By Fatima Tanveer, TwoCircles.net
Ahmedabad: Sohrabuddin Sheikh-Kausar Bi murder at the hands of the Gujarat police in November 2005 has been politically most misused episode in the political history of the country.
The incident that should have been treated as only a crime and investigated in the same spirit with a view to unearth the truth and punish the accused persons behind it was however, exploited by the two major political parties-Congress and BJP-for mobilization of voters and gain political mileage on the eve of 2007 assembly elections as also during April 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
When Congress chief Sonia Gandhi used the incident to refer Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as “maut ka saudagar” as it were trigger happy cops in Modi’s government who had killed the husband-wife duo and senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh dubbed it as a part of “Hindutva terrorism” during December 2007 assembly poll capmaign, Modi retorted back accusing the Congress of playing vote-bank politics. To keep his constituents in good humour, he allegedly justified saying that alleged gangster Sohrabuddin deserved what was meted out to him by the cops.
But Modi was subsquently issued a notice by the Election Commission of India with regard to his alleged justification of the encounter which his own government had in the Supreme Court confessed as a fake encounter.
However, Modi in his reply stated that he had never justified the fake encounter and what he had stated was a “political response” to Congress leaders describing him as “maut ka saudagar” and his party as bunch of “liars and murderers.”
Sohrabuddin’s brother Rubabuddin also filed a petition in the Supreme Court stating that Modi had violated the Model Code of Conduct. The petition, according to Rubabuddin, is still pending.
Despite the state government’s candid admission of the encounter being a fake one and arrest of as many as 15 cops, including five IPS officials from Gujarat and Rajasthan in this connection, Modi government and the BJP initially managed to cover it up politically on the basis of the claims made by the accused police officials that Sohrabuddin was on a mission to kill Modi, VHP leader Pravin Togadia and senior BJP leader L K Advani. “In fact, cops in as many as 22 cases had the similar arguments to offer,” says senior Congress leader.
Besides boosting political status of Modi, these developments suggested that Modi was the only leader in the country capable of successfully fighting terror that had chosen Gujarat as its new target after 2002 Godhra and post-Godhra incidents. Congress on its part used every available opportunity to target Modi not only in Gujarat but also outside to regain its lost political grounds among minorities particularly in UP and Bihar and to a large extent the party’s strategy succeeded in recovering its vote bank in the two politically most significant states.
But none of the Congress’ strategies could shake Modi politically in Gujarat as he again returned to power in 2007 assembly polls and also managed to win the majority of the Lok Sabha seats in 2009 general elections, suggesting that the voters had stamped the Modi’s stand on the issue.
Modi and BJP made a political issue of the Sohrabuddin killing when Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI) probing the issue on Supreme Court directions arrested Minister of State for Home and Modi’s right hand man Amit Shah and a senior IPS officer Abhay Chudasma in connection with the case. Modi as well as national BJP leaders dubbed the central agency as “Congress Bureau of Investigation” and levelled allegations against the Congress of misusing CBI to target their political adversaries. BJP raised the issue in each and every state by organizing sit-in agitations against alleged misuse of CBI against Modi’s government apparently to bring pressure on the agency not to touch the political leadership. A delegation of central BJP leaders submitted a memorandum to the President Pratibha Patil over alleged misuse of CBI in Sohrabuddin case and against leaders facing disproportionate assets case like Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav. A Vadodara-based outfit Jan Adhikar Samiti also inserted advertisements, that was described as highly provocative, in Gujarati language dailies across the state. But, luckily, it generated no response from among the people.
But the strategy seems to have succeeded as no political leader after Amit Shah was questioned or arrested in the case though names of several other BJP politicians from even outside the state having been involved in the incident had been reported by the media quoting CBI sources.
Now, BJP is reported to have supported the UPA government in the parliament on nuclear bill issue as a part of the bargain with the Congress for sparing Modi from the ambit of investigations in the fake encounter case. The report carries some credence because the newspapers during the same period were doled out informations that none of the persons interrogated in the fake encounter case had leveled allegations against Modi and hence, there was no ground for interrogating him in the case.
But what now seems to have become a political nemesis for Modi nurturing ambitions to lead the party at the national level is the recent admission of his own sleuths-CID(crime)-that the encounter killing of Tulsiram Prajapati, an associate of Sohrabuddin, was also fake, and the revelations by CBI investigations that Gujarat cops, particularly IPS official Abhay Chudasma, was running an extortion racket in association with Sohrabuddin in which Amit Shah was also a partner. The situation has become more complicated for Modi with Dashrath Patel and Bharat Patel-owners of Popular Builders Limited having deposed that Amit Shah had extorted Rs. 80 lakh from him by threatening to implicated them in a false case.
Human rights activist Imran Mansoori says : “Having failed in its bid to cover up the case, the BJP is now trying to run a campaign against CBI, alleging that CBI is an extension of the Congress party”
“This is a two-pronged strategy of BJP-strengthening its vote bank prior to civic polls and zilla panchayat elections due to be held in mid-October, and at the same time bringing pressure on CBI to avoid action against politicians if found linked with the case,” explains Mansoori.