[Reader-list] More on the gaffe

[anupam chakravartty]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Delhi-institute-mistaken-for-Pakistan-intelligence-agency/articleshow/7085781.cms

RAIPUR: Chhattisgarh special prosecutor TC Pandya on Friday claimed that
civil rights activist Dr  Binayak Sen's wife
Ilina<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Ilina>was in
correspondence with the ISI — a huge gaffe. For, the ISI she had
links with was the Indian Social
Institute<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Indian%20Social%20Institute>,
not the Pakistani intelligence agency.

Pandya was deposing in a local sessions court and said that Sen had dealings
not just with local Maoist networks but also international terrorist groups
as well.

He claimed Sen had links with international terrorist organisations and in
that connection named Yaseen
Malik<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Yaseen%20Malik>of
the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (
JKLF <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=JKLF>) and Asgar
Khan of Al Qaeda, among others.

Then he delivered the punchline. He read out an email Ilina had purportedly
written to "some Fernandes of the ISI". This said: "There is a chimpanzee in
the White House <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/White-House>."

Pandya smelt mischief in the missive: "This may be code language... this
perhaps means terrorists are annoyed with the US... We do not know who this
Fernandes is, but ISI, as we all know, means
Pakistan<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Pakistan>."


Later, outside the court, Sen clarified ISI stood for the Indian Social
Institute. 'Fernandes' possibly referred to Walter Fernandes, former
director of the Indian Social Institute, a social science research body set
up by Jesuits in 1951 on New Delhi's Lodhi Road.

Fernandes, now director of the North Eastern Social Research
Institute<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=North%20Eastern%20Social%20Research%20Institute>in
Guwahati told TOI: "Ilina and I are good friends and we frequently
exchanged correspondence on development-induced displacement among tribals,
which has
been my subject for the last 20 years."

He described the prosecution's attempt to interpret ISI (Indian Social
Institute) as Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence and link it to Sen as
"either ignorance or bad will".

Sen is an award-winning doctor and national vice-president of the People's
Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL). He was arrested in Bilaspur on May 14 2007,
and charged with treason, conspiracy, waging war against the state, being a
member of an illegal organization.

The charges are drawn from the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (1967),
the Chhattisgarh Special Public
Security<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Chhattisgarh%20Special%20Public%20Security>Act
(2005), and the IPC. The chargesheet runs into more than 1,000 pages.
The Chhattisgarh government's case against Sen is that he met jailed Maoist
ideologue Narayan Sanyal 33 times in Raipur prison between May 26 and June
30 2007, carrying his letters and passing these on to Piyush Guha, a Kolkata
businessman. Since May 2008, Sen is facing trial in a local court along with
Sanyal and Guha. The trial has entered its final stages, with the SC asking
the sessions court to wrap it up by January 2011.

Presenting final arguments, the prosecution focused at length on Sen's
alleged key role in the urban network of the CPI Maoist. It used as evidence
documents it claims the police seized from his home, including two postcards
written by alleged Maoist leaders in which Sen has been addressed as
'comrade'. "Comrade usi ko kahaa jaata hai jo Maowadi hai (only a Maoist is
addressed as comrade)," Pandya claimed. The prosecution sought to summarise
the evidence for the conspiracy. It tried to establish the close links
between Sanyal and Sen, and the meetings between Sen and Guha. For the first
link, it primarily relied on the testimony of Deepak Choubey, who said he
rented out a house to Sanyal on Sen's recommendation.

To prove the second link, it based its arguments on Guha's custodial
confession as well as the testimony of cloth merchant Anil Singh, who claims
to be present when Guha was arrested in Raipur on station road on May 6,
2007, with Sanyal's letters.

Read more: Delhi institute mistaken for Pakistan intelligence agency - The
Times of India<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Delhi-institute-mistaken-for-Pakistan-intelligence-agency/articleshow/7085781.cms#ixzz17zHNuDcd>
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Delhi-institute-mistaken-for-Pakistan-intelligence-agency/articleshow/7085781.cms#ixzz17zHNuDcd