A couple of years back, a Muslim police officer went to visit a colleague from the same community, who was on his death bed suffering from cancer. When the patient saw him, he grabbed the officer’s hand and pleaded: “I have very little time left. I have done so much wrong in life. We have killed some innocent people, branding them terrorists. Do go to their families and apologize on my behalf.” The cop died soon after, but the words of the dying man still haunt his colleague and other Muslim officers in Gujarat Police, who were part of an elaborate anti-terror operation that went awry over the years, leading to fake encounters and harassment of innocents, writes Prashant Dayal in The Times of India on July 29.
In the serial bomb blasts that took place on July 26, more than 50 local people were believed to have been involved in providing logistics. But the police didn’t get a whiff of it. Three days after the blasts, the police are still at sea, given the deep mistrust in the police force and the minority community. “Police earlier had a good grassroots-level informers’ network that helped uncover underworld and terrorist activities. That trust has completely broken down and even Muslim police officers are of no help today,” the Times report cites a senior police official as saying. However it does not mention his name.
It began with a controversial encounter of a history-sheeter. The crime branch had sent a Muslim head constable to the gangster’s father to persuade him to hand his son over, promising no harm will be done. “I am a Muslim who prays five times a day. You can trust me,” the cop told the man. Three days later, the crime branch announced the accused had been gunned down – he was a terrorist plotting to kill chief minister Narendra Modi. The crime branch, once a nodal agency to fight against criminals and terrorism, was involved in a series of eight encounters in which 14 people were killed since the 2002 riots. “Muslim policemen, who were key links between the force and informers, lost faith in the system because of the excesses committed in the name of war on terror. The complete break-down in the intelligence network that we see today is a direct fallout of that,” the officer reportedly said.