A commentator of current affairs, Samar Halarnkar, is of the view that the ongoing battle against terror in the country is set to fail if the chain of implicating innocent persons continues and victims, after being proved innocent by courts of law, are not rehabilitated. Commenting on the sad plight of Mohammad Aamir, who was cleared recently from many cases against him, the commentator, in his article (The Hindustan Times, September 27) has written that young Muslims are arrested on the flimsiest of grounds like possession of religious texts, newspaper clippings and educational certificates, and they and their relations are subjected to serious kinds of mental, physical and social torture. When some of them are released by courts of law, then neither police and secret agencies offer regret for their action nor does the government take it necessary to rehabilitate them. And thus family after family gets ruined. In this regard, the commentator has also kept in view the report of New Delhi’s Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association which profiled 16 such cases including that of Mohammad Aamir.
Jamia Teachers’ Report
This report of Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association is an extraordinary document of its kind. This Association was established in the background of 2008 Batla House “encounter”. This document took four years of continuous labour and strivings. It has revealed how the “Special Cell” of Delhi Police detains innocents and gathers ridiculous evidences against them. The Association wants a judicial enquiry into this “encounter”. Taking notice of this report, Samar Halarnkar has supported it. Besides Halarnkar, some other commentators have also commented on this subject during the last week and expressed concern on the prevailing situation. Although these commentators too are influenced by the terror stories of international media and the reports of police and national and international agencies, and understand that a section of Muslims is involved in terror incidents in one way or the other, follows the dictates of Pakistan and its ISI, nurtures extremist religious tendencies, and is promoting“Salfism”, etc. etc. as is mentioned in the commentary of Halarnkar. However these commentators are worthy enough to rise above jingoism and speak truth to some extent.
This isn’t the real issue
But this is not the real issue that there is a problem of terrorism in the country and the government want to solve it. Had this been the situation 20 years ago, it would have been true as had happened in the Punjab. Today the issue is something else, which can be seen in the backdrop of international politics, globalisation, overt and covert relations with Israel, and government policies. The ruling class here is doing whatever America is doing with Islam and the Muslim Ummah in the name of war on terrorism. You can challenge on merit the measures taken by police and secret agencies as the Constitution and laws are with you; but what will you do if all this is being done as per the State policy? The fact that whatever has been set as a matter of policy will happen notwithstanding the voice of protest raised by the victims and human rights activists, has come to the fore during the recent months. – If it is not so, it should be clarified first. The media could have done something in this regard, but it is fully with the State policy. The mentality of TV anchors and those participating in discussions is not different. Therefore, human rights activists and right-thinking commentators have to do this work. Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association also can do a lot.
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