Malegaon blasts and the limits of fake secularism

[kish]

Amazing how the gang rape victim a Hindu was given a certain minority name "Amanat" and a certain minority perpetrator who did the most heinous crime among the gang, was given a Hindu name "Raju".

[ramana]

X-post...

Why hardline Hindutva is a national security issue

by Praveen Swami Apr 2, 2013

Malegaon probe: The curious case of Lt Col Prasad Purohit
NIA arrests first suspect in 2006 Malegaon blast case
“The country should be taken over by the army”, railed Hindutva leader BL Sharma ‘Prem’ at a 26 January, 2008 meeting in Faridabad, near New Delhi.

“It has been a year since I sent some three lakh letters, distributed 20,000 maps of Akhand Bharat on 26 January, but these Brahmins and traders have never done anything and neither will they do. I do not talk of casteism. It’s just that they don’t have the potential; they don’t have the aptitude for this kind of feelings”.

“It is not that physical power is the only way to make a difference, but it will awaken people mentally”, Sharma concluded. “I believe that you have to light a fire in society, at least a spark”.

Five years on, as Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi prepares to lead the Bharatiya Janata Party into a bitterly-contested election, he might well to reflect on those words with care: small children and arsonists play with matches, not responsible politicians committed to Indian democracy.

The BJP’s new Parliamentary Board and Central Election Committee includes some of the most venomous voices in Indian politics. There is Amit Shah, a former Gujarat minister who is being tried for murder. There is like Varun Gandhi, with a disturbing record of incendiary speech. There is Uma Bharati, who has said she feels no regret at the demolition of the Babri Masjid—and event which sparked off riots and terrorism that claimed the lives of over 2,000 Indians.

Right wing Hindu groups have been blamed for their role in the 2006 Malegaon blasts. Reuters
For figures consigned to the margins by a party leadership that was firmly focused on alliance-building, this is a triumph. Praveen Togadia, Modi’s one-time ally-turned-enemy, has been exulting, promising to “declare Gujarat a Hindu state by 2015”.

It’s no secret why the BJP has acted as it has: shoring up their right flank makes sense. The hard core of Hindutva cadre will be critical to its electoral performance. Election strategists believe centrist voters, who have in the past shown themselves to be repulsed by religious chauvinism, are even more repulsed by the Congress’ corruption.

There is a larger issue, though: the rise of hardline Hindutva could pave the way to violence the country simply cannot afford. For this reason, what is happening in the BJP is a national security issue.

Sharma’s remarks in Faridabad help understand why. From the tape-recordings of their conversations the group maintained of its discussions, we know Hindutva hardliners began meeting to plan a new course of action soon after 2002. The group included Sudhakar Dwivedi, RP Singh, Ramesh Upadhyay and Shrikant Prasad Purohit—men the National Investigations Agency now says were involved with a series of terrorist attacks against Muslims. The men had hailed the rise of Modi, seeing the communal killings in Gujarat as a stepping-stone to the construction of a Hindu state. Modi’s development agenda, however, pushed him into confrontation with the hardliners—leaving the them disgusted.

From 2003, the hardliners thus drifted away from democratic politics and into a new cult of the bomb. That summer, Naresh Kondwar and Himanshu Phanse of the Bajrang Dal were killed in a bomb-making accident in Nanded. Bajrang Dal operatives linked to the Nanded cell, the police discovered, were also responsible for the bombing of mosques at Purna and Jalna in April, in which 18 people were injured. In a 2006 interivew, former senior Maharashtra police officer KP. Raghuvanshi noted that the Nanded incident could have “frightening repercussions.” He acidly observed that the “bombs were not being manufactured for a puja.”

In June, 2008, Hindu Janajagruti Samiti operatives were held for the bombing of the Gadkari Rangayatan theatre in Thane. Later, in October, 2008, Bajrang Dal-linked Rajiv Mishra and Bhupinder Singh were killed in a bomb-making accident in Kanpur.

Madhya Pradesh-based Sunil Joshi and Pragya Thakur, the National Investigation Agency has alleged in ongoing trials, set up networks which carried out a series of lethal attacks—among them, in Malegaon, at the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad, the Ajmer Sharif shrine in Rajasthan, and on the Samjhauta Express.

The group’s ambitions went further than bombings, though. In the 2008 meeting, Purohit laid out plans to overthrow the constitution. His new draft constitution rejected diversity, and called for “a singular cultural binding”. It rejected the idea of democratic governance, saying instead that a “decision once taken by the leader shall be followed at all the levels without questioning [his] authority”. It called for “one party rule”, allowing for “any Hindu on earth will be an honorary member”. Members of the group also called for the assassination of top BJP leaders, seeing them as enemies tying down the more-radical Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

It’s little understood that such ideologies, like other shades of political violence in India, have deep historical roots. The name the Hindutva terrorists chose for their group, Abhinav Bharat, invoked the memory of an organization set up Named after a group set up by the Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in May 1904 to wage war against imperial Britain. In one manifesto, the original Abhinav Bharat’s followers promised to “shed upon the earth the life-blood of the enemies who destroy religion.” Later, the radical right journal Yugantar argued that the murder of foreigners in India was “not a sin but a yagna [ritual sacrifice]”.

Words like these inspired figures Edinburgh-educated Pandurang Bapat, who obtained a bomb-making manual from a Russian engineer in 1908. He was suspected suspected of involvement in the Alipore bomb case — an attack on a British magistrate by Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki which missed its target, and killed two women.

For the most, these actions achieved little. “Indian terrorism,” scholar Walter Lacquer has recorded, “was relatively infrequent and on the whole quite ineffective: more often than not, the Indian terrorists managed to kill some innocent bystander rather than their intended victims.”

Bapat soon turned to education, hoping it would prove more effective at throwing out the British than terrorism. So did Savarkar’s close associate, Hindutva ideologue BS Moonje. In 1937, Moonje founded the Bhonsala Military School in Nashik—an institution to which two men charged with the Malegaon bombings were linked.

For decades now, the proximate costs of competitive communalism have been evident. In a 2003 article, Pakistani scholar-diplomat Husain Haqqani warned that “the rise of Hindu extremism serves as a catalyst for recruitment by extremist Islamists in South Asia.” Pakistani claims are legitimate onlee Haqqani’s claim is borne out by facts. The Mumbai riots of 1992-1993 helped Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence find recruits to carry out the subsequent bombings. The Lashkar-e-Taiba used images of communal violence in India to raise cadre—and the Indian Mujahideen, perpetrators of the worst urban terrorism campaign India has seen, invoked Gujarat.

The even more severe existential costs of communalism, though, have been just as stark. Hate-politics has created deep internal fissures, which in turn have bred a pernicious politics of identity. Political pathogens have ethnic-religious swamp, crippling our polity. India simply cannot progress if its ethnic and religious communities are at war with each other.

Ever since last year, there has been a subterranean, but steady, uptick in communal politics—provoked by politicians hoping in to cash in on religious chauvinism in the elections. It has to end.

India has been locked, too long, in a competitive cycle of hate. The BJP has done neither itself, nor the country, any favours.

http://www.firstpost.com/india/why-hard ... 82339.html

Praveen Swami at his best. Congress is rolling out dough.

[krithivas]

^^^
The masters of Praveen Swami stud-gate scandal are slowly squeezing him hard.

[Sushupti]

NIA chargesheet to debunk Maharashtra ATS claims on Malegaon 2006. Even CBI endorsed ATS but NIA differs!!!!.

NIA to nail Hindu radicals in Malegaon chargesheet

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 020578.cms

[prahaar]

Are Sadhvi Pragya and Lt.Col.Purohit in jail for the same attack and no charge-sheet on them yet? What is going on in our country, different investigation agencies find a non-overlapping set of accused but do not offer any explanation? As an aam aadmi, in future I may be compelled to NOT believe ANY story coming from the government, or believe only those things that suite my personal interest/views. This is the worst case scenario in terms of crime investigation we are approaching, where no one believes the official version.

[Sanku]

The case is falling apart

Swami Aseemanand, Col Purohit not named in Malegaon blasts chargesheet

Mumbai: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday filed a chargesheet in the 2006 Malegaon blasts case and named four accused, but importantly did not mention the names of Swami Aseemanand and former Lt Col Srikant Purohit.

The development comes as a reprieve for the RSS which had come under attack after Swami Aseemanand and Col Purohit were named as accused in the case. Both had links to the Hindu organisation.

[ramana]

They will bring them in later. Its moving chess peices before the polls.

------------

prahaar, Now you know why the English Common Law is so insistent on Habaeus Corpus? Even in the Boston Bombing Case or the Cleveland kidnapper/rapist the max they could suspend filing charges was 48 hours.
Indian police and legal system work for the king who is now selected.

[prahaar]

Ramanaji, habeas corpus wiki says it is applicable also in India. This means the law under which these people (Lt.Col. Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya) are in custody might have the provision to waive the charge sheet deadline.

[Sushupti]

2006 Malegaon blasts: Aseemanand, Sadhvi Pragya’s names missing from NIA chargesheet

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... m=referral

[RamaY]

Watch video: http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/the-bu ... ror/276559

Changing times.

[prahaar]

Watch video: http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/the-bu ... ror/276559

Changing times.

The program looked quite as usual (for NDTV), what was the changing?

[Pratyush]

^^^^
A need to fool the audience, and knofuse the masses.

[Sanku]

IB director complains after CBI summons officer, NSA briefs PM

Following a strong protest lodged by IB chief Asif Ibrahim, National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon has brought the matter to the notice of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, apprising him about the IB's concern that action against a senior officer could send a wrong signal and also set a bad precedent. Ibrahim is also learnt to have taken up the matter with Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, Home Secretary R K Singh and CBI Director Ranjit Sinha.

However, sources said the CBI has told the government that it has adequate material to prove Kumar's role in the conspiracy leading to the alleged fake encounter in which Ishrat and three others were killed. CBI sources claimed the agency also has proof of what they said was Kumar's "proximity" to the Narendra Modi government.

[ramana]

As far as we know CBI is elder brother of NIA. And it never catches a criminal. It only implicates people in interminal police cases.

Its one agency that should be bound by the a civil habeous corpus act. It should be required to file its case within twice the time for criminal case.

Eg. If HC needs 48 hours to file charges, CBI should be forced to file by 96 hours.

Instead the drag the case for ever.

[member_20036]

NIA making a mess of Malegaon investigation
By Sandhya Jain on June 22, 2013

An important aspect of the Malegaon blasts, overlooked by the mainstream media when the National Investigative Agency (NIA) filed a charge sheet last month, is that there were two separate blasts, one in 2006 and another in 2008, and that there seems to be a deliberate attempt to compact the two into a single conspiracy.

At the time of the 2006 blast, there was no talk of ‘Hindu terror’. That theory was invented much later and applied to the 2008 blast after public protests against the arrests of members of one community for all terrorist incidents in the country. So after the arrest of some Hindus from certain Hindu organisations for the 2008 blasts, efforts began to implicate these Hindus in the 2006 attack as well.

Hence, stories appeared in the media about the NIA’s ‘failure’ to mention Swami Aseemanand, Sadhvi Pragya, and others, in the charge sheet filed on May 22, 2013, regarding the 2006 blast. There were helpful hints that a supplementary charge sheet could be filed later.

The myth of Hindu terror

Swami Aseemanand allegedly exposed the involvement of Hindus in the crime, but retracted his confession in court, saying it was extracted under duress. NIA admits it has so far not found any credible evidence linking him or others to the conspiracy behind the attack of September 8, 2006, and hence avoided reference to Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit, who are accused in the 2008 Malegaon blasts.

Yet, a gigantic fishing expedition seems underway and it is doubtful if the truth of either attack will now be known. What is apparent is that there is an effort to prove that both blasts are the product of a single conspiracy and that the conspirators are the same. This effort was then extended to cover a series of terror crimes, as we shall see.

Malegaon 2006

On September 8, 2006, a series of bomb blasts occurred in Malegaon, a textile town in Nashik district, Maharashtra, causing the death of 37 and injuring 125, after Friday namaaz. Most victims were Muslim pilgrims. Police reports said “two bombs attached to bicycles” exploded and resulted in a stampede.

Two days later (September 10), police reportedly identified the owner of one of the bicycles and released sketches of two suspects. On October 30, SIMI activist Noor-Ul-Hooda was arrested. The then DGP PS Pasricha said two other suspects were Shabeer Batterywala (of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba) and Raees Ahmad (of SIMI).


Previously, in May 2006, police recovered a cache of RDX explosives and automatic rifles from the region on information provided by arrested SIMI members. The September blasts contained “a cocktail of RDX, ammonium nitrate and fuel oil — the same mixture used in the July 11, 2006 Mumbai train bombings, in which several Islamist groups were suspects.

On November 28, 2006, Mumbai Police stated that two Pakistani nationals were involved in the explosions and that a hunt was on for eight more suspects. The ATS had already arrested eight suspects, including two booked in the July 11 Mumbai train blasts.

Later, three accused persons confessed before a competent authority about involvement in a conspiracy. But later two retracted before the magistrate saying the disclosures were not voluntary. On November 16, 2011, seven accused in the Malegaon blasts were released on bail.

Five years later, still no case against Sadhvi Pragya

After NIA took charge of the investigations, it put out the following version: Swami Aseemanand, head of the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Dangs, Gujarat, and Sadhvi Pragya were part of a conspiracy hatched in June 2006 at Valsad, Gujarat, for Hindu terror strikes. Aseemanand allegedly propounded his “bomb for a bomb” theory before members of a group called Abhinav Bharat (not the registered charity), and chose Malegaon as a target. This meeting was attended by RSS pracharak Sunil Joshi (murdered in 2007), Ramchandra Kalsangra, Sandeep Dange, Lokesh Sharma and Amit Hakla.

NIA’s charge sheet named Lokesh Sharma and three others named as accused and Kalsangra, Dange and Hakla as absconding accused.

The linking of Hindus to the 2006 blast paved the way for nine Muslim youths charged by the Maharashtra ATS (seven out on bail), to move court for discharge in the case. Two accused are still in jail as they are accused in the July 11 Mumbai local train blasts as well.

Malegaon 2008

On September 29, 2008, two bombs exploded in near a hotel at Bhikku Chowk in Malegaon, killing seven persons. The low intensity bombs were allegedly fitted onto a motorcycle. The Maharashtra ATS said the bombs were crude devices identical to those that had detonated in Delhi three days previously.

Now for the first time allegations surfaced about the involvement of Hindu groups. Three persons were arrested — Sadhvi Pragya, Kalsangra and Shyam Bhawarlal Sahu. The ATS claim rested on the fact that the motorcycle used in the blast belonged to Sadhvi Pragya. She claimed to have sold the bike before becoming a sadhvi.

Bail for Syed Kazmi but not Sadhvi Pragya

Later, Sameer Kulkarni (alleged mastermind) from Bhopal and Sangram Singh from Indore were held for questioning, along with Major (retd) Ramesh Upadhyay. Then, a serving lieutenant colonel, Prasad Shrikant Purohit, was interrogated and arrested (November 4).

The waters were muddied when on October 31, ATS sources said that Kulkarni had revealed a Bangladeshi link to the terror strike, and that 15 to 20 Bangladeshi nationals were part of Abhinav Bharat and had attended the meetings were the plot was hatched, in order to avenge the Ahmedabad blasts in July 2008. Kulkarni had reportedly launched a new organisation called Abhinav Bharat Sansthan.

The Bangladeshi angle has since disappeared. There was also some talk of the net spreading to embrace BJP Gorakhpur MP, Mahant Adityanath, but that strand of investigation also fizzled out.

But attempts were made to link Purohit and Pragya with the Samjhauta Express bombings. Lt Col Purohit worked for Military Intelligence and had reportedly collected sensitive information relating to SIMI and ISI operations in India, some of which had the potential to seriously embarrass some political leaders.

On November 14, 2008, the ATS arrested Varanasi-native Dayanand Pandey, alias Sudhakar Dwivedi, head of the Sharda Sarvagya Peeth. His role in the blasts remains unclear to this day, but he is languishing in jail.

The Malegaon blast occurred below the defunct first floor office of SIMI. Police claimed that the vehicle was an ‘LML Freedom’ model and some of its parts had been cannibalised from other vehicles; the chassis and engine numbers had been erased. But dealer records and forensic experts managed to establish that the owner was a man with an ‘ABVP background’.

On January 19, 2009, the ATS filed a chargesheet naming Lt Col Prasad Purohit as the main conspirator for providing explosives and Pragya Thakur for arranging the persons who planted them. Stories now circulated that RDX was used in the 2008 blasts; Purohit had provided the RDX and had been thrown 60 kg of the explosive into a river to get rid of the contraband, etc; the Army stoutly denied that any RDX was missing from its Ordnance stores! The original report on the 2008 Malegaon blast had said crude bombs were involved.

Twists and turns

The 2006 Malegaon blasts case in which 13 SIMI activists were arrested, was handed over to the CBI after Malegaon residents agitated against the arrests. Later, the case was handed over to the NIA which came into existence in 2009 following the November 26, 2008, Mumbai terror attack. This changed the narrative completely.

In December 2012, NIA arrested one Mohan on charges of planting the explosives, after one Rajesh Chowdhry, who allegedly planted the bombs on the Samjhauta Express, claimed to be part of the Malegaon blast conspiracy.

The NIA charge-sheeted Lokesh Sharma (ex-RSS), Dhan Singh, Rajendra Chaudhary and Manohar Narwaria; it declared Sandeep Dange and Ramchandra Kalsangra as absconding. Key accused Sunil Joshi (RSS) was murdered in December 2007, allegedly by his own associates following some differences. In December 2012 itself, one Manohar Lodhi was arrested in connection with the 2006 Malegaon blast.

In another twist, Swami Aseemanand, arrested for his alleged role in Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid blast (2007), allegedly confessed before a magistrate that the Malegaon blast was masterminded by a Hindu group and that late Sunil Joshi and others were behind the 2006 blasts. He later retracted this statement.

By now the two Malegaon blast cases were being jumbled up, and the accused implicated in the Ajmer dargah blast, Samjhauta train blast, and Mecca Masjid.

It bears stating that Aseemanand’s original statement was never a confession as he did not admit to his own role in the blast(s). The statement is merely an accusation against other persons, for which no corroborative evidence was provided, or found subsequently by the investigators.

In April 2011, the NIA was given charge of the 2008 Malegaon blast investigation in which 12 persons had been arrested till then. In June 2012, accused Lokesh Sharma received bail from a special MCOCA court after the NIA failed to file the charge sheet within the stipulated 90-day period. Previously, Shamlal Sahu and Shivnarayan Kalsangra also got bail in the Malegaon case.

As of now, neither case has made any credible headway.

http://www.niticentral.com/2013/06/22/n ... 93930.html

[ramana]

Now if I recall the 26/11 attack on Mumbai was supposed to happen in Sept 2008. Was it delayed due to the Malegoan blasts on 29 Sept 2008? What did DCh say to NIA about the delayed attack?

[member_20036]

There is good reason to question legality of NIA’s functioning

In view of the sharp twists in the Malegaon blasts cases of 2006 and 2008, completely overturning and making a mockery of investigations by the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) and foreign agencies like the US Department of Treasury, some basic questions arise about the functioning and very legality of the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

The NIA was given charge of the 2006 Malegaon blast case in April, 2011, and the 2008 Malegaon blast case in April 2012. Since then it has sought to prove that some Hindu radicals were behind both incidents.

Both Malegaon probes were handed over to the NIA without the consent of the Government of Maharashtra, though law and order is a state subject (List II). More fundamental is the issue of whether the Union Government was competent to enact the NIA Act without the concurrence of the States. The issue acquires urgency as persons arrested and charged by the ATS may now be released, while the NIA builds up a case against others on hearsay.

Bail for pregnant Maoist, jail for cancer patient Sadhvi Pragya

On June 26, 2013, two of the accused in the 2006 Malegaon blast case, Mohammad Ali Alam Sheikh and Asif Khan Bashir Khan, appealed to the special NIA court in Mumbai for discharge on grounds that there was no evidence against them. The duo alleged that the confessions allegedly obtained by the ATS were discarded by the NIA. The latter did not oppose the bail pleas of the nine accused arrested by ATS, but Sheikh and Khan remained in custody for alleged involvement in the July 2006 Mumbai serial train blasts case.

Media reports on July 1 suggest that the NIA may give the nine Muslims accused in the 2006 Malegaon blast case an official stamp of ‘innocence’ by telling the court that they were no longer accused. However, Dhan Singh, a Hindu charge-sheeted by the NIA, has contested Sheikh and Khan’s discharge application and questioned the investigations, pointing out that on the very day the Maharashtra ATS charge-sheeted nine Muslims, the case was transferred to the CBI. The CBI supplementary charge sheet supported ATS’s case.

B Raman knew ‘Hindu terrorism’ from real terrorism

On March 3, 2009, the then Union Home Minister P Chidambaram met Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Robert Mueller in New Delhi and confided that the NIA could be challenged in court as violating Constitutional provisions between the Centre and the States (US Embassy cable, Wikileaks 195165, dated March 4, 2009, accessed by The Hindu through Wikileaks and published on March 19, 2011; not denied to date).

Chidambaram explained that India did not have the concept of federal crime, and law and order is a State responsibility. Central agencies require the permission of the States to become involved in an investigation. The NIA Act ascribes certain investigating powers to the NIA which conflict with this jurisdiction. It comprises five chapters with 25 Sections, followed by a Schedule which lists eight different categories of offences that can be investigated by the NIA vide Sections 6 to 10. The Act received Presidential assent on December 31, 2008.

Both the Preamble and the Statement of objects and reasons of the Act disclose that the NIA Act aims to constitute a police agency at national level to investigate and prosecute offences affecting a host of subjects, expressly or impliedly contained in List I (Union List). Experts say that while the Centre can legislate on investigation and prosecution of offences pertaining to subjects listed in the Preamble to the Act, the legislative power to create a police agency by virtue of List II of the 7th Schedule of the Constitution vests exclusively with States. The NIA Act is in this respect an encroachment on the legislative powers of States and hence ultra vires the Constitution of India.

NIA making a mess of Malegaon investigation

This can be seen from a study of the Delhi Police Establishment Act, 1946, which created the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The CBI itself is specifically a designated entry in List II, 7th schedule, and as per the Act, the investigative powers of the CBI do not encroach upon the functions of police forces created by the State Governments.

Section 2 of the Delhi Police Establishment Act, 1946, expressly empowers the Centre to constitute a special police force to investigate in any Union Territory offences notified u/s. 8. And by virtue of Section 6, the Delhi Special Police Establishment cannot exercise powers and jurisdiction in any areas in a State that is not a Union Territory or Railway areas without the consent of the relevant State Government.

The same is not true of the NIA Act.

The NIA Act was passed almost unanimously by Parliament after the three-day terrorist attack in Mumbai in November 2008. But since then, expectations from the agency have been belied; it has failed to either prevent a number of terrorist attacks in various parts of the country or to detect the perpetrators of these attacks. Worse, it has acted at cross purposes with specialized state police agencies investigating these incidents and obstructed the course of justice in pending investigations and even concluded ones.

Neither the Preamble nor Statement of Objects and Reasons ever suggested that the NIA could investigate pending investigations of past terrorist acts or reinvestigate terrorist offences in cases where charge sheets had already been filed. Its operation was always intended to be prospective (to prevent, investigate or prosecute offences in future). Indeed, the need for a National Investigation Agency was never mentioned prior to November 2008. Hence the use of the NIA to re-investigate terrorist offences committed prior to this event is de hors the stated objective of the Act.

It is a settled principle of law that an investigation commenced by an agency authorised to investigate certain offences can be transferred to another agency by a High Court vide its powers under writ jurisdiction under Article 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India or by the Supreme Court by virtue of its inherent powers. But the Centre availed of Section 6 of the NIA Act and asked the agency to investigate a cluster of seven cases in which investigations were underway by specialised State police agencies.

A complete reading of Section 6 (pertaining to Scheduled Offences) makes it clear that the NIA does not have the power to intervene in pending investigations, whether or not those investigations have concluded by the filing of a charge sheet or not.

It is also settled law that the power of further investigation of a case even after the filing of a charge sheet can be conducted by that investigating agency in exercise only of its power under Section 173 (8) of the Cr PC 1973. The Supreme Court has categorically held that this power of further investigation cannot include fresh investigation or reinvestigation. It is only a High Court in its Writ or inherent jurisdiction or the Supreme Court in exercise of its inherent power that can order a fresh investigation or re-investigation, whether before or after the charge sheet is filed.

The seven cases handed over to the NIA actually involve fresh investigation and/or re-investigation, under the cover of Section 6, and hence these notifications deserve to be quashed.

Overall, it appears that the NIA investigations are politically motivated to ‘prove’ that ‘Hindu terrorist organisations’ are proliferating in the country and indulging in counter terrorism or “saffron terrorism”. Wikileaks revealed that Rahul Gandhi, as General Secretary of the ruling Congress party, at a luncheon hosted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in honour of Hillary Clinton in July 2008, told US Ambassador Timothy Roemer that the bigger threat in India was the growth of radicalized Hindu groups which create religious tensions and political confrontations with the Muslim community. Gandhi was replying to Roemer’s question regarding LeT activities in the region and the threat to India (cable dated August 3, 2009, sent by Roemer to US State Department, published by The Guardian London).

Thus, in the 2006 Malegaon case, the police filed a chargesheet on December 22, 2006, in the court of Special Judge, MCOCA, Mumbai, against 13 people. Nine were arrested and four declared absconding (two Indians and two Pakistanis). The confessions of seven were recorded under provisions of MCOCA and subsequently verified and confirmed by Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Mumbai. One accused, Abrar Ahmed Gulam Ahmed (accused number 9) expressed a desire to turn approver and this was permitted by the Sessions Court.

Despite this, the Central Government handed over the case to the CBI on January 11, 2007; the CBI found further evidence and filed a charge sheet on December 11, 2010. Both the ATS Maharashtra and the CBI found that the blasts of September 2006 and the subsequent planting of a fake bomb were the handiwork of 14 accused, including two Pakistani nationals, one Muzzamil (accused number 4) and the other unidentified. Most of the remaining accused were said to be members of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).

Still later, the case was transferred to NIA, which overturned the original findings.

Another important case transferred to the NIA is the Samjhauta Express bomb blast of February 2007. The Indian Government consistently held that the blast was the handiwork of Pakistani terrorist outfits. The then National Security Advisor MK Narayanan openly said so, and at the first India-Pakistan Joint Anti-Terrorist (JATM) meeting in Islamabad (March 6, 2006), the Indian side handed over photographs of the suspected Pakistani terrorists. At second JATM in New Delhi on October 2007, Indian representatives asked what action Islamabad had taken on the information provided previously.

In July 2009, the US Department of Treasury held LeT and Al Qaeda responsible for the Samjhauta blast, and named Arif Qasmani of Karachi as involved in Mumbai July 2006 train blasts and February 2007. The UN Security Council took the same view. David Headley’s estranged wife told the FBI about her husband’s involvement in various terror attacks in India, including in the Samjhauta Express train blasts.

The Supreme Court has in numerous judgments asserted that the Cr PC 1973 permits an investigative agency to further investigate, which means continue the earlier investigation. Nowhere does it permit conducting a fresh investigation by ab initio wiping out the earlier investigation altogether. Yet this is precisely what the NIA has done in the 2006 and 2008 Malegaon blasts, completely overturning the investigations by the relevant authorities and finding an altogether different motive and group of accused persons. Hence it is legitimate to question its functioning.

http://www.niticentral.com/2013/07/04/t ... 98933.html

[Muppalla]

Anyone remember Simranjit Singh Mann who was in jain during Rajiv Gandhi term? He was released after Rajiv lost the polls. Purohit, Pragya's cases are more complicated than Mann's stuff. If congress loses power they will be out of jail.

[Sanku]

Lt Col Purohit invokes RTI to prove innocence

Under persistent pressure from the Central Information Commission (CIC), the Army authorities last July finally admitted to receiving intelligence from Purohit regarding a rampant fake currency racket with efficient modules in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat, and involving certain top politicians, police and the Government officials. The report hints at a compromised national security. Close confidants of Purohit believe he was implicated because he was getting ‘too close’ to some high profile persons.

Initially, Purohit, lodged at the Taloja Central Prison, Navi Mumbai, applied to the relevant Army authorities for information regarding his movement orders from the AEC Training College and Centre, Pachmarhi, Madhya Pradesh, where he had been sent to study Arabic. This order – and its tampering – set off the sequence of events that led to his arrest, where too, proper procedures were not followed.

According to Purohit, he was given a Movement Order (MO) ex-Pachmarhi to Delhi. But later, a new Movement Order was issued ex-Pachmarhi to Mumbai at 3 Det SCLU, but this MO was allegedly not handed over to Purohit as is the usual procedure. This second order was amended by hand and Purohit ordered to report to Provost Unit HQ MG&G Area in Mumbai.

After being denied information vide RTI application dated May 28, 2012, Purohit appealed to Information Commissioner ML Sharma for information regarding: (i) authority which issued the Movement Order ex-Pachmarhi to Mumbai 3 Det SCLU and (ii) authority which directed Col RK Srivastava to amend the above order to ex-Pachmarhi to Mumbai Provost Unit, MG&G Area.

Purohit further demanded information regarding: (i) File No 106/LU/G of/maintained by 1 Team 3 Det SCLU, located at Devlali, Nasik, and copies of letters, reports forwarded by 1 Team 3 Det SCLU and received by HQ SCLU c/o 56 APO, (ii) source card issue notebook/register of/maintained by 1 Team 3 Det SCLU at Devlali, Nasik [This contains details of the Confidential Informers from whom he received information and paid money]. The period for which information was sought was from January 30, 2005 to January 1, 2008.

Purohit specifically sought certain letters from File No 106/LU/G of 1 Team 3 Det SCLU (which he listed from memory with dates, and which pertained to: illegal traffic of ammunition; Maoist activities; Kashmiri (terror) settlements; recovery of explosives; SIMI activities and likely SIMI activities in Pune; Bangladesh nationals and spectrum of activities; Haj House; changing trends in Islamic radicals with reference to Malegaon blast 2006; and a presentation on ISI and SIMI).

[ramana]

Who signed the Movement Order by hand was that revealed? And why was the Army reluctant to provide the information to clear their officer? And who in the Army "amended by hand" the Movement Orders? And with whose collusion?

[rohitvats]

^^^Just for reference - SCLU would stand for Southern Command Liaison Unit - an euphemism for Military Intelligence Unit. And Provost Unit means Military Police (MP) Unit.

[Sushupti]

Build case on a confession made by dead man to a confessor who retracts his 'confession', get egg.

NIA believes Aseemanand not involved in Malegaon blasts

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... mesofindia

[sivab]

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/nia-s ... e/1212272/

NIA set to drop case against Sadhvi Pragya, others arrested by MP Police

Nearly six years after the murder of RSS pracharak Sunil Joshi, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has concluded that the Madhya Pradesh Police arrested the wrong people, including Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur. Joshi, an accused in the 2006 Malegaon blasts and the Samjhauta and Ajmer blasts in 2007, was found dead in Dewas on December 29, 2007.

According to the NIA probe, Joshi was killed by Lokesh Sharma and Rajender Pehalwan, both accused in the Samjhauta blasts case, for allegedly misbehaving with Thakur. The duo were reportedly helped by Dilip Jagtap and Jitender Sharma. All the four have been arrested. Sharma, a BJP youth wing leader, was arrested from Mhow recently, after which the NIA claimed the probe had been completed.

NIA sources said the group also feared that Joshi may expose their alleged involvement in bomb blast cases. Lokesh Sharma and Rajender Pehalwan are also reported to have had a financial dispute with Joshi.

The sources said the agency is seeking the home ministry's sanction to prosecute the four accused, after which a chargesheet will be filed. The agency is also examining the CFSL report on the murder weapon.

The agency then plans to approach the MP special court seeking to drop the charges against Pragya Singh Thakur, Harshad Solanki, Vasudev Parmar, Anand Raj Kataria and BJP councillor Ramcharan Patel, who were booked under IPC Sections 302 (murder), 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) and 201 (destruction of evidence) by the MP Police.

While Thakur, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case, is currently in jail, Parmar, Kataria and Patel have been released on bail. Solanki is also still in jail for his alleged role in other crimes. The MP Police, in its chargesheet filed in 2011, had claimed that Joshi was shot by Harshad Solanki. It had said that Joshi was killed because Solanki and the others had started regarding him as a threat.

[chaanakya]

Roll back has started ???

[devesh]

yeah, after torturing and mentally destroying her, after she becomes physically and mentally further beaten by Cancer during imprisonment, now they will "release" her!

I've seen pictures of her in media which appeared sporadically. she looked like death warmed over. frail and thin. frazzled hair hanging down her face. eyes without any sheen of life to them.

they destroyed her. all the while, we've had people on BRF itself calmly and coldly claiming she got what she deserved. and these people of course, are strictly "constitution-abiding" in their allegiance.

do the monsters at NIA/IB/ATS/MHA have even an ounce of humanity to them???

[prahaar]

Is there any update on Col.Purohit? Does the army try to get its officer a fair treatment?

[kmkraoind]

Malegoan blast case: Lt Col Srikant Purohit, in jail for five years, writes to Shinde, seeks parity with Muslim undertrials - India Today

"Your ministry had come up with a policy not to keep the innocent implicated accused in jail who are victims of false and stage managed, situated investigations. Unfortunately the statement and the policy was qualified by incorporating a word indicating a particular religion. My question as an outrightly innocent person implicated in this case by the ATS, here is, should not the same yardstick be applied to all and every single innocent accused implicated in such cases by agencies like the ATS," he writes.

............
"Why should Shinde's directive be limited only to minority community? My client's emotional appeal to the minister is to ensure that all undertrials get equal treatment. It is a travesty of justice that a bright and brave military intelligence officer who infiltrated into terrorist organisations such as the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and has been commended in writing both by the Maharashtra Police Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) and the Army for excellent intelligence operations has been in jail for over five years as an under trial," says advocate Neela Gokhale representing Purohit in court.

When new govt comes in, every person who were involved in this sinister plot (from central HM, ATS heads, NIA heads and investigative officers) should be prosecuted and thrown in jail for playing.

[Vamsee]

Malegaon blasts: Lt Col Purohit writes to Modi, pleads innocence

[Supratik]

Rajnath Singh needs to move fast on Purohit and Sadhvi. If there is no prosecutable proof they need to be released ASAP.

[vivek.rao]

^^ I just don't know what theya re waiting for? Move on this damn it Rajnath. How long these people will be arrested without any charges?

[muraliravi]

Rajnath Singh needs to move fast on Purohit and Sadhvi. If there is no prosecutable proof they need to be released ASAP.

The buck does not stop there. Those who are behind the false charges piled up on Purohit and Sadhvi should be exposed and sent to jail. In fact they should look into the legality of death penalty for those who cooked up all dubious evidence to frame purohit and sadhvi (judiciary included).

[Muppalla]

The WB Gov has to be prosecuted for this.

[UlanBatori]

Time to start a Petition to NM on this? Have there been any? Not just to free the innocent, but to mete out deterrent, exemplary punishment to the guilty?

[Yagnasri]

Nothing so far.

[arun]

X Posted from the Islamism Thread.

Unhealthy propensity of Mohammaddens to view just about everything through the green tinted glasses of Mohammaddenism on display. Headline in The Hindu:

Suryanamaskar against Islam: Muslim law board : "Surya namaskar should not be made mandatory in government schools," because Muslims bowed only before ‘Allah.’.

Taken from here:

The Hindu

Meanwhile Satirical News website, Faking News, responds with a spoof news article titled “5 more things after Surya Namaskar which Muslim bodies have found to be anti-Islamic, and seek exemption from” :

5 more things after Surya Namaskar which Muslim bodies have found to be anti-Islamic, and seek exemption from

Frequent attempts to provide Mohammaddenism a burqua / burka by claiming that acts of Mohammadden Terrorism have nothing whatsoever to do with that religion meets with the Mohammadden opposition to Yoga on religious grounds to spawn a Twitter post with the sarcastic message "Terrorism has no Religion but Yoga has a Religion":



From below Twitter post:

Clicky

[gandharva]

Architects of “Hindu terror” are nervous

Majority Indians have understood the game and the Hindu terror story is increasingly becoming untenable, legally and otherwise. It is therefore natural for the Hindu terror industry, so assiduously cultivated by the previous dispensation, to be nervous and to go on overdrive.


http://canarytrap.in/2015/07/architects ... e-nervous/

[arun]

X Posted from the Islamism thread.

Journalist Minhaz Merchant pillories attempts to provide a burqa to Mohammadden Terrorism by creating false equivalence titles such as Hindu Terrorism:

Bottom line: Terror truly has no religion. LTTE terrorists in Sri Lanka were Hindus. Irgun terrorists in Israel were Jews. Red Army Faction terrorists in Germany were Christians. The difference lies in degree and scale. Islamist terror is a global scourge. The others are or were local. Treating them on par is blinding oneself to reality.

From Daily O at the below link:

Busting Hindu terror and other myths : The attempt to seek equivalence between Islamist and saffron terror is as fraudulent as Pakistan's constant bid to achieve 'terror-equivalence' with India.

[ramana]

All that is nice but what is the update on Col Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya?

Is GOI planning to keep them in prison until they die?

Either prosecute or free them.
Enough is enough.

[ramana]

Architects of “Hindu terror” are nervous

Majority Indians have understood the game and the Hindu terror story is increasingly becoming untenable, legally and otherwise. It is therefore natural for the Hindu terror industry, so assiduously cultivated by the previous dispensation, to be nervous and to go on overdrive.


http://canarytrap.in/2015/07/architects ... e-nervous/

It may be mentioned that Rohini Salian was engaged as public prosecutor after the blasts in Malegaon in end September 2008. These blasts were effected just two months before 26/11. This incident was used by the government to create the specter of Hindu Terror. The ruling dispensation, but for apprehension of Ajmal Kasab, had almost succeeded in facilitating the portrayal of 26/11 as act of so called Hindu terrorists. The setback however did not prevent Digvijay Singh from releasing a book called “26/11 RSS ki Sazish”. The same Digvijay proclaimed that he was in constant touch with ‘Karkare on matters regarding so called Hindu terror. Now it is same Karkare on whose insistence Rohini Salian claims to have relented to assume the mantle of Special Public Prosecutor. Karkare must have been really persuasive as she had resigned as Public Prosecutor in 2007. On hearing that the accused of 2008 Malegaon blasts were all Hindus she tells that she started crying. In the 2008 Malegaon blasts eight people were killed. By her sensitivity standards, Rohan Salian must have been really inconsolable between 2004 and 2008 as unremitting bomb blasts devoured innocents in Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, Varanasi, Ayodhya, Pune and Bangalore. She must have been devastated when two years before i.e in 2006, 37 were killed in the same Malegaon, wherein unlike 2008, RDX was used. Ironically the brother of one of the accused in 2006 blasts travelled all the way to meet Rohini after she began to vilify the current dispensation.

It is again a huge coincidence that all Hindu terror cases were confined to courts in Congress ruled states –Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Haryana.

Whose soul to be trusted?

It is significant that the “low intensity blasts” in Malegaon in 2008 was used by the plotters as the central plot to weave the story of Hindu terror. The idea being to sell the story that all blasts wherein Muslims were victims was act of Hindu terror. Accordingly, the blasts in Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid and Ajmer Sharif were revisited. Also on this revisit trip was Rohini Salian. In her interviews to various media outlets she says she got to know “about Samjhauta and Modasa as well” from newspapers. She particularly revisited 2006- Malegaon blasts.

Speaking on the 2006 Malegaon blasts, the DGP of Maharashtra in a press conference in November 2006 said: “We have successfully cracked Malegaon serial blasts case, and have arrested eight men, all of them former SIMI members. We are in lookout for eight others.” He pointedly mentioned: “Two Pakistanis were involved in the blast. One of them is Muzammil who came to India in third week of July and helped fashion the improvised explosive devices. One of the accused Mohd Ali sent Shabir Batterywalah, another accused, for training at a terrorist camp near Karachi. After 7/11 blasts in Mumbai – Ali supplied RDX to Batterywalah.”

Can it get more specific?

These investigations were also carried out by the Maharashtra ATS before Karkare took over. It filed charge sheets in MCOCA court (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) against nine accused. It is the same ATS where Rohini Salian claims to have visited after Karkare’s death and shouted at the police: “What we are doing, we have to make the soul happy”. It may be mentioned that the same MCOCA type act that the Gujarat government under Narendra Modi demanded in the past was constantly denied by the Centre then. Subsequently, in 2007, the Malegaon (2006) case was handed over to CBI whose findings were similar to that of ATS.

The Central Government did not give up. By then it had another agency to juggle with. It then handed over the case to NIA in 2011. The story of Malegaon (2006), being handiwork of Hindu terrorists, was re-invented. The NIA is a post 26/11 creation. The NIA of that period obviously suited Rohini Salian. The so called Hindu terrorists were conveniently blamed. Consequently, as expected and scripted there was a hue and cry from the vested quarters. They demanded that since the real perpetrators had been identified, the nine accused should be released, and indeed they were.

On release, like most accused, they said that they were implicated and signed their confessions under duress. One of them by the name of Abrar blamed his wife and brother-in-law for implicating him for a price of Rs 25 lakh.

Now which soul is to be believed — DGP Pasricha’s soul, the collective soul of the ATS (before Karkare) and the CBI and the NIA, or late Hemant Karkare’s soul or Rohini Salian’s soul? It is for the reader to decide.

Service to Pakistan

Meanwhile Rohini Salian is making waves in the Pakistani press. The Pakistan news carried the headlines “Prosecutor claims – was told to go soft on Hindu terrorists”. Also, now Pakistan has begun to equate Lakhvi, the mastermind of 26/11 with Lt Col Purohit. This is the balancing the architects of “Hindu Terror” wanted. The US Treasury Department blames the LeT for Samjhauta blasts. David Headley’s Moroccon wife said her husband was involved, but the previous dispensation, which Rohini Salian found convenient to work with, was steadfast in its claim that it was perpetrated by Hindu terrorists which included Lt Col Purohit.

Conclusion

Majority Indians have understood the game and the Hindu terror story is increasingly becoming untenable, legally and otherwise. It is therefore natural for the Hindu terror industry, so assiduously cultivated by the previous dispensation, to be nervous and to go on overdrive.

I think time to give MK Narayanan the truth serum along with P. Chidambaram.

[gandharva]

How Sonia Gandhi brewed ´Hindu terror´ in her pot

‘Hindu Terror’ purpose served

When P Chidambaram, MK Narayanan and Hemant Karkare invented Hindu terror and when P Chidambaram said “purpose served and message brought home” this is what they hoped to achieve:

1. Bring to natural conclusion the process started by Nehru – to give the RSS a bad name and hang it. Nehru banned the RSS and tried hard to put away Savarkar for life for Gandhi’s execution but did not succeed because of Ambedkar’s timely intervention with LB Bhopatkar, Savarkar’s advocate. http://www.tribuneindia.com/1999/99may1 ... eaking.htm

2. Implicate the RSS and other Hindu nationalist organizations to acts of terrorism, introduce saffron/Hindu terror into the national public discourse on terrorism and national security so that Hindus would be forced to become defensive and would be forced to offer the counter, “there is no Hindu terror, Muslim terror, terrorism has no religion”. Hindus did exactly that and just to shrug off the label of saffron/Hindu terror, the country’s public discourse, ably aided and abetted by non-thinking Hindus, has de-linked Islam and Muslims from jihadi terror acts.

3. When the evil trio spinning gold from straw for Sonia Gandhi blamed Hindus for the Samjhauta Express explosion, they gave domestic jihadis like the Owaisi brothers, Kashmiri jihadis and jihadis across the borders on the east and west, a permanent exuse to refuse to act against Pakistani and Indian jihadis for acts of terror against India until we took similar action against Hindu ‘terrorists’ responsible for the explosion in Samjhauta Express and other terror attacks – the evil concoction which Sonia Gandhi and her minions brewed in her pot.

4. India-Pakistan was always hyphenated in international affairs but thanks to Sonia Gandhi, Hindu-Muslim is hyphenated in national terrorism discourse

B Raman, Chidambaram, Narayanan and Karkare have harmed national interests. While I will be dissecting Raman’s Hindu terror theory unsparingly I will do so with this caveat. While Shri B Raman may not have been a Hindu nationalist, he was undoubtedly a patriot in the Gandhi-Nehru mould. While I turned to him frequently to seek his input on counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency issues we did have serious differences from around 2009 when Hindu terror was being openly bandied around in public discourse. But my differences with him did not diminish or affect my tremendous respect and affection for him as thinker and as one of India’s best experts on terrorism.


http://www.vigilonline.com/index.php?op ... 2&Itemid=1