[Reader-list] Not So Fabulous Fables by JTSA

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear All,

This one (a text by the Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association) goes  
out to all the members of the Praveen Swami Fan Club on this list.  
Food, I hope, for thought, for all concerned.

regards

Shuddha

Praveen Swami’s not so fabulous fables
Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association

26th April 2010


If there is one infallible indicator of what the top Indian  
Intelligence agencies are thinking or cooking up, it is this: Praveen  
Swami’s articles. Each time the security establishment wishes to push  
a certain angle to this bomb blast or that, Swami’s articles appear  
magically, faithfully reflecting the Intelligence reports. After the  
Batla House ‘encounter’, he launched a tirade against all those who  
were questioning the police account of the shootout labeling them all  
‘Alices in wonderland’.  He went so far as to identify ‘precisely’  
how Inspector Sharma was shot by claiming that "abdomen wound was  
inflicted with [Atif] Amin's weapon and the shoulder hit, by Mohammad  
Sajid".

And no sir, Swami’s conclusion was not based on post mortem reports  
of the killed, fire arm examination report or ballistic report but on  
this innocent fact: “the investigators believe that…”  He certainly  
brings in a whole new meaning to ‘investigative journalism’. Swami  
however felt no need to pen an article when the postmortem reports of  
Atif and Sajid revealed that they had been shot from close range and  
that neither of them sustained gunshot wounds in the frontal region  
of the body—an impossibility in the case of a genuine encounter. Was  
it because the police and the Home Ministry chose to remain quite  
after the revelations—hoping that the storm would quietly blow over.?

Flip Flops on German Bakery Blasts
And meanwhile there was the German Bakery blast in Pune. Writing less  
than a week after the blasts, Swami hinted at the possible  
involvement of the Hindutva groups, namely Abhinav Bharat (“Hindutva  
Terror Probe Haunts Pune Investigation”, 19th February 2010). Indeed,  
this was mood in the ATS (though this was no deterrent to the large  
scale illegal detention and brutal interrogation often at private  
premises, of scores of Muslim youth in Pune.) Even the following  
week, the Home Department officials were not ruling out the  
possibility of the involvement of the Right wing Hindutva groups. But  
that was February. By March, political impatience at the probe taking  
such a turn was palpable. Responding to a riled Shiv Sena in the  
legislative assembly, the Maharashtra Home Minister, R.R. Patil  
thundered: “I will inquire if Raghuvanshi really indicated to the  
media about involvement of Hindu organisations in the Pune blast and  
if he did, action will be taken (against him)." As if on cue, two  
days later, Rakesh Maria was installed as the new ATS chief. This was  
of course only after a few months when Vinita Kamte, widow of the  
slain ATS officer Ashok Kamte, made serious allegations casting  
aspersions on Maria’s role in responding to the then ATS chief Hemant  
Karkare’s call for reinforcements during 26/11.

CCTV Footage:
Since its start, the probe had little to go on by way of leads except  
for the CCTV footage. While the Pune police commissioned experts to  
draw sketches of the suspects based on this footage, ATS dismissed  
this exercise as “anything but useful”, as their source, the CCTV  
footage, was itself grainy. (Siasat, April 12). Where does Swami  
stand on this? He wrote in his 19th February piece: “All that  
investigators have by way of suspects are three men recorded holding  
brief meetings before the blast by a poor-quality closed-circuit  
television camera. From the videotape, it is unclear if the men had  
anything to do with the attack.”
Exactly a month later, Swami conveniently develops an amnesia about  
Abhinav Bharat and even about the poor quality of CCTV footage. What  
was earlier ‘unclear” and hazy has in one month segued into solid  
shape: in the form of top Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative Mohammad  
Zarar Siddi Bawa ie., Yasin Bhatkal. Suddenly imparted with  
enlightenment, Swami writes dramatically of how a closed circuit  
television camera ... “recorded evidence that Bawa had returned to  
India—just minutes before an improvised explosive device ripped  
through the popular restaurant killing seventeen people and injuring  
at least sixty.” The poor quality (by Swami’s own admission) and  
useless (by the ATS’s admission) visual evidence has morphed into  
precious footage of Bhatkal, “the fair, slight young man with a wispy  
beard” … “dressed in a loose-fitting blue shirt, a rucksack slung  
over his back.”

Clearly, Swami’s changing perceptions about the CCTV footage is in  
accord with the shifting attitude of the ATS itself. The ATS began by  
keeping the option of probing Abhinav Bharat open; developed cold  
feet, preferred to lapse into the usual Lashkar-IM litany,  
‘rediscovered’ hitherto worthless footage and resurrected the IM. In  
an unequivocal reference to the manner in which innocent Muslim  
youths were arrested earlier by the ATS in its pre-Karkare days, a  
senior officer of the Pune Police admitted that  “There have been  
some arrests in the Pune blast incident just as in the case of the  
2006 Malegaon explosions. But we would never know whether those  
arrested were actually the men who triggered the blasts.” (Siasat,  
April 12, 2010). Rumours that the probe might be handed over the  
National Investigative Agency must have also pressured the  
Maharashtra ATS to show ‘results’—and viola, within two weeks of  
taking over, Maria submitted a preliminary report to the state  
government identifying the hand of Bhatkal and IM in the blasts. This  
was of course promptly and proudly relayed by R.R. Patil to the  
legislative assembly (surely to the relief also of the Shiv Sena  
legislators). Is it a coincidence that the Pune Police Commissioner  
has been transferred, ostensibly for the rising crime graph a couple  
of days ago? It seems improbable that the running battle between the  
Pune police and the ATS—whose current chief Maria had thrown a  
tantrum following Vinita Kamte’s accusation, demanding the support of  
the state Home Ministry—had no role to play in this.

The Bangalore Blasts:
When two crude bombs went off outside the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium  
ahead of the match between Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers  
Bangalore on 17th April, the Karnataka Home Minister V.S. Acharya  
announced that the state Police were investigating the alleged  
involvement of the cricket betting lobby. He forcefully denied any  
link with the earlier blasts in the city in 2008.

But Yasin Bhatkal seems to have preoccupied Swami’s mind on 19th  
April for he evokes him again in connection with the stadium blasts  
(“Stadium Blasts herald new IM offensive”). Citing the ever  
cooperative ‘investigators, he says that the ‘similarity in design’  
and the manner in which some bombs failed to explode are a sure  
indicator of the IM hand. Beyond this, he has nothing to link  
Bangalore bombs to Bhatkal. But good stories can always compensate  
for lack of facts. His piece, “To Bangalore with Hate” on 21st April  
(which has charming subtitles such as Jihad at ginger Plantation”),  
is no less crude then the two bombs at the stadium. Swami here  
details the biographies of SIMI activists in South India, making the  
link, ever so cleverly, between SIMI—and yes, IM—and the stadium  
blasts, without providing any evidence of their actual linkage. Life  
stories of these men are proof enough, he assumes.

It is quite clear that Mr. Swami has provided a (sometimes  
entertaining) dramatized version of the charge sheets files by the  
various police departments across the country. While it may make for  
a good script, we do hope that Mr. Swami understand what charge  
sheets are: a list of charges or allegations, which the police has  
still the burden to prove in a court of law--not irrefutable or  
established truth. Perhaps, Mr Swami fancies himself a literary  
genius who believes in narratives acquiring their own lives. In which  
case, he has manufactured a large corpus of mediocre short stories.

Released by JTSA (www.teacherssolidarity.org)


Shuddhabrata Sengupta
The Sarai Programme at CSDS
Raqs Media Collective
shuddha at sarai.net
www.sarai.net
www.raqsmediacollective.net