Bad Money Creates Parasitic Culture in J&K

I was in Shrinagar from 11^th March to 14^th March on a holiday with two of my friends. This was a totally unplanned visit. This was my 2^nd visit to valley after September 2006. I was amazed to see the development and prosperity along the highway. The roads, which wore deserted look 3 years ago, were bustling with activity. Lot of concrete structures could be seen coming up all over. New cars were zipping across the streets and the shops along the roads were filled with the stuff to the brink. I was searching for answers for such transformation in short time, without any change in the policies regarding article 307. The article I am enclosing here explained lot of my questions.

13 Mar 2009 Vijayvani.com : Ajay Chrungoo

On 24 January, an Enforcement Directorate official, Saji Mohan, was arrested by the Maharashtra ATS for allegedly trying to sell heroin in Oshiwara. Saji Mohan, a 1995 batch Indian Police Service officer of Jammu & Kashmir cadre, was in-charge of J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab during his previous posting as Zonal Director, Narcotics Control Bureau, Chandigarh.

Saji was arrested with 12 kgs. of heroin in a club, after a tip off by Vicky Oberoi and Rajesh Kumar, previously arrested by ATS Mumbai on 17 January; 1.85 kgs. heroin was recovered from them. Both were linked to notorious Parminder Singh who used to smuggle narcotics from Pakistan and Afghanistan. After investigating Saji Mohan, ATS recovered a further 25 kgs. of heroin at Naigoan in Central Mumbai. Saji Mohan had served J&K Police in different capacities, including Additional SP Baderwah, SP Doda, SP Ramban, and the Sher-i-Kashmir Police Academy.

Close on the heels of this arrest was a 13 kg. heroin haul by the BSF after an encounter with smugglers near border outpost Pul Kanjero in Attari sector, Amritsar. Two of the smugglers were from Pakistan; they sneaked across the border, crawled up to the barbed wire fence and using ropes, tried to push the consignment through a PVC pipe used by farmers to water agricultural fields between the fence and border. A few days earlier, a woman, Saddiqiquan, who had made a fake passport to visit Pakistan, was arrested along with AkhtarAbbas in the Attari sector and 8 kgs. of heroin worth Rs. 40 crores recovered from their possession.

The arrests bring to the fore the deep roots of the narcotics trade with Jammu & Kashmir. Yet the State’s illegal economy and its implications for the polity and society is not even a peripheral concern for Kashmir analysts and think tanks.

Regular seizures of drugs along the LoC and IB, hawala money, counterfeit currency, are a regular feature of counter-terrorism operations in the state, but the Indian political discourse on Kashmir eschews this dimension. Yet experts of international repute have taken serious note of the links between terrorism in Kashmir and its financial support through the drug trade.

Yousuff Bodansky, highlighting the pan-Islamist links of terrorism in J&K, reports about the master plan for Islamist insurgency in Caucasus and Kashmir, drawn at Mogadishu, Somalia in 1996, in which Osama bin Laden and high-ranking Irani intelligence officers were present. As per Bodansky, Javed Ashraf of ISI was asked to provide arms and ammunition and pay for transporting Islamist fighters from the training camps in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon and Sudan to the new jihad fronts in Chechnya and Kashmir. Drug support for this endeavour was easy given the poppy fields of Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan.

Drugs and Narcotics

Narcotics hauls by J&K Police provide an insight into the magnitude of the problem. The arrests of Vicky Oberoi, Rajesh Kumar and Saji Mohan, along with heroin, indicate the entrenchment of narcotic cartels. These are not isolated cases.

On 15 November 2008, Ferozepur police recovered 2 kgs. of heroin worth Rs. 10 crores. The J&K Police cracked a well-knit racket of Indo-Pak trans-border narcotics smugglers operating from Jammu and Sailkot districts; three persons, all residents of Arnia, were arrested. Interrogation revealed that consignments of pure heroin totalling 60-65 kgs. were transferred to India in one year alone – its value Rs. 65 crores.

Samba Police recovered 12 kgs. of poppy straw on 11 August 2006, along with 4 kgs. of charas. Poppy straw or husk is a local variety of narcotics called bhukki, consumed mostly by drivers in north India. Both charas and bhukki are grown in Kashmir Valley.

In December 2006, the BSF recovered 25 kgs. of heroin along the international border in RS Pura area of Jammu sector. In July 2006, 4 kgs. of charas was recovered from a smuggler in Doda town. J&K Police recovered 26 kgs. of poppy husk (bhukki) and 6.5 kgs. of charas in Talab Tillo area of Jammu city on 3 June 2005. In April the same year, more than 10 kgs. of charas was recovered from a drug peddler in Kud, Udhampur.

In November 2004, in one of the biggest narcotics hauls in Jammu city, police recovered 11 kgs. of heroin worth Rs. 11 crores. In January 2002, Phagwara police arrested five persons, including two surrendered militants of Hizbul Mujahideen, with 20 kgs. of charas. In May 2003, Narcotics Control Bureau Delhi arrested Mohd. Amin Jaffer of Anantnag, a member of Al-Jihad, with 25 kg of charas.

The narcotics hauls listed above are neither exhaustive nor complete, but indicate the state of affairs. While areas adjacent to LoC and IB in Jammu sector are mainly involved in heroin smuggling, charas and the local bhukki are mainly produced in the Valley. Reports of poppy cultivation in south Kashmir and the hinterland of Wullar Lake surface occasionally.

This is only the tip of the iceberg – the number of drug addicts is daily increasing in Kashmir Valley and Jammu.

The death of a Class XII student in mysterious circumstances at Dalgate, Srinagar, in January 2004 brought the extent of drug culture in the Kashmir Valley to the fore. The dead body of the student, Mehfooz Ahmad Khan, son of Ghulam Mohi-ud-din Khan of Sanat Nagar, was recovered by a patrol party of Ram Munshi Bagh station from a parked Maruti car. Police recovered the identity card of one Shuja Rasheed, a son of a senior police officer from the car. People suspected the death was due to drug overdose.

Hawala money

‘Hawala’ money has over the years emerged as an important component of the State’s illegal economy. ‘Hawala’ has been critical in funding separatist coffers and feeding terrorist regimes. Acting as an alternative banking system for illegal transactions, a very elaborate network of hawala agents and innovative methodologies have evolved.

A prominent Pandit who visits Kashmir Valley frequently was amazed this summer when a Muslim friend took him to a ready-made garments shop in Srinagar city to observe the sale transactions. The Pandit noticed that out of many counters in the shop, only one counter was crowded with customers. After purchasing garments here, many customers tore off the brand labels after leaving the shop.

Enquiry revealed that this was a sophisticated hawala procedure. Instead of sending hard cash, hawala agents send branded ready-made garments to the Valley, which are sold at prices lower than the market value to ensure total sale. To disguise the operation, a local brand label is pasted over the original – the sale proceeds go to the earmarked destination, and the sales outlet earns a hefty commission. The process appears like normal business and circumvents the risk of sending huge sums of cash through hawala agents. Hawala operations invariably require a chain of over-ground workers and subversive tentacles.

Hawala operation came to public view via the Jain Hawala Scandal. Its Kashmir connection was visible. Jamali Khan, a Hawala operator, G.M. Bhat, a close aide of separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani and legal advisor of Hurriyat Conference, and Delhi-based businessman R.K. Jain were booked after Jamali and his wife were arrested while transporting Rs. 50 lakh hawala cash to Srinagar. As per reports, all three confessed having pumped hawala money worth more than Rs. 8 crores in Kashmir Valley at the behest of Gulf, Pakistan and England-based businessmen for almost three years. This hawala operation was a part of a racket operating in the entire country.

Nasir Safi Mir, considered the financial muscle of Hurriyat Conference, was arrested for ferrying Rs. 55 lakhs, and explosives, in February 2006. Mir is Dubai-based and owns a carpet showroom and money exchange firms in the Gulf. He was spotted publicly with Hurriyat moderate leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. Mir’s father was arrested in 2001 for funding militant groups in Kashmir Valley.

The Mumbai 11 July 2006 serial blasts were also financed through the hawala channel. A Saudi Arabian operative, Rizwan Ahmad Davre, an IT professional, is believed to have financed the entire operation from Riyadh by channeling funds sent by LeT Commander Azam Chema from Pakistan to Mumbai. Davre single-handedly bankrolled the operation to the tune of over Rs. 1 crore that he kept sending Faizal Sheikh, suspected Mumbai LeT chief.

Police arrested one Naseer Ahmad from Bhatt Dhar in Mendhar for being part of a hawala network busted in Rajouri in September 2006. He was suspected to be transferring money to Jaish-e-Mohammad network. In July 2006, militant Aijaz Hussain was arrested in South Delhi with 2.5 kgs. of RDX and Rs. 49 lakhs of hawala money.

Police in April 2006 arrested top Hizbul Mujahideen functionary Mohammad Shafi Sheikh at Doru Sopore. He was a trained terrorist and financial controller of HM, who had distributed Rs. 41 lakhs to various local militants. The same month, a hawala network linked to Pir Panchal Regiment of Hizbul Mujahideen was busted. Its main functionary advocate Aijaz Zaki was arrested with three accomplices.

In Jan 2005, the Intelligence Bureau captured a hawala operator of Kashmir for smuggling cash consignments from New Delhi to Doda. Mushtaq Ahmad of Srinagar was arrested with Rs. 50,000 hawala money. Three other militants were arrested with hawala money of Rs. 9.38 lakhs, meant for terrorists at Bari Brahma, Jammu.

One of the main financers of terrorists in the Valley was Ayub Thakur, who died in 2004. He had created a UK-based World Kashmir Freedom Movement (WKFM) for clandestinely funding a secessionist movement in J&K. Indian officials gave the British government evidence of clandestine funding by WKFM of terrorist groups in J&K.

The UK-based Thakur’s charity failed to conceal the flow of funds into J&K for separatists and terrorists. The funds came through Standard Chartered Grindlays Bank and Development Credit Bank. A Srinagar-based newsman received Rs. 484,875 into his account in Standard Chartered Bank and Rs. 119,800 in Development Credit Bank.

On 15 November 2003, police revealed that HM financer Khalid Hussain had given a consignment of Rs. 10 lakh to Ali Mohd and his sister Nadir Tabassum (Sweety) in Sidhra, Jammu, but a major part of it was looted or misappropriated. The brother-sister duo was arrested. They had to transfer the money to Jamaal Din of Gool, the deputy financial chief of Hizbul Mujahideen for Pir Panjal range.

The ‘hawala’ transactions reveal the modus operandi of money transactions and the elaborate network of over-ground workers of this elaborate subversive network which is transforming the Kashmir Valley into a den of illegal economy and causing irreparable damage to society.

Fake Currency

By far the most important aspect of illegal economy in J&K, particularly the Valley which has received minimum attention, is the introduction of fake currency Indian notes. During the last decade, the role of fake currency seems to have crossed the boundaries of clandestine operations and is becoming part of the socio-economic culture. While the drug trade, despite its enormous role in sustaining the separatist campaign, continues to be a social taboo in the public realm, fake currency does not carry the same connotations.

Interactions of people living in Jammu with Kashmiris in the Valley reveal the widening role of fake currency there. A handicrafts trader, who after displacement shifted to Himachal, was casually told by his Valley supplier to use fake currency to increase his margin of profit! “How much do you earn in a month? Don't you want to double your earnings?” Baffled, he retorted, “You know it very well that our family has been doing this business for last six decades. We have done well by the grace of God. I have around 20 employees to pay. Yet I can’t imagine a way to double the earnings in my business in a short span of time. Are you talking about some magic?” He was stunned when told, “Take this currency (fake) and spend it gradually through your sale outlets. You will double your earnings.”

At a party, a gentleman boasted that in the mid-1990s he had seen money deposits from various post offices in the Valley done in a Jammu bank: “The post office official along with the deposits in the bigger bag handed over a smaller bag to the official in the bank.” The deposits in the bigger bag were perhaps fake currency and the money in the smaller bag was genuine, a commission to the officials in the loop of the racket.

Recently, a gentleman shared an interesting anecdote: He had received Rs. 30,000 in a business transaction, and went to deposit it in a bank. The notes were all fake. The bank official immediately questioned him; he revealed the source of the money, whereupon the businessman who had given the notes was called to the Bank premises. The said businessman came arrived nonchalantly, accepted that he had given the money, and as everyone listened with amazement to his frank admission, he calmly lifted the lid of the bukhari (room heater) and put all the 30,000 fake notes inside! Then he turned to the Bank official and said the matter was over. The Bank thought it prudent not to report the matter.

These coffee table anecdotes provide an insight into the public discourse and the realities which come to the fore from time to time. On 29 January 2009, the BSF seized 13 kgs. of heroin and Rs. 33 lakhs in fake currency notes in Attari sector. In November 2008, police arrested smugglers with heroin and fake currency worth Rs 50,000 in Ferozepur, Punjab. The same month, two smugglers were arrested with arms, narcotics and Rs 21 lakh fake currency notes. Four Kashmiri youths were arrested on 18 November 2006 with Rs. 3 lakh fake currency in denominations of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 in Jammu city. Incidents of recovery of fake notes have been going on for years. In January 2004, J&K police unearthed a mini composed unit for making fake currency in Trikuta Nagar from a police official’s son and recovered over Rs. 34,000 fake Indian notes.

In February 2004, Delhi Police recovered fake currency worth over Rs. 12 lakh from three persons; equipment for printing was also seized. In March 2004, J&K police arrested three racketeers in Jammu city and recovered Rs. 8.5 lakh worth fake currency from them. In December 2004, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence seized fake currency valued at Rs. 46 lakhs and arrested four persons, including two Bangladeshi conduits.

Injection of fake currency into the Indian economy has started receiving some attention now. In August 2008, Uttar Pradesh police uncovered over Rs. 4 crore worth of fake currency notes from two State Bank of India branches in Domariaganj. It was the largest seizure of high-value currency notes and this forced a joint meeting of Intelligence Bureau, Directorate of Revenue intelligence, Ministry of Finance, Central Bureau of Investigators, and Central Economic Intelligence Bureau in September 2008. The meeting concluded that, “the problem had long slipped out of criminal activity and entered the realm of national security.”

Indian Intelligence leaks suggest that in 2008, Rs. 50,000 crore fake currency notes were being pumped into Indian economy per month. These notes are printed in currency printing presses in Pakistan and are difficult to detect. The money earned from such ventures subsidizes the Pakistani economy.

Sadly, the role of the illegal economy including fake currency has not received the importance it deserves in Jammu & Kashmir, despite regular seizures of narcotics, hawala money and fake currency notes. This is intriguing considering the fact that J&K continues to be the core target for the proxy war waged by Pakistan.

Army officials say, “Earlier fake currency was handed out to allow terrorists to sustain themselves when they entered the Valley. However in the past two years it has taken on a larger objective of hurting India’s economy.” Experts admit that in J&K, a mix of fake currency with genuine money is used by terror organizations to pay their cadres and enlist clandestine logistic support from locals.

Apparent affluence

Prof. Dipanker Sen Gupta of Jammu University feels, “The state's response to an economy damaged by militancy developed along predicted lines. As in North East India, the Central Government came in with packages aimed at reviving economy through grants intended to restore infrastructure as well as other parts of economy. The effect of all this was to create an economy whose State Domestic Product (SDP) defied common logic. The ultimate twist to this bizarre economic history was the revelation by National Sample Survey Organization that Jammu & Kashmir ranked highest of all states when it came to per household asset ownership in the country with Rs. 10.87 lakhs per household.” In an economy ravaged by violence of the worst kind, how is this possible?

Meat consumption in Kashmir is three times higher than the national average. The state has the capacity to meet barely 30 percent of its demand of meat and imports nearly 70 percent from Rajasthan and Gujarat. On an average, the state consumes meat worth around Rs. 600 crores. An interestingly feature of the economic paradox emerged in 2006 when the state accepted that despite referring 12,200 posts to Public Service Commission (PSC) and Subordinate Services Recruitment Board (SSRB) for advertisement and filling up, thousands posts were lying vacant in different state government departments, including over 7600 gazetted cadre posts. How is it possible when all respective governments identify unemployment as the main cause driving youth to militancy?

The percentage of population below poverty line in Jammu and Kashmir is 5.4%, against a national average of 27.50%. While the general public seems to be moving towards affluence, economic productivity in the state is declining. The contribution of J&K to the national Gross Domestic Product has decreased from 0.87 percent in 1999-2000 to 0.78 percent in 2005-06. The apparent affluence in the state and the unproductive economic status cannot be understood unless one factors the interplay of the illegal economy.

Illegal economy destroys entrepreneurship in society and creates a parasitic culture. Such symptoms are manifest in Jammu & Kashmir. Uttar Pradesh Police recognizes that the fake currency circulation is as high as 30 percent of the total currency in circulation; the situation is being described as a national security threat. In J&K, despite the manifest role of narcotics, hawala money and fake currency in sustaining violence and instability, no definitive estimates of illegal economy are available. Experts say, “the absence of an established quantity of fake currency in circulation has led to a regime of denial which has in turn prevented regulation.”

With the opening of the LoC for trade, the question arises that if the economic logic of such a trade does not suit separatists and Pakistan, why do they support it? Mirwaiz Omar Farooq gave a baffling statement: “It is the first step towards Kashmir's economic independence.” JKLF leader Yasin Malik said, “Freedom is closer.” The issue cannot be addressed unless there is a clear understanding about the importance which the pan-Islamist economic mafia attaches to the increased porosity of the LoC in J&K in relation to the drug grade, hawala transfers, and injection of counterfeit money.

The interest shown by Dubai-based Kashmir traders in cross-LoC trade has to be thoroughly analyzed. The implications of direct flights to Dubai as a starting point of international air traffic to Kashmir in the light of entrenchment of the illegal economy in the State needs to be viewed from a wider perspective of economic subversion of India.

Dr. Ajay Chrungoo is chairman, Panun Kashmir

Why It's Not Just About 5A5151516L & 5A5151516M

04-05-2009 gurumurthy.net : S. Gurumurthy

The ''Q'' accounts aren''t the target. The world is against secret stashing.

When L.K. Advani sent across what looked like a googly at the Congress on the issue of Indian black money in Swiss banks on March 29 just three days before the prime minister was to attend the G-20 meeting in London on April 2nd he would only have intended to put the party on the backfoot on an issue on which the Congress looked vulnerable. How his calculation has more than paid off and how the BJP has now on hand a powerful issue that may fix the Congress is the story ahead.

Advani did offer enough evidence on that day to demonstrate that the UPA government had shown perceivable disinclination to get at the Indian moneys abroad. Yet, he boldly counselled the prime minister, who was attending the G-20 meeting, to press the issue vigorously at the meeting, failing which, he warned, the BJP would make it an election issue. Imagine that the prime minister had rung up Advani that evening, told him that was precisely what he was intending to do at the G-20 meet and thanked Advani for drumming up public support for that! He would have hit the Advani googly out of the electoral arena. But Advani obviously knew that nothing of that sort would happen. The reason: the ruling dynasty. This issue, as everyone in the party knew, touched the First Family and its friends. The family's alleged involvement with Bofors kickbacks and Ottavio Quattrocchi and the way the UPA dispensation allowed 'Q' to get off the hook and also to snatch back the Bofors kickbacks held in frozen accounts point to more than just suspicion. Result? The Congress went so far back in defence that it crashed on its own stumps. Read on.

The usual, unprepared spokesmen pressed to take on Advani messed up the case even more. Manish Tiwari, a party spokesman, asked Advani not knowing that Advani had taken up the issue with the prime minister last year itself why raise it now, at the time of the elections? Advani had last year asked the prime minister to write to the German government to avail of its offer to give the names of non-German nationals who had secret accounts in LGT Bank to get the names of some Indians believed to have deposits in the bank. Abhishek Singhvi stepped in next. He said that G-20 was not the forum to raise the issue of secret money in Swiss banks and tax havens, totally unaware that in the preparatory G-20 meet held in Berlin in February, France and Germany had decided to raise the issue in the London meet.

Then came Jairam Ramesh. He questioned Advani's maths, which estimated loot from India into secret bank accounts abroad at between Rs 25 lakh crore and Rs 70 lakh crore. "You are a liar," he wrote to Advani, without knowing that the Swiss ambassador to India had himself confessed to NDTV Profit last year (on March 15, 2008) that a "lot of Indian black money flowed into Swiss banks". Also, the party manager did not read the correct version of the study of Global Financial Integrity, the organisation that had estimated the illicit Indian wealth stashed away abroad in just five years, 2002 to 2006 at some Rs 6.88 lakh crore. The organisation's study had validated the BJP's estimate of the loot.

Pranab Mukherjee and Kapil Sibal then stepped in and counter-charged that the NDA government had messed it all up by replacing the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) with the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), which, they alleged, had increased the flow of illicit money from India. The BJP shocked them by reading out an article authored by P. Chidambaram in The Indian Express (in 2002), in which he welcomed the replacement of FERA with FEMA.

The BJP also cited the media report which said that instead of pressing the Germans for the names of Indians in LGT Bank's secret accounts list, the UPA government was advising the Indian ambassador in Berlin not to take the initiative and pester the Germans for details!

Somewhere in between, the prime minister counselled the people of India to read an article by a former advisor to the government in a Calcutta daily as a counter to the BJP challenge! There was more fun. Despite his family's enviable record in stifling the Bofors read the Quattrocchi case, Rahul Gandhi promised full investigation into Indian monies stashed abroad. When the Congress theatre was looking so disparate, desperate and comical, the other parties the CPI(M), the AIADMK, the Samajwadi Party and the BSP seemed more serious about the issue. They vowed in their manifestos, like the BJP did, to bring back Indian monies abroad, leaving the Congress in splendid isolation.

But the BJP seemed to have done perfect homework before raising the issue. As must have been planned earlier, Advani appointed a task force consisting of four persons Ajit Doval, a security expert; R. Vaidyanathan, an academic with specialisation in finance; Mahesh Jethmalani, a lawyer; and me, a chartered accountant with investigative experience to prepare the roadmap to recover the loot and advise the BJP. Advani released the task force's report in Mumbai on April 16. The constitution of the task force itself was a strategic move. On the dispute over how big is the loot, the task force silenced the sceptics thus: "...the maths of the loot may be disputed but the fact of the loot cannot be." Yet, the report was no partisan political document. It captured how the global situation has taken a U-turn after the economic crisis; how the West, which was celebrating financial secrecy as a sacred part of individual privacy, has started seeing it as evil; how western nations themselves now feel threatened by secret banking and tax havens; how they are determined to dismantle both; how no government in India, of any party, could have done much in the past; how the time is ideal for India now to join the global effort to track illicit monies; how India has been missing its opportunities and has given the impression that it was not keen on getting at Indian wealth stashed abroad; what India as a nation should do, and so on. The report also unveiled the global as well as the national strategy for India not for the BJP as such.

The principal advice of the task force was that the BJP must work for national consensus on the issue or build powerful opinion in the country. In line with its advice, Advani appealed to all to take up the issue as a national agenda. The BJP leader seems to have succeeded in raising the issue beyond electoral limits.

The media, too, seems to view it more as a national issue, though raised by the BJP. The Hindu, not a great friend to the BJP, has in an editorial titled 'A Major Issue on the Agenda', commented: "The recommendations of a task force appointed by the BJP's senior leader L.K. Advani on the steps to be taken to bring back funds illegally stashed away in tax havens by resident Indians are timely." It also seemed to endorse the task force on the volume of Indian wealth stashed abroad; also on how, despite a benign tax regime, the outflow of illicit monies has risen. Commending as "unexceptionable" some recommendations of the task force, the editorial concluded that "...bringing back the money stashed abroad will be an enormously time-consuming task but it needs to be attempted. Mr Advani has done well to highlight a key challenge that should be addressed by the new government that is to take office."

The financial daily Hindu Business Line, too, has in its editorial commented, "Whatever the outcome of the elections, the BJP will be remembered in history books as the first party to discover an issue to galvanise opinion not just across caste and community lines but also globally.Mr L.K. Advani's call for greater action against money stashed in Swiss banks and other tax havens, theoretically at least, raises the bar of the poll campaign and sets it in tune with the global attempts to collar countries that allow unaccounted money into a common course of action." The media undoubtedly sees potential in the issue.

The BJP, too, is playing the issue in a big way. For example, Narendra Modi, one of the principal architects of the Swiss money strategy, has conducted a novel poll among the electorate in Gujarat on the issue of Indian money in Swiss banks. Some 26 lakh people are reported to have voted in the poll, with 97 per cent supporting the move. Has the Swiss money issue turned into a major issue in this poll, which was seen as an issueless one? And has the BJP fixed the Congress on the foreign money issue, which the family-led party is vulnerable on? The BJP appears to have succeeded in both.

Riotous Reportage: Gujarat 2002

http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayArticle.aspx?id=521

Riotous Reportage: Gujarat 2002

18 Apr 2009 Vijayvaani.com : Sandhya Jain

If ever there was a case for invoking Section 495-A of the penal code – causing religious hurt with intent – it should be invoked against Begum Teesta Setalvad and her accomplices in the Citizens for Justice and Peace organisation, for viciously wounding the religious sentiments and communal dignity of both Hindus and Muslims in Gujarat.

Other relevant sections of the law need to be expeditiously invoked to punish the perpetrators of the most sadistic lies in the wake of the Gujarat 2002 carnage, which burst out after the burning of kar sevaks alive in the Sabarmati Express on 28 February 2002 at Godhra station.

It is well known that the Gujarat riots were a reaction to the well-planned Godhra train atrocity. Yet Begum Teesta et al accused Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and the State Government of complicity, and defamed them before the international community, bringing a bad name to the nation and, as alleged by her own star-turned-hostile-witness Zahira Sheikh, filling her coffers in the process.

Both the Indian State and the Judiciary, specifically the Supreme Court, are in the dock of public opinion on this exposure of Begum Teesta et al, as both have willfully subordinated ordinary caution, discretion, and respect for legal process to give her and her cohorts a free run, in violation of law and all norms of decency.

If and when the government does move, it would do well to take action against foreign-affiliated ex-government servants like Harsh Mander, who compromised the dignity of the nation to titillate a western audience and finalize a lucrative employment; his pension must be cancelled forthwith and the amounts paid thus far recovered as arrears of land revenue.

Action is also due against novelist-activist Suzanne Arundhati Roy for her since-exposed lies about the rape-cum-murder of the daughter(s) of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, and her international defamation of the nation.

Sexing up Gujarat incidents

In a sensational development in the Supreme Court on 13 April 2009, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up to investigate the Gujarat riots severely censured NGOs and Teesta Setalvad (Ansari) for cooking up macabre tales of wanton killings in the 2002 riots.

The SIT, led by former CBI director R.K. Raghavan, told the apex court that many incidents of atrocities were simply cooked up by the activists; false charges were levelled against the then police chief P.C. Pandey; and false witnesses tutored to give evidence about imaginary incidents. The SIT report was submitted before a Bench comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat, P. Sathasivam and Aftab Alam. Other members included former DGP C.B. Satpathy and senior IPS officers Geetha Johri, Shivanand Jha and Ashish Bhatia. Their task was to enquire into post-Godhra riot incidents in Godhra, Gulbarga Society, Naroda Gaon, Naroda Patiya and Sardarpura.

# The SIT specifically found that in the Gulbarga Society case, the allegation that P.C. Pandey actually helped the mob instead of protecting the people (read Muslims) facing the wrath of rioters was completely false. At the time of the alleged incident, Mr. Pandey was helping with the hospitalisation of riot victims and arranging police bandobast.

# The SIT found that 22 witnesses, who had submitted identical affidavits before various courts relating to the riot incidents, were tutored and given pre-drafted affidavits by Begum Teesta, and had not actually witnessed riot incidents. On questioning, these persons revealed that they were not even aware of the incidents.

Certain incidents widely-publicised by NGOs were pure concoctions:

# A pregnant Kausar Banu was gang-raped by a mob, who then gouged out the foetus with sharp weapons

# Dumping of dead bodies into a well by rioters at Naroda Patiya

# Police botching up investigation into the killing of British nationals then visiting Gujarat and inadvertently caught in the riots

NHRC, Supreme Court: playing to an international gallery

The SIT findings are especially pertinent because hitherto there has been only ONE VERSION on Gujarat – that of NGOs with a Western audience. Sadly, agencies like the National Human Rights Commission and even the Supreme Court functioned as cheerleaders and facilitators, in utter disregard of their own mandate and ignoring emerging inconsistencies in the story, including victims who denied their victimhood.

The Supreme Court went so far as to dub the Modi administration as “modern day Neros” in the Best Bakery case. But when this mythology was challenged by star witness Zahira Sheikh, she was hauled up for perjury, while nothing happened to the Teflon Teesta.

The National Human Rights Commission felt no embarrassment when Zahira Sheikh proved that the documents upon which the NHRC recommended shifting the trial outside Gujarat were NOT signed by Zahira (who contemptuously referred to them as Teesta’s pamphlet-baazi).

It is a sad commentary on the functioning of the Supreme Court that it also accepted these unsigned documents as “evidence” in the most internationally-watched criminal case in Indian history. Further, the Court used these pamphlets to express lack of confidence in the entire Gujarat Judiciary and transfer cases to a fast-track court in Mumbai. Accountability cannot now be evaded.

Denial rebuffed

Following the sensational disclosures, Citizens for Justice and Peace issued a carefully worded statement trying to deny that any such exposé took place in court. A journalist who covered the court proceedings that day took umbrage at the attempted rebuttal and retorted that his story was based upon the SIT report to which he had access, and not on any claims or documents circulated by the Gujarat government that day

[http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Report-based-on-SIT-findings/articleshow/4407437.cms]

To prove his point, he quoted directly from the report:
# Page 9, on the Gulbarga Society carnage of 28 February 2002: “'Insistence of 19 witnesses to take on record their signed statements which according to them were prepared by Smt Teesta Setalvad and advocate Tirmiji” (the reference here is to witnesses giving signed computerised statements which were not accepted by the investigating officer (IO) as under Section 161, the officer is required to write the statement of witnesses after interrogating them personally).

# Page 10: “All of them had brought with them ready-made statements prepared on computer and requested IO to take them on record. IO explained to them that according to law they had to be questioned and examined and their statements reduced in writing by the IO.” Further, “On questioning them in respect of the typed statements, all 3 of them stated that the computerised prepared statements were given to them by Smt Teesta Setalvad and advocate Tirmiji and that they had merely signed and initialed on such prepared statements.”

# The report adds, “There are discrepancies between the prepared statements and statements recorded by the IO. In respect of 6 witnesses, there are contradictory statements relating to the names of the accused they were linking with (the) crime.”

# Page 11 says that when “'questioned about the discrepancies,” the 6 witnesses “stated that they had prepared the statements and not Setalvad and advocate Tirmiji.” In other words, the latter witnesses changed their version about who had prepared their signed statements.

# Page 8, regarding the allegation about then Ahmedabad Police Commissioner P.C. Pandey visiting Gulbarga Society at 10.30 am and assuring police protection to Muslims but not following it up was wrong as “he was proved to have gone to Sola Civil Hospital to take care of the dead bodies of Sabarmati Express arson victims.”

# Lastly, the report cites some instances of police dereliction of duty: senior police inspector K.G. Erda of Maghani Nagar PS was found to be “falsely creating the record” and “allowing the destruction of evidence in order to screen offenders;” and pre-SIT IO was guilty of “preparing slipshod inquest reports.”

Chronicle of the Invented Epic Tragedy

# Zahira Shaikh sprang into the limelight after her June 2003 testimony in a Vadodara fast track court led to the acquittal of 21 accused persons in the Best Bakery case. Zahira claimed that the smoke, darkness, and fear which made her hide when the bakery was set ablaze, did not permit her to recognize any of the accused. Sounds truthful.

# This outraged the secular baiters of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, and they were quick to retaliate. The Sheikh family was “contacted;” some “understanding” reached; tickets to Mumbai purchased...

# Zahira next made headlines when she surfaced in Mumbai in July 2003; newspapers splashed huge pictures of her being received warmly by poet Javed Akhtar – the secularists’ favourite spokesman for minority (read Muslim) rights. She made the sensational allegation that a BJP MLA had intimidated her and said she could not testify freely unless the Gujarat riot cases were transferred out of the BJP-ruled State.

# The derailment of justice began when the National Human Rights Commission, inspired by media ranting and an incurable desire to pander to a Western-International Gallery, jumped into the fray with energy unmatched by basic ability.

# Briefly, NHRC did not do its homework – at all. Buoyed by the wave of Media-NGO ranting, the Commission acted upon an UNSIGNED AFFIDAVIT (a point that needs emphasis because it has been willfully ignored by BOTH the NHRC and the Supreme Court despite being mentioned by this writer over two years ago) furnished by the ubiquitous Begum Teesta on Zahira’s behalf. Accordingly, NHRC asked the Supreme Court to order retrial in the Best Bakery Case outside Gujarat.

# In its enthusiasm not to be left behind in the Race for Political Correctness, the Supreme Court – also without scrutinizing documents – went ahead and established an amazing precedent on utterly non-existent premises! This cannot be the meaning of the term – Justice is Blind.

# The NHRC and the Supreme Court owe the nation a public explanation and a public apology. With its startling decision to transfer the Best Bakery case out of Gujarat, the apex court tarnished the reputation of the ENTIRE Gujarat Judiciary. And whichever way one looks at it, the transfer of cases from BJP-ruled Gujarat to Congress-NCP ruled Maharashtra was a LOADED POLITICAL STATEMENT. Was it warranted?

# Zahira Shaikh justly dismissed this as “pamphlet-baazi,” which indeed it was. The shoddy treatment meted out to her needs immediate redressal and compensation.

# It bears stating that even after Zahira stated that she had been intimidated in Vadodara, she was not given any police protection in Mumbai, but was left at the mercy of hitherto unknown NGO activists. As high-profile NGOs ALWAYS have a Political Agenda, the Supreme Court must tell us why it decided that this was an appropriate manner of protecting witnesses in such a sensitive case.

# Then in late 2004, Zahira suddenly accused Teesta of virtually imprisoning her (Zahira) in Teesta’s Mumbai home, forcing her to sign documents she could not read, pressurizing her to give a certain type of testimony after recognising persons from photographs, and generally threatening her in the guise of organizing her legal defense. This was the first sign that the wheels of Dharma were beginning to turn.

# It is shocking that the authorities refused to investigate this allegation. Who were the agencies that provided Begum Teesta with photographs of accused persons so that she could tutor witnesses under her control?

# Zahira further accused Teesta of making millions in her name and not fulfilling promises of financial help made to her (sounds credible).

# Unnerved at the looming exposé, Begum Teesta and her fellow travellers worked overtime on a vilification campaign, with help from an obliging media. A vicious witch-hunt was launched against the lonely orphan; it was alleged that Zahira had “sold” her testimony to a BJP legislator; worse, it was “suggested” that Zahira’s testimony had become valueless. A Judiciary with eyes-for-Teesta-only went along, though it is well-known that NGOs often enrich themselves after riots and do not pass on commensurate benefits to the victims. In fairness, there should have been an across-the-board examination of the accounts of all NGOs providing so-called relief in the Gujarat riots, and an investigation into the nature of relief and rehabilitation actually made available to victims. This must now be done if the Judiciary is to redeem itself.

# But when Zahira demanded that Supreme Court Registrar-General probe her allegations of offer of inducements, and persons responsible for inducements, she was ignored.

# Instead, Zahira was made the object of intimidatory investigations. Till date, no one has explained how a girl from Gujarat could open a bank account in Mumbai – someone must have introduced her – and how money was deposited in that bank account.

# The Supreme Court Registrar General was assisted by a Joint Commissioner of Police. Yet he failed to furnish evidence to prove his insinuation that Zahira received funds from a politically incorrect source (read BJP). In short, Zahira’s revolt against Begum Teesta was crushed with a judicial sledgehammer. An apology is due.

# Zahira asked the Vadodara Collector for protection from Setalvad and her NGO allies. Given the gravity of the charge that she was taken to Mumbai forcibly and the Mumbai police were unresponsive when approached for help; given the now-incontrovertible evidence collected by the SIT, the Supreme Court must IMMEDIATELY remove all witnesses from the care and possible intimidation of NGO-activists. Press reports that other witnesses were pushed underground by NGOs, which could well result in doctored testimonies, need investigation.

# Zahira alleged that a friend of Teesta threatened she would be “lynched” if she returned to Vadodara. There must be an enquiry into Zahira’s claim that Teesta and her colleagues told Zahira she must lie for the sake of her community. Courts must take cognizance of the assertion that Heena (wife of Zahira’s brother) was at her maternal home when the Best Bakery incident took place, and was falsely made an “eye-witness” by the NGO.

# After the SIT report, there can be no doubt that a well-funded and well-organized extra-constitutional caucus is serving ends remote from justice. Some of these elements are entrenched in political parties and the bureaucracy (which needs a drastic curtailment of its powers) and thus get undue indulgence from the political establishment and judiciary. Most disturbing in the present case is the brazenness with which they pursued an overtly communal agenda with the specific objective of demonizing the Hindu community.

# In March 2006, the Supreme Court FAILED to do justice, and was seen to perpetuate INJUSTICE.

# Zahira once demanded the right to cross-examine then NHRC chairman A.S. Anand because she visited the Commission with Teesta and made an oral submission which was recorded by Chairman and two members. Zahira said her oral testimony differed from the record NHRC placed before the Supreme Court. Today the NHRC is in the dock for a sensational “hijack” of justice.

# Actually, things began unravelling even earlier. A citizen, H. Jhaveri, found that the Citizens for Justice and Peace (represented by Begum Teesta) and the CPM (represented by MP Brinda Karat and Rais Khan Pathan) had distributed money to at least 10 witnesses in various post-Godhra trial cases. One Madina Pathan received Rs. 5 lakhs (http://www.indianexpress.com/news/sc-affidavit-wrong-didnt-know-what-we-signed-riot-victim/399007/).

# Caught on the wrong foot, Pathan declared he had been following Teesta’s orders, and sought protection from ‘death threats’ from the Gujarat Police which he once vilified!

# Then there were some “rape” victims who told the court that they were astonished to know they were raped! The case is sub-judice and women’s honour is at stake, but still it needs to be said that Gujarat Muslim women DENIED BEING RAPED during the riots, and said they had signed affidavits written in English in good faith, but did not know the English language and what was written in the said affidavits! A familiar story...

Begum blossoms on International Circuit

Teesta Setalvad’s bold and innovative inventions did not go unrewarded. Over the years, the Begum picked up an impressive array of national and international awards (and we have no way of knowing the extent to which she battened her purse). The awards include:

2003- Nuremberg Human Rights Award 2003

2004-Parliamentarians for Global Action ‘Defender of Democracy’ Award, jointly with Helen Clark, Prime Minister of New Zealand

2004-M.A. Thomas National Human Rights Award from the Vigil India Movement

2006-Nani A Palkhivala Award

2007-Padma Shri

Bogus bleeding heart: Harsh Mander

On 13 March 2002, an hitherto unknown and undistinguished gentleman named Harsh Mander made his debut in the columns of a national daily; became a well-choreographed international celebrity; resigned from the IAS after completing 20 years of service and becoming eligible for pension; and became ‘permanent’ with an international NGO where he was on deputation.

As the IAS is already under a cloud as a corrupt and non-performing organisation, this would be an ideal opportunity for it to take in-house correctives and stop pandering to the culture of “the anti-national is truly international.” The nation is fast losing patience with these sleazy types.

Briefly, Mander’s execrable article was titled, “Cry, the Beloved Country. Reflections on the Gujarat massacre.” It was obviously a command performance, and someone well-placed got it positioned in the English language media.

Mander wrote claiming to have toured Gujarat for ten days after the riots, “My heart is sickened, my soul wearied, my shoulders aching with the burdens of guilt and shame.” He spoke glibly of “pitiless brutality against women and small children by organised bands of armed young men,” and YES:

“What can you say about a woman eight months pregnant who begged to be spared. Her assailants instead slit open her stomach, pulled out her foetus and slaughtered it before her eyes.”

Well, we now know that this NEVER HAPPENED, so Mander must explain his information-gathering techniques or admit he simply wrote what he was tutored to write by unknown persons, or that someone did the writing which he passed off in his name because he had an IAS tag and was going to “resign” from service in a manner that would gain instant lucrative international assignment + pension benefit intact.

In these circumstances, it would be a safe bet to conclude that the rest of his ‘true stories’ are similar Bedtime Tales for the Macabre-Minded.

This one is fit for Ramsay Brothers:

- A small boy of six in Juhapara camp described how his mother and six brothers and sisters were battered to death before his eyes; he survived only because he fell unconscious, and was taken for dead.

- A family escaping from Naroda-Patiya… spoke of losing a young woman and her three month old son, because a police constable directed her to `safety' and she found herself instead surrounded by a mob which doused her with kerosene and set her and her baby on fire.

Looking back, I am amazed one did not detect, then, the note of joyous triumphalism, the gloating “I got you” tone in which the piece was written:
“I have never known a riot which has used the sexual subjugation of women so widely as an instrument of violence in the recent mass barbarity in Gujarat. There are reports everywhere of gang-rape, of young girls and women, often in the presence of members of their families, followed by their murder by burning alive, or by bludgeoning with a hammer and in one case with a screw driver…”

Possible. But how does one explain the fact that nearly all surviving ‘raped’ women now say that they never complained of rape, and did not know that their affidavits claimed rape?

Everywhere he went, Mander met people who said Gujarat was not a riot, but a “planned massacre, a pogrom.” Of course, he felt “great shame at the abdication of duty of my peers in the civil and police administration.” And of course he blamed “civil society.” In other words, the whole of Hindu India in whatever guise – politicians, police, officers, citizens. The only true Samaritans he did encounter were Muslims (who else?)

[http://www.sabrang.com/gujarat/statement/nv2.htm]

What must be done?

# Harsh Mander was a SERVING IAS officer when he wrote those outright lies. He must be prosecuted under relevant laws for

1] Scandalizing the Gujarat government in the eyes of the nation and the world
2] Peddling false stories about the torture of Muslim women with the intent to humiliate and dehumanize Gujarati Hindu society in the eyes of the nation and the world

3] Inciting and provoking animosity and hatred among Hindus and Muslims by fanning fires of hatred instead of allowing the return of normalcy and communal harmony

# The Government of India must immediately revoke his pension and recover previous amounts paid by attaching his bank accounts or properties, if necessary.

# The National Human Rights Commission has evolved into a national disgrace and should be wound up expeditiously. It serves no public purpose and panders only to an international audience, which is definitionally anti-Hindu.

# On 23 November 2008, I was part of a citizen’s initiative to the Commission, to demand an enquiry into allegations of illegal detention and torture of Sadhvi Pragya by the Mumbai ATS. No action has been reported to us in this matter till date, and I am quite confident that after one formal notice to the Maharashtra Home Secretary – duly reported in the media – there has been NO follow up action at all.

# Since then, Sadhvi Pragya has been hospitalized for weakness after she refused food on finding non-vegetarian items in her jail food. Would NHRC have remembered that it had sent a formal notice to the Maharashtra Government and not got a reply? No. There seems to be a tacit understanding about what cases need to be followed and what are to be ignored.

# Since the cases taken up are ONLY those pertaining to the Minorities, and we already have a Minorities Commission, the NHRC is truly redundant.

# The Supreme Court must tell us if we need a Supreme Court? Because if the highest judicial institution of the country plays Second Fiddle to West-backed NGOs and activists with unknown agendas and sources of income, we may be better off institutionalizing a true jungle raj in which we Hindus have a better chance of surviving.

# If the Supreme Court does its job properly, what need is there of a National Human Rights Commission? It is not the job of the Indian taxpayer to provide retired judges with paid sinecures. These two organisations should stop their jugalbandi and tell us which of them should survive, and which should be wound up.

# The Supreme Court must immediately initiate steps to undo its own previous prejudicial and punitive treatment of Zahira Shaikh and give the poor orphan a fair compensation so that she can begin to pick up the pieces of her shattered life. The Registrar-General and Joint Commissioner of Police who demonstrated bias against her must be punished.

# All Gujarat witnesses currently being ‘held’ by NGOs must be immediately taken away and put under the custody of the Gujarat State.

# All victims must be given their sworn affidavits in a language they understand and asked if they stand by them or rebut the allegations therein. After that, action must be taken against those who got signatures through unfair means.

# The apex court must retrieve its honour by sending the Gujarat riot cases BACK to Gujarat.

# Action must be taken against ALL NGOs and activists who orchestrated the international opprobrium against the Gujarat state and the Hindu people of India.

# Zahira has exposed major holes in the ethical roofing of statutory commissions that play to an international gallery, and the Hindu-baiting media-NGO nexus. Her demand for a probe into Teesta’s post-Gujarat assets remains pertinent.

# Finally, as the riot cases were transferred on faulty premises, norms must be laid down to prevent the hijacking of justice in future.

Last word

Why were Gujarati Muslims quick to return to normal; why did they refuse to wallow in anti-Narendra Modi rhetoric to the anguish of the media-human rights wallahs; why did they insist that Gujarat was the best place to live and prosper; and why did even Qutbuddin Ansari – the face of the Gujarat riots – quit the safe environs of Kolkata and return to Ahmedabad where he was supposedly nearly hounded to death?

Could it be that Narendra Modi is not such a demon after all?

The author is Editor, www.vijayvaani.com

The text that could well become an online-petition.

Badri

18 Apr 2009

Sandhya Ji, Congratulations for a well researched, frank and correct analysis of the Godhra and its Gujerat aftermath. You have done a remarkable job in bringing out the VILLAINS of this episode and expose them for what they are... Money Hungry...Lime Light Seekers......anti Nationals with Hindu names enriching themselves at the cost of their Nation and Hindus.

Bhargava

18 Apr 2009

It is ironical that the truth first uncovered by Justice Tewatia Committee Report is now getting revealed by SIT investigations, paradoxically appointed at the initiative of Kapil Sibal to “crucify” Narendra Modi. ### Celebrities like Arundhati Roy graphically described how Ehsan Jaffri’s wife and daughters were disrobed, raped and their abdomen cut open and burning rags inserted - published in OUTLOOK, which was grabbed by international media with alacrity. But WHEN THE WIFE AND DAUGHTERS WHO WERE IN USA RETURNED TO AHMEDABAD AND MET THE MEDIA, no regret was issued either by Arundhati or Outlook at such barbarous reporting!!

SK

18 Apr 2009

I thank the Editor of Vijayvaani.com. I am a regular reader of the article published on your website. Please keep up the good work. I have formed a mail group to which I forward most of these articles. I want to appeal to the other readers of this website to carry out some effort to circulate such articles to counter the biased media. If there is an uproar in the general public about misinformation handed out by media, then only we can expect some change in its behaviour. BJP should make people aware about this new development before the remaining phases of elections. I see no TV channel discussing this issue on their debate programs, Why? because Barkha, Prannoy, Rajdeep and Co have no place to hide their faces. Along with Teesta and Harsh Mander we should take some action against these so-called upholders of forth estate of democracy for spicing up the hatred against Gujarat Government without proper investigation. BJP should include the issue of Foreign funding to NGO's at par with the Swiss Bank monies. We as a citizens of India wants to know why so much money (appx Rs.12000 Cr) is coming to NGO's in India and how it is spent. I congratulate Shri. Narendra Modi for taking a tough stand and people of Gujarat for supporting a good leader for all these difficult times.

Sharmila Gharpure

18 Apr 2009