Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Monday, February 25, 2013
Sunday, February 24, 2013
KASHMIR: Afzal Guru,The Real Story
KASHMIR: Afzal Guru,The Real Story: FOR THE RECORD 'I Hope My Forced Silence Will Be Heard' 'STF made [me] an [a] scapegoat in all this criminal act which was designed a...
wikileaks about MODERATE HURIYAT on AFZAL GURU ............
Moderate Hurriyat Conference leaders were privately in favour of hanging Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru if he was guilty but felt that he did not get adequate representation during parts of his trial, leaked US diplomatic cables have claimed.
The separatist amalgam headed by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq has been seeking amnesty for Guru in their public statements.
“Moderate Hurriyat Leader told PolOff (political office) candidly that his faction of political separatists was remaining as quiet as possible about the issue because they do not feel strongly that India should pardon Afzal,” the cable said.The identity of the moderate Hurriyat leader, quoted in the cable, has, however, not been disclosed.“If someone is a terrorist, they should meet a violent end,” the diplomatic cable quoting the moderate Hurriyat leader said.The cable was sent by ‘PYATT’, referring to the then US Charge d’Affaires Geoffrey Pyatt and carries the subject line “Kashmir: Pending execution causing strife for Congress New Delhi”.The moderate leader had told the US political office, the cable says, that moderate members of the Hurriyat “are unable to express this view publicly, given the mood in the valley and the threat from terrorists“For this reason, the moderate Hurriyat as a body has remained relatively quiet about the issue,” the cable said.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Monday, February 18, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Afzal Guru,The Real Story
KASHMIR: Afzal Guru,The Real Story: FOR THE RECORD 'I Hope My Forced Silence Will Be Heard' 'STF made [me] an [a] scapegoat in all this criminal act which was designed a...
Afzal Guru,The Real Story
FOR THE RECORD
'I Hope My Forced Silence Will Be Heard'
'STF made [me] an [a] scapegoat in all this criminal act which was designed and directed by STF and others which I don't know. Special Police is definitely the part of this game because every time they forced me to remain silent.'
Respected Shri Sushil Kumar,
Hello (I)
I am extremely thankful and feel very much obligated to you that you have taken up my case and decided to defend me. From the beginning of this case I was neglected and had never been given a chance to reveal the truth before media or in court. The designated court did not provided me the lawyer in spite of giving three applications. In the high court one human rights lawyer asked the court that Afzal had expressed his desire that he want to be killed by toxic injection rather by hanging which is absolutely false. I never told this to my lawyer. Since that lawyer was not of my own choice (or my family) but it was due to my helplessness and non-accessibility to proper lawyer. Being locked up in high security jail and without being in communication with that human rights lawyer I could not change him or to convey my objection regarding my death desire to High Court as I came to know this after High Court’s decision.
In the Parliament attack case I was entrapped by Special Task Force of Kashmir. Here in Delhi the designated court sentenced me to death on the basis of special police version which works in nexus with STF, and also came under the influence of mass media in which I was made to accept the crime under duress and threat by special police ACP. Rajbir Singh. That threat even get confirmed to designated court by T.V. interviewer (Shams Tahir Aaj-Tak).
When I was arrested in Srinagar bus stand I was taken to STF Headquarter from here the special police along with STF brought me to Delhi. In Srinagar at Parompora Police Station everything of my belongings was seized and then they beated me and threatened me of dire consequences regarding my wife and family if I reveal or disclose the reality before anybody. Even my younger brother Hilal Ahmad Guru he was taken into police custody without any warrant etc. and was kept there for 2-3 months. This was first told to me by ACP Rajbir Singh. Special police told me that if I will speak according to their wishes they will not harm my family members and also gave me false assurance that they will make my case weak so that after sometime I will get released.
The most important priority I gave to safety of my family. As I know from last seven years how the STF men kill, the Kashmiris, how they had made youth invisible and had disappeared them while killing them in custody. I am living and organic eye-witness to various tortures and custodial killings and I am myself the victim of STF terror and torture. Being an surrendered militant of JKLF I was constantly harassed, threatened and agonized by various security agencies like Army. BSF. and STF. But since STF. is unorganized, without being accountable a band and gang of renegades patronised by state government. They intrude every house, every family everywhere in Kashmir anytime day or night. If anybody is picked up by STF and his family came to know this, then family members only wait to get his dead body which they hope. But usually they never came to know his whereabouts. 6000 youths have disappeared. Under these circumstances and under this fearful environment persons like me are always ready to play any dirty game in the hands of STF. just for the survival. The people who are able to pay in terms of cash are not forced to do the dirty things the way I did as I was not able to pay. Even one of the policeman of the same police station of Parimpora named Akbar had extorted 5000 Rs. Long before attack and threatened me that he will charge me as selling duplicate medicines and surgical items of which I was doing business at Sopore, in 2000. He came here in designated court and became a witness against me. He was knowing me before parliament attack. In the court room he told me in Kashmiri that my family is o.k. indirectly it was a hidden threat which the designated court hardly could realise otherwise in court I would have questioned him but before court started recording his statement he told me this. Throughout the trial I remained mute and helpless spectator as witnesses, police and even judge they all became a single force against me. I remained a frustrate bewildered and confused between the security and safety of myself and my family. I protected and saved my family. That is how I am lying in death row.
(II) In 1997-98 I started a business of medicines and surgical instruments on commission basis as I could not get a govt job due to the reason of being an surrendered militant. Because surrendered militants were not given jobs. They were either to work as SPOs or STF or to join the renegades under the patronage of security forces or police. Everyday SPOs were get killed by militants. In these conditions I started my commission based business earning 4000Rs. – 5000Rs. per month. But since the police informers (SPOs) usually harass those surrendered militants who do not work with S.T.F. etc. From 98-2000 I usually used to pay 300Rs. sometimes 500 Rs. to local SPO so as to keep myself in business otherwise these SPO make us to present us before security agencies. Even one of the SPO one day told me that they too have to pay their bosses. As I was working hard in my business my business flourished. One day at 10 am I was on my two wheeler scooter that I had purchased just before two months. I was whisked away by STF men in bullet proof gypsy to Palhallan camp. There the D.S.P. Vinay Gupta tortured me, electrified me—put me in cold water – used petrol—chillies and other techniques. He told me that I possess weapons but at evening time one of his inspector Farooq told me that if I can pay 1000,000 Rs to him (D.S.P) I will be released or they will kill me. Then they took me to Humhama STF camp where D.S.P. Dravinder Singh also tortured me. One of his torture inspector as they called him Shanty Singh electrified me naked for 3 hours and made me drink water while giving electric shocks through telephone instrument. Ultimately I accepted to pay them 1000000 Rs. for which my family sold the gold of my wife. Even after this they could manage only 80000 Rs. Then they took the scooter too which was just 2-3 months old which I bought for 24000Rs. Thus after getting 1 lakh Rupees they let me free. But now I was a broken person. In the same Humhama STF camp there was one more victim named Tariq. He suggested me that I should always co-operate with STF otherwise they will always harass and will not let me to live normal—free life. This was a turning point of my life. I decided to live the way Tariq told me. Since from 1990-1996 I had studied in Delhi University I was also giving tuitions in different coaching centres and also home tuitions. This fact reached to the man named Altaf Hussain who is brother-in- law of S.S.P. Ashaq Hussain of Budgam. Since it was this Altaf Hussain who managed my family rather he became the broker between my family and D.S.P. Humhama Dravinder Singh. Altaf told me that I should teach his two children one on 12th , 2nd [second one] in 10th class as his children were not able to go outside for tuition due to militant threat. Thus I became very close to Altaf’s and Altaf also. One day Altaf took me to Dravinder Singh (D.S.P.). D.S. told me that I had to do a small job for him that has to took one man to delhi as I was well aware about Delhi and has to manage a rented house for him. Since I was not knowing the man but I suspected that this man is not Kashmiri as he did not speak in Kashmiri but I was helpless to do what Dravinder told me. I took him to Delhi. One day he told me that he want to purchase a car. Thus I went with him to Karol Bagh. He purchased the car. Then in Delhi he used to meet different persons and both of us he Mohammad and me used to get the different phone calls from Dravinder Singh. One day Mohammad told me that if he want to go back to Kashmir he can. He also gave me 35000 Rs. and told me that this gift is for you. 6 days or 8 days before I took a rented room at Indra Vihar for my family as I decided to live in Delhi with my family because I was not satisfied with my this life. I left the keys of rented house to my land lady and told her that I will be back after Eid festival on 14th Dec. after parliament attack about which there was a lot of tension. I contacted Tariq in Sgr. [Srinagar]. At evening he told me when I came back from Delhi. I replied just one hour before. Next morning when I was about to leave to Sopore from bus stand Sgr. police caught me and took me to Parampora police station . Tariq was there also with STF. They took 35000 Rs. from my pocket, beated me and directly took me STF Head Quarter. From there I was taken to Delhi. My eyes were blind folded. Here I found myself in special police torture cell.
In special cell custody I told them everything regarding Mohammad etc. but they told me that I Showkat his wife Navjot (Afshan) Geelani are the people behind parliament attack. They too threatened me regarding my family and one of the inspector told me that my younger brother Hilal Ahmad Guru is in STF custody. They can lift the other family members too if I don’t co-operate with them. They tried me and forced me to implicate Showkat his wife and Geelani but I did not yield. I told them this is not possible. Then they told me that I should not say anything about Geelani (be about his innocence). After some days I was presented before media handcuffed. There were NDTV, Aaj tak, Zee news, Sahara TV etc. Rajbeer Singh (A.C.P.) was also there. When one of the interviewer Shams tahir told me what is the role of Geelani in parliament attack, I just said that Geelani is innocent. This moment A.C.P. Rajbeer Singh got up from his moving chair he shouted at me and told me that he had already said me not to speak about Geelani in front of everybody (Media-personnel). Rajbeer Singh’s behaviour exposed my helplessness and media personnel atleast came to know that what Afzal is saying under threat or duress. Then Rajbir Singh (A.C.P.) requested T.V. personel that the question regarding Geelani should be washed away or not to be shown before public. At evening time Rajbir Singh told me that if I want to talk [to] my family. I replied in yes. Then I talked to my wife. After finishing my phone he told me if I want to see my wife & family alive I must cooperate [with] them at every step. They took me to various places in delhi. From where they showed that Mohammad had purchased different things. They took me to Kashmir from where we came back without doing anything. They made me to sign on atleast 200-300 blank pages.
I was never given an [a] chance in [the] designated court to tell the real story. The judge told me that I will be given full opportunity to speak at the end of case but at the end he even did not recorded my all statements neither the court gave me whatever even court recorded. If phone numbers recorded will be seen carefully the court would have come to know the phone numbers of STF.
Now I hope that the Supreme Court will consider my helplessness and the reality through which I had passed. STF made [me]an [a] scapegoat in all this criminal act which was designed and directed by STF and others which I don’t know. Special Police is definitely the part of this game because every time they forced me to remain silent. I hope my forced silence will be heard and justice will prevail. I once again pay heart felt thanks to your good self for defending my case. May truth prevail!
(Sd)
Mohammad Afzal
S/o Habibullah Guru
Ward No. 6 (High Security Ward)
Jail No. 1, Tihar
New Delhi 110064
Carried without any editing from the transcription.
Hello (I)
I am extremely thankful and feel very much obligated to you that you have taken up my case and decided to defend me. From the beginning of this case I was neglected and had never been given a chance to reveal the truth before media or in court. The designated court did not provided me the lawyer in spite of giving three applications. In the high court one human rights lawyer asked the court that Afzal had expressed his desire that he want to be killed by toxic injection rather by hanging which is absolutely false. I never told this to my lawyer. Since that lawyer was not of my own choice (or my family) but it was due to my helplessness and non-accessibility to proper lawyer. Being locked up in high security jail and without being in communication with that human rights lawyer I could not change him or to convey my objection regarding my death desire to High Court as I came to know this after High Court’s decision.
In the Parliament attack case I was entrapped by Special Task Force of Kashmir. Here in Delhi the designated court sentenced me to death on the basis of special police version which works in nexus with STF, and also came under the influence of mass media in which I was made to accept the crime under duress and threat by special police ACP. Rajbir Singh. That threat even get confirmed to designated court by T.V. interviewer (Shams Tahir Aaj-Tak).
When I was arrested in Srinagar bus stand I was taken to STF Headquarter from here the special police along with STF brought me to Delhi. In Srinagar at Parompora Police Station everything of my belongings was seized and then they beated me and threatened me of dire consequences regarding my wife and family if I reveal or disclose the reality before anybody. Even my younger brother Hilal Ahmad Guru he was taken into police custody without any warrant etc. and was kept there for 2-3 months. This was first told to me by ACP Rajbir Singh. Special police told me that if I will speak according to their wishes they will not harm my family members and also gave me false assurance that they will make my case weak so that after sometime I will get released.
The most important priority I gave to safety of my family. As I know from last seven years how the STF men kill, the Kashmiris, how they had made youth invisible and had disappeared them while killing them in custody. I am living and organic eye-witness to various tortures and custodial killings and I am myself the victim of STF terror and torture. Being an surrendered militant of JKLF I was constantly harassed, threatened and agonized by various security agencies like Army. BSF. and STF. But since STF. is unorganized, without being accountable a band and gang of renegades patronised by state government. They intrude every house, every family everywhere in Kashmir anytime day or night. If anybody is picked up by STF and his family came to know this, then family members only wait to get his dead body which they hope. But usually they never came to know his whereabouts. 6000 youths have disappeared. Under these circumstances and under this fearful environment persons like me are always ready to play any dirty game in the hands of STF. just for the survival. The people who are able to pay in terms of cash are not forced to do the dirty things the way I did as I was not able to pay. Even one of the policeman of the same police station of Parimpora named Akbar had extorted 5000 Rs. Long before attack and threatened me that he will charge me as selling duplicate medicines and surgical items of which I was doing business at Sopore, in 2000. He came here in designated court and became a witness against me. He was knowing me before parliament attack. In the court room he told me in Kashmiri that my family is o.k. indirectly it was a hidden threat which the designated court hardly could realise otherwise in court I would have questioned him but before court started recording his statement he told me this. Throughout the trial I remained mute and helpless spectator as witnesses, police and even judge they all became a single force against me. I remained a frustrate bewildered and confused between the security and safety of myself and my family. I protected and saved my family. That is how I am lying in death row.
(II) In 1997-98 I started a business of medicines and surgical instruments on commission basis as I could not get a govt job due to the reason of being an surrendered militant. Because surrendered militants were not given jobs. They were either to work as SPOs or STF or to join the renegades under the patronage of security forces or police. Everyday SPOs were get killed by militants. In these conditions I started my commission based business earning 4000Rs. – 5000Rs. per month. But since the police informers (SPOs) usually harass those surrendered militants who do not work with S.T.F. etc. From 98-2000 I usually used to pay 300Rs. sometimes 500 Rs. to local SPO so as to keep myself in business otherwise these SPO make us to present us before security agencies. Even one of the SPO one day told me that they too have to pay their bosses. As I was working hard in my business my business flourished. One day at 10 am I was on my two wheeler scooter that I had purchased just before two months. I was whisked away by STF men in bullet proof gypsy to Palhallan camp. There the D.S.P. Vinay Gupta tortured me, electrified me—put me in cold water – used petrol—chillies and other techniques. He told me that I possess weapons but at evening time one of his inspector Farooq told me that if I can pay 1000,000 Rs to him (D.S.P) I will be released or they will kill me. Then they took me to Humhama STF camp where D.S.P. Dravinder Singh also tortured me. One of his torture inspector as they called him Shanty Singh electrified me naked for 3 hours and made me drink water while giving electric shocks through telephone instrument. Ultimately I accepted to pay them 1000000 Rs. for which my family sold the gold of my wife. Even after this they could manage only 80000 Rs. Then they took the scooter too which was just 2-3 months old which I bought for 24000Rs. Thus after getting 1 lakh Rupees they let me free. But now I was a broken person. In the same Humhama STF camp there was one more victim named Tariq. He suggested me that I should always co-operate with STF otherwise they will always harass and will not let me to live normal—free life. This was a turning point of my life. I decided to live the way Tariq told me. Since from 1990-1996 I had studied in Delhi University I was also giving tuitions in different coaching centres and also home tuitions. This fact reached to the man named Altaf Hussain who is brother-in- law of S.S.P. Ashaq Hussain of Budgam. Since it was this Altaf Hussain who managed my family rather he became the broker between my family and D.S.P. Humhama Dravinder Singh. Altaf told me that I should teach his two children one on 12th , 2nd [second one] in 10th class as his children were not able to go outside for tuition due to militant threat. Thus I became very close to Altaf’s and Altaf also. One day Altaf took me to Dravinder Singh (D.S.P.). D.S. told me that I had to do a small job for him that has to took one man to delhi as I was well aware about Delhi and has to manage a rented house for him. Since I was not knowing the man but I suspected that this man is not Kashmiri as he did not speak in Kashmiri but I was helpless to do what Dravinder told me. I took him to Delhi. One day he told me that he want to purchase a car. Thus I went with him to Karol Bagh. He purchased the car. Then in Delhi he used to meet different persons and both of us he Mohammad and me used to get the different phone calls from Dravinder Singh. One day Mohammad told me that if he want to go back to Kashmir he can. He also gave me 35000 Rs. and told me that this gift is for you. 6 days or 8 days before I took a rented room at Indra Vihar for my family as I decided to live in Delhi with my family because I was not satisfied with my this life. I left the keys of rented house to my land lady and told her that I will be back after Eid festival on 14th Dec. after parliament attack about which there was a lot of tension. I contacted Tariq in Sgr. [Srinagar]. At evening he told me when I came back from Delhi. I replied just one hour before. Next morning when I was about to leave to Sopore from bus stand Sgr. police caught me and took me to Parampora police station . Tariq was there also with STF. They took 35000 Rs. from my pocket, beated me and directly took me STF Head Quarter. From there I was taken to Delhi. My eyes were blind folded. Here I found myself in special police torture cell.
In special cell custody I told them everything regarding Mohammad etc. but they told me that I Showkat his wife Navjot (Afshan) Geelani are the people behind parliament attack. They too threatened me regarding my family and one of the inspector told me that my younger brother Hilal Ahmad Guru is in STF custody. They can lift the other family members too if I don’t co-operate with them. They tried me and forced me to implicate Showkat his wife and Geelani but I did not yield. I told them this is not possible. Then they told me that I should not say anything about Geelani (be about his innocence). After some days I was presented before media handcuffed. There were NDTV, Aaj tak, Zee news, Sahara TV etc. Rajbeer Singh (A.C.P.) was also there. When one of the interviewer Shams tahir told me what is the role of Geelani in parliament attack, I just said that Geelani is innocent. This moment A.C.P. Rajbeer Singh got up from his moving chair he shouted at me and told me that he had already said me not to speak about Geelani in front of everybody (Media-personnel). Rajbeer Singh’s behaviour exposed my helplessness and media personnel atleast came to know that what Afzal is saying under threat or duress. Then Rajbir Singh (A.C.P.) requested T.V. personel that the question regarding Geelani should be washed away or not to be shown before public. At evening time Rajbir Singh told me that if I want to talk [to] my family. I replied in yes. Then I talked to my wife. After finishing my phone he told me if I want to see my wife & family alive I must cooperate [with] them at every step. They took me to various places in delhi. From where they showed that Mohammad had purchased different things. They took me to Kashmir from where we came back without doing anything. They made me to sign on atleast 200-300 blank pages.
I was never given an [a] chance in [the] designated court to tell the real story. The judge told me that I will be given full opportunity to speak at the end of case but at the end he even did not recorded my all statements neither the court gave me whatever even court recorded. If phone numbers recorded will be seen carefully the court would have come to know the phone numbers of STF.
Now I hope that the Supreme Court will consider my helplessness and the reality through which I had passed. STF made [me]an [a] scapegoat in all this criminal act which was designed and directed by STF and others which I don’t know. Special Police is definitely the part of this game because every time they forced me to remain silent. I hope my forced silence will be heard and justice will prevail. I once again pay heart felt thanks to your good self for defending my case. May truth prevail!
(Sd)
Mohammad Afzal
S/o Habibullah Guru
Ward No. 6 (High Security Ward)
Jail No. 1, Tihar
New Delhi 110064
Carried without any editing from the transcription.
FOR THE RECORD
Afzal's Letter To SPDPR
'I was shocked when I came to know that from newspaper Indian Express that my advocate has requested the court that Afzal wants that he should be killed by lethal injection rather by hanging.'
The Society For Protection of Detenues and Prisoners Rights (SPDPR)
Respected Sir,
I would like to inform your SPDPR regarding the 13, Dec 2001, Parliament attack case, some facts as below:
1: After few days of my arrest at Srinagar (Kashmir)bus Stand, I was Forced under duress and threat by special-cell police (Delhi). To present myself before media. This unwanted or unwilling media presentation which was done at special police Station Delhi was confirmed by one the interviewers or reporter of Aaj-Tak + v Channel. When he was summoned by session court.
2: The session court systemically silenced my voice by
a) Not providing me the advocate of my own choice
b) Not giving the recorded statements of trial proceedings
c) The different Statements and objections raised by me were never recorded by the Court, regarding the various witnesses and their false statements against me.
3: I was represented by one human rights activist Colin Gonzalves (Advocate) in High Court. I was shocked when I came to know that from newspaper Indian Express that my advocate has requested the court that Afzal wants that he should be killed by lethal injection rather by hanging. When I contacted from high security ward of Tihar Jail to my lawyer he neither came to meet me nor informed me regarding this false request which I never did.
4: In Supreme Court the lawyer of my co-accused brought the different allegations concerned me to such an thresh-hold where natural justice fail to make out anything for me.
Thus under these circumstances it is natural that I can get any Justice. I hope that SDPDR will consider the above facts and take up the cause.
Thank You
Your's sincerely
Mohammad Afzal Guru
W.No. 9 - Jail No 5,
Tihar, N. Delhi-110064
Carried in full without any editing or correction from the transcription of Afzal's handwriting
Respected Sir,
I would like to inform your SPDPR regarding the 13, Dec 2001, Parliament attack case, some facts as below:
1: After few days of my arrest at Srinagar (Kashmir)bus Stand, I was Forced under duress and threat by special-cell police (Delhi). To present myself before media. This unwanted or unwilling media presentation which was done at special police Station Delhi was confirmed by one the interviewers or reporter of Aaj-Tak + v Channel. When he was summoned by session court.
2: The session court systemically silenced my voice by
a) Not providing me the advocate of my own choice
b) Not giving the recorded statements of trial proceedings
c) The different Statements and objections raised by me were never recorded by the Court, regarding the various witnesses and their false statements against me.
3: I was represented by one human rights activist Colin Gonzalves (Advocate) in High Court. I was shocked when I came to know that from newspaper Indian Express that my advocate has requested the court that Afzal wants that he should be killed by lethal injection rather by hanging. When I contacted from high security ward of Tihar Jail to my lawyer he neither came to meet me nor informed me regarding this false request which I never did.
4: In Supreme Court the lawyer of my co-accused brought the different allegations concerned me to such an thresh-hold where natural justice fail to make out anything for me.
Thus under these circumstances it is natural that I can get any Justice. I hope that SDPDR will consider the above facts and take up the cause.
Thank You
Your's sincerely
Mohammad Afzal Guru
W.No. 9 - Jail No 5,
Tihar, N. Delhi-110064
Carried in full without any editing or correction from the transcription of Afzal's handwriting
FOR THE RECORD
A Wife's Appeal For Justice
I am the wife of Mohammad Afzal, the man accused of conspiring to attack the Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001 ... I also speak as a Kashmiri woman who is losing faith in Indian democracy and its ability to be fair to Kashmiri Muslims...
All over India people have condemned the attack on Parliament. And I agree that it was a terrorist attack and must be condemned. However, it is also important that the people accused of such a serious crime be given a fair trial and their story be fully heard before they are punished. I believe that no one has heard my husband's story and he has so far never been represented in the court properly.
I appeal to you to hear our story and then decide for yourselves whether justice has been done. Afzal and my story is the story of many young Kashmiri couples. Our story represents the tragedy facing our people.
In 1990 Afzal was attracted to the movement led by the JKLF, like thousands of other youth. He went to Pakistan for training and stayed there for a little while. However, he was disillusioned by the differences between different groups and he did not support pro-Pakistani groups. He stayed there only three months without getting any training. Afzal returned to Kashmir and he went to Delhi to pursue his studies. He always wanted to study and before he joined the movement he was doing his MBBS.
My husband wanted to return to normal life and with that intention he surrendered to the BSF. The BSF Commandant refused to give him his certificate till he had motivated two others to surrender. And Afzal motivated two other militants to surrender. He was given a certificate stating that he was a surrendered militant. You will not perhaps realise that it is very difficult to live as a surrendered militant in Kashmir but he decided to live with his family in Kashmir. In 1997 he started a small business of medicines and surgical instruments in Kashmir. The next year we were married. He was 28 years old and I was 18 years.
Throughout the period that we lived in Kashmir the Indian security forces continuously harassed Afzal and told him to spy on people they suspected of being militants. One Major Ram Mohan Roy of 22 Rashtriya Rifles tortured Afzal and gave him electric shocks in his private parts. He was humiliated and abused.
The Indian security forces used to regularly take Afzal to their camps and torture him. They wanted to extract information from him. One night the Indian security forces came to our home and abused all of us and took away Afzal to their camp; another time he was taken to the STF (State Task Force) camp Palhalan Pattan.
Some days later they took him to the Humhama STF camp. In that camp the officers, DSP Vinay Gupta and DSP Darinder Singh demanded Rs one lakh. We are not a rich family and we had to sell everything, including the little gold I got on my marriage to save Afzal from the torture.
Afzal was kept in freezing water and petrol was put into his anus. One officer Shanti Singh hanged my husband upside down for hours naked and in the cold. They gave electric shocks in his penis and he had to have treatment for days.
You will think that Afzal must be involved in some militant activities that is why the security forces were torturing him to extract information. But you must understand the situation in Kashmir, every man, woman and child has some information on the movement even if they are not involved. By making people into informers they turn brother against brother, wife against husband and children against parents. Afzal wanted to live quietly with his family but the STF would not allow him.
You should also know that the STF force is notorious in Kashmir for extorting money from the people and they have become so infamous that when Mufti Sayed became the Chief Minister he promised in his election manifesto to disband the entire force. The STF is known for human rights violations including killing people in their custody and brutal, senseless, inhuman torture.
It was under these conditions that forced Afzal to leave his home, family and settle in Delhi. He struggled hard to earn a living and he had decided to bring me and our four-year old son, Ghalib, to Delhi. Like any other family we dreamed of living together peacefully and bringing up our children, giving them a good education and seeing them grow up to be good human beings. That dream was cut short when once again the STF got hold of my husband in Delhi.
The STF told my husband to bring one man Mohammad to Delhi from Kashmir. He met Mohammad and one other man Tariq there at the STF camp. He did not know anything about the men and he had no idea why he was being asked to do the job. He has told all this to the court but the court chose to believe half his statement about bringing Mohammad but not the bit that he was told to do so by the STF.
There was no one to represent Afzal in the lower court. The court appointed a lawyer who never took instructions from Afzal, or cross examined the prosecution witnesses. That lawyer was communal and showed his hatred for my husband. When my husband told Judge Dhingra that he did not want that lawyer the judge ignored him. In fact my husband went totally undefended in the trial court. When ever my husband wished to say something the judge would not hear him out and the judge showed his communal bias in open court.
In the High Court one human rights lawyer offered to represent Afzal and my husband accepted. But instead of defending Afzal the lawyer began by asking the court not to hang Afzal but to kill him by a lethal injection. My husband never expressed any desire to die. He has maintained that he has been entrapped by the STF. My husband was shocked but he had no way of changing his lawyer while being locked up in the high security jail. It was only after the High Court judgement was pronounced he got to know about the way the lawyer had represented him. Afzal refused to accept the same lawyer for his appeal in the Supreme Court. I had no way of getting Afzal a lawyer. I do not know anyone in Delhi. Finally Afzal wrote to the Defence Committee set up for Mr Geelani. I am annexing his letter. And the Defence Committee helped Afzal to get a senior lawyer, Mr Sushil Kumar. However, the Supreme Court cannot go into the evidence and so I do not know what will happen.
I appeal to you to ensure that my husband is not condemned to death and he is ensured a fair trial. Surely your conscience will not allow you to be a party to the death of a fellow human being who has not been represented in the court and who has not had a chance to tell his story? The police have made him falsely confess before the media even before the trial started. They humiliated him, beat him, tortured him and even urinated in his mouth. I feel deep shame to talk about these things in public but circumstances have forced me. It has taken a lot of courage for me to put all this on paper but I do so for the sake of my child who is now six years old.
Will you speak out at the injustice my husband has faced? Will you speak out on my behalf? I am of course fighting for my husband's life, for the life of my son's father. But I also speak as a Kashmiri woman who is losing faith in Indian democracy and its ability to be fair to Kashmiri Muslims.
Tabassum
Srinagar,
September 2004
This article originally appeared in Kashmir Times and is carried here verbatim without any editing, for the record.
I appeal to you to hear our story and then decide for yourselves whether justice has been done. Afzal and my story is the story of many young Kashmiri couples. Our story represents the tragedy facing our people.
In 1990 Afzal was attracted to the movement led by the JKLF, like thousands of other youth. He went to Pakistan for training and stayed there for a little while. However, he was disillusioned by the differences between different groups and he did not support pro-Pakistani groups. He stayed there only three months without getting any training. Afzal returned to Kashmir and he went to Delhi to pursue his studies. He always wanted to study and before he joined the movement he was doing his MBBS.
My husband wanted to return to normal life and with that intention he surrendered to the BSF. The BSF Commandant refused to give him his certificate till he had motivated two others to surrender. And Afzal motivated two other militants to surrender. He was given a certificate stating that he was a surrendered militant. You will not perhaps realise that it is very difficult to live as a surrendered militant in Kashmir but he decided to live with his family in Kashmir. In 1997 he started a small business of medicines and surgical instruments in Kashmir. The next year we were married. He was 28 years old and I was 18 years.
Throughout the period that we lived in Kashmir the Indian security forces continuously harassed Afzal and told him to spy on people they suspected of being militants. One Major Ram Mohan Roy of 22 Rashtriya Rifles tortured Afzal and gave him electric shocks in his private parts. He was humiliated and abused.
The Indian security forces used to regularly take Afzal to their camps and torture him. They wanted to extract information from him. One night the Indian security forces came to our home and abused all of us and took away Afzal to their camp; another time he was taken to the STF (State Task Force) camp Palhalan Pattan.
Some days later they took him to the Humhama STF camp. In that camp the officers, DSP Vinay Gupta and DSP Darinder Singh demanded Rs one lakh. We are not a rich family and we had to sell everything, including the little gold I got on my marriage to save Afzal from the torture.
Afzal was kept in freezing water and petrol was put into his anus. One officer Shanti Singh hanged my husband upside down for hours naked and in the cold. They gave electric shocks in his penis and he had to have treatment for days.
You will think that Afzal must be involved in some militant activities that is why the security forces were torturing him to extract information. But you must understand the situation in Kashmir, every man, woman and child has some information on the movement even if they are not involved. By making people into informers they turn brother against brother, wife against husband and children against parents. Afzal wanted to live quietly with his family but the STF would not allow him.
You should also know that the STF force is notorious in Kashmir for extorting money from the people and they have become so infamous that when Mufti Sayed became the Chief Minister he promised in his election manifesto to disband the entire force. The STF is known for human rights violations including killing people in their custody and brutal, senseless, inhuman torture.
It was under these conditions that forced Afzal to leave his home, family and settle in Delhi. He struggled hard to earn a living and he had decided to bring me and our four-year old son, Ghalib, to Delhi. Like any other family we dreamed of living together peacefully and bringing up our children, giving them a good education and seeing them grow up to be good human beings. That dream was cut short when once again the STF got hold of my husband in Delhi.
The STF told my husband to bring one man Mohammad to Delhi from Kashmir. He met Mohammad and one other man Tariq there at the STF camp. He did not know anything about the men and he had no idea why he was being asked to do the job. He has told all this to the court but the court chose to believe half his statement about bringing Mohammad but not the bit that he was told to do so by the STF.
There was no one to represent Afzal in the lower court. The court appointed a lawyer who never took instructions from Afzal, or cross examined the prosecution witnesses. That lawyer was communal and showed his hatred for my husband. When my husband told Judge Dhingra that he did not want that lawyer the judge ignored him. In fact my husband went totally undefended in the trial court. When ever my husband wished to say something the judge would not hear him out and the judge showed his communal bias in open court.
In the High Court one human rights lawyer offered to represent Afzal and my husband accepted. But instead of defending Afzal the lawyer began by asking the court not to hang Afzal but to kill him by a lethal injection. My husband never expressed any desire to die. He has maintained that he has been entrapped by the STF. My husband was shocked but he had no way of changing his lawyer while being locked up in the high security jail. It was only after the High Court judgement was pronounced he got to know about the way the lawyer had represented him. Afzal refused to accept the same lawyer for his appeal in the Supreme Court. I had no way of getting Afzal a lawyer. I do not know anyone in Delhi. Finally Afzal wrote to the Defence Committee set up for Mr Geelani. I am annexing his letter. And the Defence Committee helped Afzal to get a senior lawyer, Mr Sushil Kumar. However, the Supreme Court cannot go into the evidence and so I do not know what will happen.
I appeal to you to ensure that my husband is not condemned to death and he is ensured a fair trial. Surely your conscience will not allow you to be a party to the death of a fellow human being who has not been represented in the court and who has not had a chance to tell his story? The police have made him falsely confess before the media even before the trial started. They humiliated him, beat him, tortured him and even urinated in his mouth. I feel deep shame to talk about these things in public but circumstances have forced me. It has taken a lot of courage for me to put all this on paper but I do so for the sake of my child who is now six years old.
Will you speak out at the injustice my husband has faced? Will you speak out on my behalf? I am of course fighting for my husband's life, for the life of my son's father. But I also speak as a Kashmiri woman who is losing faith in Indian democracy and its ability to be fair to Kashmiri Muslims.
Tabassum
Srinagar,
September 2004
This article originally appeared in Kashmir Times and is carried here verbatim without any editing, for the record.
XCLUSIVE: PRE-PUBLICATION EXTRACT
Breaking The News
December 13. The season for reopening old wounds....A hyper campaign, a mysterious TV update, a book that sifts myth from fact on the Afzal issue. Updates
 13 DECEMBER-A READER: THE STRANGE CASE OF THE ATTACK ON THE INDIAN PARLIAMENT INTRODUCTION BY ARUNDHATI ROY PENGUIN RS 200; PAGES: 256 |
This Reader* goes to press almost five years to the day since December 13, 2001, when five men (some say six) drove through the gates of the Indian Parliament in a white Ambassador car and attempted what looked like an astonishingly incompetent terrorist strike. Consummate competence appeared to be the hallmark of everything that followed: the gathering of evidence, the speed of the investigation by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police, the arrest and chargesheeting of the accused, and the 40-month-long judicial process that began with the fast-track trial court.
The operative phrase in all of this is 'appeared to be'.
If you follow the story carefully, you'll encounter two sets of masks. First the mask of consummate competence (accused arrested, 'case cracked' in two days flat), and then, when things began to come undone, the benign mask of shambling incompetence (shoddy evidence, procedural flaws, material contradictions). But underneath all of this, as each of the essays in this collection shows, is something more sinister, more worrying. Over the last few years the worries have grown into a mountain of misgivings, impossible to ignore.
The doubts set in early on, when on December 14, 2001, the day after the Parliament attack, the police arrested S.A.R. Geelani, a young lecturer in Delhi University. He was one of four people who were arrested. His outraged colleagues and friends, certain he had been framed, contacted the well-known lawyer Nandita Haksar and asked her to take on his case. This marked the beginning of a campaign for the fair trial of Geelani. It flew in the face of mass hysteria and corrosive propaganda enthusiastically disseminated by the mass media. The campaign was successful, and Geelani was eventually acquitted, along with Afsan Guru, co-accused in the same case.
Geelani's acquittal blew a gaping hole in the prosecution's version of the Parliament attack.
But in some odd way, in the public mind, the acquittal of two of the accused only confirmed the guilt of the other two. When the Supreme Court announced that Mohammed Afzal Guru, Accused Number One in the case, would be hanged on October 20, 2006, it seemed as though most people welcomed the news not just with approval, but morbid excitement. But then, once again, the questions resurfaced.
To see through the prosecution's case against Geelani was relatively easy. He was plucked out of thin air and transplanted into the centre of the 'conspiracy' as its kingpin. Afzal was different. He had been extruded through the sewage system of the hell that Kashmir has become. He surfaced through a manhole, covered in shit (and when he emerged, policemen in the Special Cell pissed on him). The first thing they made him do was a 'media confession' in which he implicated himself completely in the attack. The speed with which this happened made many of us believe that he was indeed guilty as charged. It was only much later that the circumstances under which this 'confession' was made were revealed, and even the Supreme Court was to set it aside saying that the police had violated legal safeguards.
From the very beginning there was nothing pristine or simple about Afzal's case. Even today Afzal does not claim complete innocence. It is the nature of his involvement that is being contested.
For instance, was he coerced, tortured and blackmailed into playing even the peripheral part he played? He didn't have a lawyer to put out his version of the story, or help anyone to sift through the tangle of lies and fabrications. Various individuals worked it out for themselves. These essays by a group of lawyers, academics, journalists and writers represent that body of work. It has fractured what—only recently—appeared to be a national consensus interwoven with mass hysteria. We're late at the barricades, but we're here.
Most people, or let's say many people, when they encounter real facts and a logical argument, do begin to ask the right questions. This is exactly what has begun to happen on the Parliament attack case. The questions have created public pressure. The pressure has created fissures, and through these fissures those who have come under the scanner—shadowy individuals, counter-intelligence and security agencies, political parties—are beginning to surface. They wave flags, hurl abuse, issue hot denials and cover their tracks with more and more untruths. Thus they reveal themselves.
Public unease continues to grow. A group of citizens have come together as a committee (chaired by Nirmala Deshpande) to publicly demand a parliamentary inquiry into the episode. There is an online petition demanding the same thing. Thousands of people have signed on. Every day new articles appear in the papers, on the net.
At least half-a-dozen websites are following the developments closely. They raise questions about how Mohammed Afzal, who never had proper legal representation, can be sentenced to death, without having had an opportunity to be heard, without a fair trial. They raise questions about fabricated evidence, procedural flaws and the outright lies that were presented in court and published in newspapers. They show how there is hardly a single piece of evidence that stands up to scrutiny.
And then, there are even more disturbing questions that have been raised, which range beyond the fate of Mohammed Afzal. Here are 13 questions for December 13:
Question 1: For months before the attack on Parliament, both the government and the police had been saying that Parliament could be attacked. On December 12, 2001, at an informal meeting, prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee warned of an imminent attack on Parliament. On December 13, Parliament was attacked. Given that there was an 'improved security drill', how did a car bomb packed with explosives enter the Parliament complex?
Question 2: Within days of the attack, the Special Cell of Delhi Police said it was a meticulously planned joint operation of Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Toiba. They said the attack was led by a man called 'Mohammad' who was also involved in the hijacking of IC-814 in 1999. (This was later refuted by the CBI.) None of this was ever proved in court.
What evidence did the Special Cell have for its claim?
Question 3: The entire attack was recorded live on close circuit TV (CCTV). Congress party MP Kapil Sibal demanded in Parliament that the CCTV recording be shown to the members. He was supported by the deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, Najma Heptullah, who said that there was confusion about the details of the event. The chief whip of the Congress party, Priyaranjan Das Munshi, said, "I counted six men getting out of the car. But only five were killed. The close circuit TV camera recording clearly showed the six men." If Das Munshi was right, why did the police say that there were only five people in the car? Who was the sixth person? Where is he now? Why was the CCTV recording not produced by the prosecution as evidence in the trial? Why was it not released for public viewing?
Question 4: Why was Parliament adjourned after some of these questions were raised?
Question 5: A few days after December 13, the government declared that it had 'incontrovertible evidence' of Pakistan's involvement in the attack, and announced a massive mobilisation of almost half-a-million soldiers to the Indo-Pakistan border. The subcontinent was pushed to the brink of nuclear war. Apart from Afzal's 'confession', extracted under torture (and later set aside by the Supreme Court), what was the 'incontrovertible evidence'?
Question 6: Is it true that the military mobilisation to the Pakistan border had begun long before the December 13 attack?
Question 7: How much did this military standoff, which lasted for nearly a year, cost? How many soldiers died in the process? How many soldiers and civilians died because of mishandled landmines, and how many peasants lost their homes and land because trucks and tanks were rolling through their villages, and landmines were being planted in their fields?
Question 8: In a criminal investigation, it is vital for the police to show how the evidence gathered at the scene of the attack led them to the accused. How did the police reach Mohammed Afzal? The Special Cell says S.A.R. Geelani led them to Afzal. But the message to look out for Afzal was actually flashed to the Srinagar police before Geelani was arrested. So how did the Special Cell connect Afzal to the December 13 attack?
Question 9: The courts acknowledge that Afzal was a surrendered militant who was in regular contact with the security forces, particularly the Special Task Force (STF) of the Jammu & Kashmir Police. How do the security forces explain the fact that a person under their surveillance was able to conspire in a major militant operation?
Question 10: Is it plausible that organisations like Lashkar-e-Toiba or Jaish-e-Mohammed would rely on a person who had been in and out of STF torture chambers, and was under constant police surveillance, as the principal link for a major operation?
Question 11: In his statement before the court, Afzal says that he was introduced to 'Mohammad' and instructed to take him to Delhi by a man called Tariq, who was working with the STF. Tariq was named in the police chargesheet. Who is Tariq and where is he now?
Question 12: On December 19, 2001, six days after the Parliament attack, Police Commissioner, Thane (Maharashtra), S.M. Shangari, identified one of the attackers killed in the Parliament attack as Mohammed Yasin Fateh Mohammed (alias Abu Hamza) of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, who had been arrested in Mumbai in November 2000, and immediately handed over to the J&K Police. He gave detailed descriptions to support his statement. If Police Commissioner Shangari was right, how did Mohammed Yasin, a man in the custody of the J&K Police, end up participating in the Parliament attack? If he was wrong, where is Mohammed Yasin now?
Question 13: Why is it that we still don't know who the five dead 'terrorists' killed in the Parliament attack are?
These questions, examined cumulatively, point to something far more serious than incompetence. The words that come to mind are Complicity, Collusion, Involvement. There's no need for us to feign shock, or shrink from thinking these thoughts and saying them out loud. Governments and their intelligence agencies have a hoary tradition of using strategies like this to further their own ends. (Look up the burning of the Reichstag and the rise of Nazi power in Germany, 1933; or 'Operation Gladio' in which European intelligence agencies 'created' acts of terrorism, especially in Italy, in order to discredit militant groups like the Red Brigade.)
The official response to all of these questions has been dead silence. As things stand, the execution of Afzal has been postponed while the President considers his clemency petition. Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party announced that it would turn 'Hang Afzal' into a national campaign. The campaign was fuelled by the usual stale cocktail of religious chauvinism, nationalism and strategic falsehoods. But it doesn't seem to have taken off. Now other avenues are being explored. M.S. Bitta of the All India Anti-Terrorist Front is parading around the families of some of the security personnel who were killed during the attack. They have threatened to return the government's posthumous bravery medals if Afzal is not hanged by December 13. (On balance, it might not be a bad idea for them to turn those medals in until they really know who the attackers were working for.)
The main strategy seems to be to create confusion and polarise the debate on communal lines. The editor of The Pioneer newspaper writes in his columns that Mohammed Afzal was actually one of the men who attacked Parliament, that he was the first to open fire and kill at least three security guards. The columnist Swapan Dasgupta, in an article called 'You Can't Be Good to Evil', suggests that if Afzal is not hanged there would be no point in celebrating Dussehra or Durga Puja. It's hard to believe that falsehoods like this stem only from a poor grasp of facts.
In the business of spreading confusion, the mass media, particularly television journalists, can be counted on to be perfect collaborators. On discussions, chat shows and 'special reports', we have television anchors playing around with crucial facts, like young children in a sandpit. Torturers, estranged brothers, senior police officers and politicians are emerging from the woodwork and talking. The more they talk, the more interesting it all becomes.
At the end of November 2006, Afzal's older brother Aijaz made it on to a national news channel (CNN-IBN). He was featured on hidden camera, on what was meant to be a 'sting' operation, making—we were asked to believe—stunning revelations. Aijaz's story had already been on offer to various journalists on the streets of Delhi for weeks. People were wary of him because his rift with his brother's wife and family is well known. More significantly, in Kashmir he is known to have a relationship with the STF. More than one person has suggested an audit of his newfound assets.
But here he was now, on the national news, endorsing the Supreme Court decision to hang his brother. Then, saying Afzal had never surrendered, and that it was he (Aijaz) who surrendered his brother's weapon to the BSF! And since he had never surrendered, Aijaz was able to 'confirm' that Afzal was an active militant with the Jaish-e-Mohammed, and that Ghazi Baba, chief of operations of the Jaish, used to regularly hold meetings in their home. (Aijaz claims that when Ghazi Baba was killed, it was he who the police called in to identify the body). On the whole, it sounded as though there had been a case of mistaken identity—and that given how much he knew, and all he was admitting, Aijaz should have been the one in custody instead of Afzal!
Of course we must keep in mind that behind both Aijaz and Afzal's 'media confessions', spaced five years apart, is the invisible hand of the STF, the dreaded counter-insurgency outfit in Kashmir. They can make anyone say anything at any time. Their methods (both punitive and remunerative) are familiar to every man, woman and child in the Kashmir Valley. At a time like this, for a responsible news channel to announce that their "investigation finds that Afzal was a Jaish militant", based on totally unreliable testimony, is dangerous and irresponsible. (Since when did what our brothers say about us become admissible evidence? My brother, for instance, will testify that I'm God's Gift to the Universe. I could dredge up a couple of aunts who'd say I'm a Jaish militant. For a price.) How can family feuds be dressed up as Breaking News?
The other character who is rapidly emerging from the shadowy periphery and wading on to centrestage is Dy Superintendent of Police Dravinder Singh of the STF. He is the man who Afzal has named as the police officer who held him in illegal detention and tortured him in the STF camp at Humhama in Srinagar, only a few months before the Parliament attack. In a letter to his lawyer, Sushil Kumar, Afzal says that several of the calls made to him and Mohammed Yasin (the man killed in the attack) can be traced to Dravinder. Of course, no attempt was made to trace these calls.
Dravinder Singh was also showcased on the CNN-IBN show, on the by-now ubiquitous low-angle shots, camera shake and all. It seemed a bit unnecessary, because Dravinder Singh has been talking a lot these days. He has done recorded interviews, on the phone as well as face-to-face, saying exactly the same shocking things. Weeks before the sting operation, in a recorded interview to Parvaiz Bukhari, a freelance journalist, he said "I did interrogate and torture him (Afzal) at my camp for several days. And we never recorded his arrest in the books anywhere. His description of torture at my camp is true. That was the procedure those days and we did pour petrol in his ass and gave him electric shocks. But I could not break him. He did not reveal anything to me despite our hardest possible interrogation. We tortured him enough for Ghazi Baba but he did not break. He looked like a 'bhondu' those days, what you call a 'chootiya' type. And I had a reputation for torture, interrogation and breaking suspects. If anybody came out of my interrogation clean, nobody would ever touch him again. He would be considered clean for good by the whole department."
This is not an empty boast. Dravinder Singh has a formidable reputation for torture in the Kashmir Valley. On TV his boasting spiralled into policymaking. "Torture is the only deterrent for terrorism," he said, "I do it for the nation." He didn't bother to explain why or how the 'bhondu' that he tortured and subsequently released allegedly went on to become the diabolical mastermind of the Parliament attack. Dravinder Singh then said that Afzal was a Jaish militant. If this is true, why wasn't the evidence placed before the courts? And why on earth was Afzal released? Why wasn't he watched? There is a definite attempt to try and dismiss this as incompetence. But given everything we know now, it would take all of Dravinder Singh's delicate professional skills to make some of us believe that.
Meanwhile right-wing commentators have consistently taken to referring to Afzal as a Jaish-e-Mohammed militant. It's as though instructions have been issued that this is to be the Party Line. They have absolutely no evidence to back their claim, but they know that repeating something often enough makes it the 'truth'. As part of the campaign to portray Afzal as an 'active' militant, and not a surrendered militant, S.M. Sahai, Inspector General, Kashmir, J&K Police, appeared on TV to say that he had found no evidence in his records that Afzal had surrendered. It would have been odd if he had, because in 1993 Afzal surrendered not to the J&K Police, but to the BSF. But why would a TV journalist bother with that kind of detail? And why does a senior police officer need to become part of this game of smoke and mirrors?
The official version of the story of the Parliament attack is very quickly coming apart at the seams.
Even the Supreme Court judgement, with all its flaws of logic and leaps of faith, does not accuse Mohammed Afzal of being the mastermind of the attack. So who was the mastermind? If Mohammed Afzal is hanged, we may never know. But L.K. Advani, Leader of the Opposition, wants him hanged at once. Even a day's delay, he says, is against the national interest. Why? What's the hurry? The man is locked up in a high-security cell on death row.
The operative phrase in all of this is 'appeared to be'.
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The doubts set in early on, when on December 14, 2001, the day after the Parliament attack, the police arrested S.A.R. Geelani, a young lecturer in Delhi University. He was one of four people who were arrested. His outraged colleagues and friends, certain he had been framed, contacted the well-known lawyer Nandita Haksar and asked her to take on his case. This marked the beginning of a campaign for the fair trial of Geelani. It flew in the face of mass hysteria and corrosive propaganda enthusiastically disseminated by the mass media. The campaign was successful, and Geelani was eventually acquitted, along with Afsan Guru, co-accused in the same case.
Geelani's acquittal blew a gaping hole in the prosecution's version of the Parliament attack.
|
To see through the prosecution's case against Geelani was relatively easy. He was plucked out of thin air and transplanted into the centre of the 'conspiracy' as its kingpin. Afzal was different. He had been extruded through the sewage system of the hell that Kashmir has become. He surfaced through a manhole, covered in shit (and when he emerged, policemen in the Special Cell pissed on him). The first thing they made him do was a 'media confession' in which he implicated himself completely in the attack. The speed with which this happened made many of us believe that he was indeed guilty as charged. It was only much later that the circumstances under which this 'confession' was made were revealed, and even the Supreme Court was to set it aside saying that the police had violated legal safeguards.
From the very beginning there was nothing pristine or simple about Afzal's case. Even today Afzal does not claim complete innocence. It is the nature of his involvement that is being contested.
|
Most people, or let's say many people, when they encounter real facts and a logical argument, do begin to ask the right questions. This is exactly what has begun to happen on the Parliament attack case. The questions have created public pressure. The pressure has created fissures, and through these fissures those who have come under the scanner—shadowy individuals, counter-intelligence and security agencies, political parties—are beginning to surface. They wave flags, hurl abuse, issue hot denials and cover their tracks with more and more untruths. Thus they reveal themselves.
Public unease continues to grow. A group of citizens have come together as a committee (chaired by Nirmala Deshpande) to publicly demand a parliamentary inquiry into the episode. There is an online petition demanding the same thing. Thousands of people have signed on. Every day new articles appear in the papers, on the net.
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And then, there are even more disturbing questions that have been raised, which range beyond the fate of Mohammed Afzal. Here are 13 questions for December 13:
Question 1: For months before the attack on Parliament, both the government and the police had been saying that Parliament could be attacked. On December 12, 2001, at an informal meeting, prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee warned of an imminent attack on Parliament. On December 13, Parliament was attacked. Given that there was an 'improved security drill', how did a car bomb packed with explosives enter the Parliament complex?
Question 2: Within days of the attack, the Special Cell of Delhi Police said it was a meticulously planned joint operation of Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Toiba. They said the attack was led by a man called 'Mohammad' who was also involved in the hijacking of IC-814 in 1999. (This was later refuted by the CBI.) None of this was ever proved in court.
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Question 3: The entire attack was recorded live on close circuit TV (CCTV). Congress party MP Kapil Sibal demanded in Parliament that the CCTV recording be shown to the members. He was supported by the deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, Najma Heptullah, who said that there was confusion about the details of the event. The chief whip of the Congress party, Priyaranjan Das Munshi, said, "I counted six men getting out of the car. But only five were killed. The close circuit TV camera recording clearly showed the six men." If Das Munshi was right, why did the police say that there were only five people in the car? Who was the sixth person? Where is he now? Why was the CCTV recording not produced by the prosecution as evidence in the trial? Why was it not released for public viewing?
Question 4: Why was Parliament adjourned after some of these questions were raised?
Question 5: A few days after December 13, the government declared that it had 'incontrovertible evidence' of Pakistan's involvement in the attack, and announced a massive mobilisation of almost half-a-million soldiers to the Indo-Pakistan border. The subcontinent was pushed to the brink of nuclear war. Apart from Afzal's 'confession', extracted under torture (and later set aside by the Supreme Court), what was the 'incontrovertible evidence'?
Question 6: Is it true that the military mobilisation to the Pakistan border had begun long before the December 13 attack?
Question 7: How much did this military standoff, which lasted for nearly a year, cost? How many soldiers died in the process? How many soldiers and civilians died because of mishandled landmines, and how many peasants lost their homes and land because trucks and tanks were rolling through their villages, and landmines were being planted in their fields?
Question 8: In a criminal investigation, it is vital for the police to show how the evidence gathered at the scene of the attack led them to the accused. How did the police reach Mohammed Afzal? The Special Cell says S.A.R. Geelani led them to Afzal. But the message to look out for Afzal was actually flashed to the Srinagar police before Geelani was arrested. So how did the Special Cell connect Afzal to the December 13 attack?
Question 9: The courts acknowledge that Afzal was a surrendered militant who was in regular contact with the security forces, particularly the Special Task Force (STF) of the Jammu & Kashmir Police. How do the security forces explain the fact that a person under their surveillance was able to conspire in a major militant operation?
Question 10: Is it plausible that organisations like Lashkar-e-Toiba or Jaish-e-Mohammed would rely on a person who had been in and out of STF torture chambers, and was under constant police surveillance, as the principal link for a major operation?
Question 11: In his statement before the court, Afzal says that he was introduced to 'Mohammad' and instructed to take him to Delhi by a man called Tariq, who was working with the STF. Tariq was named in the police chargesheet. Who is Tariq and where is he now?
Question 12: On December 19, 2001, six days after the Parliament attack, Police Commissioner, Thane (Maharashtra), S.M. Shangari, identified one of the attackers killed in the Parliament attack as Mohammed Yasin Fateh Mohammed (alias Abu Hamza) of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, who had been arrested in Mumbai in November 2000, and immediately handed over to the J&K Police. He gave detailed descriptions to support his statement. If Police Commissioner Shangari was right, how did Mohammed Yasin, a man in the custody of the J&K Police, end up participating in the Parliament attack? If he was wrong, where is Mohammed Yasin now?
Question 13: Why is it that we still don't know who the five dead 'terrorists' killed in the Parliament attack are?
These questions, examined cumulatively, point to something far more serious than incompetence. The words that come to mind are Complicity, Collusion, Involvement. There's no need for us to feign shock, or shrink from thinking these thoughts and saying them out loud. Governments and their intelligence agencies have a hoary tradition of using strategies like this to further their own ends. (Look up the burning of the Reichstag and the rise of Nazi power in Germany, 1933; or 'Operation Gladio' in which European intelligence agencies 'created' acts of terrorism, especially in Italy, in order to discredit militant groups like the Red Brigade.)
The official response to all of these questions has been dead silence. As things stand, the execution of Afzal has been postponed while the President considers his clemency petition. Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party announced that it would turn 'Hang Afzal' into a national campaign. The campaign was fuelled by the usual stale cocktail of religious chauvinism, nationalism and strategic falsehoods. But it doesn't seem to have taken off. Now other avenues are being explored. M.S. Bitta of the All India Anti-Terrorist Front is parading around the families of some of the security personnel who were killed during the attack. They have threatened to return the government's posthumous bravery medals if Afzal is not hanged by December 13. (On balance, it might not be a bad idea for them to turn those medals in until they really know who the attackers were working for.)
The main strategy seems to be to create confusion and polarise the debate on communal lines. The editor of The Pioneer newspaper writes in his columns that Mohammed Afzal was actually one of the men who attacked Parliament, that he was the first to open fire and kill at least three security guards. The columnist Swapan Dasgupta, in an article called 'You Can't Be Good to Evil', suggests that if Afzal is not hanged there would be no point in celebrating Dussehra or Durga Puja. It's hard to believe that falsehoods like this stem only from a poor grasp of facts.
In the business of spreading confusion, the mass media, particularly television journalists, can be counted on to be perfect collaborators. On discussions, chat shows and 'special reports', we have television anchors playing around with crucial facts, like young children in a sandpit. Torturers, estranged brothers, senior police officers and politicians are emerging from the woodwork and talking. The more they talk, the more interesting it all becomes.
At the end of November 2006, Afzal's older brother Aijaz made it on to a national news channel (CNN-IBN). He was featured on hidden camera, on what was meant to be a 'sting' operation, making—we were asked to believe—stunning revelations. Aijaz's story had already been on offer to various journalists on the streets of Delhi for weeks. People were wary of him because his rift with his brother's wife and family is well known. More significantly, in Kashmir he is known to have a relationship with the STF. More than one person has suggested an audit of his newfound assets.
But here he was now, on the national news, endorsing the Supreme Court decision to hang his brother. Then, saying Afzal had never surrendered, and that it was he (Aijaz) who surrendered his brother's weapon to the BSF! And since he had never surrendered, Aijaz was able to 'confirm' that Afzal was an active militant with the Jaish-e-Mohammed, and that Ghazi Baba, chief of operations of the Jaish, used to regularly hold meetings in their home. (Aijaz claims that when Ghazi Baba was killed, it was he who the police called in to identify the body). On the whole, it sounded as though there had been a case of mistaken identity—and that given how much he knew, and all he was admitting, Aijaz should have been the one in custody instead of Afzal!
Of course we must keep in mind that behind both Aijaz and Afzal's 'media confessions', spaced five years apart, is the invisible hand of the STF, the dreaded counter-insurgency outfit in Kashmir. They can make anyone say anything at any time. Their methods (both punitive and remunerative) are familiar to every man, woman and child in the Kashmir Valley. At a time like this, for a responsible news channel to announce that their "investigation finds that Afzal was a Jaish militant", based on totally unreliable testimony, is dangerous and irresponsible. (Since when did what our brothers say about us become admissible evidence? My brother, for instance, will testify that I'm God's Gift to the Universe. I could dredge up a couple of aunts who'd say I'm a Jaish militant. For a price.) How can family feuds be dressed up as Breaking News?
The other character who is rapidly emerging from the shadowy periphery and wading on to centrestage is Dy Superintendent of Police Dravinder Singh of the STF. He is the man who Afzal has named as the police officer who held him in illegal detention and tortured him in the STF camp at Humhama in Srinagar, only a few months before the Parliament attack. In a letter to his lawyer, Sushil Kumar, Afzal says that several of the calls made to him and Mohammed Yasin (the man killed in the attack) can be traced to Dravinder. Of course, no attempt was made to trace these calls.
Dravinder Singh was also showcased on the CNN-IBN show, on the by-now ubiquitous low-angle shots, camera shake and all. It seemed a bit unnecessary, because Dravinder Singh has been talking a lot these days. He has done recorded interviews, on the phone as well as face-to-face, saying exactly the same shocking things. Weeks before the sting operation, in a recorded interview to Parvaiz Bukhari, a freelance journalist, he said "I did interrogate and torture him (Afzal) at my camp for several days. And we never recorded his arrest in the books anywhere. His description of torture at my camp is true. That was the procedure those days and we did pour petrol in his ass and gave him electric shocks. But I could not break him. He did not reveal anything to me despite our hardest possible interrogation. We tortured him enough for Ghazi Baba but he did not break. He looked like a 'bhondu' those days, what you call a 'chootiya' type. And I had a reputation for torture, interrogation and breaking suspects. If anybody came out of my interrogation clean, nobody would ever touch him again. He would be considered clean for good by the whole department."
This is not an empty boast. Dravinder Singh has a formidable reputation for torture in the Kashmir Valley. On TV his boasting spiralled into policymaking. "Torture is the only deterrent for terrorism," he said, "I do it for the nation." He didn't bother to explain why or how the 'bhondu' that he tortured and subsequently released allegedly went on to become the diabolical mastermind of the Parliament attack. Dravinder Singh then said that Afzal was a Jaish militant. If this is true, why wasn't the evidence placed before the courts? And why on earth was Afzal released? Why wasn't he watched? There is a definite attempt to try and dismiss this as incompetence. But given everything we know now, it would take all of Dravinder Singh's delicate professional skills to make some of us believe that.
Meanwhile right-wing commentators have consistently taken to referring to Afzal as a Jaish-e-Mohammed militant. It's as though instructions have been issued that this is to be the Party Line. They have absolutely no evidence to back their claim, but they know that repeating something often enough makes it the 'truth'. As part of the campaign to portray Afzal as an 'active' militant, and not a surrendered militant, S.M. Sahai, Inspector General, Kashmir, J&K Police, appeared on TV to say that he had found no evidence in his records that Afzal had surrendered. It would have been odd if he had, because in 1993 Afzal surrendered not to the J&K Police, but to the BSF. But why would a TV journalist bother with that kind of detail? And why does a senior police officer need to become part of this game of smoke and mirrors?
The official version of the story of the Parliament attack is very quickly coming apart at the seams.
Even the Supreme Court judgement, with all its flaws of logic and leaps of faith, does not accuse Mohammed Afzal of being the mastermind of the attack. So who was the mastermind? If Mohammed Afzal is hanged, we may never know. But L.K. Advani, Leader of the Opposition, wants him hanged at once. Even a day's delay, he says, is against the national interest. Why? What's the hurry? The man is locked up in a high-security cell on death row.
He's not allowed out of his cell for even five minutes a day. What harm can he do? Talk? Write, perhaps? Surely, (even in L.K. Advani's own narrow interpretation of the term) it's in the national interest not to hang Afzal? At least not until there is an inquiry that reveals what the real story is, and who actually attacked Parliament?
Among the people who have appealed against Mohammed Afzal's death sentence are those who are opposed to capital punishment in principle. They have asked that his death sentence be commuted to a life sentence. To sentence a man who has not had a fair trial, and has not had the opportunity to be heard, to a life sentence, is less cruel, but just as arbitrary as sentencing him to death. The right thing to do would be to order a re-trial of Afzal's case, and an impartial, transparent inquiry into the December 13 Parliament attack. It is utterly demonic to leave a man locked up alone in a prison cell, day after day, week after week, leaving him and his family to guess which day will be the last day of his life.
A genuine inquiry would have to mean far more than just a political witch-hunt. It would have to look into the part played by intelligence, counter-insurgency and security agencies as well. Offences such as the fabrication of evidence and the blatant violation of procedural norms have already been established in the courts, but they look very much like just the tip of the iceberg. We now have a police officer admitting (boasting) on record that he was involved in the illegal detention and torture of a fellow citizen. Is all of this acceptable to the people, the government and the courts of this country?
Given the track record of Indian governments (past and present, right, left and centre) it is naive—perhaps utopian is a better word—to hope that it will ever have the courage to institute an inquiry that will, once and for all, uncover the real story. A maintenance dose of cowardice and pusillanimity is probably encrypted in all governments. But hope has little to do with reason.
Therefore, this book, offered in hope.
* This article is the Introduction to 13 December: A Reader, The Strange Case of the Attack on the Indian Parliament, to be released by Penguin Books on December 13, 2006
Among the people who have appealed against Mohammed Afzal's death sentence are those who are opposed to capital punishment in principle. They have asked that his death sentence be commuted to a life sentence. To sentence a man who has not had a fair trial, and has not had the opportunity to be heard, to a life sentence, is less cruel, but just as arbitrary as sentencing him to death. The right thing to do would be to order a re-trial of Afzal's case, and an impartial, transparent inquiry into the December 13 Parliament attack. It is utterly demonic to leave a man locked up alone in a prison cell, day after day, week after week, leaving him and his family to guess which day will be the last day of his life.
A genuine inquiry would have to mean far more than just a political witch-hunt. It would have to look into the part played by intelligence, counter-insurgency and security agencies as well. Offences such as the fabrication of evidence and the blatant violation of procedural norms have already been established in the courts, but they look very much like just the tip of the iceberg. We now have a police officer admitting (boasting) on record that he was involved in the illegal detention and torture of a fellow citizen. Is all of this acceptable to the people, the government and the courts of this country?
Given the track record of Indian governments (past and present, right, left and centre) it is naive—perhaps utopian is a better word—to hope that it will ever have the courage to institute an inquiry that will, once and for all, uncover the real story. A maintenance dose of cowardice and pusillanimity is probably encrypted in all governments. But hope has little to do with reason.
Therefore, this book, offered in hope.
* This article is the Introduction to 13 December: A Reader, The Strange Case of the Attack on the Indian Parliament, to be released by Penguin Books on December 13, 2006
Monday, February 11, 2013
Afzal Guru: Guilty of an Unsolved Crime?
The Supreme Court acknowledges that Mohammed Afzal Guru is not a terrorist and that they have no direct evidence against him. Is he on death row on the basis of a shoddy probe? Mihir Srivastava looks at critical questions still unanswered. (Courtesy: Tehelka)
December 13, 2001. “Five heavily armed persons stormed the Parliament House complex and inflicted heavy casualties on the security men on duty. This unprecedented event bewildered the entire nation and sent shockwaves across the globe. In the gun battle that lasted thirty minutes, these five terrorists who tried to gain entry into the Parliament when it was in session, were killed. Nine persons including eight security personnel and one gardener succumbed to the bullets of the terrorists and 16 persons including 13 security men received injuries. The five terrorists were ultimately killed…” — From the Supreme Court judgement.
Six years and three judgements later, we still do not ‘reliably’ know who attacked Parliament on December 13, 2001. What we do know is that Mohammed Afzal Guru, the alleged conspirator, was awarded the death penalty but is he being made a scapegoat? Is Afzal being held guilty for a crime that is still unsolved?
Consider this: the ‘comprehensive investigation’ of the attack on Parliament was completed in 17 days flat by the investigators — the Special Cell of the Delhi Police. The prosecution story of who attacked Parliament, which is popularly believed to be the real story, is based on the confession of the main accused Afzal Guru to the police under the Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act (POTA). The Supreme Court has dubbed this confession, and thus, in effect, the conspiracy theory behind the attack floated by the police, as “unreliable”.
There are 12 accused in the Parliament attack case. Five of them — Mohammad, Tariq, Hamza, Rana and Raja — were killed when they tried to lay siege on Parliament. The other three — Gazi Baba, Masood Azhar and Tariq, allegedly the masterminds behind the attack and Lashkar-e-Toiba (let) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) operatives — were never arrested. Gazi Baba was shot in an encounter with security forces in 2004. His body was recognised by Afzal’s brother. Only four accused were arrested: Afzal Guru, his cousin Shaukat Hussain Guru, Shaukat’s wife Afsan Guru and SAR Geelani, a teacher of Arabic in Delhi University. Geelani and Afsan were acquitted. Not one of them was convicted under POTA charges. Afzal does not belong to any banned terrorist organisation. Shaukat was sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment because he knew about the conspiracy. Afzal was given the death sentence on the charges of murder and for waging war against the State.
Quick probe but no direct evidence against Afzal
The thoroughness with which the investigations of such an important case were carried out can be judged by the remarks made by the Delhi High Court. The court has pulled up the investigators for the production of false arrest memos, doctoring of telephone conversations and the illegal confining of people to force them to sign blank papers. Despite these observations, “the courts did not pass any strictures against the officers for their shoddy and illegal investigations,” says Nandita Haksar, Geelani’s lawyer.
There is no direct evidence against Afzal. None of the 80 prosecution witnesses ever even alleged that Afzal was in any way associated with or belonged to any terrorist organisation. He has been awarded the death sentence entirely on the basis of circumstantial evidence. Afzal did not shy away from admitting the possibly incriminating fact that he brought Mohammad from Kashmir and that he accompanied him when the latter purchased a second-hand Ambassador, two days before the attack. The Supreme Court in its judgement observes that even when his lawyer attempted to deny this fact during the trial, Afzal insisted that he indeed had accompanied Mohammad.
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They didn’t need to die: Parliament staff pay homage to security personnel who died in the attack
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The former Thane Police chief claimed that they had arrested Hamza and handed him over to J&K cops in December 2000
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Why was the STF’s involvement not probed?
In the same vein, Afzal maintains that he did this at the behest of the Special Task Force (STF) of the Jammu and Kashmir police. Afzal alleged in a letter to his lawyer Sushil Kumar in the Supreme Court that Davinder Singh, Deputy sp of Humhama, in Jammu and Kashmir, asked him to take Mohammad to Delhi and arrange for his stay there. “Since I was not knowing the man, but I suspected this man is not Kashmiri, as he did not speak Kashmiri,” wrote Afzal. “The facts of the letter were never put on record before the courts,” charges Haksar.
It is clear from the case records that Afzal is a surrendered militant, who gave himself up to the bsf in 1993. Further, Afzal told the court that he was frequently asked by the STF to work for them (a senior police official has confirmed this to Tehelka). He said the STF extorted large sums of money from him for not arresting him. But he was detained in as late as 2000 and was offered the job of a special police officer. He met Tariq (a co-accused, who is absconding) in the STF camp, where the latter was working. It was Tariq who introduced Mohammad to him in the STF camp. The alleged role of the STF in the Parliament attack, as per the court record, has not been investigated at all. Davinder Singh confirmed that no investigator ever got back to him and sought clarification on his alleged role in sending Mohammad to Delhi with Afzal’s help. “Why will they ask me this? He (Afzal) is saying this to save his own skin,” said Singh.
In his reply, Singh denies the allegations. “Do you want to say that we are behind the Parliament attack,” he asked. Singh acknowledged that he had once detained Afzal for interrogation. “We had reliable information that he knew the whereabouts of Gazi Baba, one of the most dreaded terrorists in Kashmir (and an accused in the case). But we couldn’t get anything out of him and let him go.”
The Delhi Police Special Cell had only Afzal to identify the bodies of the five assassins gunned down in Parliament. There is no other corroborative evidence that sheds light on the identities of these five terrorists. Later in court, Afzal denied identifying them. “I had not identified any terrorists. Police told me the names of the terrorists and forced me to identify them,” Afzal told the court in his statement made under Section 313 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
In the absence of any direct evidence against Afzal, the Supreme Court said in its judgement: “The incident which resulted in heavy casualty, has shaken the entire nation and the collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if capital punishment will be awarded to the offender.” Haksar does not agree with the court’s view. “The Supreme Court has not passed any strictures against the corrupt officers for their shoddy and illegal investigations and has held that there is no direct evidence against Afzal. However they have confirmed the death sentence because they believe that this death is necessary to assuage Indian citizens.”
The mystery surrounding Hamza and Mohammad
Another controversy that was brushed aside was one that again pointed to a possible Jammu and Kashmir police connection with the Parliament attack. The Thane Police swung into action after the identity of the five terrorists killed in the Parliament attack was made public. SM Shangari, the then Thane Police commissioner, claimed that Thane police had arrested four let operatives and one of them had the same name as a militant killed in Parliament: Hamza. These four terrorists were handed over to the Jammu and Kashmir Police on December 8, 2000. In addition there was a stark similarity in the blueprints, arms and ammunition seized from these four arrested in Thane and the one recovered from the slain terrorist in Parliament.
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Don’t hang him without a fair trial: Activists stage a demonstration at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi in support of Afzal’s clemency plea
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Afzal wants his phone records scrutinised. He claims that STF numbers will show up and tell a tale he was not given a chance to reveal
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K. Rajendra, the then inspector-general of J&K Police, rebuffed Shangari’s enquiries. He was reportedly quoted by a Thane daily that no such person was ever handed over by Thane police and Hamza is a common Muslim name. He dismissed it as a case of mistaken identity. To this, Shargari responded by saying that he only mentioned that it could possibly be the same person because the name was common, and clarified that he did not say they were the same person.
Just to make sure Shangari sent an official to Delhi with a photograph of Hamza. Tehelka contacted Shangari, who retired a few years ago as the director-general of Maharashtra Police. “They were sent to Jammu & Kashmir on the orders of the Thane district court,” he says. “I do not know what happened after that on this issue. This issue was not new. The intelligence agencies were aware of it. We send them periodic reports on these issues.”
The crucial question of whether Hamza’s photograph — sent from Thane — was matched with that of the slain Hamza in the Parliament attack still remains unanswered.
The crucial question of whether Hamza’s photograph — sent from Thane — was matched with that of the slain Hamza in the Parliament attack still remains unanswered.
“Mistaken identity can only be proved once we are sure of the identities. It cannot be a matter of speculation,” says Nirmalangshu Mukherji, human rights activist and author of the book December 13. There is no clarity till date on who Mohammad was. After the attack, the police claimed that Mohammad was also the leader of the suicide squad and was involved in the ic-814 hijack in which he had been codenamed ‘Burger’. The police had said at that time that it would show pictures of Mohammad to the wife of Ripan Katyal who was killed by the hijackers of ic-814. “Burger is believed to have stabbed Katyal on that flight. After being mentioned in the chargesheet and in Afzal’s confession, this move to corroborate Mohammad’s identification was not followed as per the court records. We do not know whether this was further investigated. “It was soon discovered that this was not true,” says Haksar. “In fact, we do not know the identities of the five men who attacked Parliament and they were all killed.”
Interpol help sought, but what happened next?
As per the chargesheet, JeM supreme commander in India Gazi Baba, was in touch with Afzal and Shaukat through satellite phone number 8821651150059 and Swiss telephone number 491722290100. But the police didn’t investigate this further. Further the chargesheet confirms, “A request for obtaining the call details of the international telephone numbers and satellite phone numbers, which figured during the investigation of the case, has been made to Interpol, but the report is still awaited.” This was in May 2002. After this mention, it was never again registered in the court record or pursued by the investigating agencies. This was confirmed by Sushil Kumar, Afzal’s lawyer in the Supreme Court. “There is no mention of the Interpol report in the case records.” What happened do the Interpol report? Where was this international call coming from? This omission assumes significance if it is considered what Afzal had to say on these phone calls. “If phone number records will be seen carefully the court would have come to know the phone number of STF. I was not given chance in the designated court to tell the real story,” Afzal wrote to lawyer Kumar.
Afzal says he was under duress to make a particular kind of statement in the media and then in the confession. In a letter to Kumar, Afzal clarifies: “In Srinagar at Parompora police station (after he was arrested) everything of my belongings was seized and then they beat me and threatened me of dire consequences regarding my wife and family. Even my younger brother was taken in the police custody.”
The fact that he was under threat and duress, and was instructed to utter only a select few things to the media that suited the prosecution story is clearly shown when the investigating officer of this case, Rajbeer Singh, then acp in the Special Cell, shouted at Afzal in front of the rolling camera, when the latter said “Geelani is innocent.” Shams Tahir Khan of Aaj Tak did the interview. He told the court in his submission that Singh shouted at Afzal directing him not to say a word about Geelani. “Rajbeer had requested us not to telecast that line spoken by accused (Afzal) about Geelani. So when the programme was telecast on December 20 (2001) this line was removed.”
Afzal made a confession on similar lines a day later on December 21. While Geelani refused to confess, Afzal explains, “This was first told to me by Rajbeer Singh…if I will speak according to their wishes they will not harm my family members and also gave me false assurances that they will make my case weak so that after sometime I will be released.”
The same confession was cited as “incontrovertible evidence” on the floor of Parliament. And it was the basis on which Pakistan was held responsible for the attack. As a reaction, the Central government mounted a massive military offensive that brought the neighbours to the brink of nuclear war. The Delhi High Court observed: “The nation suffered not only an economic strain, but even the trauma of an imminent war.”
Further, Afzal was denied proper legal assistance. He had no defence lawyer in the period between his arrest on December 15, 2001, and the filing of the chargesheet on May 14, 2005; in other words, no counsel had studied the complex case. The court appointed Neeraj Bansal as amicus curiae.
Afzal’s wife Tabassum had this to say on his efforts in the court: “The court-appointed lawyer never took instructions from Afzal, or cross-examined the prosecution witnesses. That lawyer was communal and showed his hatred for my husband.” Afzal’s lawyer in the high court, Colin Gonsalves, says, “Amicus curiae is an aid to the court and not a defence lawyer.” In an application dated July 8, 2002, to the trial court, Afzal expressed his helplessness. “I am not satisfied by the state counsel appointed by the court. I need a competent senior advocate. The way the court is treating with me I could not get justice.”
The prosecution claimed that the police reached Afzal through a sequence of arrests beginning with Geelani, whom the police could trace first because he held a mobile phone registered with the telecom company Airtel. But the letter from Airtel furnishing the call records and Geelani’s residential address was dated December 17, 2001; all the accused had been arrested by December 15.
This leaves a lot of unanswered questions as far as the investigation into the Parliament attack is concerned. Who masterminded and attacked Parliament and what was the conspiracy? What was the STF doing with surrendered militants? What was the role of the Special Cell of the Delhi Police in conducting the case? Till these questions are satisfactorily answered, a shadow will continue to be cast over Afzal’s death sentence
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