Who should take responsibility for these murders most foul?

Fake ‘encounters,’ or rather murder, of innocent people by police in a cold-blooded premeditated manner have taken place under the watch of different political parties. Even the army has been guilty of taking young people out of their homes, killing them, and passing off the dead as foreign militants, as happened in the Pathribal killings of five local youth in Kashmir 13 years ago.

 The gang rape of the nameless victim in Delhi was not the first horror story that caught the headlines. Since then, hundreds of others have been subjected to the worst kind of sexual violence, sometimes by their own fathers and uncles. But the statistics of rape throughout the country could not, should not, and, mercifully, did not take away from the bestiality of the crime that took place December 2012 in Delhi. The even more chilling account of what happened to Ishrat Jahan and three others in 2004 near Ahmedabad as detailed in the recent charge-sheet filed in court by the CBI should not and cannot be allowed to be diluted by the stories of equally gruesome cold-blooded killings by state police other than in Gujarat.

 In the Ishrat case, it has been conveniently forgotten that the Gujarat government itself sought and agreed to a CBI inquiry. Now if politics is allowed to cast its murky shadow on the already snail-pace criminal-justice system, we may as well say goodbye to our democratic polity.  Unfortunately, this is exactly what has been happening in the Ishrat Jahan case, judging by the furious and, sometimes, pointless discussions taking place on television screens, in newspaper articles and the social media.

No amount of sophistry, politics or labelling of the dead as ‘terrorists’ can take away from the nature of the crime: cold-blooded quadruple murder carried out by those who should be protecting ordinary citizens and are bound by oath to respect the law of the land.  Whether it is army, the Intelligence Bureau or the police, its personnel do not have a licence to kill innocent citizens. Has the SC ordered court martial in the Pathribal case endangered our security? Is it an IB officer’s official duty to kidnap, kill or plant weapons on bodies? What about the security of the ‘aam admi?’

Why was Ishrat Jahan travelling to Ahmedabad? Did she have some shady links? Was she a trained suicide bomber? What input, if any, did David Headley involved in Mumbai’s 26/11-terror attack give to the National Investigation Agency?  These questions are all efforts to detract from the main story of a young girl and three others being kidnapped by the police from different places at different times, held in illegal custody, put away two days later and weapons, including an AK-47 planted next to their bodies. Not a single shot fired by the victims.

 Let us not forget the can of worms for Gujarat’s Narendra Modi government was opened in 2009 by metropolitan magistrate S P Tamang  — no ‘caged parrot’ CBI there — whose report based on forensic evidence was unambiguous: the ‘encounter’ was fake. It was premeditated murder by half-a-dozen policemen. Subsequently, a Special Investigation Team was set up and monitored by the high court, and later a CBI investigation was undertaken as asked by the Gujarat advocate general.

Raising suspicions

The attempt to obfuscate this harsh fact by raising suspicions about Ishrat’s links to any terrorist outfit, as the BJP has been doing most aggressively is ridiculous, even criminal. Should the State, one may ask the BJP, have shot Pragya Singh Thakur in a fake encounter instead of investigating terror charges against her? Should D G Vanzara and all the other Gujarat cops charged with murder in the first degree be taken to a lonely spot and killed? No need for a lengthy trial. Should Sanjay Dutt have been ‘encountered?’ After all, he was guilty of receiving deadly illegal weapons. Why was Kasab given a trial?

Take the record, not just the allegations. It is always the same story. From 2003 to 2006, twentytwo ‘encounters’ of “terrorists out on a mission to kill Modi” have taken place. None after 2006, by which time the Sohrabuddin case had already become too hot for even a super-efficient Modi to handle. In 2003 it was Sadiq Jamal who was ‘encountered.’ Next year it was the Ishrat case with four victims. November 2005 Sohrabuddin Sheikh was killed by the Gujarat police in a fake encounter in which home ministers of two BJP ruled states, Amit Shah of Gujarat and Gulab Chand Kataria, minister in the Vasundhara Raje government of the time, are among the accused.  At that time too, the story was that gangster Sohrabuddin was out to kill Modi. A couple of days after Sohrabuddin was done to death, his wife Kauser Bi was also killed by the police and her body burnt, leaving no trace. In 2006 Tulsiram Prajapati was killed while being transported from a jail in Rajasthan in police custody. Good team work between Gujarat and Rajasthan police. Same key suspects: Amit Shah and Kataria.

In 2007 ahead of the state Assembly election, Modi addressed a public meeting. His posed the question:  what should the government do with gangsters like Sohrabuddin? The people responded with gusto: kill him. Doesn’t that sound like the Chief Minister justifying murder and encouraging a lynch mob mentality?

 Then there is the BJP argument that should the CBI decide to interrogate Modi and Amit Shah, they must also question the Union home minister and the prime minister on IB inputs related to Ishrat being a terrorist. Is it the BJP’s case the prime minister ordered the Modi government to kill the would-be assassins in fake encounters?

 Even if the IB input on terrorists out to kill Modi was not cooked up, the four would-be assassins were already in the custody of the police well before they were `encountered’. Is the law too cumbersome for those who want ‘minimum government’ delivering ‘maximum governance?’ Why go through painfully lengthy and expensive procedures of investigation and trial when the problem can be resolved by a few bullets?