[Reader-list] 'Is Afzal now just a rallying point for intellectuals?'

[Shivam Vij]

"Is Afzal now just a rallying point for intellectuals?

"A day before the fifth anniversary of Parliament attack, some of
country's renowned journalists, activists and writers - led by Booker
Prize-winner Arundhati Roy - came together to release a book that
raises 13 "damning" questions about the attack. But is Afzal simply an
intra-elite debate among India's Left liberals or do the intellectuals
actually have a public constituency outside the seminar halls of Delhi
and Mumbai?"

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/has-afzal-become-a-rallying-point-for-intellectuals/28339-3.html

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"do the intellectuals actually have a public constituency outside the
seminar halls of Delhi and Mumbai?"

How does one respond to that?

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Perhaps the above has something to do with this:

At the end of November 2006, Afzal's older brother Aijaz made it on to
a national news channel (CNN-IBN). He was featured on hidden camera,
on what was meant to be a 'sting' operation, making—we were asked to
believe—stunning revelations. Aijaz's story had already been on offer
to various journalists on the streets of Delhi for weeks. People were
wary of him because his rift with his brother's wife and family is
well known. More significantly, in Kashmir he is known to have a
relationship with the STF. More than one person has suggested an audit
of his newfound assets.

But here he was now, on the national news, endorsing the Supreme Court
decision to hang his brother. Then, saying Afzal had never
surrendered, and that it was he (Aijaz) who surrendered his brother's
weapon to the BSF! And since he had never surrendered, Aijaz was able
to 'confirm' that Afzal was an active militant with the
Jaish-e-Mohammed, and that Ghazi Baba, chief of operations of the
Jaish, used to regularly hold meetings in their home. (Aijaz claims
that when Ghazi Baba was killed, it was he who the police called in to
identify the body). On the whole, it sounded as though there had been
a case of mistaken identity—and that given how much he knew, and all
he was admitting, Aijaz should have been the one in custody instead of
Afzal!

Of course we must keep in mind that behind both Aijaz and Afzal's
'media confessions', spaced five years apart, is the invisible hand of
the STF, the dreaded counter-insurgency outfit in Kashmir. They can
make anyone say anything at any time. Their methods (both punitive and
remunerative) are familiar to every man, woman and child in the
Kashmir Valley. At a time like this, for a responsible news channel to
announce that their "investigation finds that Afzal was a Jaish
militant", based on totally unreliable testimony, is dangerous and
irresponsible. (Since when did what our brothers say about us become
admissible evidence? My brother, for instance, will testify that I'm
God's Gift to the Universe. I could dredge up a couple of aunts who'd
say I'm a Jaish militant. For a price.) How can family feuds be
dressed up as Breaking News?

The other character who is rapidly emerging from the shadowy periphery
and wading on to centrestage is Dy Superintendent of Police Dravinder
Singh of the STF.

He is the man who Afzal has named as the police officer who held him
in illegal detention and tortured him in the STF camp at Humhama in
Srinagar, only a few months before the Parliament attack. In a letter
to his lawyer, Sushil Kumar, Afzal says that several of the calls made
to him and Mohammed Yasin (the man killed in the attack) can be traced
to Dravinder. Of course, no attempt was made to trace these calls.

Dravinder Singh was also showcased on the CNN-IBN show, on the by-now
ubiquitous low-angle shots, camera shake and all. It seemed a bit
unnecessary, because Dravinder Singh has been talking a lot these
days. He has done recorded interviews, on the phone as well as
face-to-face, saying exactly the same shocking things. Weeks before
the sting operation, in a recorded interview to Parvaiz Bukhari, a
freelance journalist, he said "I did interrogate and torture him
(Afzal) at my camp for several days. And we never recorded his arrest
in the books anywhere. His description of torture at my camp is true.
That was the procedure those days and we did pour petrol in his ass
and gave him electric shocks. But I could not break him. He did not
reveal anything to me despite our hardest possible interrogation. We
tortured him enough for Ghazi Baba but he did not break. He looked
like a 'bhondu' those days, what you call a 'chootiya' type. And I had
a reputation for torture, interrogation and breaking suspects. If
anybody came out of my interrogation clean, nobody would ever touch
him again. He would be considered clean for good by the whole
department."

This is not an empty boast. Dravinder Singh has a formidable
reputation for torture in the Kashmir Valley. On TV his boasting
spiralled into policymaking. "Torture is the only deterrent for
terrorism," he said, "I do it for the nation." He didn't bother to
explain why or how the 'bhondu' that he tortured and subsequently
released allegedly went on to become the diabolical mastermind of the
Parliament attack. Dravinder Singh then said that Afzal was a Jaish
militant. If this is true, why wasn't the evidence placed before the
courts? And why on earth was Afzal released? Why wasn't he watched?
There is a definite attempt to try and dismiss this as incompetence.
But given everything we know now, it would take all of Dravinder
Singh's delicate professional skills to make some of us believe that.

Meanwhile right-wing commentators have consistently taken to referring
to Afzal as a Jaish-e-Mohammed militant. It's as though instructions
have been issued that this is to be the Party Line. They have
absolutely no evidence to back their claim, but they know that
repeating something often enough makes it the 'truth'. As part of the
campaign to portray Afzal as an 'active' militant, and not a
surrendered militant, S.M. Sahai, Inspector General, Kashmir, J&K
Police, appeared on TV to say that he had found no evidence in his
records that Afzal had surrendered. It would have been odd if he had,
because in 1993 Afzal surrendered not to the J&K Police, but to the
BSF. But why would a TV journalist bother with that kind of detail?
And why does a senior police officer need to become part of this game
of smoke and mirrors?

http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20061218&fname=Arundhuti+%28F%29&sid=1

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Video of the book launch today:
http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/v/28320/fine-print-december-13--a-reader.html