6th Gear

Sometimes to move on in life, you need to turn around one last time. Just the way you need to put your car in reverse gear to get out of a dead end. For the past 9 months I had been fighting a losing battle with myself to get over the past. Today things are so much easier. I took 1 small step behind and am cruising forward now without any hurdles. I thought it would take me forever to get a fresh lease of life but it was all in my mind. I had gotten over the pain long back but it just took me a little looking back to realize it. Like Steinbeck once said “Some people think it’s an insult to the glory of their sickness to get well. But the time poultice is no respecter of glories. Everyone gets well if he waits around”.

I'm moving.....

After living in my present house for two and a half years I am finally moving, yes, moving into a new house. And during the course of cleaning and packing my wardrobe I came across a few reminders from my past, some pieces of paper which can bring back a deluge of memories, both bitter and sweet, for quite some time now the bitter memories have been more overpowering. Memories which could once bring a smile to my face make me only misty eyed now. It was then I realized that this move is giving me not just an opportunity to move into a new house but also a long awaited chance to move on in life. I could let go of the past and make a fresh new start. So finally after contemplating and re-contemplating over this issue for a day I decided to burn the papers.
Watching the papers burn last night was probably the most gratifying experience I had in a long long time. I have no idea why Hindu dead bodies are cremated, no idea what the Vedas say about it but I suddenly realized then that burning the dead must be something very good. Good for both the dead and those who are left behind to deal with the loss and pain. The fire and flames makes the end seem real and final. To see the papers turn to ashes made me realize that there was no turning back, no chance of reversal. And yes no more chance for me to sit and glorify pain and tragedy. And all my fears that once I burnt them I would want them back so desperately died too. I felt absolutely nothing like that. I knew I was letting go off a lot …but then it was all for good since I was letting go off pain, tears, remorse, self pity and huge amount of grief. No matter what I do next in life, good or bad it will never be the same mistake or the same pain. I am now ready to make a fresh new start and a whole lot of fresh new mistakes but I know there will be no regression at my end, ever. I am finally moving on.

13 Dec-A Reader

I am posting this particular post hoping that every human being who still believes in the victory of good over evil will read it without any prejudices and distinction of caste and religion. What follows is an excerpt from Arundhati Roy’s introduction to 13 December - A Reader: The Strange Case of the Attack on the Indian Parliament. The essays in the reader are by A G Noorani, Arundhati Roy, Ashok Mitra, Indira Jaising, Jawed Naqvi, Mihir Srivastava, Nandita Haskar, Nirmalangshu Mukherji, Praful Bidwai, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Sonia Jabbar, Syed Bismillah Geelani and Tripta Wahi.

Most people, or let’s say many people, when they encounter real facts and a logical argument, do begin to ask the right questions. Public unease continues to grow. A group of citizens have come together as a committee (chaired by Nirmala Deshpande) to publicly demand a Parliamentary enquiry into the episode. There is an on-line petition demanding the same thing. Thousands of people have signed on. Every day new articles appear in the papers, on the net. At least half a dozen web sites are following the developments closely. They raise questions about how Mohammad Afzal, who never had proper legal representation, can be sentenced to death, without having had an opportunity to be heard, without a fair trial. They raise questions about fabricated evidence, procedural flaws and the outright lies that were presented in court and published in newspapers. They show how there is hardly a single piece of evidence that stands up to scrutiny.
And then, there are even more disturbing questions that have been raised, which range beyond the fate of Mohammad Afzal.

Question 1: For months before the Attack on Parliament, both the government and the police had been saying that Parliament could be attacked. On 12 December 2001, at an informal meeting the Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee warned of an imminent attack on Parliament. On 13 December Parliament was attacked. Given that there was an ‘improved security drill’, how did a car bomb packed with explosives enter the parliament complex?

Question 2: Within days of the Attack, the Special Cell of Delhi Police said it was a meticulously planned joint operation of Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba. They said the attack was led by a man called ‘Mohammad’ who was also involved in the hijacking of IC-814 in 1998. (This was later refuted by the CBI.) None of this was ever proved incourt. What evidence did the Special Cell have for its claim?

Question 3: The entire attack was recorded live on Close Circuit TV (CCTV). Congress Party MP Kapil Sibal demanded in Parliament that the CCTV recording be shown to the members. He was supported by the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, Najma Heptullah, who said that there was confusion about the details of the event. The chief whip of the Congress Party, Priyaranjan Dasmunshi, said, ‘I counted six men getting out ofthe car. But only five were killed. The close circuit TV camera recording clearly showed the six men.’ If Dasmunshi was right, why did the police say that there were only five people in the car? Who was the the sixth person? Where is he now? Why was the CCTV recording not produced by the prosecution as evidence in the trial? Why was it not released for public viewing?

Question 4: Why was Parliament adjourned after some of these questions were raised?

Question 5: A few days after 13 December, the government declared that it had ‘incontrovertible evidence’ of Pakistan’s involvement in the attack, and announced a massive mobilization of almost half a million soldiers to the Indo-Pakistan border. The subcontinent was pushed to the brink of nuclear war. Apart from Afzal’s ‘confession’, extracted under torture (and later set aside by the Supreme Court), what was the ‘incontrovertible evidence’?

Question 6: Is it true that the military mobilization to the Pakistan border had begun long before the 13 December Attack?

Question 7: How much did this military standoff, which lasted for nearly a year, cost? How many soldiers died in the process? How many soldiers and civilians died because of mishandled landmines, and how many peasants lost their homes and land because trucks and tanks were rolling through their villages, and landmines were being planted in their fields?

Question 8: In a criminal investigation it is vital for the police to show how the evidence gathered at the scene of the attack led them to the accused. How did the police reach Mohammad Afzal? The Special Cell says S.A.R. Geelani led them to Afzal. But the message to look out for Afzal was actually flashed to the Srinagar Police before Geelani was arrested. So how did the Special Cell connect Afzal to the 13 December Attack?

Question 9: The courts acknowledge that Afzal was a surrendered militant who was in regular contact with the security forces, particularly the Special Task Force (STF) of Jammu & Kashmir Police. How do the security forces explain the fact that a person under their surveillance was able to conspire in a major militant operation?

Question 10: Is it plausible that organizations like Lashkar-e-Toiba or Jaish-e-Mohammed would rely on a person who had been in and out of STF torture chambers, and was under constant police surveillance, as the principal link for a major operation?

Question 11: In his statement before the court, Afzal says that he was introduced to ‘Mohammed’ and instructed to take him to Delhi by a man called Tariq, who was working with the STF. Tariq was named in the police charge sheet. Who is Tariq and where is he now?

Question 12: On 19 December 2001, six days after the Parliament Attack, Police Commissioner, Thane (Maharashtra), S.M. Shangari identified one of the attackers killed in the Parliament Attack as Mohammad Yasin Fateh Mohammed (alias Abu Hamza) of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, who had been arrested in Mumbai in November 2000, and immediately handed over to the J&K Police. He gave detailed descriptions to support his statement. IfPolice Commissioner Shangari was right, how did Mohammad Yasin, a man in the custody of the J&K Police, end up participating in the Parliament Attack? If he was wrong, where is Mohammad Yasin now?

Question 13: Why is it that we still don’t know who the five dead ‘terrorists’ killed in the Parliament Attack are?

The following are links to 2 essays which are part of this book and another article by Nirmalangshu Mukherji on the same incident.

1. Guilty of an Unsolved Crime - Mihir Srivastava

2. India's Shame - Arundhati Roy

3. Who Attacked Parliament - Nirmalangshu Mukherji