Mainstream Media Questions Delhi Encounter Killings

By L. George
25 September, 2008
Countercurrents. org
http://www.counterc urrents.org/ george250908. htm
 

Finally it has happened: the main stream media in India has for the first time come out with something other than the 'official version' of the encounter killings that have taken place in the country. 

NDTV Report

An NDTV report with the headline 'Cover-up charges cling to terror probe' has said that Delhi's latest terror spectre throws up contrasting images. A police officer -- one of the finest -- shot 3 times. And, young, educated, fun-loving men who, the police say, are deadly terrorists. 

The police are convinced that Atif and his young group, most of them in their 20s with the youngest just 17, is responsible for all the major blasts in India this year and the death of nearly 150 people.

But now, a group of lawyers and human rights activists are raising questions. They ask who are the two missing men, who escaped from the flat in Batla house on the day of encounter. And how could they possibly escape when the only way out was a narrow staircase and there were several policemen in the area. 

The other point is that the profiles of these young men seem to indicate terror was the farthest thing in their minds. They were regular college-going students. 

One of those arrested, Zeeshan, was taking giving his exams on the day of the encounter. He came on TV to surrender. Why didn't he run away?, asks NDTV. The police say they have evidence that he planted the bomb at Delhi's Barakhamba Road.

Another alleged Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative Saqib was also arrested. A gold medalist in economics honours from Jamia Millia University, he was a regular on Orkut. He maintained a profile like most users do and had a wide circle of friends.

Cops claim the 23-year-old was involved in both Ahmedabad and Delhi blasts. Saqib's family has countered the police claims and furnished documents to show that Saquib appeared for six exams from the 23rd of July to the 28th July -- the time that the police claim he was planning the blasts. 

Shakib's brother says: "He was the topper in his class for the last two years." 

The house where the men were staying and its caretaker are also under the scanner. The caretaker, who has worked in the PWD for several years, insists that he gave the details of the men staying at his home to the police almost a month before the blasts. 

However, the police have now arrested him for forging these documents. His son has also been arrested for alleged nexus with the terrorists. 

There are several such questions to which there are still no easy answers. And the police know they will have to find hard evidence to back each of their claims. However, they say the death of Inspector Sharma proves there was no fake encounter.

Mail Today

The Mali Today has also come out with a version raising many questions about the encounter:

It says two eyewitnesses of the September 19 cell action at Jamia Nagar have presented a version of the event that is at complete variance with what has been offered by Delhi Police.

Their reconstruction of the event, which indicates a scuffle had probably taken place before the shots were fired, many also explain why Jamia Nagar residents are not buying the police theory that the team has either eliminated or arrested the men allegedly behind the bomb blasts in Delhi, Ahmedabad and Jaipur. 

This version given to MAIL TODAY on the condition of anonymity, squares up with the hitherto unreported autopsy report on Sharma and the nature of wounds on the bodies of the two young men killed by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police. The autopsy report on Sharma, which is with the Headlines Today, says he was shot at from extremely close range, no more than a few centimeters from him. he was hit by three bullets. All of them entered through the back and followed a top-to-down trajectory.

The body of one of the 'terrorists' bears injury marks, sharp wounds and multiple internal injuries in the stomach. Doctors say such injuries are usually attributed to a scuffle, a violent physical assault. Someone may even have stamped on him. His flatmate Mohammed Sajid also dead, was apparently shot in the head. Could his death too have occurred during the scuffle?

Further, could Inspector Sharma have been injured during the fisticuffs that ensued between the alleged Delhi bombers and the policemen who were raiding supposed terrorist hideouts? Is it possible that he suffered the injuries when a bullet went off accidentally during the scuffle?

There is no way to find out the kind of bullet injury that Sharma suffered. No bullets were found on his body during his autopsy. The medical bulletin of Holy family Hospital, where he was taken first, said no "foreign bodies were found in his chest and abdomen.

Mail Today took exhaustive eyewitness accounts of the police action on September 19. Eyewitnesses, who live in the immediate vicinity of L-18, Batla House - the alleged IM hideout - said the Special Cell team that raided the scene of action brought two young men to the ground floor from their fourth-floor flat. they had a verbal altercation with the two men and killed them after some of them realised Sharma had been shot.

Jamia Nagar residents had been seeing heightened activity by the policemen in civilian clothes for about a week before the police action. Yet, they were taken aback when a group of policemen in civvies surrounded L-18, Batla House, on September 19, for they had not seen any suspicious activity in their building. It is hard to keep secrets in the rabbit warren of apartment blocks in Jamia Nagar.

A member of the Special Cell first went up to the fourth-floor flat occupied by Atif and Sajid, pretending to be a cellphone salesman. the young men inside the flat did not receive the undercover policeman cordially. They entered into an argument with sub-inspector Ddharmender, who was pretending to be the salesman.

All this took place in front of the neighbours who had come out onto the balconies of their flats on hearing the commotion. Reacting immediately when the arguments started, the policemen waiting downstairs rushed up.

None of them had their guns out. Clearly, they were not expecting any armed resistance. One of the men, whom the eyewitnesses were able to identify after seeing his images on television, Sharma. 

Speaking from behind a grill that covers the fourth-floor staircase at L-18, Sharma yelled at all the neighbours who had come out of their houses to go indoors because they could get hurt in the "firing". Residents of the area followed his instructions. But the eyewitnesses, being quoted by the Mail Today, watched the goings-on from behind their toilet windows.

They saw only two men in the flat. that leaves the man who was arrested from the spot, Mohammed Saif, and the two men who reportedly escaped during the police action unaccounted for.

They saw Sharma's men drag Atif and Sajid to the ground floor landing. The two men, who were subsequently killed, appeared to be in panic and unarmed at the time. No one could see what happened thereafter as the partly covered ground floor landing was not in their line of vision.

The eyewitness could hear the policemen hurling abuses at the two youngmen. This was followed by gunshots. Then someone shouted, "Sahab ko goli lag gayi (the boss has been shot)." The young men could not be hard in this commotion. After sometime, the eyewitnesses hear more gunshots. The policemen came into the view of our eyewitnesses. They were dragging the bodies of two men upstairs.

Around the same time, they saw sub-inspector Dharmender, and another policeman leading Sharma out of the building. The eyewitness couldn't figure out the extent of Sharma's injury from what they saw.

The bodies of two youngmen, meanwhile, were dragged up to their flat by the policemen. Then they wrapped the bodies with cloth.

According to the eyewitnesses, after the two bodies were taken away and piled into a police van, a group of policemen materialised out of the blue with three young men they had rounded up, seemingly from within the L-18 flats. They were unable to make out where the men came from. One of them, it appears now, was Mohammed Saif. He is now in the police custody.

The reconstruction by the eyewitnesses posed some questions. Why did two young men, and their alleged accomplices, not flee the scene or clean up their laptops even after everyone in the neighbourhood was aware of the heightened police presence in the area?

Why did the policemen not have their guns out when they rushed up to the flat after the argument broke out between sub-inspector Dharmender and the two men?

Was Sharma shot at by the alleged terrorists or was he a victim of collateral damage because he happened to be in the range of a ricocheting bullet?

'Multiple masterminds'


We are also forced to take a new look at the announcements made by the Police.


After killing the two youths Atif and Sajjid in Delhi, the special police cell chief Karnal Singh claimed that they were the masterminds behind the bombings of Uttar Pradesh courts (23 November, 2007), Jaipur bombings (13 May, 2008), Ahmedabad bombings (26 July, 2008), and Delhi bombings (13 September, 2008). 

He also claimed that they were behind the Varanassi bombings of 2006 and Gorakhpur bombings of 2007. If what the Delhi police claim is true, what about the alleged mastermind that the Gujarat police arrested in connection with Ahmedabad bombings, Abu Basher?

Gujarat Police claimed that he was the master mind of all these bombings. 

On September 24th, Mumbai Police have also arrested new 'masterminds' of all these blasts. Rajastan Police had arrested a cyber cafe owner, Shahbas Hussain. They also claim that he was the mastermind of the Jaipur blasts. Whom should we believe?


In the light of these revelations and views people in India and around the world may adopt a new stand: not to swallow the official versions as such.

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Jamia Nagar encounter: Alarm bells for the nation and the community
By Navaid Hamid
http://khabrein. info/index. php?option= com_content&task=view&id=17063&Itemid=88
 
Much has been said and written, in last few days, about the unearthing of the network of the terrorists killed and captured in and aftermath of the encounter at L-18, Batla House, Jamia Nagar, New Delhi. In coming days and weeks, the nation would hear and read new details of brief from security agencies, of the plot to destabilise the nation and that of new arrests in the conspiracy to terrorise the country.

Nearly all captured and killed belong to the lower middle strata of the Muslim community who have a highly brilliant educational profile and seem to be living a normal life with high dreams like any other young Indians would have. 

The operation has come as a shock for the nation and the Muslim community. Till the black Friday of 9/19, the day on which the net work of the 'terrorists' was unearthed, the Indian Muslims have got words of praise even from the adversaries of Islam and Muslims, from Evangelist President Bush of America to Hindutva mascot Advani in India, for keeping themselves aloof from the groups of the militants confronting the aggressions in Iraq, American led operations in Afghanistan and armed struggle in J&K by separatists in India.

As news spread like a wild fire of the operation at Jamia Nagar, people across the nation watched TV sets in disbelief and confusion. By evening nation got brief of claims, from the security agencies, about the combing operation and unearthing of the 'terrorists' group in the capital, responsible for the bomb attacks in Delhi and other parts of the country. From the claims of the security agencies and the live electronic media trial, nation got first hand information of the indigenous Muslim terrorist network.

While the combing was still in process, the residents of the locality, civil rights groups and the Muslim organisations started raising serious reservations about the operations because of the history of the fake encounters along with the role of security agencies to demonise the Muslim community and the haste of the electronic media to sensationalise the news to raise their viewer ship rate, in past.

Incidentally the confusion, disbelief and shock remain even after so many days of the encounter. A substantial segment of Indian society, even after 60 years of democratic journey of the nation, thinks that it is obligatory for Muslims to believe with blind eyes what ever the security agencies wishes to brief and if they dares to do analysis of the events and reports, the dangers of bracketing them with anti national activities looms large over their heads.

In the Jamia shoot out, with the death of a brilliant Police officer, an encounter specialist and leader of the combing operation who died due to excess bleeding and heart attack after gun injuries in the operation, the security agencies version got weight age and wide acceptability. But still more steps and transparency are needed to convenience the nation.

The shoot out has deeply divided the society and urgent steps are required to control the damage.

The incident has nearly polarised all sections of Muslim society not only in the area around the Jamia and other Muslim concentrated localities in Delhi but also in the targeted villages and lanes around and in Azamgarh in U.P.

The Nation's official electronic channel and Radio felt it in national interest to give wide publicity to the news of transaction of 30 million rupees in one of the account of the suspect of the Delhi Bomb blast and combing operation of Jamia but transaction of few thousands was discovered after cross check from the Bank in Azamgarh. Such conflicting versions strengthen the suspicion of the civil society and the Muslim community about encounters.

There should be no problem for initiating a judicial enquiry of the Jamia encounter if the slate of the security agencies is clean and they have ample evidences against the arrested and killed suspects.

It was nothing but to demonise the entire Muslim community when the Delhi Police paraded the arrested youths with heads covered with Arabian scarf with a desire to substantiate the theory of Islamic terrorists which is un acceptable to every single Muslim in the country. The over zealots in the security agencies fails to understands that such acts are counter productive and harmful even in fight against terrorism.

The sense of 'perceived injustice' and demonisation acts is strengthening the anger and frustration which would be counter productive in the fight against terror and violence.

Now when the un believable has happened and confronting versions are coming with every passing hour, the nation and the community should seriously ponder over the fall out of the incident. If we sincerely desire that the Indian Muslims must accept the version of the security agencies about the Jamia operation, it is in the national interest to go in depth about the reasons behind the emergence of educated young Muslims involvement in acts of violence and terrorism.

We have seen how the Islamic madarsas have been targeted in past about their role in propagation of Jihad and anti national activities. The Muslim community has expected that NDA's Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Lal Krishan Advani would keep his promise and bring a white paper on the anti national activities of the madarsas and their role in propagation of Jihad but his government lost power with out any progress on the front.

Now when the biggest Islamic institution in India, Darul Uloom Deoband has categorically denounced the acts of terrorism, issued a "Fatwa" against misuse of Islam and had term the acts of violence against tenets of Islam and as we find not a single name from the Islamic Madarsas in India, involved in any kind of violent or terrorist activity in any part of the country, new phenomenon has emerged in recent past.

Wherever there have been arrests of Muslim youths for any kind of violent activity in recent past, majority of the arrested youths have highly modern educational profile with brilliant academic career. These youths have not even seen the gates of Islamic madarsa's in their life.

As per the version of the security agencies the arrested youths in different incidents in past, from Ahmedabad to Hyderabad and from Delhi to Mumbai and Karnataka, have claimed to be part of the terror network with one commonality, the commonality to take revenge of Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 and the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 in which more than 2000 innocent Muslim youths, women children were brutally killed and property worth billions were vandalsied and torched.

If we accepts the theory of the security agencies in black and white, every nationalist have a right to know about the measures taken to address the grievances.

We have silently witnessed that nothing seriously was done to give justice to the victims of Mumbai riots of 1992 and the Modiete pogrom of Gujarat. Who can deny that few victims of Gujarat has got some kind of reprieve and justice due to the intervention of the Supreme Court only.

Finance Minister Mr. P. Chidambaran gave a courageous statement while delivering Filed Marshal Carriapa's Lecture recently by admitting that alienation of the Muslim community in the country is taking educated Muslims towards "path of violence".

There is no denying fact that the more and more educated Muslim youths are loosing hope in the democratic system of the nation as in democracy the numbers are important and these youths feel that the political leadership of the nation is doing great harm to them by turning their faces away from them as they don't have numbers. They wish an inclusive policy for them but get cold response from the polity. Unfortunately majority of the Muslim politicians are shy to advocate their case and are busy in safeguarding their interests for their own survival.

It is high time that instead of jerk reactions, the Muslim leadership and community's organisations should sit together to plan joint strategies to fight the onslaught and do urgent home work to consul the agitated young minds of the community before it's too late. Leadership have to convey a strong message in the community that the path of violence would lead us to nowhere and would do more harm to us beside strengthing the hands of community's adversaries.

It is in the national interest that the political leadership of the nation must find consensus for having an inclusive policy for all including Muslims. To convince the Muslim community and the civil society about the fair and impartial role of the security agencies, some kind of mechanism needs to be developed and the easiest ways seems to be constitution of Judicial Commission to probe every terrorist activity in the country. This is necessary because nation has witnessed that majority of the arrested Muslim youths, in past, have got reprieve from courts during the trials as Anti-Terrorism Squad fails to convince the courts about its charges against the arrested youths.

It is a sad story that more and more Bar Councils in the country are passing resolutions asking its members not to take cases of the arrested Muslim suspects. Hyderabad has witnessed violent assault on Muslim Advocates when they decided to defend the arrested Muslim youths. Who can deny that a good majority from more than 180 Muslim youths arrested for terrorist activities were acquitted in the trial court in Andhra Pradesh and just two suspects are facing charges in Hyderabad blasts.

In Delhi, an advocate has withdrawn himself from the defense Counsel of the arrested suspect. It would be great injustice if nation expects that Muslims must also crucify the arrested suspects with out fair trials.

Knives are out against the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Mushir ul Hasan of Jamia Millia Islamia, the institution which was at the forefront of the freedom struggle and was established to strengthen the composite fabric and plural structure of Indian society, for daring to take a courageous step to provide legal aid to two of its students who are suspects in the Delhi Blasts. The purpose seems to not to defend them but to give them a chance to prove their innocence in court. For BJP it is an anti national act.

Leave alone the perpetrators of the mass crimes against hapless Muslims in Mumbai riots and the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, even the killers of Father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, Former Prime Ministers Indra Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi have a right to get them defended but the arrested Muslim suspects deserves to be hanged without fair trial.

In an ideal state it is paramount duty of the establishment to convince every group and race, by actions, about the impartiality of the state apparatus.

The nation has witnessed the casual behavior of state apparatus when it comes to take even notice of the activities of Bajrang Dal and VHP. Bombs were not only recovered from activists of Bajrang Dal from the State of Maharashtra, U.P. and Orissa, but its activists were killed while developing bombs in Kanpur in State of Uttar Pradesh. Camps of arms training were organized for its cadres but we see no action from the security agencies against the militant Hindutva outfit.

In last two months, Bajrang Dal and VHP activists have killed and attacked Christians, vendalised and torched Churches from Uttarakhand to Orissa and Karnataka but hapless nation waits for more attacks from them on minorities.

The acts of demonising the Muslim community would do more harm instead of solving problems and further alienate Muslims besides posing great dangers for the nation. The politicalisation of terrorism and the victimization of the Muslim community would undoubtly further breed real terrorists in the Muslim community. Nation should rise above petty politics and politicalisation of terrorism must stop at once.


(Navaid Hamid is Secretary, South Asian Council for Minorities and can be reached at navaidhamid@ gmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )

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September 25, 2008
Media manipulation by police to create a distinct communalied imagery by Sadanand Menon 
http://communalism. blogspot. com/2008/ 09/media- manipulation- by-police- to-create. html
The Uses and Misuses of Photographs
 
Monday, September 22 was an extraordinary day in the annals the Indian media. I would like to call it a day of shame. For, on that day, our media collectively displayed its herd-like mentality and its entirely uncritical attitude to the use – and misuse – of the photographs it publishes.

At least eight mainstream English language newspapers (including The Times of India, The Indian and The New Indian Express, The Hindu, the Hindustan Times, The Deccan Chronicle) and many more in the language press from North to South and East to West, uncritically published almost identical photographs on their front pages. The photographs were not generated by any single agency. They were neither taken by 'citizen' photographers nor were they official handouts. They were shots by individual staff photographers as well as professional syndicated photographers. What is amazing is what newsrooms across the country chose to do with the image.

The photographs were of three suspects involved in the Delhi blasts, who were arrested from their residence in Delhi's Jamia Nagar. Reports also claimed they were students of the Jamia Milia Islamia. What was fishy about the photographs was that they showed three totally unidentifiable people, their head and face completely swathed in generous length of cloth, flanked by gun-toting policemen in mufti and other hangers-on. Yet it seemed obvious that this was a photo-op provided to the media – not to protect anyone's identity – but to precisely create a definite sense of identity.

For all the three suspects, to mask their identity, were tricked up by the local police in identical 'Palestinian Rumaals' or kaffiyehs or abayas or cassavas as this piece of head-dress is variously known. Though none of their faces were visible, to any casual reader of the newspapers it would be abundantly clear that they were of 'Arab', 'West Asian' or 'Islamic' origin. A clear case of racial profiling!

Some sceptical comments about this on the net, primarily generated by documentary film maker Yousuf Sayeed who lives in the same area, led to a small critical piece in The Hindustan Times two days later, raising critical questions. The sceptics wondered how it came about that the three arrested suspects came to be in possession of identical, brand new rumaals, which they could readily pull out of their pockets to cover their faces. As if, upon realising they might be arrested soon, they went shopping and bought identical scarves, so that everyone will recognise them as 'Islamic terrorists'. Critics pointed out that usually suspects arrested on various charges mask their faces with their own handkerchiefs or borrow towels or black cloth to hood their faces; never before had it seemed like such a costume drama as the Delhi police had managed to stage.

Then came the stunning revelation by the Delhi police commissioner. He confessed that it was his department which had dressed up the suspects in such a suggestive manner and, even more alarmingly, that the Delhi police had purchased these pieces of cloth "in bulk" for use by those arrested. Obviously, every arrested person could now be given a suggestive 'Islamic terrorist' look, thereby setting up dangerous subliminal propaganda within the media.

Repulsive as it is, most people will agree that the Police and its dirty-tricks department are not beyond using such obnoxious methods. What is beyond explanation is how the media collectively fell into this trap and carried these images without a single question mark or doubt about what they so readily display on their front pages.

For those not used to thinking about these things, the question can be framed a little differently. It has to do with conceptual issues related to the use (or misuse) of the image in the media. On any given day, hundreds of thousands of photographs are clicked. Of these, by common consensus, and governed by a largely abstract logic dealing with the received wisdom of 'news-value' or 'news-worthiness' , about five hundred to a thousand pictures might be considered for use within the media. After that, it is quite chancy or dependent on strong editorial choices why a photograph makes it to the papers, in particular the front page.

The front page photo, in the world of the print media, is usually associated with an iconic status. It is supposed be a quick encapsulation of what a paper or a region or a nation or a civilisation imagines as its primary concern. It frames the news of the day with a kind of visual evidence or back-up which then illustrates how it wants to set up the communication and how it wants the readers to enter the narrative.

Very seldom, across 365 days in a year, do we find identical images on the front page. That is supposed to be the greatness and the strength of democratic media practice that editorial position and interpretation of events can vary. It is also part of the notion of healthy competition in the media that variety, diversity and contrariness are seen as virtues – that a news item or image which is used sycophantically by one section of the press, can as easily be used critically by another section of the same press.

That is why, when you come across a substantial section of the national press use just one common image on their front page, and that too without an critical remarks or interrogative comments, one begins to smell the operation of 'ideology', which is nothing but a blind acceptance of certain 'ruling' ideas of a class or of a moment – ideas that indicate the power structures within which 'information' and 'meaning' are manufactured.

To me it is shattering, that on the evening of September 21, across the newsrooms of the best of Indian newspapers, not one editorial discussion chose to evaluate the photograph of the three arrested youngsters draped in checked cloth and use their judgement to 'read' the picture in a dispassionate manner worthy of a free press. Instead the Indian media collectively behaved as they had not even during the period of the Emergency and its draconian censorship. They all fell prey to their own sense of prejudice and communal mindset. The Nazi propaganda machine could not have expected to produce better results.

Obviously, Indian media needs to re-investigate the 'frame' within which it is presenting, colouring and analysing news. Such evidence of a collective cop-out is a serious failing, which it needs to critically examine and carry out correctives. In fact, this is a fit case for being taken before the Press Council.

Shame, a little shame is all that the media needs. For shame as Marx said, is a revolutionary sentiment.