[Reader-list] for S.A.R.Geelani

[Javed]

Dear Aditya and other
Have you lost confidence in Indian Supreme Court which acquitted
S.A.R.Geelani as no substantial proof could be found against him in
the Parliament attack case. He is an ordinary citizen, a peace-loving
professor in DU. If he was proven guilty, why would he be invited to a
seminar.

Look at some these reports. The first one is self explenatory:
=====

"Ram Jethmalani's submission on behalf of the appellant – Abdul Rahman Geelani

This is a case of no evidence. The law of evidence has been treated as
non existent. The provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure and
Evidence Act have been flagrantly violated. Serious objections remain
undisposed of. The accused did not know what case they had to meet.
Out of the 25 pieces of evidence marshaled by the counsel for the
State against appellant Geelani, half are innocuous and exculpatory.
The remaining are not legal evidence.

The conviction proceeds on a total misunderstanding of the law and
concept of conspiracy. The Trial Court never adverted to it nor did it
hold the ingredients proved.

The cognizance of the various offences charged has been taken without
the sanctions required by Sec. 196 of the Code of Criminal Procedure
or Section 5 of POTA or Section 7 of the Explosive Substances Act. The
purported sanctions are ex facie invalid, given by authorities, which
had no power to grant them, and the evidence discloses total non
application of mind and an unforgivable frivolity of attitude when the
law enjoins careful and serious analysis and appraisal of evidence
before granting the sanctions. The purported sanctions are void and
the trial totally without jurisdiction and a nullity.

That the investigation is riddled with illegality. The evidence
discloses concoction and fabrication. All these have been grossed one
and have resulted in a grave miscarriage of justice.

That the charges framed are illegal. Particulars required by law are
missing. Some charges are so ridiculous that the proceedings are
deprived of the solemnity of a serious criminal trial. It is
regrettable that neither the Public Prosecutor nor the Presiding Judge
have displayed due performance of their respective roles.

All the charges of offence under Chapter VI of the Indian Penal Code
are bad in law. Terrorists cannot be exalted to the status of
warriors. The two are inconsistent concepts 'war' and 'waging war' are
totally misunderstood. Convictions and sentences are totally illegal.

That the most vital safeguard for the accused is Section 313 of the
Code. The questions put to the accused are impermissible
cross-examination. Circumstances which ought to have been put to the
accused were never put to him for his explanation and if necessary
cross-examination of witnesses and leading of defence evidence.
Instead non-existing circumstances were put to him. The court had no
grip over the case and the Public Prosecutor failed to provide fair
assistance expected of a quasi-judicial officer. Questions were so
framed that the accused could not reasonably be expected to understand
their import and significance. This has vitiated the trial. Principles
of natural justice have been thrown to the winds resulting in
miscarriage of justice.

The Court below has not considered scores of exculpatory circumstances
which apart from negativing guilt positively established innocence. A
catalogue of these will be presented to this Hon'ble Court in due
course.

That in capital cases particularly those that arouse public prejudice
and anger against the accused making it difficult for them to arrange
for their own defence, it was the duty of the Court to provide
adequate defence at State expense. This duty was not performed and the
record discloses that the accused never got proper and adequate legal
assistance. The Court instead appointed an 'amicus'. This is not known
to our law and practice. His presence and participation have caused
confusion and prejudice vitiating the trial.

That the appreciation of evidence particularly defence evidence is
totally wrong and prejudiced. The findings of fact recorded are wrong
and perverse.

That the sentences passed are illegal and unjustified. The prayer for
enhancement is grossly unfair and betrays animus of the prosecuting
agencies.

A Court of reasonable competence and freedom from all bias – or
suspicion of bias – is the requirement of Article 21. The howlers
including callous and gross carelessness, the irregularities, the
illegalities at every state and exhibitions of prejudice and hostility
against the accused at every step place the trial court and its
conduct of the trial far below the standards required by Article 21.
This whole trial is unconstitutional, illegal and void. Nothing of it
can survive.
============

A Letter from Noam Chomsky:

Convenor,

Delhi University Teachers in Defence of S.A.R. Gilani
Delhi University.

I read with much concern the statement of the Delhi University
Teachers in Defence of S.A.R. Gilani. What it describes is utterly
outrageous, and surely should not be tolerated. The phrase 'absurd and
tragic' is fully warranted.

The atrocities of 9-11 were exploited in a vulgar way by governments
all over the world, in some
cases by escalating massive crimes on the pretext of 'combating
terrorism,' in others by implementing repressive legislation to
discipline their own citizens with no credible connection to
preventing terrorist threats, in some cases by carrying out programmes
that had not the remotest connection to terrorism and might even
enhance it and that were opposed by the majority of the population.
Terrorism is a serious matter, and merits careful attention and
scrupulous preventive measures and response. It is disgraceful for the
authentic threat of terrorism to be exploited as a window of
opportunity for intolerable actions.

I hope and trust that Indian democracy and its legal system will rise
to the challenge, reverse this decision, and ensure that human and
civil rights are properly protected.

Noam Chomsky
================

SAR Geelani: questions galore

By AP Muhammed Afsal
The Milli Gazette Online

An honourably acquitted accused in the sensational Parliament attack
case, SAR Geelani is still fighting for justice in the thick of
deafening silence of the Indian political establishment. He is
recovering from the bullet injuries he suffered on February 8 at the
hands of an unidentified assailant. Except some human rights
activists, nobody has come to the fore to voice concern over the
incident. Neither leaders of the ruling coalition nor the supporting
secular brigade did utter a word that matters. On their part, BJP
criticised those who spoke for Geelani and their spokesman, The
Pioneer, unashamedly continued to find fault with Geelani.

Home Minister Shivraj Patil continues to refuse to hand over the case
to CBI from the Delhi Police. So far, instead of inquiring into the
role of its own Special Cell, which Geelani suspects to be behind the
attack, Delhi Police is still busy floating theories to confuse the
media and public. According to reports, the matter did come up before
the prime minister. Still 'nobody' knows who is behind the attack
while media trial continues.

Geelani is an Arabic scholar and the first Kashmiri Muslim to get a
permanent teaching job in Delhi University. During the college days he
was a human rights activist and a member of Jammu & Kashmir Council
for Human Rights. He had expressed his views at various public forums.
His views on Kashmir are not the one that are commonly held. He came
to Delhi to complete his studies and stayed on after getting a job in
Zakir Hussain College. The bitter experience he had as a detainee in
Tihar jail after his arrest in Parliament attack case prompted him to
float an organisation, "Society for Protection of Detainees and
Prisoners' Right."

When Delhi Police arrested him on December 15, 2001,the only piece of
evidence of his involvement in the Parliament attack case was a two
minute 16 second telephone conversation he had with his younger
brother while travelling in a bus from his home to the nearby mosque
for Friday prayer on December 14. Eighteen-year old Shah Faisal was
asking Geelani to send him a prospectus and syllabus. Faisal had
called the previous evening also and was now reminding him. He could
not have guessed that this brief call would be produced as the main
evidence against his brother. When Faisal asked Geelani "what had
happened," he was innocently referring to Geelani's decision not to go
to Kashmir for Eid since there were very few holidays and it would
cost too much. Geelani's wife was insisting on going home. The elder
brother would not answer, laughing away the query. Policemen of the
Special Branch who were tapping his mobile phone felt that the laugh
showed Geelani's complicity in the conspiracy to attack the
Parliament. The police were never able to explain why they had not
arrested the younger brother; after all, if he asked the question he
must have knowledge of the conspiracy. The police officer in charge of
the investigation testified in court that Faisal was innocent. The
police also never explained why they never put a transcript of the
telephone conversation on record. Geelani produced two independent
witnesses who put the transcript of the taped conversation on record
and testified that the conversation could not be remotely linked to
the conspiracy to attack the Parliament. The trial court judge held
that the two independent defence witnesses were in fact "interested
witnesses." He did not explain how a trade union leader and a
documentary film maker, both Kashmiri Pandits, who appeared in court
at the request of senior civil liberties activists known for their
integrity could be called "interested." The Judge stated in his order
that he himself had taken lessons in the Kashmiri language and was
thus competent to decide on the truth of the police version. Geelani
was condemned to death on the basis of this flimsy evidence on
December 18, 2002. The specially constituted POTA court for hearing
the cases finished the trial procedure and judgment in record time.
Geelani spent one year on death row before being acquitted by the High
Court on October 29, 2003. The police have since filed an appeal in
the Supreme Court and are hoping to get Geelani back in his cell in
Tihar jail. They have given public statements expressing the hope that
he will be hanged.

>From the time of his arrest, media had parroted the investigating
agencies' version designed to portray Geelani as the mastermind of the
conspiracy and unnecessarily doubted the credentials of those who
formed the defence committee for his fair trial. Even conservative
dailies carried tabloid-style headings and sensational 'confessions'
by Geelani. The Delhi High Court, when delivering judgment acquitting
Geelani had noted the arguments of the Defence Counsel that media
trials are an antithesis to the rule of law and pre-trial publicity is
sufficient to cause prejudice and hatred against the accused, but it
did not pass any strictures against the police for using the media to
mobilize hatred and prejudice, though it is a specific crime under the
Indian Penal Code.
Geelani's life has never been easy even after his acquittal. When he
resumed his work after acquittal, he found it difficult to get even an
auto rikshaw to go back home. "The danger is not over and I fear for
my life. Attempts were made on my life. While I was in prison, even
though I was kept in a high security cell, they (Police) ried to kill
me," Geelani had said in his first ever media interaction on October
30, 2003. The attacks continued. "His masters across the border must
have been delighted to see TV pictures of some demented Indian
citizens dancing in joy on hearing the news of his acquittal. No
wonder Pakistani soldiers are repeatedly told by their commanders that
Indians have no stomach for a fight, that as a people Indians are
pot-bellied, indolent and seeped in a pacific Hindu culture…," Chandan
Mitra of The Pioneer wrote in an article titled "Go home, Geelani and
Friends," on November 2, 2004. Geelani was forced to buy a car as he
felt several intelligence agencies were keeping a watch over him. Not
alone he, whomsoever was in touch with him or met him even once was
subjected to intimidation and questioning by security agencies.

This time, too, a careful perusal of news stories after the attacks on
Geelani will reveal the high stakes involved in the case, an activist
working with Geelani Defence Committee told MG. These were obviously
aimed at both intimidating Geelani's friends and as part of a PR
exercise. On February 11, The Pioneer, the only daily supporting the
police blatantly from day one, carried a N-E angle story on Geelani's
attack suggesting the involvement of a North East militant group! The
newspaper even referred to the possible involvement of Sebastian
Hongray, husband of lawyer Nandita Haksar, and the very man who took
the injured Geelani to the AIIMS hospital. After describing his full
name as "Sebastian San Muviah Hongray", the daily went into his
background as Thankul Naga and an activist of Nationalist Council of
Nagaland (Issac Muviah)!. A day later the paper wrote that Police was
also watching Mr Sebastian's movements. According to the police,
Geelani should have fallen on the spot, rather than staggering over 60
yards to the doorstep of Haksar family. Police could not find the
empty cartridges during the preliminary search. But at 2 am, the five
emptied cartridges were "found at a distance" by the crime branch.
Police has again come up with a stunning revelation on the fourth day
of attack that they found the blood-stained sweater which Geelani was
wearing when he was shot. Police carefully uses the phraseology like
"seized". The word suggests that his family was trying to hide
evidence. The sweater was there in AIIMS for a full day before
Geelani's relatives took it away. The police has not explained why
they took four days to even start looking for the clothes. Soon after
Haksar expressed her doubts over the police involvement, police tried
to indirectly threaten her saying that they could file cases against
her and her husband for tampering withevidence. And one of the
reasons for police to ask AIIMS authorities to set up a two-member
committee was that Police was wary of Dr Anup Saraya, a
gastroenterologist with AIIMS. The paper went on to say without citing
any source, that Nandita Haksar had called the doctor even before
informing the Police after Geelani was shot at.

Even after his acquittal, intelligence agencies believe Geelani is the
mastermind of the Parliament attack. While Geelani was accused and
also when he was acquitted, the BJP was in power. People had reason to
believe that the government had found in him a perfect candidate for
being a Kashmiri, a Muslim and an Arabic teacher.

With the UPA 'secular' government in power, many liberal minds think
that rogue elements in the Special Cell of the Delhi police or
security agencies cannot take law in their own hands. Speaking to MG,
Nandita Haksar said, "It is not a problem with Vajpayee or Manmohan
Singh. When Geelani was in jail, authorities allowed hate mail to
reach him but they did not allow him to offer Namaz. He was allowed
only one Iftar. There is no evidence to show that it all changed, so
there is no use talking about cahnge of guard." Moreover, government
proudly proclaims that there should be a continuation of policies
vis-a-vis 'security' which has become a holy cow which can be used to
justify excesses of any kind.

http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv9n2/geelani.htm