[Reader-list] [Announcements] Launch of '13 December - A Reader'

Thu Dec 7 16:39:15 IST 2006

Dear All,

(apologies for cross posting to those on both Reader List and Commons 
Law List)

It is shortly going to be five years to December 13, 2001 and a fair bit 
of discussion on this list (over the past five years) has focused on the 
strange events of December 13 and its aftermath.

Here is an invitation to the launch of a Reader on 13 December (The 
Strange Case of the Attack on the Indian Parliament) being published by 
Penguin Books,India. It includes texts that were first posted on this 
list. For those who are in Delhi - it is at 4:00 pm on Tuesday, the 12th 
of December at Gulmohar Hall at the India Habitat Centre. (See Details 
below). Please come for the event and circulate this notice widely.

regards,

Shuddhabrata Sengupta

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TO MARK THE PUBLICATION OF -
'13 DECEMBER - A READER: THE STRANGE CASE OF THE ATTACK ON THE INDIAN 
PARLIAMENT' (WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ARUNDHATI ROY)

ESSAYS BY : A G NOORANI - ARUNDHATI ROY - ASHOK MITRA - INDIRA JAISING - 
JAWED NAQVI  - MIHIR SRIVASTAVA - NANDITA HAKSAR   NIRMALANGSHU MUKHERJI 
- PRAFUL BIDWAI - SHUDDHABRATA SENGUPTA   SONIA JABBAR - SYED BISMILLAH 
GEELANI - TRIPTA WAHI

PENGUIN BOOKS INDIA INVITES YOU TO A DISCUSSION BASED ON THE BOOK
ON TUESDAY 12 DECEMBER 2006
AT 4 PM AT GULMOHAR HALL, INDIA HABITAT CENTRE
LODHI ROAD NEW DELHI (ENTRY FROM GATE NO 3)

THE MAIN SPEAKERS WILL BE -

ARUNDHATI ROY
INDIRA JAISING
NANDITA HAKSAR
NIRMALANGSHU MUKHERJI
PRAFUL BIDWAI
SHUDDHABRATA SENGUPTA

RSVP

SAVITA ALAGH 2649 4401 EXTN 411

......................................................................................................................................................

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.

- Here are thirteen questions for 13 December:

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 in 
court. 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 of 
the 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. If 
Police 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?

- From the introduction to '13 December - A Reader: The Strange Case of 
the Attack on the Indian Parliament'

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