BY RSN SINGH
It is now more than six years since Lt Col Srikant Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya have been incarcerated in prison without charge sheet. The previous dispensation, motivated solely by vote-bank politics, labeled them as Hindu terrorists, in its sinister bid to balance Jihadi terror by inventing Hindu terror. There was also the evil design to balance Pakistani terror with Indian terror for benefit of Pakistan. Human rights activists therefore remain unmoved.
Finally the Supreme Court of India has swung into action and has questioned the very basis of continued detention of Purohit and Pragya under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), as they had no criminal record. The court also observed that there was “considerable doubt” about their involvement in Malegaon blasts. It directed that their bail plea should be examined by a special trial court.
In the Court of Inquiry conducted by the Army some 50 witnesses, officers and men gave their testimony in favour of Purohit. Some of them hailed him as a dedicated professional who had infiltrated into Jihadi organisations like SIMI and Indian Mujahideen, with full knowledge and concurrence of his seniors. These legal developments have sent shivers in the ‘Hindu Terror’ fabrication industry. The members of this industry have ganged up to fight their last desperate battle.
Media Offensive
The public prosecutor Rohini Salian appointed by the previous Maharashtra dispensation to prosecute so called “Hindu terrorists” allegedly involved in Malegaon blasts in 2008, decided to go public with a statement that she was being pressurized by an NIA (National Investigative Agency) official to “go soft on Hindu Terrorists”. Only the guilty and the weak succumb to pressure!
In an interview to a newspaper, she said that she took up the case at “Hemant Karkare’s insistence”. She further said “his (Karkare) voice was shaking and he sounded very disturbed…. Then I heard accused were all Hindus and I was surprised…..From morning to evening I read newspapers. I started crying and got emotionally upset. In that matter I also got to know about Samjhauta and Modasa. Long after his death we were very upset. Then one day I went to ATS and shouted at the police—what are we doing –we have to make the soul happy.”
This interview was given to a media outlet which was at the forefront of Hindu Terror campaign. As it was being fed stories by the crooks in the government, desperate to fabricate Hindu terror, it was masqueraded as investigative journalism. The story telling was however of a very poor quality. The contradictions on two consecutive editions were hilarious. If one day the report said that Lt Col Purohit pilfered RDX from Indian Army for Samjhauta blasts, the very next day it had to eat crow in face of the clarification that the Indian Army does not use RDX.
Since the interview, the Indian media has been on overdrive to project Rohini Salian as some great crusader. One of the media feature “The Lawyer Who Leaves Womanhood Behind” tried to portray a larger than life image of her. Then former cop Julio Rieberio was roped in to write “Why we must listen to Rohini Salian”. Then there was a newspaper report that said after the revelation of the NIA pressure theory “six clerics, three advocates, a father of 2008 blast victim and brother of one of the accused in 2006 Malegaon blast case took the first long distance train to meet Rohini”. The bias of Salian and the media in general is evident. She has been speaking and behaving more like a judge than a prosecutor. Her bitterness or frustration at the unraveling of “Hindu Terror” theory can be sampled from this statement: “In future, if in any other case the NIA makes fresh arrest, then I would go on record that I would like to take up the case of the accused as an independent.”
Selective Sensitivity
It may be mentioned that Rohini Salian was engaged as public prosecutor after the blasts in Malegaon in end September 2008. These blasts were effected just two months before 26/11. This incident was used by the government to create the specter of Hindu Terror. The ruling dispensation, but for apprehension of Ajmal Kasab, had almost succeeded in facilitating the portrayal of 26/11 as act of so called Hindu terrorists. The setback however did not prevent Digvijay Singh from releasing a book called “26/11 RSS ki Sazish”. The same Digvijay proclaimed that he was in constant touch with ‘Karkare on matters regarding so called Hindu terror. Now it is same Karkare on whose insistence Rohini Salian claims to have relented to assume the mantle of Special Public Prosecutor. Karkare must have been really persuasive as she had resigned as Public Prosecutor in 2007. On hearing that the accused of 2008 Malegaon blasts were all Hindus she tells that she started crying. In the 2008 Malegaon blasts eight people were killed. By her sensitivity standards, Rohan Salian must have been really inconsolable between 2004 and 2008 as unremitting bomb blasts devoured innocents in Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, Varanasi, Ayodhya, Pune and Bangalore. She must have been devastated when two years before i.e in 2006, 37 were killed in the same Malegaon, wherein unlike 2008, RDX was used. Ironically the brother of one of the accused in 2006 blasts travelled all the way to meet Rohini after she began to vilify the current dispensation.
It is again a huge coincidence that all Hindu terror cases were confined to courts in Congress ruled states –Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Haryana.
Whose soul to be trusted?
It is significant that the “low intensity blasts” in Malegaon in 2008 was used by the plotters as the central plot to weave the story of Hindu terror. The idea being to sell the story that all blasts wherein Muslims were victims was act of Hindu terror. Accordingly, the blasts in Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid and Ajmer Sharif were revisited. Also on this revisit trip was Rohini Salian. In her interviews to various media outlets she says she got to know “about Samjhauta and Modasa as well” from newspapers. She particularly revisited 2006- Malegaon blasts.
Speaking on the 2006 Malegaon blasts, the DGP of Maharashtra in a press conference in November 2006 said: “We have successfully cracked Malegaon serial blasts case, and have arrested eight men, all of them former SIMI members. We are in lookout for eight others.” He pointedly mentioned: “Two Pakistanis were involved in the blast. One of them is Muzammil who came to India in third week of July and helped fashion the improvised explosive devices. One of the accused Mohd Ali sent Shabir Batterywalah, another accused, for training at a terrorist camp near Karachi. After 7/11 blasts in Mumbai – Ali supplied RDX to Batterywalah.”
Can it get more specific?
These investigations were also carried out by the Maharashtra ATS before Karkare took over. It filed charge sheets in MCOCA court (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) against nine accused. It is the same ATS where Rohini Salian claims to have visited after Karkare’s death and shouted at the police: “What we are doing, we have to make the soul happy”. It may be mentioned that the same MCOCA type act that the Gujarat government under Narendra Modi demanded in the past was constantly denied by the Centre then. Subsequently, in 2007, the Malegaon (2006) case was handed over to CBI whose findings were similar to that of ATS.
The Central Government did not give up. By then it had another agency to juggle with. It then handed over the case to NIA in 2011. The story of Malegaon (2006), being handiwork of Hindu terrorists, was re-invented. The NIA is a post 26/11 creation. The NIA of that period obviously suited Rohini Salian. The so called Hindu terrorists were conveniently blamed. Consequently, as expected and scripted there was a hue and cry from the vested quarters. They demanded that since the real perpetrators had been identified, the nine accused should be released, and indeed they were.
On release, like most accused, they said that they were implicated and signed their confessions under duress. One of them by the name of Abrar blamed his wife and brother-in-law for implicating him for a price of Rs 25 lakh.
Now which soul is to be believed — DGP Pasricha’s soul, the collective soul of the ATS (before Karkare) and the CBI and the NIA, or late Hemant Karkare’s soul or Rohini Salian’s soul? It is for the reader to decide.
Service to Pakistan
Meanwhile Rohini Salian is making waves in the Pakistani press. The Pakistan news carried the headlines “Prosecutor claims – was told to go soft on Hindu terrorists”. Also, now Pakistan has begun to equate Lakhvi, the mastermind of 26/11 with Lt Col Purohit. This is the balancing the architects of “Hindu Terror” wanted. The US Treasury Department blames the LeT for Samjhauta blasts. David Headley’s Moroccon wife said her husband was involved, but the previous dispensation, which Rohini Salian found convenient to work with, was steadfast in its claim that it was perpetrated by Hindu terrorists which included Lt Col Purohit.
Conclusion
Majority Indians have understood the game and the Hindu terror story is increasingly becoming untenable, legally and otherwise. It is therefore natural for the Hindu terror industry, so assiduously cultivated by the previous dispensation, to be nervous and to go on overdrive.
(RSN Singh is a former military intelligence officer who later served in the Research & Analysis Wing. The author of two books: Asian Strategic and Military Perspective and Military Factor in Pakistan, he is also a Guest Blogger with Canary Trap. The opinions expressed by the author and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of Canary Trap or any employee thereof)
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