Bharat Rakshak

Manish Jain wrote:B Raman's take

MALEGAON: POLITICISATION & COMMUNALISATION OF INVESTIGATION

SC’s CBI probe order void, CBI falsely implicated me to destabilise Modi:Amit Shah

Doubts have emerged over the credibility of CBI investigation in Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter killing after the agency’s claim that it possessed 200 complaints of extortion against former Gujarat Minister Amit Shah was termed a “bunch of lies” before the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

The agency had roped Shah as an accused in the case on the ground that the former Minister ran an extortion racket. It claimed that a total of 200 complaints in this regard were forwarded to the State Government which failed to act on the same. This fact was also recorded by the CBI in its status reports submitted in sealed cover to the Supreme Court, which is monitoring the case.

Presenting the entire set of complaints before a bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Desai, Shah’s counsel senior advocate Ram Jethmalani surprised the bench by suggesting that not one complaint received by the state was against Shah. “Out of the 200 complaints, in 197 Amit Shah is not even mentioned while in three he is mentioned in other capacity.” On a lighter vein, Jethmalani said, “Most complaints related to charges of adultery against police officers while some relate to their service disputes.”

Finding the agency’s case against his client to be frivolous and baseless, Jethmalani thundered, “The agency clearly has other designs. The Centre is out to demolish the State Government which is a thorn in their flesh.” Since the status reports were in sealed cover to which Shah got no access, Jethmalani added, “They (CBI) thought they can make any allegation….It is a case in which CBI officers must be prosecuted and jailed.”

Dissecting the investigation conducted by the agency since January 12, 2010 when the SC transferred the probe from Gujarat Police to CBI, Jethmalani punched several holes into the CBI story to show how compared with the Gujarat Police investigation, CBI too drew a blank.

Jethmalani even did not spare the judge who handed over the case to CBI. He said, “How does a judge who is under investigation of CBI order the same agency to investigate? ” He was referring to Justice Tarun Chatterjee, since retired, whose role in the UP provident fund scam was under investigation. “The continuation of judge and his likelihood of arrest was all at stake, for which reason he should have recused (withdrawn) from the case,” the senior counsel said, adding, “It is instances such as these that have prompted many to demand judges to be brought under the Lokpal.” The arguments will continue on Thursday.

http://deshgujarat.com/2011/11/17/scs-c ... amit-shah/

"At the same time, Khan, who was addressing mediapersons at the old commissioner's office at Purani Haveli said that the city police was trying to find out whether the Hindu Vahini activists who were arrested for attacking persons from the minority community carried out the assaults on their own or at the direction of their headquarters in Uttar Pradesh. The police will be opening communal rowdy-sheets against all those found involved in the communal violence.

Strict checking and frisking would continue in these two zones as well as parts of East Zone.Giving a clean chit to VHP senior leader Praveen Togadia who visited the city soon after Eid Al-Adha on November 7, he said: "We have examined his speech. He did not say anything beyond the legal parameters."

The Supreme Court today refused to quash proceedings against suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in a 21-year-old alleged custodial death case.

A Bench of Justices B S Chauhan and T S Thakur refused to grant any relief to the Gujarat-cadre officer against the state high court's order, which had dismissed his plea for quashing of criminal proceedings related to the case pending against him in a Jamnagar court.

The custodial death case dates back to 1990 when Bhatt was posted as additional superintendent of police in Jamnagar.

He had detained around 150 persons during a communal riot in Jam Jodhpur town. One of those arrested, Prabhudas Vaishnani, had died in a hospital after his release.

Vaishnani's brother had then lodged an FIR against Bhatt and six other police officials accusing them of killing his sibling by torturing him in detention.

The federal government, though, seems wary of wading into a distant conflict between old rivals. "The problem lies as much in [the state capital] as in Delhi, which is totally ignorant of the strong emotions which these ethnic loyalties have," Ved Marwah, a former governor of Manipur told TIME. "There is no democracy" in Manipur, he said "but rather the trappings of democracy and a combination of tribal society, various insurgent groups and total corruption."
For these reasons, some observers have called for the state to be placed under President's rule. Others have argued against it for Manipur, which has seen political instability since the 1970s and has been under the President's rule seven times already. The last time President's rule was imposed in Manipur was in 2001 on the recommendations of Marwah, who was the then governor of Manipur. He doesn't think it is the solution anymore. "As long as Manipur remains polarized on ethnic lines, any long-standing solution is impossible."One of the loudest voices in favor of direct federal rule in Manipur is the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). "There is a failed government in Manipur which is not doing anything to ameliorate the sufferings of the people there," BJP party member and former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha told reporters in New Delhi last Friday. He demanded that the state government be dismissed immediately and President's rule imposed. The federal government, however, has shown little interest in this approach, preferring to offer money instead. When Home Minister P. Chidambaram visited Manipur on Nov. 2, he said keeping peace in the state would ensure "no shortage of fund[s] from the central government." While New Delhi mulls its options, Manipur is left waiting, hoping for change somewhere down the road.

The reports said the Indian ambassador in Denmark reported that the newly-elected minister for development cooperation, Christian Friis Bach, has voiced plans "to use the Danish official development aid as a tool to generate popular unrest in recipient countries" so that citizens can get their rights by fighting for them.

Friis, a member of the Social Liberal Party, is reported to have cited India's Right to Food Campaign while explaining his approach. He is reported to have said that a group of citizens sued the government because 400 million people did not have sufficient food, though it was their constitutional right.

New Delhi, November 21, 2011

The Gujarat government has justified before the Supreme Court its ongoing probe against social activist Teesta Setalvad in a case of alleged illegal exhuming of bodies of 2002 Gujarat riot victims, saying that she actually planned and executed digging of graves without permission in 2006.

In an affidavit, the state government claimed during the investigations involving the accused, including her one time close aide Rai Khan Pathan, and also an independent witness, it has emerged that "Teesta Setalvad, the petitioner herein, was the main accused who has actually planned and executed this operation of digging of graves near Pandarwada through her staff."

The state government, responding to the notice issued by the apex court, which on July 29 stayed criminal proceedings against Setalvad for her alleged role in the case, said the other accused have claimed innocence and blamed Setalvad for instigating them to carry out the operation which attracts penal provision for entering into conspiracy for various offences.

It termed as totally "concocted, false and misleading" Setalvad's claim that digging of graves was carried out after the relatives of deceased heard from the sweeper that there were some bodies buried in the forest land and their close relatives had been arraigned as accused.

viv wrote:The encounter could be fake...TBD. Is there any doubt of her being with LeT/terrorists?

sum wrote:Is there even one line in the SIT report which says that this innocent belle was not from LeT and was simply having a joy-ride with 2 Pakis with no valid visa?

Sachin wrote: The fellow Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Shaikh is a Mallu, and his father is going ga-ga in the Malayalam vernacular media as well. This fellow had two passports using two different names. The father does not have any thing to say about it.

A team of the National Investigating Agency has detained two persons from the Parapana Agrahara Jail in Bangalore for making calls to Pakistan.

A month ago, the Kerala jail officials too had put out a report stating that inmates were making calls to Pakistan, and investigators believe that the calls were in connection with terrorism.

A couple of days ago, a team of the NIA had visited the Parapana Agrahara jail in Bengaluru, and had detained two persons.

This was following an alert from the Union home ministry regarding such calls, and on investigation, the tower was traced to the Bangalore jail. Investigators however did not reveal much details regarding the nature of the calls, but pointed out that the calls were not being made for any ordinary purpose.

Bengaluru jail has about 20 inmates with terrorism charges. It also has two Pakistani nationals belonging to the Al-Badr faction. Apart from these two, there are other persons arrested in connection with the Bangalore Indian Institute of Science attack, the Bangalore serial blasts and Chinnaswamy Stadium blasts.

Investigators say that they would probe further before revealing the names of the two persons involved in this incident.

The bigger concern is how inmates are managing to take cell phones into the jail. Police say that it can be only possible with the help of the jail staff.


Recently, a jail warden was arrested for supplying SIM cards to inmates. This is not an uncommon trend and happens in almost all jails in India. Very unfortunately, terrorism suspects too have access to this service, which helps them run their businesses behind bars as well.

The Kerala and Karnataka incidents do not appear to be connected, and the NIA has been told to look into the former as well. A source said that the Kerala case was related to hawala transactions.

The investigation into the Kerala incident is expected to be tougher since there are at least 500 hawala operators languishing in the jails, and there are records of nearly 2,400 calls.

shyamd wrote:More steps towards alliance.
Indian salute to Bangla army

...

In a similar gesture, the Sri Lanka Army commander, Lt General Jagath Jayasuriya, will review the parade of cadets passing out of the Indian Military Academy who will be commissioned as officers in the Indian Army.

The visits by the chiefs of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka over the next two weeks signal a sudden upswing in neighbourhood military-diplomatic exchanges.
...
Sri Lanka’s Lt General Jayasuriya was the force commander of the military in the last Eelam war in Vanni in the north-east of the island. Forces under him vanquished the LTTE and neutralised its leadership, including Prabhakaran.

Lt General Jayasuriya is scheduled to visit, apart from the IMA in Dehra Dun, Bodh Gaya, Delhi and Agra.

Indian Christians protest on Indo-Pak border against Pak's blasphemy law
Yudhvir Rana, TNN | Feb 19, 2011, 03.58PM IST

ramana wrote:The NIA should provide the SIM cards and monitor the calls. Again thinking as police agency and not an intel agency.

sum wrote:

ramana wrote:The NIA should provide the SIM cards and monitor the calls. Again thinking as police agency and not an intel agency.

We never know if some other agencies were actually providing a few of these SIMs like the 26/11 SIM cards case where the police arrested a J&K policeman for procuring SIMs for LeT and then hastily covered it up when it was found that he was doing it undercover for IB.

In desh, since anyways one agency doesn't know what the other is doing, never know if few of the SIMs were actually planted and some plans of certain agencies might have got disrupted due to the raids, which were done without checking with other agencies!

B Raman

A three-member Special Investigation Team headed by Rajiv Ranjan Verma, a senior officer of the Bihar IPS cadre, has concluded that Ishrat Jahan, a 19-year-old girl from Maharashtra, and three others, who had been projected by some officers of the Ahmedabad police as belonging to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, killed by the police during an encounter on June 15, 2004, were in fact the victims of a case fabricated against them by the Ahmedabad police.

According to the original version of the Ahmedabad police, which now stands discredited by the SIT, the four were planning to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi when they were intercepted, resulting in the alleged encounter.

The SIT has concluded that they were killed in cold blood and subsequently shown as having died during an encounter with the police. Since the text of the SIT report has not yet been released, one does not know under what circumstances they were taken into custody by the police and why they were killed.

It would appear that they did not belong to the LeT and that the police version of their being LeT members conspiring to kill Modi might have been cooked up to justify their killing.

The Gujarat high court has ordered the registration of a fresh FIR on the basis of the findings of the SIT and a fresh investigation. The court is yet to decide who will investigate the case -- the Gujarat police or the SIT or a central investigation agency.

sum wrote:And ex-RAW man says that they weren't even shady and were innocent babes wandering in the woods??

Aditya_V wrote:Fake outrage over fake encounters

Suprising an alternate viewpoint from Rediff.

One IPS officer part of SIT , Satish Verma is facing a departmental inquiry into the allegation of letting off a key accused in the Gosabara RDX landing case of 1993, the explosives later found to have been used in the Mumbai serial bomb blasts.
Mr. Verma, Mr. Karval and Mr. Zala were accused of letting off one Sattar Maulana, a key accused of the Gosabara arm landing case, when they were posted at Porbandar in 1993

Alarmed by the fake claim of attack of communal nature by a youth, Mohammed Junaid, in the Old City earlier this week, police are cross-checking facts before registration of complaints and issuing FIRs in cases of similar nature.

Gujarat okay with CBI probe, but Ishrat’s family says no Reason? CBI overburdened!

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 850181.cms

Civil society condemns Pillai’s statement

Civil society groups and some individuals have demanded an apology from the former Home Secretary G.K. Pillai for his “insensitive, sexist slandering’’ remarks on Ishrat Jahan who was reportedly killed in a fake encounter in Gujarat.

Stung by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) report which concluded that Ishrat was executed in cold blood, Mr Pillai-hard-pressed to defend his affidavit to the Supreme Court that Ishrat was a Lashkar operative-has stooped to now slandering the girl’s personal life suggesting that her checking into different hotels with “another man” was definitely suspicious, a joint statement issued here said. Perhaps, Mr. Pillai wishes us to believe that all those young women who travel and work independently are ‘suspicious’ and could have terrorist links, it added.

Mr Pillai is no doubt aware that questions will be raised about his affidavit-and also all those journalists who were churning out whatever that was emanating from his office-and is now rushing to hide behind sexist insinuations, the civil society group statement has pointed out.

The signatories to the statement are Jyoti Punwani (independent journalist), Githa Hariharan (writer), Kamini Jaiswal (senior lawyer), Uma Chakravarti (academic), Uma Saumya and Lalita Ramdas (concerned citizens), Kavita Srivasatava (PUCL), Uma V. Chandru (PUCL, Bangalore), Shabnam Hashmi (ANHAD), Saba Dewan (independent filmmaker), Sabeena Gadihoke (Associate Professor, Jamia Millia Islamia), Prof. Janaki Rajan (Jamia Millia Islamia), Prof. Anuradha Chenoy (Jawaharlal Nehru University), Seema Mustafa (senior journalist), Tahira Hasan (Tehrike Niswan), Kavita Krishnan (AIPWA), Rita Manchanda (activist), Khaadeej Arif (journalist), Shikha Sen (independent filmmaker). Mansi Sharma (activist), Seema Duhan (activist), Madhu Mehra (Partners for Law in Development), Dr. Rochelle Pinto (University of Delhi), Mona Das (University of Delhi), Vani Subramanian, Satnam Kaur and Vinita (Saheli), Manisha Sethi, Farah Farooqi, AzraRazak, Sanghamitra Misra and Ambarien Al Qadar (JTSA).

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a ... 656816.ece

Sachin wrote:^^^ I am happy to see that people have started thinking "out of the box". No I am not talking about BR. But in the comments section I see very many people seeing through the tricks of these vested interests. I guess, if the "internet world" has so many people who have this "common sense", there could be thousands of others who also have the same level of "common sense".

Narad wrote:Top maoist Koteshwar Rao alias "Kishenji" eliminated in west midnapore.

Law and justice
The recent convictions in Gujarat’s Sardarpura killings (during the post-Godhra riots in 2002), the bail granted to the Malegaon accused and the SIT’s findings declaring the Ishrat Jehan encounter case fake have been greatly discussed in the Urdu press.

Describing the SIT report on the Ishrat Jehan case as “a slap in the face of the Narendra Modi government,” Rashtriya Sahara writes in its November 23 editorial: “The officers accused in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounters case — D.G. Vanjara, the DIG, and others — are already behind bars and now, following the SIT report, the Gujarat high court has ordered the filing of new cases of murder against them. Modi’s favourite officers are in the grip of the law”.

The daily Inquilab, published from Mumbai, Delhi, Lucknow, Kanpur and Bareilly, writes on the same day in an editorial titled ‘Lashon ke dher par Modi sarkar’ (the Modi government on a heap of corpses): “This is bad news for those who did not want to see the other side of the picture”. Hyderabad’s leading daily Munsif, in its November 18 editorial, describes the bail to those accused in the Malegaon blast case as a “new morning”. Meanwhile, welcoming the life sentence to 31 accused in the Sardarpura massacre case, Delhi-based daily Hamara Samaj writes in its editorial on November 11: “It is for the first time in the history of communal riots that the accused have been convicted in such large numbers. But the number of those acquitted (42) is larger. Worryingly, a large number of those with Vishwa Hindu Parishad links have been acquitted, while those held guilty are mostly villagers.”


Cracking UP

The Mayawati government’s resolution to divide Uttar Pradesh, hurriedly passed in the assembly, has come in for considerable criticism. Describing the action as “jiski laathi, uski bhains”, Shakeel Shamsi, the editor of Inquilab, writes in his November 22 column: “Such a joke should not be played by the government and the opposition on serious matters. Whether it is a matter of no confidence in the government or the issue of the state’s division, they should not be decided by a voice vote. There should be a proper discussion and a vote in the house, so that the people know who voted for and against the motion.”

Jamaat-e-Islami’s Daawat writes in its editorial on November 19: “It is interesting that Mayawati had promised a division after being elected in 2007, but she has remembered her promise on the eve of the election. What she has said is nothing new. There has been talk of small states for a while now, with claims that they allow better administration.”

Other than the drama of the state’s division, the Congress election campaign in UP launched by its general secretary, Rahul Gandhi, made headlines. Inquilab was critical of his controversial remark at Phulpur on UP citizens migrating out of the state for work. In its editorial on November 17, it says: “Such statements can make headlines, but they cannot win elections”.

The daily Munsif, however, has a different view on Rahul’s question about how long “the people of UP will beg in other states”. In an editorial on November 17, it says: “A country-wide effort is being made to create a mountain out of a molehill. If Rahul wanted, he could have raised the same question in parliamentary language. But no one would have paid any attention, far from responding — how would that serve his political objective?”

Neighbourly amity

The recent talks in the Maldives between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani have elicited positive reactions in the Urdu press. Rashtriya Sahara, in its November 11 editorial, sees “possibilities of improvement in Indo-Pak relations” and a move towards “building bridges.” Munsif, in its editorial on November 12, comments: “In these talks, an extremely important decision was taken to avoid allegations and counter-allegations. This gave a new vitality to the talks and boosted chances of success.” However, the editor of the popular Delhi-based weekly, Nai Duniya, the former MP Shahid Siddiqui writes in a signed piece on November 21: “The Congress is stuck in a swamp (daldal mein dhansi Congress ) and Manmohan Singh’s slogan of starting a new journey of friendship with Pakistan is nothing short of a gamble. It would succeed if Pakistan cooperates in the investigation of the attack on Mumbai, hands over the accused and curbs anti-India activities on Pakistani soil. But this does not seem to be happening.”

The signatories to the statement are Jyoti Punwani (independent journalist), Githa Hariharan (writer), Kamini Jaiswal (senior lawyer), Uma Chakravarti (academic), Uma Saumya and Lalita Ramdas (concerned citizens), Kavita Srivasatava (PUCL), Uma V. Chandru (PUCL, Bangalore), Shabnam Hashmi (ANHAD), Saba Dewan (independent filmmaker), Sabeena Gadihoke (Associate Professor, Jamia Millia Islamia), Prof. Janaki Rajan (Jamia Millia Islamia), Prof. Anuradha Chenoy (Jawaharlal Nehru University), Seema Mustafa (senior journalist), Tahira Hasan (Tehrike Niswan), Kavita Krishnan (AIPWA), Rita Manchanda (activist), Khaadeej Arif (journalist), Shikha Sen (independent filmmaker). Mansi Sharma (activist), Seema Duhan (activist), Madhu Mehra (Partners for Law in Development), Dr. Rochelle Pinto (University of Delhi), Mona Das (University of Delhi), Vani Subramanian, Satnam Kaur and Vinita (Saheli), Manisha Sethi, Farah Farooqi, AzraRazak, Sanghamitra Misra and Ambarien Al Qadar (JTSA).