[Reader-list] Who would wipe Prof. Radoo's tears?

[S.Fatima]

WHO WOULD WIPE PROFESSOR SANAULLAH RADOO'S TEARS ?

by Subhash Gatade

Professor Sanaullah Radoo, Principal of a Degree
College in Sopore, Jammu-Kashmir still remembers the
day when his youngest son Pervez had reached the
airport in Srinagar in a hurry to catch the next Spice
Jet flight to Delhi.(12 September 2006). The moment
the flight landed in Delhi, he had even made a call to
his Abboo (father in colloquial terms - as he used to
fondly call him) informing him that he is rushing to
get the boarding pass to the next connecting flight
for Pune. Little did he could have any prenomition
then that what was in store for him.

It has been more than nineteen months that Pervez is
in detention and right now lodged in Jail no 01, Ward
no 01, Barrack no. 02, Tihar, Delhi. And as of now all
his dreams to undertake research on the variety of
rice found in Kashmir stands suspended. Young Pervez
Ahmad Radoo, who had already finished his
post-graduation in Zoology from Modern College in Pune
was seeking admission to Ph.D. for which he was going
to Pune.

In fact, the moment Pervez approached the airline
staff to get his boarding pass at Delhi airport, he
experienced that he has been surrounded by seven-eight
people who held him firmly and took away his luggage
and straightaway drove him to Lodhi Colony Special
Cell office. In a letter (Combat Law, March-April
2008) he provides details of the manner in which he
was 'tortured and interrogated severly' and how he was
'beaten up ruthlessly' and was given 'electric
shocks'.

If one were to believe Special Cell of the Delhi 
Police, Pervez was arrested on October 15, 2006 from
Azadpur Mandi in the city with "three kgs of RDX and
Rs 10 lakh as hawala money along with other
incriminating evidence" proving him to be a 
"Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist".

Professor Sanaullah has been running from pillar to
post for the last around eighteen months so that his
youngest son gets a 'fair trial' and comes out of jail
unscathed and is able to resume his research work. The
fact is that for around one month Professor did not
know that Pervez has not landed in Pune rather he was
in detention. He has also presented a memorandum to
the National Commission on Minorities (NCM) to press
harder for their intervention. Mohammad Shafi Qureshi,

Chairperson of NCM, who has looked into the case and
has also written to the Delhi police was candid enough
to share his views on the subject with a reporter
('Mail Today' , Delhi, March 6, 2008 - NCM fights for
release of J & K youth in Tihar) :

"It is hard to believe the police version when one
sees the clean chits given by the police
superintendent and additional district magistrate 
of Sopore, his native town, and from the local
resident welfare association (RWA). Most 
importantly, the certificate given by Spicejet 
for the same day shows him as boarding the plane 
for Delhi from Srinagar and then also bound to 
travel further to Pune. These facts have been 
completely ignored by the Special Cell.'

Trying to control his tears Professor Sanaullah 
Radoo tells the reporter the manner in which police
have turned a promising young scientiest into a
'bomb-man' 'He should be completing his research on a
rice species in Kashmir valley, instead he is inside
prison facing charges of terrorism.' He clearly says
the police 'are lying'. He is also not sure whether
his son would receive a fair trial or not and whether
he has been provided an able prosecution to defend his

case or not.

Pervez's jail diary, which has appeared in a section
of the media, puts further light on his plight. In his
letter asking to 'Save My Career, As I Am Innocent' he
poignantly asks 'Am I not Indian, if I am Kashmiri.
Why this discrimination. When tall claims are being
made by the govt of India, by media, that before law 
all citizens are equal.'

Of course it would not be cliche to state that the
story of the metamorphosis of a student of Zoology
into a 'bomb-man' is not the only one of its kind. In
fact not a day passes when one does not hear about the
illegal detention of a youth from the minority
community on some frivolous charges.

Just a day before 'Mail Today' carried the above 
mentioned story about Pervez, it had provided details
of a case involving a 'terrorist' gutkha manufacturer
getting bail ( Mail Today, March 5, 2008). According
to the report filed by Piyush Srivastava, ' Barely six
months ago, 35 year old Imran Ismail Memon was termed
as a terrorist, gangster, a hawala racketeer, a
smuggler and a manufacturer of adulterated Gutkha.'
Imran Ismail Memon, a resident of Thane in Maharashtra
was arrested by the Rae Bareli police on August 25, 
2007. Police said he was part of a "terrorist module"
and had started a "illegal and adulterated gutkha
factory" as a cover-up to stay in the district.
Lucknow bench of the Allahabad highcourt granted bail
to him because of lack of evidence. It also added that
'the police could not even prove the power theft
charge against him.'

May it be the case of Aftab Alam Ansari, an employee
of the Calcutta Electricity Supply Corporation who was
arrested on 27 th December 2007 as 'main accused
behind the serial blasts in no of courts in UP' or for
that matter the case of a poor fruit vendor from
Kashmir who was presented before the media as a 'prize
catch' responsible for blasts on the eve of Diwali in 
Delhi two years back, it is clear to any layperson
that with the ascendance of the Hindu right forces in
the Indian polity and in the ambience which has been
created the world over post 9/11 such targetting of
innocents from the minority community has become all
the more common.

All of us were witness to the travails of Aftab Alam
Ansari who was tortured for 22 days that he spent in
police custory after his arrest on December 27, 2007
in order to make him confess that he was Mukhtar alias
Raju, resident of Malda district in West Bengal and
had Rs. 6 crores in his bank account.

A biggest irony of the whole situation is that while
terrorist acts committed by Hindutva organisations are
not even reported or all attempts are done to cover
them up, innocents from the minority community are
apprehended claiming them to be associates of this or
that dreaded terrorist organisation. The media which 
is supposed to be a watchdog of democracy also joins
the malicious campaign where it has no qualms in
calling all such people as terrorists rather than
accused awaiting trial in court. It does not bother it
that such trial by media is not only unethical but
also violates the basic ethics of responsible and fair
journalism.

To be very frank, this is not to condone any of such
terrorist acts if they occur in any part of the
country, rather one would want that the law of the
land should be equally applicable in all such cases
and it should not appear that it is avouring/targettin
g a particular community.

Things have reached such a pass that it would not be
an exaggeration to say that it is a new trend where
'terrorisation' and 'stigmatisation' of the 
minority community is reaching menacing proportions.
The pattern of mindless arrests for the sake of
branding innocent persons as terrorists and resorting
to relentless torture is coming under increasing
scrutiny. And it is quite natural that it is giving
rise to perceptible anger all across the country.

Perhaps the recent decision of the UP government 
asking a retired judge to ascertain whether two 
persons arrested for the court blasts in state are
indeed terrorists or not, is an indicator of the
pressure governments are facing over repeated 
complaints that the state police is implicating 
Muslims as terrorists. The case involves the arrest of
Khalid Mujahid and Tariq, claiming them to be members
of Harkat-Ul-Jehadi (HUJI) who were implicated for
executing the serial blasts that left 14 people dead.
If one searches the record of the Jamia Tul-Salahat
Madarsa in Jaunpur where Khalid use to teach, it tells
us that not only he was present on the day (23 Nov) in
the Madarsa but had also checked the copies of the 
students. The judge has been asked to cross-check 
the UP police story which says that Khalid landed in
Lucknow in a bus on November 23 morning, met other
accomplices, bought new cycles, planted bombs in
Lucknow court premises and returned immediately to
Jaunpur.

One can just go on narrating instances of the 
highhandedness of the police and the callousness of
the polity in turning a blind eye towards continuous
stigmatisation of a particular community.As already
mentioned this is an understanding which has received
a new boost in the aftermath of 9/11 and the 'war
against terror' unleashed by the US regime, to further

its imperialist ambitions.

Any impartial enquiry into the state of affairs would
make it clear that the need of the hour is to
understand that 'terrorism' cannot be the monopoly of
a particular community. It is a product of the typical
circumstances which societies encounter or find
themselves in and the nature of the dominant or
dominated forces in operation in those societies and
their larger worldview.

There is no denying the fact that civil society at
large at some level has accorded legitimacy to all
such actions by the police. If that would not have
been the case there would have a uproar at the
national level when it was revealed that how 
'intelligence bureau operatives colluded with Delhi
police to brand two of its own informers as dreaded
terrorists'. It was sheer coincidence that the matter
reached CBI which exposed the dark machinations of the
dirty tricks brigade.

A writeup in Times of India 'IB, cops in murky
frame-up' (By Sachin Parashar, New Delhi, 13 September
2007) had presented all relevant details of the case.

New Delhi: The CBI has found that Intelligence Bureau
operatives colluded with Delhi Police special cell
sleuths to 'plant' RDX on two youths who were arrested
as 'Al Badr terrorists', TOI has learnt. The shocking 
conclusion comes a month after the agency told the
Delhi High Court that the special cell's probe into
the murky affair "didn't inspire confidence".

Top CBI sources told TOI on Wednesday that the seized
RDX appeared to have been planted on the two
'terrorists' Mohd Moarif Qamar and Irshad Ali. The
agency will submit its report, which indicts officers
of IB and Delhi Police special cell, to the court on
October 24.

While similar episodes in the past have hurt 
the credibility of the anti-terror agencies, this 
one stands out because it marks a rare instance 
where Intelligence Bureau operatives collaborated 
in the plot hatched by Delhi Police's special 
cell against its former informers.

Few months back one was witness to a furore over 
the violation of human rights and dignity of Dr 
Haneef in Australia. Thanks to the support 
provided by international media and human rights 
organisations and the concern expressed in the 
polity here, it did not take much time for either 
the Australian judiciary and executive to release 
Dr Haneef. We were also told then that our 
honourable Prime Minister Manmohan Singh 
personally felt disturbed over the plight of Dr 
Haneef and could not sleep that night.

Perhaps it is high time that the honourable Prime 
Minister is told that 'Dr Haneef' is not just the 
name of doctor who was wrongly apprehended in 
Australia rather it is another name for a 
phenomenon which is quite rampant in this part of 
the earth.

And the case of Pervez Ahmad Radoo is one such 
important case which demands his immediate 
intervention. Such a move only can bring back the 
smile on Professor Sanaullah's face !



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