Thackeray who is threatening to walk away with the political capital.

In a written statement, the Maharashtra Navanirman Sena (MNS)  
president on Monday warned that no elected representative or official  
from Uttar Pradesh or Bihar would be allowed to set foot in  
Maharashtra to serve the notice to his estranged uncle.

The Lok Sabha committee had earlier decided to summon Thackeray in  
connection with his “intemperate” comments against MPs in the party  
mouthpiece Saamna, of which he is the editor.

“If this notice comes to Maharashtra, no officer or elected  
representative from UP-Bihar will be allowed to set foot at the  
Mumbai airport. Delhi will have to first take the lives of 11 crore  
Marathi people,” said Raj, adding he would “first face the breach of  
privilege”. He also said the issue showed the “arrogance of Delhi and  
UP-Biharis”.

______


[6] Announcements:

(i) To Commemorate Mahatma Gandhi and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (the  
Frontier Gandhi)

Discussion on:

Peacemaking Today: Lessons Learned from Mahatma Gandhi & Badshah Khan

India International Centre,  Auditorium
Lodhi Estate

Thursday 2 October 2008

10:00 -14:00
	
Speakers: Shri Anand Sharma, Minister of State for External Affairs;  
Mr. Afrasiab Khattak, Secretary-General, Awami National Party (NWFP),  
Pakistan & former Chairman, Pakistan Human Rights Commission; Mr.  
Suleiman Layeq, former Minister of Tribal Affairs, Afghanistan, and  
currently Senior Advisor, UN Assistance Mission for Afghanistan;  
Prof. Mushirul Hasan, Vice-Chancellor, Jamia Millia Islamia; Mr.  
Bakhtany Khedmatgar (Retd.), Academy of Social Science, Afghanistan;  
Mr. Nazir Ahmed Nazir, Youth leader and poet, Afghanistan; and others

Presentation on Mahatma Gandhi

By three Gandhi Smriti Fellows at the Mandela Centre

Screening of a short documentary on Badshah Khan in India

(Collaboration: Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace & Conflict  
Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia)

_____


(ii)

IN DEFENCE OF PLURALISM, HARMONY AND PEACE

Come and join

People's March on 2nd October
Mahatma Gandhi's birthday and the International Day of Non-Violence


The march is a protest against communal violence and increasing  
brutal attacks
on innocent people, minorities and human rights' defenders by  
fanatics and terrorists of all kinds

The March will start at 1400 hours (2 pm) from Jantar Mantar till  
Rajghat

PLEASE come in large numbers for a show of strength and solidarity!

_____


(iii)

Hotel Mohenjodaro is dedicated to the victims of terrorism in Pakistan
Brought to you by Ajoka Theatre in collaboration with PeaceNiche / T2F

Date: 15th October 2008  |  Time: 8:00 pm |  Venue: Karachi Arts  
Council Auditorium

Ghulam Abbas, the great Urdu short story writer, wrote Hotel  
Mohenjodaro in 1968. The story appears to be an account of a TV  
reporter from a troubled tribal area, or from the scene of a  
devastating suicide bombing. The retrogressive and intolerant  
ideology of religious fundamentalists, propagating an orthodox, rigid  
interpretation of Islam, the acquiescence of the establishment and  
the disastrous consequences of following the logic of a theocratic  
state, are so evident now. The mindset hasn’t changed: primitive  
thinking, deep-rooted prejudices, an irrational worldview, and a  
burning desire to destroy civilization and to self-annihilate …

The total take over by the turban-brigades of the story doesn’t seem  
unimaginable anymore. The havoc wreaked over the last few years, in  
the name of Jihad and Talibanization, is pushing us over the  
precipice and before we know it, we will be hurtling down into the  
abyss.

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), 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: http://sacw.net/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/

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





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