By Syed Hassan Kazim,
With the conviction of Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt and 34 others, including one of the key conspirators Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, in the 1993 Bombay (Mumbai) serial bomb blast conspiracy, the curtain comes down rolling over the case of the biggest single terror attack in India and the first in India’s economic capital .
Two wrongs cannot make something right but most of the people who condemn the brutal terror attack which was carried out by underworld don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, now based in Pakistan and protected by ISI, to ‘revenge’ the Mumbai riots in the aftermath of the 6 December 1992 Babri Masjid demolition in Ayodhya, Faizabad tend to forget the riots and the main players who did their best to spread hate among the peaceful communities just for the sake of their own political purposes.
Very few countries have suffered at the hand of terror as much as India in the last two decades. After the dreaded attacks of Bombay in 1993 many people were hounded by the police on the charges of being involved in the conspiracy to hit at the heart of Indian economy. May were tortured, declared terrorists, as it is being done nowadays after each and every terror attacks, only to be released by the police to live a battered life where there is humiliation at each and every step. Even after being acquitted people regarded them as terrorists because they were questioned for their alleged links with terror groups.
Terrorism cannot be justified no matter what is the cause, be it the terrorism of the state or that of the non state actors. Killing and blowing up of innocents can never be justified, no matter whatever the reason. The communal mayhem which was created on the streets of the cities across the country just after the Babri Masjid demolition will always remain a black stain on the secular and democratic fabric of India.
As responsible citizens of a democracy it becomes our duty to question and ask why the people who are responsible for the rise of communalism in the country have always been roaming freely without any fear of the law or justice. Why no one cares or dares to touch them except only a few symbolic cases being heard against them in a few courts of small cities? In fact most of the people will die before their cases reach to the Supreme Court. Are not the cases of the communal riots supposed to be dealt with as much speed as the cases of terrorism?
The report of the Sri Krishna Commission headed by Justice BN Sri Krishna which was constituted to investigate into the post Babri and pre serial blast Mumbai riots was disbanded by the Shiv Sena lead government in 1996 only to be reconstituted amid public outrage the same year, directly indicted the Shiv Sena led by Bal Thackerey of being involved in killings and spreading hate on the streets of Bombay. But alas! same Bal Thackerey was accorded a state funeral with 21 guns’ salute just a few months ago.
Not a single recommendation of the Sri Krishna enquiry till date has been accepted despite the Bombay riot victims’ running from pillar to post to get justice from a system which has become habitual of granting justice selectively.
There were many policemen also who were directly indicted by the Sri Krishna Commission of having played their role in fomenting the riots through their inaction or sometimes after getting orders from above, but most of them were either promoted or they retired without being questioned and punished for the crimes which they committed while remaining inactive when it was needed most for them to act against the mass murderers roaming on the streets of Bombay without any bias and prejudice.
While pointing towards the role played by the Shiv Sena in the Bombay riots the Sri Krishna Committee report mentioned, “Even after it became apparent that the leaders of the Shiv Sena were active in stoking the fire of the communal riots, the police dragged their feet on the facile and exaggerated assumption that if such leaders were arrested the communal situation would further flare up, or to put it in the words of then Chief Minister, Sudhakarrao Naik, “Bombay would burn”, not that Bombay did not even burn otherwise.”
If one really goes through the Sri Krishna Committee report and recommendations it would become clearer than the crystal that the riots were not spontaneous, but were being backed by the powerful state machinery which did its level best to save the main culprits till last.
It becomes the duty of the state and the government to provide a sense of security to the citizens and its subjects equally. Communal witch hunting can neither be justified through any democratic principle. Baring a few exceptions the media too has started to play as propaganda tool for the ones who carry out witch hunting on communal grounds.
As mentioned by Mahesh Bhatt, the conviction of Sanjay Dutt is indeed a ‘good signal’ to some extent where it can be said for the time being that justice does not differentiate between the rich or the poor and a celebrity or a common man. But there are numerous examples where justice has been denied to many people just because they belonged to a particular section of the society. There are many people against whom there had been more proofs than Sanjay Dutt of being involved in some destructing activities but still they have been roaming free without having any fear of justice or law.
It’s high time for us to realize that, fomenting communal riots is as much an act against ‘nation’ as terrorism and bombings. In fact these (terrorism, communal riots, communal genocide) are acts against humanity and nothing comes above humanity, neither religion nor nation.
( Syed Hassan Kazim is a Delhi based journalist.)