“I have not committed any crime nor have tried to polarise. Nor have I acted irresponsibility to retard the healing process. On the contrary, by our action all those who feel they are being discriminated against for being Muslims would now feel that they have been given an opportunity for a fair and speedy trail.” These are the words of Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh said in response to The Indian Express editorial “Radical Agent” (February 5) in which the daily had criticised the leader’s Azamgarh visit to meet the family members of the boys killed in the infamous Batla House shootout on September 19, 2008.
Digvijay, in his article in The Indian Express on February 13 regretted, “I did not see this kind of a reaction in your paper when Mr. Rajnath Singh and Mr L.K Advani questioned the integrity of Hemant Karkare and asked for a re-inquiry into the Malegaon bomb blast.”
Singh’s Azamgarh visit has once again raised some genuine questions about the genuineness of the said shootout in which two students – suspected as terrorists – and one Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, succumbed to their injuries leaving a bad name to Muslim concentration district of Azamgarh. The encounter was followed by serial blasts in Delhi, due to which the then Union Home Minister was under acute pressure and wanted immediate result. Later, several youths from the town were arrested while dozens of them remain on the wanted list.
Digvijay said that after the unfortunate incident he was shown a photograph of one of the victims killed in the encounter who had all the five bullets on top of his head. This he felt impossible in an encounter. So he requested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to order an enquiry into the said encounter. He also visited Sanjarpur which is the home of two boys, Atif and Sajid, who had been killed in the said encounter – six days after the serial blasts in Delhi.
It is really a matter of grave concern how Azamgarh – which has been an icon and centre for culture, literature, poetry and a centre for learning – has been defamed and turned as the epicentre of terror activities.
Now the situation in the region is pitiable. The relatives of the alleged accused fear and are unable to defend their boys as dozens of fake cases have been registered in four states and six cities of the countries for their alleged involvement in some or other bomb blasts or conspiring a plot.
Most of the accused are young and well educated, coming from rural lower middle-class families who have sold or mortgaged their assets and borrowed money for higher education. Due to this unfortunate fake encounter most of them studying in Delhi or some other metropolitan cities have left the cities and gave up their studies for fear of extra judicial killing and kidnapping.
It is noteworthy that Azamgarh is a place where Muslims are relatively good – educationally and financially – in comparison to other places. It is supposed that the shootout was conducted as per the conspiracy to pull the legs of the Muslim community and bring it to the back-foot.
After the encounter the case was referred to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to investigate into the matter. But unfortunately due to political interference the NHRC team was also not able to establish any wrongdoing by the police.
Digvijay Singh briefed Party Chief Sonia Gandhi about his visit to Azamgarh where he had received petitions from families of young men arrested on terror charges. He said Azamgarh has got a bad name and had been dubbed “a nursery of terrorism”, and his party wanted to clear Azamgarh’s image and see that innocent people were not harassed. He said there should be free, fair and speedy trial in cases faced by the youth harassed. The visit came two days after Uttar Pradesh’s Anti-Terror Squad arrested one more student, Shahzad Ahmed in connection with 2008 Delhi serial blasts from the same Azamgarh district.
On the other hand Muslim scholars also protested Congress leaders’ visit and waved black flags and shouted slogans. They alleged that his visit is driven by politics and the leaders went there to ensure the party’s vote bank. They say that it is an irony that this is the same Congress government raising fingers at the genuineness of the said encounter which conferred Ashok Chakra to the encounter specialist Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma (posthumously).
After Divijay’s visit the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also wants to visit Azamgarh. The motive behind the visit of these heavy-weights is easily comprehensible. But we hope the Union Government would go ahead despite objections by some political parties and groups, to probe allegations that some local youth had been picked up by police without reason.
It is said that “statesmen think of next generation but politicians think of next election”. Now we have to see whether Digvijay is a statesman or a politician.