The curious case of Karkare, Salaskar and Kaamte
After a long time, AR Antulay has
spoken, and he has shaken the Mumbai Police
version of the 26th November terror attack. If
there is a question mark over who sent
Karkare literally to his death, and this is
what the minority affairs essentially said, than
there is a question mark about Kasab’s
statement that Ismail and he killed Hemant
Karkare, Vijay Salaskar and Ashok
Kaamte—which means there is a question
mark over the entire Police version of the 26th
November attack as such.
It is a right of every citizen of India to
raise questions about the Police version in any
case. But that right becomes a duty as far as
the Mumbai Police is concerned. After all this
is a Police force, which as per the Mumbai
High Court, killed Khwaja Yunus, an accused
in 2002 Ghatkopar Blast case, in cold blood.
This is again a Police force which produced
the likes of Daya Nayak and Pradeep
Sharma—the latter, an ex-encounter
specialist, is currently in Tihar Jail and his
own superiors DGP AN Roy and Police
Commissioner Hasan Ghafoor have given a written affidavit to the relevant Court stating
the extent and nature of his criminal
activities.
There are more than hundred affidavits of torture and miscarriage of injustice against
Rakesh Maria, who is the chief investigator in
the 26th November attack. Can we leave
such an important investigation in his
hands? We need an officer of Karkare’s integrity to probe the case.
The Malegaon Blast investigation was important; so much as to have international implications. Pause for a second and think—by arresting Saadhvi Praggya, Raj Kumar Purohit and Dayanand Pandey, and Indranesh, Karkare has started the process to unmask before the world a new face of terror. This face did not wear a skull cap or a long beard and did not speak Arabic or Urdu. It wore a tilak on its head and was dressed in saffron robes.
There is a note in Karkare’s file that Indranesh took Rs. 3 Crore rupees from the ISI. So just before his death Karkare was doing the impossible—establishing the links of Hindutva terrorist groups with the ISI, something borne out by several statements given by the Lashkar-e-Toiba that they would like to see the BJP come back to power.
The impact which Karkare was making world-wide can be gauged by the kind of interest he was generating on the net. Here one Jewish American commented: “I thought only Muslims were terrorists. I am a law abiding liberal Jew; I am not a Zionist. Yet it was very clear to me that Muslims have some grouse not against me but the entire world. But then I read that someone in the Indian Police was talking about a whole new face of terror—that of Hindu fundamentalists planning and executing bomb blasts. I thought to myself—my God! Then I started investigating the role of Mossad—and I found that even Jewish fundamentalists had been used by Mossad to plan and execute bomb blasts and then blame the event on Muslims. And I again thought to myself—there is more than meets the eye than Muslim terrorism. Terrorism does not have a religion or name”.
Here an American Jew is saying what
many of us Indians said after the 26th
November events—that terrorism has no face
and that Hindus and Muslims are one in their
fight against the menace, whether it comes from within India or Pakistan or any other place in the world.
The unity shown by India during this hour of crisis has shocked the world—it is one of India’s greatest strength and the reason why, despite grim predictions we have survived as a secular nation-state.
But that unity requires justice—and a large number of Muslims and secular Hindus and Indians feel that the Malegaon investigations have received a terrible set-back after Karkare’s death. Since 2006 several prominent secular personalities have been trying to place before concerned authorities, evidence of the involvement of Sangh Parivar and other such elements in bomb blasts. If, as is commonly held, the fight against terrorism is not against any religion, then from a liberal humanist or even a conservative nationalist perspective, the scope of investigation in terror attacks ought to be widened to include misguided individuals of other religions. When the Malegaon investigations revealed the stunning face of what has been called `Hindu terror’, moderate Hindus did not buy the RSS-BJP logic that a Hindu cannot be a terrorist. In fact, while commenting on the pre-26th
November uproar over Malegaon investigations, the Shankaracharya of Dwarika, Swami Swarupanand clearly said that “if any Hindus are found indulging in criminal acts, they should not be spared. We cannot have two criteria in this country—one for Hindus and another for Muslims”.
This is now Indian democracy’s acid test—are we going to ridicule Antulay and `conspiracy theories’ or look at the issue dispassionately and in a fair manner? Mumbaikars and educated Indians are asking hard questions: where was Karkare’s Z security when he was asked to go into the field on that fatal day? Who ordered him there? Karkare’s death robbed the Mumbai Police of a leader—his staying alive might have saved at least some lives. Then how come PV Vishwanath, a Jew of India/Mumbai origin was able to talk to terrorists in the Nariman House without the knowledge of Indian officials? Who owns the boats Kuber, Alpha and Al-Kabir? What is their relationship with Narendra Modi? How did the terrorists reach India through the sea route when the National Security Advisor (NSA) and the ex-Home Minister had been briefed by the security agencies that such a thing might happen? Why was the testimony of Faheem Ansari given in Rampur ignored? If there is a security lapse, then why is the NSA still sitting on his chair?
National security is not achieved by siding with whatever the State is saying. It is achieved by a vigilant citizenry which asks hard questions. We should become a Police State and face more terror attacks. Or we should start taking seriously the alternative perspective on the Mumbai carnage and ask for a separate investigation into the death of Hemant Karkare.
