Gross injustice in the name of fighting terrorism

Behind the frequently flashed television and print images of a bearded man dressed to fit the stereotyped image of a terrorist, is a hidden story of manufactured ‘truth’ created to fool a billion Indians. It is a propaganda campaign meant to blind us with its intensity.

Mohammed Afzal faces the gallows on 20 th October at the strike of dawn. The TV channels are competing to show footage of the man described alternatively as a “Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist” and as its “north India chief.” The man from Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir has been convicted for having conspired to attack Parliament - despite the country’s highest court noting that that there was no direct evidence to link him to the act.

Just as with the three others who had initially been sentenced by a POTA court to death in the case – Afzal’s cousin Shaukat Guru, Shaukat’s wife Afsan, and Delhi University Professor Syed Abdul Rehman Geelani, the ‘evidence’ is based purely on conjectures. On the other hand, Afzal’s version of how events unfolded leading up to the attack has not been given serious attention by the courts nor investigated by the state. It is important to pay attention to it in some detail.

Afzal, a surrendered JKLF militant, is accused of having provided the logistical support to the five men who entered Parliament in New Delhi, on December 13, 2001, and who were all killed in retaliatory fire at the Parliament complex itself. Indeed, as the court order reads, the landlord of the house where the five stayed has recognized Afzal as the man who helped in getting the accommodation. But then, Afzal has never denied that he helped the five – he helped them purchase a car as well. He says he never knew the five were using his assistance to plan a terrorist act.

As any surrendered militant will testify, their fate after surrender is similar to that of Russians who fled to the US during the Cold War – either obey the intelligence agencies or perish. In late November, says Afzal, he was contacted by a Deputy Superintendent of Police in the Intelligence Bureau, while he was still in Baramulla. He was asked to help five people procure a house and a car in Delhi, where Afzal had a cousin Shaukat. He immediately called Shaukat – who had settled in Delhi with his wife Afsan – who agreed to help Afzal. Afzal’s orders were to be in Delhi with the five to personally help them as well.

So in early December, Afzal left for the capital, where he stayed with his cousin’s family in their north Delhi apartment. Shaukat’s neighbour, Geelani, was known to Afzal, both coming from the same village in Baramulla. Afzal had already left back for Srinagar before 13 th December, a point not contested by anyone. The police have no evidence of any meetings or phone calls between Afzal – or any of the other three – and the chief accused in the conspiracy – three other allegedly Pakistan based militant leaders.

The question obviously arises - if the fate of the case were to be decided on circumstantial evidence, should not Afzal’s version have been explored and investigated as well? Who ordered him to carry out what he did and why? The families of those who died that day – ordinary policemen and one Parliament employee – and the entire country would, after all, only be satisfied if the genuine culprits of such terror attacks are punished.

The answer to the question is perhaps equally obvious – an attack masterminded by the Indian intelligence agencies couldn’t exactly be owned up to. Hence the media campaign full of blatant lies. A Kashmiri is to be hanged in order to establish in the people’s mind that Islamic terrorists indeed pose the gravest threat to India, while suppressing the hand of Indian intelligence.

For starters, the Supreme Court has categorically stated that “there is no evidence to link the accused (Mohammed Afzal) to any terrorist outfit.” The same court that is otherwise worshipped as the highest authority in the land is being overruled in broad daylight by every section of the media, with no action yet against any of them.

The television channels are parading ‘interviews’ with Afzal, where he his shown accepting that he helped the five terrorists. The section of the tape where he says he had no clue about who the five were, what they were up to, and his own version of why he did what he did, have been carefully edited out. Shown repeatedly, after first laying out the case against him for public scrutiny, but never presenting the case for the defence, the ‘interviews’ naturally create the image of a ‘confession’. In reality, the Supreme Court has lambasted the media and the police for allowing these ‘interviews’ in the first place.

The interrogation itself was carried out in an illegal manner, as has been stated by the Court. Under Section 52, subclause 2 of POTA, the accused, after his appearance in the JM’s court has to be sent to judicial custody – jail – and not back to the police station, where he could be tortured again. The purpose of this clause was to introduce an element of natural justice in an otherwise draconian law, so that the accused can tell the court that the confessional statement was signed under torture. Afzal, however, was taken back to the police station from the JM’s court, making the High Court and then the Supreme Court reject the ‘confessions’ as admissible evidence.

In the backdrop of such misdeeds by the authorities, is Afzal’s version so unthinkable that it does not merit even an investigation? The uproar over his hanging in Kashmir is certainly not surprising. The Kashmiris have a long history of being victimized by the Indian state, and know how “trials in India” are conducted.

Afzal appears to be a scapegoat in the strategy of the Indian ruling class to establish a lie as the truth. Any trick is apparently justified as long as it serves to make the people believe that the biggest danger to India’s security comes from Islamic terrorists sent across the border from Pakistan. The Indian big bourgeoisie shares the same pragmatic outlook as US imperialism: any lie is fine, any injustice is alright, even to the extent of using one’s own intelligence to organize an attack on one’s own Parliament, because “the end justifies the means”. Anything goes that will serve to divert the attention of the people from the crimes of the rulers and turn them against an unknown devil.  Terrorist attacks are useful as excuse to step up state terrorism and unleash propaganda against ‘Islamic terrorists’, to introduce fascist laws, clamp down on democratic and human rights. The strategic goal is to prevent the resistance to the imperialist offensive from developing into a new round of revolution to overthrow capitalism. The so-called war against terrorism is in the service of this strategic aim of indefinitely prolonging the life of this man-eating system.