DR. S. AUSAF SAIED VASFI dwells in detail upon what exactly happened in Gopalgarh of Bharatpur district of Rajasthan on Sep. 14, and also points out its political consequences.
What exactly happened in Gopalgarh, Bharatpur (Rajasthan) on Sep. 14? Was it yet another communal disturbance, – this time Muslim Meos versus Gujjars – or what they are calling a one-sided police-action? Who pulled the trigger amidst the half-hearted efforts at restoration of peace? Will, as a logical consequence, the lazy, derelict or Saffron indoctrinated and complicit higher level officials of police as well as the constabulary plus the timid Magistrate who succumbed to the RSS and BJP pressure and signed the firing order be prosecuted by the Gehlot government itself or the relatives of the deceased be allowed to proceed against those responsible for the tragedy? What long range political consequences are likely to happen after the said event,having the shades of Gujarat 2002?
The point raised above is important because the victims’ relatives had been insisting upon post-mortem, not by the biased doctors in the town, but by the impartial ones of AIIMS Delhi. Now the autopsy report says three persons died of gunshot wounds while the rest succumbed to sharp weapons injuries. This report thus weighs heavily in favour of the derelict Congress-led government. The ANHAD report had clearly said there was no death before the police intervention.
UNILATERAL FIRE
These sharp and embarrassing questions have been agitating minds of the concerned, who rightly or wrongly feel that such dark events also pose a serious hurdle in the national development.
The tragedy, though not the gravest ever, claimed nine lives of Muslims alone as the firing was unilateral and selective. Look at this modus operandi of the alleged rogues in uniform in the backdrop of the Prime Minister’s call to the police, intelligence and other security agencies to give up biased thinking, if any, against the minorities. Dr. Manmohan Singh was addressing the annual conference of Directors-General and Inspectors-General of Police in Delhi on Sep. 17. The point is: do such commonsense issues need reminders from the Head of the Government?
To the old-timers, it is indeed the ‘rarest of the rare’ cases when the Congress Party at the Centre has publicly admonished the State machinery and admitted its failure in controlling the deaths and destruction.
In its report to the party president, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, the 4-member delegation that made an on-the-spot study last week, has held the police responsible for ‘excesses’ including firing ‘inside the mosque’. It has also affirmed that all the casualties belonged to the Muslim Meos. The delegation saw blood on the floor, walls, pulpit and the place wherefrom the Imam leads the prayers. Mr. Vijay Bahuguna, Mr. Rashid Alvi, Mr.Viplove Thakur and Mr.DeependerHooda met a cross section of society besides those responsible for law and order. The delegation noted that some bodies were thrown into a well while some others in the fields. The visiting dignitaries recommended sack of the State Home Minister as well as the erring officials. They also noted that the disputants – Gujjars and Muslims – had reached upon an agreement but the activists of the BJP and RSS ‘whipped up tension’, asserting that the agreement was not acceptable to them.
UNIDENTIFIED GUJJAR
How did they do it has been succinctly summed up by Apurva, the Indian Express correspondent.In her copy filed on Sep. 21 from Gopalgarh,she says: an unidentified Gujjar burst into the meeting of the leaders of the two communities at Gopalgarh police station, screaming that the Meos had shot and killed several Gujjars at the main village square.
This well-planned rumour did what it ought to have done. The Muslim grievance is that no brave police officer cared to catch hold of the author of this calumny. The crook is said to have gone underground.
This however makes it clear that a small track of land that is being made about as trigger was not the trigger. The trigger was the Saffron’s determination to ignite the uncalled for fire.
In its Sep. 20 report, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) also contradicts the local police version and asserts that deaths occurred only after the police intervention. The official version is “misleading” said the PUCL whose preliminary report stated: not only were all eight killed Meo Muslims but 19 of the 23 injured as well. KavitaSrivastava, the Rajasthan PUCL general secretary said: “The fact that only the Meo Muslims have died and 19 of their community injured is intriguing if the police were,as is claimed, acting neutrally.” The PUCL report said, “The mosque bore evidence of extreme vandalism, which lends credence to the allegation that after the firing the mosque was captured by a section of the Gujjar community in complicity of the police.”
The report also said there is strong belief among Meos that the then District Magistrate Krishna Kunal was pressured into ordering firing by the self-styled Hindu leaders. “If the police were (indeed) acting neutrally, the preponderance of Muslims among the dead and the injured is intriguing.”
SECULAR COSMETICS
Equally significant is the BJP’s delegation’s report which, contrary to the Saffron’s favourite line, does not hide the truth, perhaps because Gopalgarh, Bharatpur happens to be in the Cong-led state. Add to it Mr. Modi’s strategic use of secular cosmetics that the BJP Muslim face Mr. ShahnawazHussain, after a fact-finding mission, reiterated what others are saying: It was a police action, not a communal or Hindu-Muslim riot. He wondered at the liberal use of cartridges, 219 bullets were fired by the police. He saw the pulpit and the sanctum sanctorum and chided the police personnel for entering the mosque with shoes on. He saw burnt human bones in the mosque. There were, according to his counts, 43 marks of firing on the outer walls of the mosque and six on the inner wall. He also regretted that Mr. Rahul Gandhi did not care to visit the riot-ravaged Gopalgarh.
What here baffles the political observers is the fact, clearly mentioned by the BJP’sMuslim face, Mr. ShahnawazHussain, that the police fired 219 (repeat 219) rounds. The question is: is the marksmanship of the Rajasthan police so poor that only three bull’s-eye shots were found correct? Or the hidden part of the story is yet to come.
Besides other Muslim organisations like the All-India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat, the Rajasthan unit of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, JamiatUlema-e-Hind and several other Muslim organisations played a remarkable role in this regard. The Jamiat General Secretary Maulana ArshadMadni wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister.
BEHIND THE SCENE TRUTH
A cursory study of Rajasthan Muslim case would reveal upon you that it is on the political surface that the Congress is in governance in Rajasthan. The truth is it is the BJP-RSS combine, and its cadre at important posts that rules the roost.
Not long ago, in August, to be exact, the combined Muslim leadership of the State felt compelled to boycott the so-called iftaar parties thrown by Ministers, MLAs and politicians in the month of Ramadhan. It was an unprecedented step. The Rajasthan Muslim Forum, consisting of the State unit of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Irada Society, Association for Protection of Civil Rights had jointly taken this bold decision.
Assembly elections in Rajasthan are just a year away. Soon you are likely to find Mr. Gehlot in the dirty and odorous alleyways of Rajasthan Muslims.
CONGRESS FAILURES
The Congress-led Government has desisted from constituting the Minorities Commission in the State. There is no Minority Development and Financial Corporation. Norare there Madrasa Board and Urdu Academy. Despite the Congress completing three years in office,no minister has been appointed to the new Department of Minorities Welfare, while 3,500 para-teachers for madrasas are still waiting for their appointment.
Poor representation by government advocates in the Ajmer Dargah blast case, it has to be also noted, resulted in the bail of Sangh Parivar activists. See this in the context of 17 innocent Muslims implicated in the Jaipur serial blasts case still languishing in jail since 2008. It looks as if the State Chief Minister is simply ignorant of the Muslim agony over there.
Rest assured, neither any accused officer nor his erring subordinates is likely to be prosecuted nor any next to the kin would perhaps be permitted to proceed against anybody. Reason?
We have no such healthy tradition in our country. Was anybody, actively involved in, say, Moradabad or Meerut or Maliana or Bhagalpur or Nellie, proceeded against? In this regard the weightiest argument of the powers-that-be has been that punitive steps would demoralise the police and paramilitary forces. In the Batla House case in New Delhi the same lame excuse is regularly being trotted out. The Muslim leadership once again registers its cavil against this perverse logic.