Fwd: [bm] Indian Express - Who is Sohrabuddin
Aastha
From: viji123 <vij...@yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 04 Aug 2010 07:03:25 -0000
Subject: [bm] Indian Express - Who is Sohrabuddin
To: bharatud...@yahoogroups.com
Here is an article written by Dovalji and published in Indian Express.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/complicated-encounters/655825/0
Complicated encounters
Ajit Kumar Doval
Aug 04 2010
Beware of half truths — because you may be holding the wrong half.
After having seen and read so much about the Sohrabuddin episode in
the last five years, one might believe one knows it all. Sohrabuddin
is now cast as an innocent victim of police excess.
However, it would be worthwhile to explore the real facts about
Sohrabuddin, the nature of police encounters, and the real issues at
stake. Sohrabuddin was an underworld gangster who was involved in
nearly two dozen serious criminal offences in states of Gujarat,
Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. He maintained transnational
links with anti-India forces from the early `90s onwards, until his
death in 2005. Working with mafia dons like Dawood Ibrahim and Abdul
Latif, he procured weapons and explosives from Pakistan and supplied
them to various terrorist and anti-national groups (had it not been
for his activity, at least some terrorist acts could have been
averted). Sohrabuddin was solidly entrenched in the criminal world for
a decade-and-a-half. Around the time he was killed, the Rajasthan
government had announced a reward on his head. In 1999, he had been
detained under the National Security Act by the Madhya Pradesh
government.
In a 1994 case investigated by the Ahmedabad crime branch, he was
co-accused along with Dawood Ibrahim and convicted for five years, for
waging war against the Government of India, planning an attack on the
Jagannath rath yatra in Orissa, and other offences under the IPC, Arms
Act, etc. During the investigation, 24 AK-56 rifles, 27 hand grenades,
5250 cartridges, 81 magazines and more were seized from his family
home in Madhya Pradesh. In 2004, a fourth crime was registered against
him by Chandgad police station of Kolhapur district in Maharashtra
under sections 302, 120 (b), and 25 (1) (3) of the Arms Act, for the
killing of Gopal Tukaram Badivadekar. As fear of him often silenced
people from reporting his whereabouts, let alone deposing against him,
the Rajasthan government had to announce a reward on his head after he
killed Hamid Lata in broad daylight in the heart of Udaipur, on
December 31, 2004. So much for Sohrabuddin's innocence.
However, irrespective of who Sohrabuddin was and what he did, the use
of unaccountable force against him is indefensible is the public view
of many (often at variance with their private view). There are many
who feel that there is a higher rationale for such actions in
compelling circumstances, as the law of the land has repeatedly found
itself helpless in dealing with individuals bent on bleeding the
country. Their argument, that the rule of law is a means to an end and
not an end in itself, often finds support in the jurisprudential
principles of salus populi est suprema lex (the people's welfare is
the supreme law) and salus res publica est suprema lex (the safety of
the nation is supreme law). Even the Supreme Court of India, in the
case of D.K. Basu vs. State of West Bengal [1997 (1) SCC 416] accepted
the validity of these two principles and characterised them as "not
only important and relevant, but lying at the heart of the doctrine
that welfare of an individual must yield to that of the community."
The validity of the principles of salus populi est suprema lex and
salus res publica est suprema lex could have been part of an
enlightened national discourse, and what could be the governing
instrumentalities, empowerments, legal checks and stringent processes
if these principles were to be invoked. It is better to accept reality
as it is and then strive to change it for the better, rather than what
we wish it to be. Feigned ignorance is the worst type of hypocrisy.
But there is another vital question that needs to be addressed. While
pursuing the Sohrabuddin case, was the government really serious about
stopping the menace of fake encounters, or was it pursuing a different
agenda? Encounters have been taking place all over the country under
all regimes, at times degenerating into what are called fake
encounters. Between 2000 and 2007 there have been 712 cases of police
encounters in the country with UP topping the list at 324, and Gujarat
figuring almost at the bottom with 17.
In some of the cases there was not much on record, even to establish
the criminal past of those killed. Settling political scores through
security and investigative agencies like the CBI is not only bad
politics, but also destructive for the nation's security. To convey
the impression (explicitly or implicitly) that Sohrabuddin was
targeted for belonging to a particular community, thereby creating a
sense of insecurity in a section of society, is detrimental to
national interests. It is little known that a large number of
Sohrabuddin's victims were Muslims while a good number of his closest
associates (including Tulsiram Prajapati, who was also killed in a
similar encounter), were Hindu. William Blake could not have been more
right when he said that "a truth that is pursued with bad intent beats
all the lies you can invent".
The other negative impact of the Sohrabuddin case is the impression it
is creating that all encounters in which police and security forces
are involved, are fake. Society needs to be reassured that the
majority of encounters are genuine and mostly in response to murderous
attacks on security personnel. The fact that, on average, over 1,200
policemen get killed every year grappling with terrorists, insurgents,
underworld mafia and other anti-social elements, bears ample testimony
to this fact. Playing up a few aberrations and blowing them out of
proportion and presenting them as the only truth is not in the
national interest.
The other downside of the publicity around such cases is that it
erodes the people's trust in governance. Administrations begin to be
seen as instruments of repression and self-aggrandisement and
politicians as perceived as manipulating their power for political and
personal gains. This erosion can lead to a dangerous delegitimisation
of the polity. Democratic politics is an exercise in
regime-legitimisation, and to lose the confidence of the governed
would set the government on a self-destructive path.
The writer is former director of the Intelligence Bureau
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