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You are here: Home / Archives for UAPA

CFI holds nationwide campaign against 'State terrorism'

April 27, 2015 by Nasheman

CFI

Kalaburagi: “How can you remain silent when government goes on killing own people?” was the question raised in the protest against State-sponsored terrorism and fake encounters organized by students belonging to different colleges under the banner of Campus Front of India. The protest marked the inauguration of the 5-day national campaign against State Terrorism.

Coming down heavily on the extra judicial killings, CFI National Secretary Talha Hussain Gulbargavi said fake encounters are a tool to oppress the marginalized communities. “It is used to subdue the marginalized people when all the other forms of oppression like black laws (UAPA, AFSPA etc) and other tactics like mental harassment and illegal arrest and torture fail to get the results. It is one of most gruesome form of State terrorism. It’s one of the fundamental duties of the state to   protect its citizens, but in case of fake encounters the state not just abdicates and fails the citizens those who trust it, but also acts as an enemy.”

In his presidential address, Karnataka State President of CFI Abdul Raheem Saeed remarked countless number of people is being killed in Border States where draconian security laws like AFSPA are in effect. A people’s movement should erupt against encounters that take place on suspicious occasions like either government is in some crisis and desperately in need of an issue to divert people’s attention or security agencies want more funds.

CFI SEC member Dr Suhail Naik said encounter killings are becoming a daily occurrence in our country. It has been a while since this new trend began that our police kill citizens in cold blood and fabricate stories labelling them terrorists afterwards. Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis are mostly the victims of these state sponsored murders. Such sporadic encounters are being staged at specific intervals in order to serve the vested interests of police and security agencies. The latest examples are the killings of 5 Muslim under-trails in Telengana and the massacre of 20 Tamil Dalit laborers in Andhra Pradesh. The government keeps parroting the police version that the youth who were found handcuffed and locked to the seat in the police vehicle were shot at because they tried to snatch guns and attack police, he said.

Students were also addressed by Bahujan Vidhyarthi Sangh Dist Coordinator JaiBheem Shinde. The programme ended with vote of thanks by Basith Arsalan, who said: “Being a vital part of society, students cannot sit idle in campuses.”

Filed Under: India Tagged With: AFSPA, Campus Front of India, State Terrorism, UAPA

Movie Review: Court: A Tale of Law and Injustice

April 18, 2015 by Nasheman

Now running in theatres, Court, an award-winning multilingual drama, studies caste and criminalisation of political dissent through the prism of judiciary.

Chaitanya Tamhane Court

by Manisha Sethi

Baap sarkar… O lord, our Master

How you wield the sword

That stabs the heart

That smashes all life!

With one shot of your gun

The best of people are downed

Down in the dumps!

Yet you did not muffle me

Showed me the courtesy to try me in court

How you rendered a favour unto me

O’ how you rendered a favour to me

Baap sarkar… O lord, our Master

So sings Narayan Kamble upon being released on bail. This ‘ballad of gratitude’ exposes the violence that lies at the heart of law. It places the machinery of law at par with the swords and guns that smash and drown people, much as it may pretend to be its exact opposite.

The Court follows the trial of Narayan Kamble, an ageing ex-mill worker, now part-time tuition teacher and full-time balladeer who sings at street corners, at Ambedkarite meetings, and among workers. Kamble is arrested for abetting suicide of a manhole cleaner who is found dead in the gutters, just days after Kamble has sung his rousing songs in the slum of the now dead man. The prosecution’s case is as follows: How could a man who had cleaned gutters for five years as a contract worker with BMC, who was well aware of the hazardous gases that filled these hellholes, have descended down without proper protection? The absence of any safety equipment amounted to deliberate ignorance of safety norms by the deceased. The dead gutter cleaner had been coaxed and incited by Kamble’s song to inhale toxic gases to gain dignity and respect.

While it may appear to be a satire – and it almost is, given the incredulous charges against Kamble, and even flimsier evidence supplied by the police to support the prosecution’s case – the troubling thing about this plot is that it is wholly plausible in today’s India. There are shades of the Kabir Kala Manch trial as well as Binayak Sen’s, and countless less reported ones. The evidence – recovery of books either never banned, or banned by the British almost a century ago; a stock witness who testifies for the prosecution in several cases; and a letter from a friend in jail urging Kamble to look after his ill mother presented as a conspiracy in code language – is fairly typical of such cases.

Kamble sings, “truth has lost its voice”. But the film also shows us how ‘truth’ is produced in the courtroom. The messy and unruly claims and counterclaims enter the records through the dictation of the sessions judge, cleaned and flattened, in the service of law. In his cross examination by the public prosecutor, Kamble denies having written or performed the song “Manhole workers, all of us should commit suicide by suffocating inside the gutters”, which may have triggered the suicide in question.

“Ok, have you written such a song?

“Not yet.”

“So you might? You don’t mind?

No.

“Note”, tells the judge to his typist, “The accused is claiming that though he has never written or performed such a song, he doesn’t mind doing it either.”

The judge shakes his head, as if to suggest that this admission on Kamble’s part of the possibility of writing such a song in future is as good as an admission of guilt.

Anti-terror laws have raised the pursuit of the slippery and elusive “intention” into a weighty legal category.  This, combined with the widest possible meaning of terror acts (as the public prosecutor says, “it could be bombs or chemical, or any other means of whatever nature, includes anything”), has made it legally possible to criminalize practically every opinion that the government may dislike.

To those of us reared on a diet of Sunny Deol venting his fury about “tareekh, tareekh aur tareekh”, The Court offers a very calm, even resigned, look at the workings of our lower judiciary.  It unravels the socially conservative skeins of the judiciary: the public prosecutor enjoys an evening out watching anti-immigrant Marathi theatre and wishes that the judge would sentence the accused to 20 years in prison and relieve her of boredom; the judge who gently reprimands the police for not following the police procedure manual during search and seizure and yet doesn’t throw out these tainted seizures; who refuses to hear a litigant who has appeared before him in a sleeveless dress, because it violates his sense of dress code in the court.

The Court is the story of the criminal justice system as well as those it has abandoned: the dead gutter cleaner who drinks himself to insentience so that he can clamber down the manhole, who throws a pebble into the filth and waits for a cockroach to appear so that he knows that there is oxygen down there, who has lost an eye to the deadly gases. This man’s degradation is turned into material evidence of Kamble’s guilt. The Court shows us that law may only rarely be about justice. It is a requiem for gutter cleaners, for the balladeers who sing the truth, for the ideal of justice – and indeed, for all us.

Manisha Sethi is the author of Kafkaland: Prejudice, Law and Counterterrorism in India (Three Essays Collective, 2014). A slightly edited version of this review was first published in The Hindu Business Line.

Filed Under: Film Tagged With: Chaitanya Tamhane, Court, Dalit, Dalits, Film, Movie, Movie Review, Political Prisoners, Prisoners, UAPA

Police books Asiya Andrabi for hoisting Pakistani flag

March 25, 2015 by Nasheman

Asiya Andrabi, chief of Kashmiri women's separatist group speaks during news conference in Srinagar

Srinagar: Senior Hurriyat leader and Dukhtaran-e-Millat chief, Aasiya Andrabi, was booked Wednesday under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for hoisting Pakistani flag in Srinagar.

An affliate of pro-Pakistan separatist, Syed Ali Geelani’s Hurriyat, Asiya hoisted the flag on Monday when celebrations were held across Pakistan on its national day.

“A case has been registered against Andrabi at Nowhatta Police station under Section 13 of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act,” PTI wire, quoting an unnamed police officer, said.

The officer further said: “Investigations have started into the hoisting of Pakistani flag by the separatist leader on Monday. Further action in the case will be taken as per rules,” he told the wire agency when asked if the separatist leader will be arrested.

Aasiya is the wife of senior Hurriyat leader Ashiq Hussain Faktoo who has been incarcerated for over two decades now. She has been spearheading campaigns against moral waywardness in the region for which police has often kept her in detention.

The controversy erupted following media reports that Andrabi had hoisted flag of Pakistan and sung its national anthem on March 23.

(AM)

Filed Under: India Tagged With: Aasiya Andrabi, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, Hurriyat, Pakistan, Pakistan National Day, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, UAPA

Demand action against special cell personnel in Liaquat Shah case: PUDR

February 14, 2015 by Nasheman

Liaqat Shah

by People’s Union For Democratic Rights

The recent chargesheet filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) absolving former Hizbul Mujahideen militant, Syed Liaquat Shah, of all charges, has yet again exposed the Special Cell of the Delhi Police for planting false evidence and for framing Shah. Shah had been arrested by the Delhi Police on March 20, 2013 on grounds that he intended to launch a fidayeen or suicide attack in Delhi. A ‘recovery’ of a cache of arms, ammunition and explosives from a guest house near Jama Masjid (where allegedly Shah was planning to visit) was presented as evidence. He had been charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967 (UAPA) and sections of the IPC including waging war against the State. The Centre ordered for an impartial probe by the NIA in the matter as there were conflicting positions emerging from the Delhi Police and the J&K Police. It was stated by J&K Police that Liaquat Shah was returning to Kashmir in order to surrender under J&K’s rehabilitation policy. The NIA has now found that these arms were in fact placed there by Sabir Khan Pathan, an informer of the Special Cell working under the express orders of the Special Cell officials.

While the chargesheet names several officers and personnel of the Special Cell such as DCP Sanjeev Yadav, Inspectors Sanjay Dutt and Rahul Kumar, and Head Constables Manish, Mohd. Iqbal Dar and Gulvir Singh as being involved, the NIA in its report to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in January 2015 demanded departmental inquiry against all but the name of the DCP has been dropped. Moreover, though names of police officers involved have been mentioned in the chargesheet for being in touch with the informer Sabir Khan Pathan on 20-21 March 2013, only the informer has been named as the main accused. The NIA has also failed to indict the senior officials including the police commissioner who had all insisted that they had ‘evidence’ against Shah. It is vital that command responsibility be established in such cases rather than letting the higher officials escape punishment. Additionally, the NIA has also not explained where from did the cache of arms and explosives recovered from the guest house actually emerge. In response, the MHA had said that it would take ‘tough action’ against the officials if required. Reacting to this, the Delhi Police has now called upon the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the MHA arguing that any action would have a ‘demoralising’ impact on the officers involved in counter-terror operations. A senior police official has also reportedly said that it is a ‘bonafide case of mistaken identity’ and not of any wrong or malafide intent and whatever they did was done in the best interest of ‘national security’.

It should be noted that this is not the first time that the Special Cell is being indicted by another investigative agency. In 2008, in the case of State v. Maurif Qamar and Md. Irshad Ali, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had submitted a closure report in the court of the Additional Session Judge in which it was clearly mentioned that the two accused (who were special cell informers earlier) were innocent and falsely implicated as dreaded terrorists in the case by the Special Cell which had fabricated and planted evidence. The CBI had also recommended that legal action be taken against the officials involved. Again, it need not be reminded that it was the Special Cell which was involved in the Batla House encounter case which has been widely criticized as a staged one.

PUDR’s findings in the past also show that the Special Cell has been a ‘habitual offender’ when it comes to faking encounters or in acts of planting evidence or falsely implicating people and routinely subverting justice in a number of important investigations it has undertaken. However, in the absence of any independent investigation, these crimes by Special Cell personnel have not been not brought to light, unlike as in the Liaquat Shah’s case has been.

A few instances would show this long lineage of crimes by the Special Cell. The case against Mohd. Arif, accused in the Red Fort attack case in the year 2000, for instance, rests mainly on the supposed ‘recovery’ by Special Cell official M.C. Sharma and his team, of a slip of paper bearing a mobile number which belonged to the accused. Despite contradictory statements in court by different Special Cell officers about the timing of their so called ‘recovery’, this ‘evidence’ was used to charge Arif with the crime and award him the death sentence. He is presently awaiting execution in this case.

Even in the 2001 Parliament Attack case, the case hinged on the Special Cell’s investigation on these kinds of alleged ‘recovery’ of slips of paper with phone numbers, mobile phones and sim cards from the dead (terrorists). These were then used to implicate a number of people who were arrested, tried and, in one case, later executed. Doubts about the authenticity of sim cards and allegations that they had been cloned and call records altered were raised at the time. The fact that the investigation methods of the Special Cell were a combination of extracting ‘confessions’ and ‘recovery’ of evidence was criticized and suspicion that this evidence was planted and doctored were raised at the time.

Another case in point was the picking up and killing of Rafiq, a resident of Sikandrabad, Uttar Pradesh in August 2003 as a ‘dreaded terrorist’ in the so called ‘Millenium Park encounter’. In this case also, which was investigated in detail in 2004 by PUCL and PUDR (See: http://www.pudr.org/?q=content/close-encounter-report-police-shoot-outs-delhi), there were no independent eye witnesses and ‘recovery’ of detonators and money was shown on the basis of which Rafiq’s brothers were also charged under serious offences. In October 2003, the Special Cell came under cloud for its role in the Ansal Plaza ‘encounter’ when an eyewitness came forward to expose the cold blooded killing.

The Special Cell of the Delhi Police has enjoyed impunity despite its consistent violation of rights and subversion of justice because of the protection given to it by draconian anti-terror laws like the erstwhile POTA and, especially, the present UAPA. While S. 58 had been added to POTA, allowing punishment for ‘malicious action’ by the police under this law after large scale institution of false cases by the police under anti-terror laws, the UAPA has excluded this clause cementing the impunity of police and protecting the ‘Special’ status of the police even when they commit heinous crimes.

Finally, as is indicated in the above mentioned cases, violations have been fearlessly committed by State personnel in the name of ‘national security’ and ‘fighting terrorism’. These labels help absolve officials from any kind of accountability even while the crimes committed are serious in nature, involving fabrication of evidence and false implication of persons—sometimes also leading the accused onto the death row.

PUDR demands that the guilty personnel of the Special Cell, including commanding officials, be immediately charged, prosecuted and punished in the Liaquat Shah’s false arrest case, and not be shielded by laws like the UAPA despite committing grave crimes. PUDR also demands that action be taken against higher officials of the Delhi Police who defended the Special Cell and supported the ‘evidence’ against Shah.

Megha Bahl and Sharmila Purkayastha

(Secretaries)

Filed Under: Human Rights, India Tagged With: Delhi Police, Liaqat Shah, Liaquat Shah, NIA, People’s Union for Democratic Rights, PUDR, UAPA

Political prisoners and activism in the current dispensation – An interview with Arun Ferreira

February 14, 2015 by Nasheman

Arun Ferreira. Photo: IE

Arun Ferreira. Photo: IE

Arun Ferreira is a political activist based in Maharashtra. He was arrested in 2007 by the anti Naxal force on the charges of being an alleged Maoist. He was subsequently granted bail in 2012 and acquitted of all charges by various courts in January 2014. His book on his prison experiences titled – ‘Colours of Cage’ was released in 2014.

He continues to be politically active and has been since then associated with issues concerning rights of political prisoners. Through this interview we seek to talk about his current work as a political activist, his views on issues pertaining to incarceration of political activists in Maharashtra, as well as on issues concerning radical left and left movements in Maharashtra and India.

by Neeraja and Prathamesh, Sanhati

Q. Can you tell us something about your current work?

A. I’m currently helping a few organizations working on prisoners’ rights and with lawyers in cases pertaining to incarcerated political activists. I’m also studying law.

Q: Can you tell us more about cases in Mumbai regarding the arrest of political activists in which you have been helping with their defense?

A: Some of these activists implicated are Angela Sontakke, Sushma Ramtekke, Jyothi Chorge, Nandini Bhagat, Anuradha Sonule, Siddharth Bhonsle and Deepak Dengle. The first five of them are from Vidarbha and a few had been earlier implicated and made accused in a conspiracy case regarding the Deshbhakti Yuva Manch in Chandrapur. Siddarth and Deepak were members of the Kabir Kala Manch in Pune. The State has been attempting to project the Kabir Kala Manch as a Maoist Front organization and hence this case. The second batch of prisoners namely Sheetal Sathe, Sachin Mali, Sagar Gorke and Ramesh Ghaichore were later on arrested in this case. All of the accused except Angela, Sachin, Ramesh and Sagar are presently on bail.

It has been the traditional tactic of the state when arresting political activists to frame a criminal conspiracy in such cases. In this case, all are accused of membership and association with the CPI(Maoist), an organization deemed terrorist and thus banned under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). These accusations are made on basis of possession of books and other literature.

Q. Is guilt then proven by association?

A. The UAPA allows for the determination of guilt on the basis of association and ideology. This is inconsistent with existing constitutional provisions of freedom of expression, ideology or association. The Supreme Court thus rightly concluded in the Arup Bhuyan and Indra Das judgements that mere passive membership in a banned organization does not make a person guilty. In that case the accused were allegedly members of a banned organization i.e. the ULFA. The Bombay High Court further developed on this interpretation while granting bail to Jyothi Chorge and others. But subsequent bail applications for Angela, Sachin, Ramesh and Sagar were not successful although the defence claimed parity in the application of the HC judgment. Many a time bail is granted on the subjective opinions of the presiding judge of the Bench.

Q. How does UAPA play a role here?

A.  The list of banned organization, which is referred under UAPA schedule, mentions that ‘CPI(Maoist) and all its fronts’ are banned. It is a rule in interpretation of statutes, that penal laws including any such list should be precisely worded. The question of an organisation being ‘a front’ is determined by an act of the armed forces or Intelligence agencies rather than concrete evidence. This determination allows organizations like the Kabir Kala Manch, or even National Civil Liberties organizations to be easily branded as Maoist fronts. It also makes this determination a subjective  whim of the police authority or the political bosses in power to declare any social and political organization as a front. Similar to the logic of how Greenpeace is now considered as anti-national by the IB. But here it is even more dangerous as such a determination causes a person to be detained for years on end.

Existing law allows for ‘abettors’ and ‘conspirators’ of an offence to be made culpable. However UAPA by determining guilt by association further stretches this interpretation of who is an abettor or co-conspirator. The use of law is such that many find themselves slapped with these charges, without concrete grounds of them being involved in a specific offence or an act of violence.

Q. How is membership of an organisation established in courts?

A. It is usually done by the means of establishing ideological moorings which in turn is often established by possession of books or computer files. Surrendered Naxalites are also used to give statements against the accused to prove membership or association. Under the Government’s Surrender policy, such persons will not be arrested or tried for offences they have committed on the condition that they co-operate with the police agencies. This so-called co-operation implies acting on the directions of the police authorities and fabricating statements as per their wishes. This makes their testimonies in court highly suspect.

Q. Can you tell us about arrests under UAPA in Maharashtra in recent times?

A. In Maharashtra, there are three types of arrests under UAPA. One would be those muslims arrested in blast cases, whether involved or falsely implicated. Secondly persons arrested for association with Naxalism. These primarily consists of Adivasis and Dalits. And lastly, some members of Hindu fascists associations such as Abhinav Bharat and Sanathan Sansthan. In Western Maharashtra, most of the political prisoner cases are on Muslims, with a comparatively few of Naxal related cases. In Vidarbha (Eastern Maharahtra) on the other hand, the bulk of the cases are Naxal related.

Recently in September 2014, Arun Bhelke and his wife Kanchan were arrested in Pune under charges of Naxalism. Arun Bhelke was the president of the Deshbhakti Yuva Manch, a youth organization in Chandrapur and a co-accused in one of my cases. Subsequent to these arrests police authorities started harassing activists of other mass organizations. This is the modus operandi of the State vis-à-vis suppressing organizations they perceive as a threat.

Q. How do you see the difference between the terror accused and those accused of being Naxalites?

A. Muslims arrested in terror related cases are tortured and treated more brutally. The anti-minority bias of the State is apparent in such treatment. They are sometimes even prevented in arranging lawyers for their defense— a direct violation of their fundamental rights. Innocent victims in all such cases, many a time fail to complain against such brutality and speak up in court. On the other hand, activists, whether members of SIMI or mass organizations alleged to be associated with Naxalism have always boldly defended their rights both before the Court and in prisons. They have historically been the leaders of prison hunger strikes and struggles.

Q. In a comment of yours on Sanhati pertaining to the debate on Kabir Kala Manch Defence Committee, you supported the opinion of how the state sometimes uses Civil society organisations as a co-opting tool. Would you like to elaborate on that?

A. My comment was in response to the debate that followed Advocate P. A. Sebastian’s opinion on ‘Co-option’. I thought that it was necessary to intervene as many comments advocated that Civil liberty organizations should further help bring rebels in the mainstream and surrender before the State. This is an extremely dangerous trend. Historically Civil liberties and democratic rights activists had a role in standing up for political activists and fighting for their freedoms, when they were arrested. Defense committees in the aftermath of the Telanghana struggles and during the Royal Indian Mutiny trials come from this tradition. If activists on their own accord choose to court arrest, civil society can then step in to defend their rights. However it would be wrong for Civil Society to act on behalf of the State to facilitate this act. This is a worrying trend.

Q. Can you briefly tell us about the history of progressive movements and activism in Maharashtra?

A. Historically two progressive movements have taken root in Maharashtra. One a strong anti- brahmin movement and the other emerging from the Socialist tradition. Communist movements had strong bases among the earlier industrial working classes. But this has declined down the years. The workers’ movements in Bombay started declining in the 1980s. The phase of militant trade unionism in 1980s can be described as a historic attempt for their survival against the assault of Capital which had other financial plans for Bombay.

The period of neo-liberal Globalization in Bombay saw a transition from Mills to Malls. This was also the phase that saw the rise and maturing of the right wing. With the Shiv Sena- BJP government in power major political events shaped city’s politics of the 1990s. One was the 1992-93 riots and the other was the slum demolition drives of 1996-97. Both changed the geography of the city and mindset of its inhabitants.

In Bombay, with the decline of its earlier working class movements, the landscape in activism is largely being dominated by NGOs. However there is a both a need and scope for newer forms of radical left politics to emerge, which could correctly address the issues of the people and also creatively defend itself from the onslaught of State repression. In the last ten years throughout the country, this repression has systematically destroyed all expressions of radical left in the cities.

On the other hand, in eastern Vidarbha, the existence and growth of the Naxal movement in Gondia and Gadchiroli despite severe repression remains a source of inspiration for every emerging generation.

Q.  Do you see resistance growing stronger, in the wake of the aggressive neoliberal agenda being pursued by Modi government? How do you see the political landscape changing in the Modi era?

A. It should happen, but one cannot be too deterministic about such matters. It is not a strict one to one correspondence between degree of exploitation or oppression and the rise of peoples’ resistance. Although the latter is determined by the former, other factors too have a role to play. The emergence of the present government has created an umbrella like situation, under which all forms of reaction are offered patronage. Be it the killers of Narendra Dabholkar, the perpetrators of caste atrocities or the attacks on Minorities in the form of Love Jihad and Ghar Wapsi. Even defenders of the environment are perceived as anti-development and hence ant-national. These are some of the dangers that are emerging. This in fact is what the corporate ruling class wanted in getting this government in power. However even in this situation, possibilities of mass resistance are immense. There are opportunities for the radical left forces to forge broad alliances with other sections. Broad fronts against Brahminical Fascism, against displacement and against the attack on established Civil Rights are bound to be the future scenario of the Modi-era.

Filed Under: Human Rights, India Tagged With: Arun Ferreira, Books, Colours of the Cage, Maoist, Memoir, Muslims, Naxal, Prison, UAPA, Undertrials

IS banned in India, minority youths discouraged from joining: Rajnath

December 17, 2014 by Nasheman

Rajnath Singh

New Delhi: Home Minister Rajnath Singh Tuesday said the Islamic State (IS) terror group has been banned in India, and congratulated the Indian minorities for discouraging their youth from joining the outfit.

“We have banned the ISIS as a first step. I will like to inform (the house) that the group has been banned under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Amendment Act 62,” he told the Lok Sabha, referring to the terror outfit by its earlier name ISIS.

Rajnath Singh said the group has been proscribed under the provisions of the UAPA that relates to organisations listed in the schedule to the UN Prevention and Suppression of Terrorist (Implementation of Security Council Resolutions) Order, 2007 made under section 2 of the United Nations (Security Council) Act, 1947 and amended from time to time.

The home minister said the government had taken cognizance immediately after the IS activities began to spread in various parts of the world.

“There are only a handful or negligible number of people involved in ISIS activities in India. Their involvement too has not been direct. I congratulate the Indian minorities for discouraging their youth,” he said during question hour in the Lok Sabha.

In many developed countries like Britain and France, minority families were encouraging youth to join the IS, but Indian minorities were discouraging their children, he said.

“I congratulate the minority community for discouraging youth from getting radicalised,” Rajnath Singh said.

Responding to a supplementary question on steps taken by the government to prevent the spread of the IS, he said India has already banned the outfit and was monitoring the cyberspace to stop its propaganda.

“Cyberspace is a very serious issue. To monitor this system, it needs to be strengthened and I have asked for a committee to be constituted to monitor this.”

“We will ensure that it is properly monitored,” he added.

Mehdi Masroor Biswas, a pro-Islamic State (IS) tweeter, was arrested Saturday from Bengaluru after a British news channel Dec 11 unmasked the 24-year-old executive as a supporter of the outfit through social media and Twitter handle @ShamiWitness.

The home minister also assured the Lok Sabha that no innocent person from the minority community would be taken into custody with regard to suspected terror activities. If there were such instances, they could be brought to his notice.

Responding to another query on the IS, Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju said the matter was “very, very sensitive and the details cannot be discussed”.

(IANS)

Filed Under: India, Indian Muslims Tagged With: IS, ISIS, Islamic State, Mehdi Masroor Biswas, Rajnath Singh, shamiwitness, UAPA

Justice after 13 years: 8 Muslim youths accused of links with SIMI acquitted by Kurla court

November 22, 2014 by Nasheman

Tanvir Ahmed Ansari. Photo: YouTube Screenshot

Tanvir Ahmed Ansari. Photo: YouTube Screenshot

Mumbai: Eight persons, accused of having links with the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), were today acquitted by a local court for lack of evidence.

Those acquitted by the metropolitan magistrate’s court in suburban Kurla include Ehtesham Siddiqui and Tanvir Ahmed Ansari, who are also facing a trial in the July 2006 Mumbai train blasts case.

“The court acquitted all the eight accused after I argued that there was no evidence,” said their lawyer, advocate Sharif Sheikh.

He said Mumbai police had begun a crackdown throughout the city against SIMI on September 27, 2011, the day it was banned by the Centre under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

“Police raided an office in Kurla and claimed to have found some literature, photo of Osama bin Laden besides other material,” Sheikh said.

However, the court granted bail to all the accused as the copy of the notification in the official gazette had not reached the state home department on the day of ban.

Sheikh said that few minutes after all the eight accused were granted bail, police arrested them for allegedly shouting anti-national slogans in the court premises.

When the case came up for hearing, he argued that on the day of their arrest there was no notification, hence their arrest was bad in law.

“In the slogan-shouting case, police had produced only policemen as witnesses while no advocates or litigants were brought as witnesses,” said Sheikh.

The court acquitted all the eight persons in both the cases.

Filed Under: India, Indian Muslims Tagged With: Advocate Sharif Sheikh, Ehtesham Siddiqui, SIMI, Students Islamic Movement of India, Tanvir Ahmed Ansari, UAPA, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act

The Everyday Violence of the Law: Chaitanya Tamhane’s Court

November 3, 2014 by Nasheman

Chaitanya Tamhane Court

by Amit Basole, Sanhati

Chaitanya Tamhane’s directorial debut, Court, is a multilingual, award-winning film on the “quiet violence” of the judicial system and how the State uses it to suppress political activists. Financed by the Hubert-Bals Fund and private equity, it opened to rave reviews and won Best Director and Best Film in the International Competition section of the 16th Mumbai Film Festival. It also premiered at the Venice Film Festival earlier in the year, where it won the Lion of the Future Award for the best first feature. Court successfully invokes the mood of a trial based on patently ridiculous charges, conducted with no intent other than disciplining and harassment of an activist. A phenomenon that is all too common in India. The theme is very timely given the increasingly intolerant nature of the Indian State and the large number of political prisoners languishing in jail all across the country.

The film follows the trial of Narayan Kamble (Vira Sathidar), a Dalit political activist and lokshahir (people’s poet) who is arrested on stage during a performance in Bombay on charges of “abetment of suicide.” The police claim that Kamble has penned and performed “incendiary” lyrics calling on Dalits to “drown themselves in sewage” provoking a municipal sanitation worker to actually take his own life by drowning in the very sewer it is his duty to clean. The absurdity of the charge is matched by the (mock?) seriousness with which it is pursued but the police and the officials of the Sessions court. While the politics of false charges and suppression of activists via legal means is an important theme in the film, Tamhane also uses the context of the trial to explore the everyday lives of the principal actors in the courtroom; especially the lawyers for defense (producer Vivek Gomber) and prosecution (played by Geetanjali Kulkarni), and the judge (Pradeep Joshi). What emerges is how extraordinary injustice is embedded in quotidian affairs. The prosecution lawyer argues against bail, ensures that an honest man of advanced years rots in police custody for no reason at all and then goes home to cook dinner and watch TV with her family.

The ponderous legal system is certainly the main protagonist, as is evident in the name of the film. And as a useful counterpoint to the brilliant and satirical Mohan Joshi Hazir Ho, Court forces us confront the fact that the byzantine alleyways of justice and the proverbial tarikh pe tarikh, are not merely the unintended result of an uncaring and bureaucratic system but rather used deliberately by the State to remove its more inconvenient citizens for some time, say three or four years. At which time it is the headache of the next set of rulers.

As noted by other reviewers, Anand Patwardhan’s Jai Bhim Comrade could serve as the primer or backdrop to Court. Vilas Ghogre the activist and singer with whose suicide over the Ramabai Nagar police firing in 1998 Patwardhan begins the film, could be Narayan Kamble. Indeed the protest poetry that Kamble sings from the stage has been penned by Ghogre’s friend and fellow activist Sambhaji Bhagat, a renowned and powerful lokshahir. Vira Sathidar who plays Kamble is himself a left Dalit political activist and editor of the radical Nagpur-based journal Vidrohi.

The film’s casting is brilliant (and took several months). Vira Sathidar is spot-on as Narayan Kamble. Being an activist himself he knows how to behave, stand, move and speak. His performance to the powerful lyrics of lokshahir Sambhaji Bhagat is also utterly convincing. Film producer Vivek Gomber as Vinay Vora is also very good, as are all the other actors (Geetanjali Kulkarni as the prosecuting attorney, Pradeep Joshi as Judge Sadavarte). Several members of the cast are not professionally trained actors. For example, the woman who plays the wife of the drowned municipal worker is actually the wife of such a worker who lost his life. The films skillful use of Bombay’s multilingual milieu should also be commended. Tamhane uses Marathi, Hindi, English, and Gujarati as needed according to the social context. This may not seem like a big deal, but if one notes how few films are able to do justice to the multilingualism that exists in Indian cities, this emerges as a major achievement.

While the overall aesthetic of the film is “documentary-like” with real locations and use of non-professional actors, Tamhane also makes extensive use of wide-angle shots, very long duration takes, and dramatic contrast cuts. This is a bold move on part of a first-time director since it makes him vulnerable by exposing large compositions to the viewer for long periods of time, to imbibe and criticize. But on the whole the move works well. Wide shots give Bombay city a starring role in the film conveying a sense of social context in which the action is embedded. We see other people, incidental to the scene going about their lives. The long takes slow down time invoking in the viewer a feeling of what it must feel like to be involved in an interminable court case where everything moves at a glacial pace.

The director noted during the Q & A that he is particularly interested in exploring the experience of the law in a Sessions court as a counter-point to the glamorous upper level courts with oratorical performances and tightly woven arguments. Here lawyers need not be articulate and proceedings are simultaneously intensely procedural but also highly disorganized. For example witnesses don’t show up for months because they are “ill,” stock (professional) police witnesses are used, charge sheets are read out in their entirety in monotones, arguments are not convincing, and logic borders on farce.

Overall, Tamhane has made a strong debut and has tackled an extremely important theme in a sensitive manner.

But the film does suffer from some problems. While the story and screenplay has been called understated by some reviewers, I found little subtlety in the treatment. Not much is left to the viewer’s imagination. Deliberate contrast cuts, e.g. from a softly lit, fashionable Bombay nightclub to a harshly lit, bleak, sessions courtroom are dramatic but also a tiny bit heavy-handed. The film ends with a scene showing Judge Sadavarte dozing off on a park bench while on a family vacation in Arnala (resort town near Bombay). Meanwhile the under-trial languishes in judicial custody. But where the director chose to end the film is also worth noting. In the last scene, the judge dozes on a park bench while some kids from the family stand nearby and giggle at him. They then come close, shout loudly and startle him out of his nap. He wakes up abruptly, scolds them harshly and falls back to sleep. The end. The obvious conclusion: despite the occasional irritant, justice sleeps on vacation. But if the film had ended with the judge being rudely awakened out of his slumber by the children, how different would the implication have been? Perhaps Tamhane felt that such an optimistic ending would have been out of keeping with the general mood of the film.

Further, the political prisoner theme naturally lends itself to some difficult political questions. In an attempt to make the story “interesting” Tamhane gives the defense lawyer a highly privileged background while making the prosecuting attorney come from a modest, lower-middle class home. The irony is in a scion of a Gujarati business family (his father owns an entire building in Bombay) forging a relationship with a poor, Marathi Dalit activist. Linguistically and in class terms, perhaps the lower-middle class (though most likely Brahmin) prosecuting attorney is closer to the accused than his own lawyer.

In fact, Tamhane goes to great lengths to establish the points of difference between Vora and Kamble. The lawyer speaks English-medium quality English, shops for expensive wine and cheese, frequents upscale nightclubs, listens to jazz in his car and watches news about the Jaipur Lit Fest on his Apple Macbook. He also does not speak very much Marathi. In one telling scene, while the accused is on stand in the courtroom being cross-examined by the prosecution in Marathi, the defense lawyer pleads for the proceeding to occur in Hindi. The accused, Kamble, says he is more comfortable in Marathi. Vinay Vora is thus the epitome of the “outsider” as far as Narayan Kamble’s social context is concerned.

What are we to make of this? In the Q & A after the movie, the director defended this set-up by saying it was “more interesting.” Perhaps so. But what message does it send? We are never told how Vora comes to defend Kamble, what the former thinks about the latter’s politics and struggle. It doesn’t appear to be the case that Vora is simply a public defender who has been assigned the case. Rather he seems to be Kamble’s lawyer. Certainly upper class lawyers can and do choose to fight such cases. But what is being suggested by drawing attention to how out of touch with his client’s life and social context the lawyer is?

This connects to the films intended audience, which not surprisingly seems to be the English-speaking middle class. This is a good thing, in so far as the film enables a class that has minimal contact with this side of the justice system to get a peek into its workings. But unfortunately, a voyeuristic peek and a coming away with shaking of the head at the deplorable state of affairs is all we are likely to have here. The film does not really unsettle any middle-class conceptions. Rather it confirms them. In the process it even makes fun of all the characters, apart from Vora and Kamble, that inhabit this universe (judging in part by the audiences’ laughter, for which the director of course cannot be entirely help responsible). Their earnestness in following court protocol, their heavily Marathi-accented English, one suspects even their lack of cosmopolitanism, become objects of amusement. A link of sympathy is forged between the audience, Vora, and Kamble, bypassing the social classes in the middle, who are mostly hostile.

What is also missing is a sense of the community from which Kamble comes or for which he has dedicated his life. There are references to the youth who form part of his cultural troupe and one young man is shown working with Vora. But that is all. Ironically we get back-stories or backgrounds for everyone but Kamble. We don’t see his family or where or how he lives, who his friends are. He is the archetypal “wronged Dalit.” Not innocent, he is, after all, political, but a two-dimensional representation of a Dalit activist, nevertheless. The dead municipal worker of course needs no backstory because he is not a person. He stands for the most degraded citizen who society literally kills with its waste.

It is possible that the director did not venture far in this direction because he wanted to stay close to the kinds of people he feels he knows well enough to characterize convincingly. It is also possible that, as is evident in the title of the film, he was more concerned with exploring the characters that inhabit a Sessions courtroom. But then a political trial which eventually progresses to a sedition charge under UAPA, no less, was not the best way to explore those characters, since much larger themes are raised by doing so and they must be dealt with.

But the complaints above notwithstanding, on the whole Court is a welcome development in Indian cinema from an assured and sensitive directorial voice. Such honest filmmaking especially on dissent is greatly to be desired given the narrowing of space for critical thinking in the Modi-obsessed middle-class. We look forward to many more films from Chaitanya Tamhane.

Filed Under: Film Tagged With: Chaitanya Tamhane, Court, Dalit, Dalits, Political Prisoners, Prisoners, UAPA

Arrested for being seated while national anthem was played in the theatre

August 26, 2014 by Nasheman

Salman_Zalman

Statement by concerned citizens on the arrest of Salman and demanding his immediate release

On August 20th night 12 pm Salman a student and social activist from Trivandrum was picked up by the police from his home in Peroorkada. The immediate accusation against him was that he had insulted the national anthem while it was being played in a theatre, where he had gone to watch a movie. Later his comments on Facebook where he questions nationalism as a philosophical and political concept were also pointed out as a reason for his arrest. It is also being reported that there was a deliberate attempt to frame him by some right-wing hindutva groups and that they are the ones who are behind his arrest.

There is a lack of clarity regarding his arrest and the way it was conducted, late in the midnight hours of August 20th. It is clear, though, that none of the customary norms were followed during his arrest. Even after it was said that Salman was taken to the Thampanoor station, the police themselves later denied this. For a whole night and the next day even Salman’s parents had no access to him. In fact, Salman was taken from prison to prison like it is usually done with so called ‘notorious terrorists’ and the police refused to give out any information about him both to his parents and to the lawyers who had contacted them. It was onlyon August 21st evening that it was made known that there was an FIR recorded against him and that a case was registered under IPC act 124 A and 66 A charging him of sedition and of sending offensive messages through communicative service. Though there were many other students with him it is surprising that it was only Salman who was picked out and arrested.

The media too automatically reiterated the police version in their reports, without attempting to investigate into the case, in spite of the fact that police injustice towards Muslim youth is growing day by day. Further, we want to bring attention to the fact that vigilante right-wing hindutva groups are at present conducting an extremely abusive hate campaign against Salman on Facebook. The abusive comments on his Facebook wall have become so vicious that some even threaten to rape the women who are in support of him.

We strongly condemn the arrest and inhumane treatment of Salman Zalman at the hands of the Kerala police and call for his immediate release. We consider the charging of IPC 124 A (sedition) on him as a gross over stretching of the sedition act to encroach into the rights of a citizen to criticize the nation.We also condemn the abusive campaign that is being conducted on Facebook against him and the discriminatory nature of the media reporting, which is aiding such human right abuses.

Salman Zalman

Salman Zalman

It must also be noted that whatever the nature of the crime, the withdrawal of constitutionally established human rights is extremely problematic and illegal. We would surely connect the arrest and incarceration of Salman to the way in which Muslim youth in Kerala and elsewhere are being constantly oppressed by the criminal justice system (please remember the case of Muhsin, another trivandramite youth fabricated in a “letter bomb” case from which he was acquitted only after seven years). To avoid such illegal incarceration and delayed justice we demand that he should be allowed to use his fair legal rights as promised by the constitution.

His arrest is all the more troublesome because he was a student who has been a part of many human rights campaigns in the past and was even an artist in the play that was held in protest against UAPA in front of the Secretariat on August 14th. His clandestine arrest and subsequent secret incarceration and denial of legal access for a whole day and night reeks of police impunity, which selectively target the youth who question state ideology. We must remember that, at this moment, it has become a norm to first arrest, torture and incarcerate Muslims before allowing them to seek any kind of justice. This is sheer discrimination and we urge everyone to come together to condemn the arrest of Salman and to demand his immediate release.

Filed Under: Human Rights, India Tagged With: Facebook, Human rights, Kerala, National Anthem, Rabindranath Tagore, Salman Zalman, Sedition, UAPA

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