By Md. Ali, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: Human rights activists and civil society groups have contested Gujarat Police and Delhi Police’s claim, that Abdul Shakeel Basha, who was arrested on June 18 in New Delhi, is a suspected Maoist.
In a statement released on 23rd June 2010, civil society activists, like Shabnam Hashmi, Rajinder Sachar and Indu Prakash, regarded his arrest as a part of latest “witch-hunt” unleashed on rights activists by the government misusing the “draconian provisions” of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 2004.
On his part Mr. Shakeel has denied any link whatsoever with any kind of naxal/maoist activity. Abdul Shakeel Basha is a social and human rights activist, who for the last six years had been working with homeless and street children with organizations like Aman Biradari, Shahri Adhikar Manch and Haq. While working with Aman Biradari for the victims of the 2002 riots he had gone to Gujarat several times.
Talking to TwoCircles.net, Anju, Mr. Bhasha’s wife, pointed out that he had left the PWG, now known as Communist Part of India (Maoist)/CPI (Maoist) in 2004 itself. After that he had started working with Aman Biradari, an NGO, working for people affected in and after 2002 carnage in Gujarat, and in Delhi with homeless street children and adults before finally forming ‘Haq’ group for the rights of poorest and homeless of the Delhi city until he was arrested on June 18, 2010.
Anju claimed that even before 2004, he was working for the rights of marginalized under complete constitutional framework without any criminal complaint against him.
Interestingly Anju highlighted the fact that the Inspector General (IG) of police, Surat range, the Investigating Officer (IO) of the case, and the main complainant, a Police Sub-Inspector (PSI), have quite categorically conceded the fact that Shakeel is absolutely clean after 2004, they have nothing against him post 2004.
Talking to TCN, Tanweer Afaque, Shakeel’s colleague who is fighting his case along with Anju, pointed out that the Gujarat police have not yet filed charge sheet against him and it has got 3 months to do so Mr. Shakeel will be in jail for at least three months from the day of his arrest which is 18th June 2010. They have not yet decided to file for bail application because first of all they want to study all the charges against Mr. Shakeel in detail and then counter all those charges in court.
Noteworthy fact is that Mr. Basha is not alone in getting arrested on the charge of being a suspected Maoist. He has been named as the 14th person in an omnibus FIR filed at Kamrej Police Station in Surat in Gujarat. Besides him 13 other activists/social workers/rights workers from various parts of the country have been arrested under the same omnibus FIR, most of whom had renounced their respective associations with CPI(ML) Janshakti or banned CPI (ML) People’s War Group (PWG) at different points in time in the past.
Many social activists highlight the fact that no body, not even the government had ever talked about presence of Naxalites in Gujarat. So how come has it happened that suddenly Naxalites have become very active in the state. People like social activist Shabnam Hashmi of ANHAD regard it as a new plot of the Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
Talking to this correspondent, she pointed out that now, when it’s not easy to target Muslims, these arrests of innocent ordinary law abiding activists are a deliberate plot by the Chief Minister Narendra Modi to create new “enemy” in the state, because these days naxal violence is very much on the rise in different parts of the country and media has created a state of panic. Modi is just trying to first build up an anti-naxal feeling in the middle class and then by arresting and prosecuting innocent activists, he can easily in cash the resultant anti-naxal resentment in the general public.
She also highlighted the fact that Modi will also try to become a public hero by claiming that he has finished the rising naxal activism in the state before it could have spread in the state. In order to do so he is arresting people who have been leading a life of peaceful activism, very much under the framework of the constitution, but who also used to be associated with some kind of Leftist ideology in the past.
This in itself exposes the nefarious designs of the state government. She alleged that the Modi government in the state, is not alone in this; the UPA government at the Centre is in complete collusion with the state government. She explained that Modi is planning this whole conspiracy on the basis of Central government’s very aggressive stand on tackling Maoism.
Tanweer said that this kind of “witch-hunting” is the result of the veiled threat to all intellectuals, NGO people and so called Maoist sympathizers by the Home Minister around a month back, where he had talked about taking action against intellectuals and social activists who are ‘Maoist sympathizers’.