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IMC-USA Weekly News Digest - February 22nd, 2010

In this issue

Announcements

News Headlines

Opinions & Editorials

Book Review

Announcements

Indian American Muslims demand transparent investigation of the murder of Advocate Shahid Azmi

Washington D.C.,
February 16, 2010

IMC-USA, an advocacy group dedicated towards safeguarding
India's pluralist and tolerant ethos was extremely shocked and
disheartened to hear that well-known Mumbai based advocate Shahid Azmi
was gunned down in broad daylight on February 11 in his office in
Taximen's Colony, Mumbai. Mr. Azmi was defense counsel to numerous
Muslim youth who were arrested and detained in cases such as the 2006
Malegaon case in Maharashtra. Reportedly the assailants pretended to be
his clients. It is also reported that Mr. Azmi had approached the
police about threats to his life; however he was not given security by
the government. In his very young but impactful career, Mr. Azmi became
the outspoken voice for downtrodden and defenseless youth.

Dr.
Hyder Khan, National Vice President and spokesperson for IMC-USA said,
"All injustice, particularly murders are injurious to the functioning
of a civil society. The democratic system is weakened when government
fails to protect the life and liberties of its citizens."

He
further added, "Indians owe a great debt of gratitude to brave citizens
like Shahid Azmi who are the conscience keepers of the Indian
democracy. They risk their safety to take up such cases, to uphold the
constitution of India that promises and guarantees justice to the most
vulnerable."

IMC strongly feels that the murder of Shahid Azmi is not a murder of
an individual only, but rather a brazen effort to intimidate and
ultimately obliterate the idea of justice and silence the voice of the
Indian conscience. IMC strongly urges the central government of India
to conduct an independent and transparent investigation and bring the
murderers of Mr. Azmi to justice. The Indian Judicial system and legal
experts are the ultimate defense of the Indian Constitution for which
many have sacrificed their lives and serve as the core of a civil and
secular Indian state.

Contact:

Dr. Hyder Khan
Phone/fax: 1-800-839-7270
Email: media@imc-usa.org

Links::

City lawyers mourn death of colleague
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/City-lawyers-mourn-death-of-colleague/articleshow/5567324.cms

Adv Shahid Azmi shot dead in Mumbai
http://www.twocircles.net/2010feb11/adv_shahid_azmi_shot_dead_mumbai.html

In Shahid Azmi's death community lost a brilliant lawyer: CLMC
http://www.twocircles.net/2010feb13/shahid_azmi_s_death_community_lost_brilliant_lawyer_clmc.html

Adv Shahid Azmi had received threats, yet not given any security
http://www.twocircles.net/2010feb12/adv_shahid_azmi_had_received_threats_yet_not_given_any_security.html

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News Headlines

Godhra eyewitness goes missing, wife says police filed report a day later (Feb 19, 2010, Indian Express)

An eyewitness to the Sabarmati Express carnage of 2002, Illyas
Hussain Mullah, has been reported missing by the Godhra police from
their protection. The police, apparently, reported it a day after his
wife faxed a message in this regard to the designated fast-track court
in the Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad where in-camera trial of the
case is going on. Illyas was supposed to depose before the Supreme
Court-appointed SIT today. The Godhra police in its complaint dated
February 18 at the B Division Police Station have stated that Illyas
went missing from their protection at the Godhra circuit house on the
afternoon of February 17. The fax message sent by Illyas' wife, Tahira
Bibi, dated February 17 stated that he went missing after attending the
court at the Sabarmati jail on February 16.

According to the
complaint lodged by the Godhra police on Thursday morning, Illyas was
under their protection as he was to depose again in the court on
February 18. Illyas, along with his friend Anwar Kalandar, had left for
Ahmedabad on February 15 for their deposition as eyewitnesses on
February 16. While he collected the court summons in the jail, his
deposition was deferred to February 18. Assistant Sub-Inspector Ranchod
Soma Baria of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) filed a missing
complaint in the morning at the Godhra 'B' division police station.
"Two policemen were with him. One had gone to fetch water while the
other had gone to bring food when Illyas escaped on February 17
afternoon," said Sub-Inspector K S Chaudhary.

Meanwhile,
Panchmahals Superintendent of Police J R Mothaliya said they have
launched a manhunt for Illyas. "We have the entry proof of my husband
and Anwar at the Sabarmati Central Jail on February 16," said Tahira.
She further said while the court was examining Anwar, Illyas was asked
to wait for his turn. Chaudhary, however, said he had no idea about any
application made by Tahira to the designated court.

Mullah had
in an earlier affidavit stated that he was forced by the Godhra police
to turn into an eyewitness for the train carnage or he would be named
as one of the accused. He had submitted this affidavit while deposing
before the Nanavati and Banerjee commissions. Tahira said the family
spoke to him last on February 16. "When some lawyers inquired about
him, we realised that he was not in Ahmedabad. And now today the Godhra
police filed a missing complaint. We had no idea that he was in the
circuit house at all," said Tahira.

Interestingly, Illyas went
missing a day after another eyewitness Dilip Dasadia, a BJP District
Committee Secretary, turned hostile in the court. Illyas, who worked as
an auto driver in 2002, was reportedly present at the Godhra railway
station platform waiting for passengers on February 28, 2002.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/581677/

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Blast accused files petition for reopening post-2002 cases (Feb 19, 2010, Rediff)

A bomb blast accused has filed a petition in the Bombay high court
seeking appointment of a high-powered committee to re-investigate all
the post-2002 blast cases in the country and granting bail to the
accused who are languishing in jail for more than six years. Saquib
Nachan, arrested in April 2003 for his alleged role in a local train
blast at Mulund station that killed ten persons, has urged the court to
restrain the National Security Advisor from allegedly indulging in
Islam and Jihad bashing.

The petitioner, who has been in jail
since last seven years, has also pleaded for release of all Muslim
youths languishing in jails on terror charges without trial. He alleged
that many of them were being falsely implicated. Nachan has named
Congress president Sonia Gandhi Union Home minister P Chidambaram and
Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan as respondents, saying they
were at the helm of affairs and were ruling the country.

Justice
Ranjana Desai and Justice Mrudula Bhatkar ordered appointment of an
advocate from the legal aid panel to represent the petitioner who has
been kept in Thane prison. Nachan demanded setting up of a National
Accountability Bureau for holding officers accountable for letting
culprits in blast cases go scot free allegedly for communal reasons and
pushing the country to the brink of civil war. He also sought a ban on
Abhinav Bharat, floated by Malegaon blast accused Lt Col Prasad
Purohit, under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

http://news.rediff.com/report/2010/feb/19/reopen-post-2002-blast-cases.htm

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Azmi murder: Family blames Mumbai cops (Feb 15, 2010, Times of India)

Slain advocate Shahid Azmi's family has held Mumbai police
responsible for his killing, even as cops are yet to make a
breakthrough in his murder. "In 2007, my brother had got threatening
calls and in 2008 he had again reminded police that somebody was
following him. Our only contention is that why did the police remove
his security cover?," asked his brother.

The family alleged
role of some central agency as Azmi was instrumental in fighting many
terror-related cases including defending 26/11 accused Fahim Ansari. He
was representing Ansari accused of supplying target maps to LeT
operatives in Pakistan. "My brother had told us once that he knew the
consequences he would have to face because he was fighting against the
system which had falsely implicated innocent persons in the blast
cases," said Azmi's elder brother.

"Otherwise, tell me what is
the reason for killing a criminal lawyer who has in many cases fought
freely for the poor. In fact, one of the callers who had threatened him
in 2008, expressed his surprise that he stayed in a middle-class
housing society," said Azmi's younger brother.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5574473.cms

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Hunt on for Pune bomber, but very few clues yet (Feb 14, 2010, IBN)

Investigators in the Pune bomb blast are looking for a person who
was carrying a haversack and walked into a bakery unnoticed and planted
what appears to be a concoction of RDX and ammonium nitrate. The blast
at the popular German Bakery killed nine people, injured 60 and
shattered the 15-month lull after the terrorist attacks on Mumbai in
November 2008. The Maharashtra police are cautious about fixing blame
for the blast. "Investigation is on. With the assistance of National
Investigation Agency, the state's Anti-Terrorism Squad is probing the
case and it is moving in the right direction," said Rashmi Shukla,
Inspector General, Law and Order.

Union Home Minister P
Chidambaram, who visited Pune on Sunday, denied intelligence agencies
had failed to warn of a terrorist attack. He said police had been
sensitised about Osho Ashram and the Jewish Chabad House both of which
are located near the bakery. "So, this area is on the radar of
terrorists. There is no intelligence failure, but please remember this
is not an overt attack by gunmen. This an insidious bomb that had been
planted in what appears to be a backpack," said Chidambaram. He said it
appears that a "person or more persons pretending as customers seem to
have come to the German bakery and one of them might have left a
backpack under a table" in the bakery.

The people behind the
blast have not been established yet but Union Home Ministry sources
tell CNN-IBN that investigators are relying on possible video evidence
from a CCTV in a hotel situated opposite the German Bakery to see if
anything suspicious was captured by the camera. Three cities have now
been put on high alert after the blast in Pune: Indore, a hotbed of the
banned Students’ Islamic Movement of India, where BJP leaders meet for
a three-day conclave; Kanpur, which has reported several accidents
during the illegal manufacture of bombs, and New Delhi, a city always
on the radar of terrorists.

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/hunt-on-for-pune-bomber-but-very-few-clues-yet/110135-3.html

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BJP leaders giving patronage to criminals (Feb 18, 2010, Central Chronicle)

State Congress Committee spokesman JP Dhanopia on Thursday alleged
that BJP leaders are giving patronage to criminals due to which law and
order situation of the State has deteriorated. He informed that in
Damoh two tribals were killed in 2008 but till date the accused have
not been arrested. Addressing the media he said that from October 2009
to January 2010, 91 minor girls have been gang-raped in the State.
During this time period 226 women were gang raped. He informed that
every month 75 women are raped in State.

He added that from
November 1, 2009 to February 15, 50 incidents of loot and dacoity have
taken place in the State. He regretted that most of these loot
incidents were of lakhs of rupees. He revealed that in Khargone there
was a loot incident of Rs 50 lakh in which one person was murdered.
Similarly there was Rs 16 lakh loot incident in Indore. Dhanopia
further said that in Bundelkhand BJP leaders, office-bearers and
workers have committed many crimes like murder and other serious
offences but the accused are moving freely. He informed that in
atrocities committed on children Bhopal is on top. Percentage of crimes
against boys in Bhopal is 21 per cent while percentage of crimes
against girls is 11.40 per cent.

This shows that State
government is not able to give protection to innocent children.
Dhanopia informed that an under observation criminal Pappu Parve having
close association with BJP shot at a person named Dongre on November 9,
2009 and tried to kill him and then fled from the scene. Later he went
to Mumbai and there he was nabbed by police. He regretted that under
the rule of BJP government there is alliance of criminals and BJP
leaders and life has become very difficult for people of State.

http://www.centralchronicle.com/viewnews.asp?articleID=27383

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1984 riots: HC rejects bail for Sajjan (Feb 15, 2010, Hindustan Times)

A city court rejected Congress leader Sajjan Kumar's anticipatory
bail plea on Monday. Kumar is an accused in the cases relating to 1984
anti-Sikh riots. Two separate chargesheets were filed against him on
January 13, this year. The CBI had contended that witnesses in the
riots are apprehensive. Special CBI judge P.S. Teji refused to grant
any relief to the former MP who has been issued summons for his alleged
role in the carnage that followed the assassination of then Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi.

The court allowed the contention of CBI
Special Prosecutor Y.K. Saxena who vehemently opposed the bail
application on the ground that the witnesses were apprehensive. The
court also dismissed similar pleas of six co-accused in the cases.
"Witnesses have been apprehensive. They have specifically stated the
role of Sajjan Kumar in the riots, murder and arson," Saxena submitted
during the arguments on Monday. The CBI prosecutor also argued that the
provision of anticipatory bail should not be invoked in grave offences
like murder.

Arguing for bail, Kumar's counsel I.U. Khan said
the cases against the Congress leader were politically motivated and
malicious in intent. Kumar had earlier been granted bail by the Delhi
High court in 1990 in similar offences, he pointed out. "He had also
cooperated with the investigating agency during the probe. There was no
allegation regarding any threat to the witnesses," Khan said.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/509203.aspx

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States to be held accountable for communal flare-up (Feb 14, 2010, Deccan Herald)

'The Karnataka government's flexible approach towards communal
violence has resulted in the collapse of law and order in the State. A
Communal Violence Bill will be introduced shortly holding respective
State governments directly accountable for all incidents of communal
violence,' said Union Minister for Law and Justice M Veerappa Moily.

Addressing
the media on the sidelines of the decennial celebrations of Navodaya
Self Help Groups organised by South Canara District Central Cooperative
(SCDCC) Bank and Navodaya Gram Vikas Charitable Trust here on Sunday,
Moily said the State Government should overcome its "soft approach" in
handling incidents of communal violence.

The Chief Minister and
the Home Minister should be held responsible for the present situation
in the State. The government should take stern measures to curb
violence as done by the Maharashtra government during the recent
protests by Shiv Sena and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. The Congress
government's handling of the situation in Maharashtra revealed its
competence, the minister claimed.

Strongly condemning the Youth
Congress for blackening the face of Pramod Mutalik and Sri Ram Sene for
hurling stones at Rajya Sabha MP Oscar Fernandes' house in Udupi,
Veerappa Moily said that no one has the right to take up law in to
their hands. Reacting to reports on assault on Kasturi Channel reporter
Rahim Ujire by Bajpe Sub-Inspector Pramod, the minister said that
action can be taken against any officer or civilian who violates the
law under IPC Section 153. If found guilty, he will be liable for
punishment.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/52726/states-held-accountable-communal-flare.html

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Telangana stir: Student immolates self, 300 detained (Feb 20, 2010, Rediff)

A pro-Telangana school student set himself ablaze raising slogans in
support of a separate state, leading to tension on the Osmania
University campus in Hyderabad on Saturday. Police said Yadaia, a
student of Noble College, doused kerosene and set himself ablaze at the
main entrance of the Osmania University, which had become the focal
point of tussle between the students and the security forces right from
early morning.

Policemen and other students tried to put out
the fire and save the student, but by that time Yadaiah had suffered 60
per cent burns. He was rushed to the Gandhi Hospital where doctors
described his condition as serious.

Yadaiah was identified as a
resident of Nagaram village of Maheshwaram in Ranga Reddy district. The
constituency is represented by the state Home Minister Sabita Indra
Reddy.

http://news.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/feb/20/slide-show-1-telangana-protest-student-sets-himself-on-fire.htm

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Raped Dalit girl kills herself as cops let off the accused (Feb 19, 2010, IBN)

In a tragic and horrific incident a 16-year-old Dalit girl killed
herself Uttar Pradesh after being raped and then threatened by the man
accused of committing the crime. In fact, the police even refused to
file an FIR against the accused Balkishan. The girl, Gomti (name
changed), was raped by the upper caste youth in their Khadakhar village
on February 12. Four days later she committed suicide, after the rapist
came to her house again to threaten her. Her mother could only watch
helplessly as her 16-year-old daughter burned herself to death. "He
came inside our house and took my sister inside a room. We were all
screaming. After some time my sister put herself on fire and died,"
says the girl's sister Kiran.

The family says Gomti took the
extreme step because there was no one to help them. The police had
first refused to file an FIR against the accused, Balkishan, when they
reported the rape. "The police did not file our case nor did they catch
the culprit. That's why we have lost our child," says the girl's
maternal grandfather. But after her death on February 16, police
hurriedly filed an FIR and arrested Balkishan.

After that senior
officers got down to defending the police officials who had refused to
file the FIR in the first place. "There was a case of rape. The culprit
was arrested and investigation is on," says SP Suryanath Singh. The
rapist is now behind bars but the police officials who allowed him to
roam free and drive Gomti to commit suicide have still not been held
accountable.

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/raped-dalit-girl-kills-herself-as-cops-let-off-the-accused/110366-3.html

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Police inspector beats up Dalit woman; services terminated (Feb 18, 2010, Deccan Herald)

The Uttar Pradesh government on Thurday terminated the services of a
police inspector, who beat up a Dalit woman accused of murdering her
husband in Musafirkhana area of Sultanpur district, a senior official
said here. Kailashnath Dwiwedi was earlier put under suspension after
he beat up the Dalit woman on Wednesday. "Station incharge of
Musafirkhana, Kailashnath Dwiwedi, has been dismissed from the services
for manhandling and assaulting Sangeeta, who was arrested on charges of
killing her husband, during police custody," Principal Secretary (Home)
Fatesh Bahadur Singh told reporters here.

Singh said Sangeeta had
on Tuesday night strangulated her husband Deepak Kumar alias Deepu in
Maniyari village. He also said that during press briefing the inspector
had slapped Sangeeta. After the incident at Manyari village in Aliganj
area here came to the fore, Dwiwedi was suspended by Sultanpur
Superintendent of Police and an inquiry was ordered against him, he
said.

Singh said that keeping in mind the gravity of the
incident, the government has decided to terminate Dwivedi's services
with immediate effect. The incident occurredon Wednesday after one
Deepak Kumar was found strangulated following which his mother lodged
an FIR and the police started looking for his wife Sangeeta. The woman
was rounded up after some time and she confessed to the crime,
Sultanpur SP Satyendra Veer Singh said.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/53405/police-inspector-beats-up-dalit.html

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Opinions and Editorials

Hindutva terror probe haunts Pune investigation - By Praveen Swami (Feb 19, 2010, The Hindu)

Back in November 2008, as Lieutenant-Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit
walked into a Nashik court to face trial for his alleged role in the
bombing of a Malegaon mosque, Hindutva activists showered the rogue
military officer with rose petals. Last week's bombing of the German
Bakery in Pune has brought the ugly story of Abhinav Bharat - the
Hindutva terrorist group Purohit helped found - back from the obscurity
to which it was consigned by the Mumbai carnage, which took place just
days after the trial in Nashik began. In private, Hindus sympathetic to
the ultra-right have been saying the bombings demonstrate the moral
legitimacy of Purohit and his Hindutva terror project. Even as the
police detained more than two dozen young Muslim men for questioning,
some community leaders have been arguing that the bakery attack could
just have easily been carried out by a Hindutva group. Part of the
reason for the controversy is that key suspects involved in Abhinav
Bharat's terror campaign have never been held. Jatin Chatterjee -
better known by his alias Swami Asimanand - is thought to be hiding out
in Gujarat's Adivasi tracts, where he runs a Hindu proselytisation
organisation. Ramnarayan Kalsangra, Abhinav Bharat's key bomb-maker, is
also a fugitive.

Founded in the summer of 2006, Abhinav Bharat
was set up as an educational trust with Himani Savarkar - daughter of
Gopal Godse, brother of Mahatma Gandhi's assassin - as its chairperson.
But, documents filed by Maharashtra prosecutors show, members of the
group were soon involved in discussing armed activity. In June 2007,
Purohit allegedly suggested that the time had come to target Muslims
through terrorist attacks - a plea others in Abhinav Bharat rejected.
But, the evidence gathered by the police suggests, many within the
group were determined to press ahead. At a meeting in April 2008, key
suspects including Madhya Pradesh-based Hindutva activist Pragnya Singh
Thakur and Jammu cleric Sudhakar Dwivedi, also known as Amritananda Dev
Tirtha, met Purohit to hammer out the Malegaon plot. Explosives were
later procured by Purohit, and handed over to Kalsangra in early August
2008.

Abhinav Bharat's long-term aims, though, went far beyond
targeting Muslims: its members wanted to overthrow the Indian state and
replace it with a totalitarian, theocratic order. A draft constitution
prepared by Abhinav Bharat spoke of a single-party system, presided
over by a leader who "shall be followed at all levels without
questioning the authority." It called for the creation of an "academy
of indoctrinization [sic.]." The concluding comment was stark: "People
whose ideas are detrimental to Hindu Rashtra should be killed."
Purohit's plans to bring about a Hindutva state were often fantastical.
He claimed, the prosecutors say, to have secured an appointment with
Nepal's King Gyanendra in 2006 and 2007 to press for his support for
the planned Hindutva revolution. Nepal, he went on, was willing to
train Abhinav Bharat's cadre, and supply it with assault rifles.
Israel's government, he said, had agreed to grant members of the group
military support and, if needed, political asylum.

Many believe
that Abhinav Bharat carried out many attacks earlier attributed to
jihadist groups - notable among them, the bombing of the Mecca Masjid
in Hyderabad in May 2007, and a subsequent attack on the famous shrine
at Ajmer. Despite persistent questioning of Abhinav Bharat cadre,
though, the investigators have not been able to link the group to the
attacks. Matters are complicated by the fact that some of the
operations attributed to Abhinav Bharat may not have had much to do
with the group - even though its leading luminaries claimed
responsibility for the attacks. For example, Purohit allegedly claimed
to confidants that the attack was carried out by the Dewas-based
Hindutva terrorist Sunil Joshi, who was murdered in December 2007. But
the United States Treasury Department later imposed sanctions on
Lashkar-e-Taiba activist Arif Kasmani - a Karachi-based jihadist with
close links to the Taliban and al-Qaeda - for financing the attack.

In
January this year, Pakistan's Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik went
further, admitting that "there were some Pakistan-based Islamists who
had been hired to carry out the Samjhauta Express attack." Judging by
recent Hindutva terror attacks, like last year's bombings in Goa, it is
unclear if they still have the capabilities to mount a sophisticated
attack of the kind seen in Pune. Few investigators believe that the
organisations - or other Hindutva cells - mounted the operation.
"Still", says one Maharashtra police official involved in investigating
both Hindutva and jihadist attacks, "you can't help wondering - what
if?" Signs are the investigation into the bombing of the German Bakery
will take time. 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. The longer
the investigation takes, the more time conspiracy theories and
speculation will have to proliferate - likely deepening the communal
fissures the bombing is already opening up.

http://www.hindu.com/2010/02/19/stories/2010021961571000.htm

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Shahid Azmi, a Career Produced And Consumed By Judicial System - By Mustafa Khan (Feb 14, 2010, Countercurrents)

The murder of defense counsel of Fahim Ansari and those accused in
Malegaon blast of 2006 is really very disturbing. It brings to mind how
some of those alleged to be involved in 1993 serial blasts were bumped
off by targeted assassination. The death of Shahid Azmi in the evening
of February 11, 2010 is in a series of lawyers thrashed, shot at,
injured or killed across the country in the aftermath of bomb blasts.
Azmi is the third lawyer killed in Mumbai. In such cases the alleged
terrorists were invariably suspected to be Muslims and if any Muslim
lawyer showed any desire to defend the accused he was subjected to two
heart wrenching problems. One, he would be targeted for engaging
himself in antinational activity. Two, he would run mortal risk while
discharging a duty that the constitution of the land allows him.
Lawyers daring to defend Muslims allegedly involved in terrorism have
had a very awfully difficult and dangerous time. They were attacked and
killed, injured and made to go through great hardship. This does not
reflect well on the country, a democracy avowed to live by secularism.
Many of them were set upon by hooligans and beaten up. This often
happened when the police personnel were standing idly and did not do
anything to protect the lawyers. Even within the precincts of the
courts.

The kind of threats held out to the investigation
authorities (like ATS chief Hemant Karkare) or lawyers intending to
defend the accused (Shahid Azmi) does not die. It is kept alive with
every sporadic bomb blast. No other than MNS chief Raj Thackeray had
made such threats. He had issued threats to lawyers who wanted to
defend the accused in the 7/11 2006 local train blasts in Mumbai. The
advocate general of Maharashtra Mr Ravi Kadam had even given his
consent to try Raj Thackeray on criminal charges. Raj had threatened
violence while he was paying tribute to more than 180 people killed in
the blasts. Such emotive reaction is a rabble rousing technique and
instigative of taking law in one's hand and thereby lowering the
position of the court and the law. Delhi lawyer Shakeel Ahmed had dared
to defend Kamal Ansari, Khalid Shaikh and Mumtaz Chaudhary arrested
from Bihar for their alleged involvement in 7/11.

Shahid had
been the product of the judicial system of Mumbai. It nurtured him like
a mother. But in the end the by product of it claimed him. That by
product is the reactionary dark forces unleashed by those who do not
want to accept its verdict or countenance it with equanimity. "It is a
very unfortunate incident. He was an upcoming lawyer and very polite in
court," said Ujwala Nikam, special prosecutor. In 1995 Shahid was
arrested by Delhi police for being a member of SIM. While serving jail
term he graduated and after release completed his law course and
started practice. Mostly he took cases of innocent Muslims who were
harassed and then arrested and tortured by the police. In the case of
the fake encounter and murder of Ishrat Jehan he played a pivotal role
to get justice to the bereaved family. Apparently free from narrow
sectarianism his work and cause irked the Hindutva groups.

Diametrically
opposed to their clamour for more and more draconian laws to deal with
terror, he pleaded in court against the application of MOCOCA as well
as POTA for his clients. His successful pleading in the Ghatkopar
blasts case of 2002 led to the abrogation of POTA. Of the eighteen
charged he got nine discharged. Police inspector Sachin Vaze killed
Khwaja Yunus and disposed off the body. The remaining eight were
acquitted by the POTA special court. Similarly his argument that MOCOCA
can be applied in cases of organized crimes but not terror ultimately
became instrumental in SC staying the three cases of 2006: 11/7 Mumbai
serial blasts in locals, Malegaon bomb blasts, and the Aurangabad arms
haul. The section 2 (1)(e) of MOCOCA focuses on "causing insurgency"
could not be justified just on the basis of confession unless
corroborated by circumstantial and hard evidence. It was a moment for
reforming the harsh laws. This naturally brought praise from Ujwala
Nikam. Shahid's was successful in preventing the screening of the film
Black Friday in order not to prejudice the mind of the public in the
1993 trial. This was also a welcome move in the judiciary system.

What
the Americans were doing in Guantanamo, Abu Gharib and Bagram prisons
was also going on in the Arthur Road prison under the supervision and
direct involvement of the jail superintendent Swathi Sathe. Shahid
graphically delineated the torture. The accused were brutally assaulted
in the prison with Sathe taking part in it. One had his arm broken and
another had his head broken. A son of one of the accused saw his father
being taken away in police van with blood still oozing as he waited
with a tiffin box he was carrying for his father. The madam wanted them
to confess to the crimes the police alleged they had committed. She
claimed that they had created insurgency there while they were being
transferred to other prisons. Even the transfer of the prisoners was
illegal and violated the norms. The judges found it very unbecoming of
her and passed stricture against her and she was transferred. Her
'transfer' was without loss of pay or blood while theirs was so
sanguinary. Shahid's brief life of 32 years was potent in works as far
as fight for the prisoner is concerned. He was a 'prisoner of
conscience' himself, a TADA prisoner who never felt shy about it. He
reminds one of the famous English lawyer who founded Amnesty
International to free the innocents imprisoned on cooked up charges.

http://www.countercurrents.org/khan140210.htm

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Terror That Wasnt - By Brijesh Pandey (Feb 27, 2010, Tehelka)

The Special Cell of the Delhi Police was formed in 1986 as a
counter-terrorism force. It shot into prominence in the late 1990s,
claiming to have killed many terrorists and to have solved several
cases. In time, some of its officers began to figure in extortion cases
and dubious encounters. Says noted lawyer Prashant Bhushan:
"Unfortunately, whenever the courts have found that they [the Special
Cell] have been framing people by fabricating evidence, they have not
suggested any action to be taken. Unless they are punished very
severely by law, police officers will keep on framing innocents as
terrorists." Tellingly, over the last four months, lower courts in
Delhi have acquitted nine "terrorists" arrested by the Special Cell.
Four such "terrorists" were arrested after an encounter in southwest
Delhi in March 2005. Police claimed they had averted a major terrorist
attack on the Indian Military Academy (IMA), Dehradun. Five years
later, all four men were acquitted. Brijesh Pandey profiles the four
terrorists who never were.

Dilawar Khan, Maulana at
Imdad-ul-Uloom Madrassa; Masood Ahmed, Imam at Baghwali Masjid: The
sight of an approaching policeman is enough to send shivers down the
spine of Maulana Dilawar Khan and Imam Masood Ahmed and for good reason
too. Dilawar, a teacher at the Imdad-ul-Uloom Madrassa in northeast
Delhi's Welcome area, and Masood, an Imam at the Baghwali Masjid barely
200 metres away, were called to the local police station in March 2005
and then told to visit the Delhi Police Special Cell's office at Lodhi
Colony in south Delhi for routine questioning. It would be five years
before either was seen in public again. Branded as Lashkar-e-Taiba
terrorists plotting a suicide attack on the Indian Military Academy in
Dehradun, the duo languished in jail for five years before a Patiala
House Court judgement set them free last month for want of evidence.
The court also criticised the Special Cell for its lapses in
investigation and for misusing its powers. Dilawar and Masood were
arrested solely on the basis of a statement by Hamid Hussain, an
alleged Lashkar member, who claimed that a consignment of explosives
meant for Pakistani terrorists had been kept in Dilawar's custody.
Hamid identified Masood and Dilawar and police claimed to have
recovered a grenade and a Chinese pistol with 24 bullets from them. …

Masood
has a similar story. "First I was asked to identify Hamid and then I
was asked to explain the plot. I had no clue what to answer." Matters
swiftly got worse. "We were paraded like animals in front of cameras.
The [Special] Cell officers were jostling with each other to stand next
to 'the terrorist' so that they could also figure prominently in the
picture. They also asked me to pose for the camera," says Dilawar. "My
faith in God was tested at that moment. What did I do to deserve this?"
Deserted by friends and relatives immediately after their arrest,
Dilawar and Masood patiently waited for their case to come up for
trial. The judgement took a long time in coming, but when it was
delivered on January 8 this year, it acquitted them of all charges and
demolished the entire Special Cell case. Additional Sessions Judge
Dharmesh Sharma said, "The evidence given by the prosecution does not
inspire confidence," adding that there was no evidence that Dilawar was
living in the house police arrested him from. Picking further holes in
the police case, Justice Sharma said Inspector [Special Cell] Ramesh
Lamba, who was part of the team that allegedly raided the Welcome area
and picked up Dilawar and Masood within half-an-hour of each other,
"did not utter a single word about the recovery" of arms from Dilawar's
house. "What was most surprising was the statement of Inspector Ran
Singh who stated that after the arrest [of Dilawar] the Special Cell
team went back to their office… [before returning to arrest Masood from
almost the same spot]," adds Justice Sharma "This is in contradiction
with the statement given by the Special Cell officers. It is not
believable that if the police party had gone to arrest both the persons
in the same locality, it opted to include Ran Singh in one and not the
other." Indicting the police further, the judge says: "It is also very
doubtful that Hamid Hussain was at all involved in identifying" the
accused since "his name was not mentioned anywhere in the daily
[police] diary". …

Haroon Rashid, Mechanical engineer: Haroon
Rashid had no idea that his plan to go to Singapore for a job would
backfire so badly. A mechanical engineer from Bihar, Haroon had quit
his job at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in December 2004 to join
Singapore based company, initially for a 22-month preparatory course.
When he returned to India on May 16th, 2005 for a visit home, he was
picked up by the Special Cell from the Indira Gandhi International
Airport, New Delhi. He was charged with financing a conspiracy to carry
out a suicide attack on the Indian Military Academy (IMA), Dehradun.
According to the Special Cell, Delhi Police, Haroon had twice remitted
a total of Rs 49,000 from Singapore through Western Union Money
Transfer on January 10th and 15th, 2005, to his brother Mohammad Yunis,
who had subsequently passed it on to Shams, one of the three killed in
an encounter in an apartment in Uttam Nagar in March 2005. Apparently,
Haroon had also confessed that he used to get money from his Pakistani
mentor Abdul Aziz. They also claimed to have 76 pages of e-mail
transcripts from Haroon, under the pseudonym 'Farooq', in which he had
sent coded instructions to other terrorists for future action. The
police termed Haroon's arrest as a major breakthrough. But when Haroon
Rashid's case came up for trial, a very different picture emerged -
that of abuse of power at the hands of Special Cell officers entrusted
with the task of preventing terrorist attacks. According to MS Khan,
Haroon's lawyer, "He was from a very poor family and hence had to take
Rs 1 lakh as loan from his uncle to go to Singapore. On reaching there,
when he found out that he would not need so much money, he sent Rs
49,000 back to his brother, so that part of the loan could be repaid.
How was he to know that this remittance will mark him as a Lashkar
financier?" The case presented by the Special Cell fell apart in the
court. Yunis denied giving any money to Shams, the slain terrorist. The
police could not produce any independent evidence linking Haroon to any
Lashkar operative. Even the muchtouted e-mails recovered from Haroon
could not withstand the scrutiny of cross-examination. "Inspector
Kailash had deposed in the court that on 18th May, 2005, that he had
cracked the password of the e-mail which Haroon had been using to
contact his handler in Pakistan, and had taken the printouts on the
same day," said MS Khan, "But Inspector Badrish Dutt of the same
Special Cell admitted that on May 13th , 2005 (five days before the
claimed breakthrough happened), Haroon had already given him the
password of his email account. Badrish deposed that Inspector Kailash
was also present during the interrogation. This clearly proves that the
police fabricated the email records in those five days." The court was
scathing about Inspector Kailash's silence and lies in the court. Even
the 76 pages of printouts supposedly taken on May 13 were neither
produced in the court nor attached to the chargesheet. They weren't
even mentioned in the police diary. Haroon Rashid was acquitted by the
court but if his advocate is to be believed, the fear of being picked
up again remains high. And it will be quite a while, before his faith
in the police is restored. …

Iftekhar Mallick, Biotechnology
student in Dehradun: Things are finally looking up for Mohammad
Iftekhar Ahsan Mallick, five years after he was jailed on charges of
being a Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist plotting to carry out a suicide
attack on the Indian Military Academy (IMA) in Dehradun. Iftekhar, 26,
was a secondyear biotechnology student at Dehradun's Dolphin Institute
of Biomedical & Natural Sciences when he was picked up from his
house by the Special Cell of Delhi Police on March 7, 2005. At a news
conference, the Special Cell claimed to have recovered a diary
containing inflammatory passages from the Quran, a note that spoke of
avenging the 2002 Gujarat riots and a pass to an IMA parade. Police
also said Iftekhar had been in touch with the slain Pakistani terrorist
Shams who had motivated him to attend Students Islamic Movement of
India (SIMI) meetings in his native Bihar. It was said Iftekhar had
been referred to as "Shahid" in Shams' diary and that the Lashkar had
sponsored his education. Iftekhar kept pleading his innocence but to no
avail. It was left to Additional Sessions Judge Dharmesh Sharma to
point out the Special Cell's lapses in investigation while acquitting
Iftekhar of all charges. Justice Sharma termed it "most surprising"
that Ramesh Sharma, Inspector of the Special Cell had deposed that
Inspector Kailash Singhal Bisht had visited Dehradun and seized the IMA
pass from Iftekhar only for Bisht - who wrote the seizure memo - to
admit during cross-examination that he had never gone there at all. On
being asked how he recovered the pass and wrote out the seizure memo,
Bisht could offer no explanation. Damningly, Iftekhar told the court
that he had been forced by the Special Cell to write out the note about
avenging Gujarat. He admitted to having written out passages from the
Quran but said they were not inflammatory in any way. Justice Sharma
also found it surprising that Iftekhar's landlord, Bhagat Ram Gulyani,
was not contacted at the time of the arrest and seizure of evidence.
Nor was there any other public witness. …

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main43.asp?filename=Ne270210terror_that.asp

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Sharpening divide in Mumbai - Time to get tough with Thackerays - By Kamlendra Kanwar (Feb 9, 2010, The Tribune)

It is very unfortunate that vote bank considerations are
re-injecting a fresh dose of regional chauvinism into the politics of
the Shiv Sena, misguiding gullible youth into nurturing hatred for
immigrant communities from UP and Bihar. The damage this is causing to
the spirit of unity among Indians in general should be a matter of deep
concern. Clearly, Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray and his son Uddhav
see the ground slipping from under their feet with the former's nephew
Raj Thackeray trying to steal the uncle's thunder on the espousal of
the "Marathi Manoos" card. They cannot tolerate the fact that Raj won
some brownie points in the last assembly elections by opposing cine
idol Amitabh Bachchan who originally belongs to U.P. and then taking on
the Bihari taxi drivers of Mumbai. Raj was always politically savvier
than Uddhav — a better organizer and a more pronounced chip of the old
block. Yet, as has become the pattern among parties that revolve around
an individual, Bal Thackeray anointed Uddhav as his political heir.
There was no thought spared for whether the party cadres related better
with Raj than Uddhav or whether Uddhav had the charisma to take the
party forward in the absence of father Bal Thackeray.

In the
dictatorial politics of the Shiv Sena, for anyone other than his son to
aspire to succeed the supreme leader was sacrilegious even if the
challenger was a close relative who was at one time the favourite of
Bal Thackeray. That Raj Thackeray was reaching out to his uncle's
constituency to build up his own base was not surprising because Raj
had been tutored in the same brand of politics and had lived and
thrived in the company of those who conformed to the same narrow
parochial line of thinking. As a rabble-rouser Raj has inherited his
uncle's skills. When he began establishing a foothold independent of
Bal Thackeray, competitive politics propelled Raj on the one hand and
Bal and Uddhav on the other to seek to outdo each other in rhetoric
which aroused passions among the people at large. In fairness to Uddhav
it must be acknowledged that he did try to shift the focus to daal-roti
issues during the last assembly polls but it was Raj who made news with
his vitriolic statements with strong regional overtones. Bal and Raj
Thackeray may be up to their respective game plans for their own
political ends, but the effect that their chauvinistic planks are
having on the supporters of their two parties is of spreading venom
along divisive lines.

For the swelling ranks of the unemployed,
it is not entirely surprising that they get swayed by rhetoric that
ascribes all their hardships to the presence of outsiders who they feel
take away the jobs that should have been theirs. It is quite another
matter that Mumbai without the immigant communities is unthinkable.
Some of the biggest and most successful industrialists are Gujaratis
without whose enterprise Mumbai could hardly have grown to be the
business capital of the country. Yet, anyone who seeks to downplay the
role of the locals in any place's development is living in a fool's
paradise. For Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi to suggest that
it was the Biharis and Uttar Pradeshis without whom the battle against
the 26/11 terrorists could not have been waged is to play into the
hands of Bal and Raj Thackeray who are now reeling off names of
Maharashtrians who went down fighting valiantly. The tragedy is that
political parties and politicians who are up in arms against Bal and
Raj Thackeray's unreasonable stand are as much guilty of playing vote
bank politics as the Thackerays are. With elections to the Bihar
Assembly due next year and UP a high-stakes state, political leaders
from the North are more concerned about their electoral prospects than
about the principle that Mumbai is for all Indians. Be it Rahul Gandhi
or BJP President Gadkari or the irrepressible Lalu Prasad Yadav, what
they have in common is an eye on the northern vote banks to the
exclusion of other considerations.

All said and done, it is
shocking however that senior political leaders can go around saying
that Mumbai is for Maharashtrians alone and take on those who speak the
language of sanity that they are Indians first. Is this not violative
of the spirit and substance of the Constitution? Should not
rabble-rousers who cause so much damage to the democratic fabric and to
the integrity and solidarity of people across the country be arrayed
before the courts and put behind bars? It was bad enough when Raj
Thackeray took on Amitabh Bachchan when the latter expressed pride in
his heritage and alluded to his roots in UP. The systematic campaign
against the iconic Bachchan was not matched by action against those who
challenged him against continuing to live in Mumbai. Recently, Bal
Thackeray went a step further when he admonished and warned the
redoubtable Sachin Tendulkar for having remarked that Mumbai belonged
to all Indians and not to anyone in particular. In words that
reaffirmed his nationalistic spirit Tendulkar added that while he is a
Maharashtrian and is "extremely proud of that," he is an Indian first.

In
an editorial in Saamna, the mouthpiece of the Shiv Sena, Bal Thackeray
advised Tendulkar to focus on his international cricket and said that
he had "hurt the feelings of Marathi Manoos." Thackeray went on to say:
"Sachin may not know what Marathi Manoos went through to get Mumbai.
You were not even born then." In a tone of warning, the Shiv Sena
supremo wrote in the editorial: "Sachin, please keep it in mind that we
praise you for your fours and sixes on the field, but if you use your
tongue as a bat to hit boundaries against Marathi Manoos, we will never
tolerate it. Please don't lose on the ground of politics whatever you
have earned on the cricket pitch." The Shiv Sena's intemperate remarks
against leading actor Shah Rukh Khan for having protested against the
non-inclusion of Pakistani cricket players in the IPL tournament and
the burning of Khan's effigies point to growing intolerance that is
sullying the image of a once cosmopolitan Mumbai. Through all this the
Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra can hardly be absolved of blame
for being soft on the likes of Bal and Raj Thackeray. In fact, the
state government sent out all the wrong signals by announcing that taxi
permits would only be given in future to those domiciled in Mumbai for
15 years and who knew how to read and write Marathi. That this
indefensibly inward-looking statement was watered down subsequently
does not detract from the fact that the Maharashtra government is
afraid of speaking up for the "Indians first" plank. While Bal, Uddhav
and Raj Thackeray continue to run amuck, making outrageous statements
that are sharpening the divide between Mumbaikars and non-Mumbaikars,
there is nothing beyond some sabre-rattling by a few Congress leaders
who too are speaking up perhaps because Bal Thackeray has taken on
Rahul Gandhi. NCP supremo Sharad Pawar who pretends to be a
torch-bearer of national interest is silent on the issue. If then some
right-thinking people call India a soft state where there is little
accountability for the high and mighty, can there be any convincing
refutation of it?

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100209/edit.htm#4

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SC clips states power - Editorial (Feb 19, 2010, The Tribune)

Wednesday's Supreme Court judgement empowering the apex court and
high courts to order CBI investigation into serious offences without
the state governments' explicit consent is a landmark verdict. A
Constitution Bench consisting of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan,
Justice R.V. Raveendran, Justice D.K. Jain, Justice P. Sathasivam and
Justice J.M. Panchal has rightly ruled that no Act of Parliament can
exclude or curtail the constitutional courts' power to enforce
fundamental rights.

As protectors of citizens' civil liberties,
it is the superior courts' "constitutional duty" to order an
independent inquiry by the CBI into a crime if they feel that the
fairness of the state police probe is hampered because of political
considerations. It is common knowledge that the state governments,
instead of assisting the Centre, have been creating hurdles in ensuring
fair and speedy investigation. Citing the Delhi Police Special
Establishment Act, 1948, they claim that the state consent is a must
for a CBI probe to protect the state autonomy and maintain the federal
equilibrium.

However, the judgement is in consonance with the
apex court's inherent powers to do justice. As it has become the law of
the land, the states will have to fall in line and can no longer
challenge the courts' power to order a CBI probe without their consent.
At the same time, the Bench has ruled that no "inflexible guidelines"
could be laid down on when courts should exercise such power. This
implies that while the Bench has decided on a general principle of law,
it has left individual cases to the courts hearing them.

Significantly,
the Bench has asked the high courts to tread with caution and order a
CBI probe only when it becomes necessary to provide credibility and
instil confidence in a state police investigation. The ruling came on
the 10-year-old Chhoto Angaria case in which CPM activists allegedly
killed 11Trinamool Congress workers in West Bengal. The state
government had opposed the Calcutta High Court's order for a CBI
inquiry into the case in 2001. The same High Court had suo motu ordered
a CBI probe into the Nandigram firing that claimed 14 lives in March
2007. While allowing the CBI to complete the probe, the apex court
directed it not to file a charge-sheet until the issue of the state's
consent was adjudicated.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100219/edit.htm#1

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The way forward on Telangana - Editorial (Feb 16, 2010, The Hindu)

With the Union government announcing the terms of reference and the
time frame for the Telangana Committee, the proper course for the Joint
Action Committee of political parties that is spearheading the
agitation for a separate state would have been to wait for its report,
due by December 31, 2010. The five-member Telangana committee headed by
the former Supreme Court judge B.N. Srikrishna needs the time and the
space for examining this contentious issue in all its aspects. People
and parties are divided on the statehood question, and the terms of
reference necessarily had to be broad and wide-ranging, accommodating
the demands for both a Telangana state and for a united Andhra Pradesh.
In any case, including one demand in the terms of reference would have
implied dealing with the other and neither could have been considered
in isolation.

The JAC's stand against the committee examining
the demand for keeping Andhra Pradesh united mirrored that of the
Telangana Rashtra Samiti, whose raison d'etre is a separate Telangana.
Quite understandably, other parties, including those with high stakes
in Telangana, were not willing to unqualifiedly fall in line with the
JAC's ultimatums. The end-result could well leave the TRS friendless
and lonely. Telangana accounts for 119 of the 294 members in the State
Assembly, but only 12 of them have quit so far. Of these, 10 are from
the TRS. Only one of the 39 Telugu Desam Party MLAs from the region
resigned, while others decided to wait for the decision of the Congress
MLAs from the region. As for the BJP, for long an unequivocal supporter
of a Telangana State, one of its two MLAs from the region quit. An
ineffective JAC, far from being able to convince all the legislators,
was reduced to setting a deadline for other MLAs to quit.

Carving
out smaller States is too important and complex an issue to be taken in
the heat of inflamed passions and under the pressure of political
agitations. In the absence of a political consensus, and when concerns
are raised about the wider implications for the other parts of the
State, decisions will have to be made after wide-ranging consultations,
and on the basis of a well laid out road map. Those clamouring for a
separate Telangana will surely help their own cause by extending full
cooperation to the Srikrishna panel, instead of vitiating the
atmosphere again by instigating violence or asking elected political
representatives to resign. All stakeholders must ensure that the panel
succeeds in its rather difficult task of balancing the interests and
concerns of different sections and recommending a plan of action
towards a solution, as set out in the terms of reference.

http://www.hindu.com/2010/02/16/stories/2010021655060800.htm

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Book Review

Articles of Faith: Religion, Secularism, and the Indian Supreme Court

Author: Ronojoy Sen
Reviewed by: Shaikh Mujibur Rehman
Available at: Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 675.. http://www.bookshopofindia.com/
Review:

Secularism and the role of the Supreme Court (Feb 16, 2010, The Hindu)

As
the contemporary Indian political folklore suggests, secularism as
state ideology has become contentious ever since Hindutva emerged as a
major political plank. For the academia, the history of the contentious
nature of this debate is somewhat older, and intriguing. What is,
however, striking is that the political and academic streams of
discourse have employed two different connotations of secularism. The
political strand focussed on the fairness of the way the concept is
applied in practice, with one section even accusing the state of being
biased towards the minorities, particularly Muslims. On the other hand,
the academic discourse stressed mostly on its genesis and on questions
such as whether it is Western or Indian in origin. While both allude to
the part the Supreme Court of India has been playing in this area,
citing its different verdicts wherever necessary, there has been no
systematic research into its proactive role. This book fills this
vacuum quite comfortably.

How the Supreme Court has been
addressing the issues related to Hinduism and minority religions such
as Islam is discussed extensively under different heads. In each
chapter, considerable space is devoted to analysing the landmark cases
that have a definitive bearing on Indian secularism. Among the
significant points the author makes in his multi-layered argument is
that the judicial verdicts are, in some measure, reflective of the
dominant personalities of the court at a given time. In fact, the
chapter titled, "Judging Religion: A Nehruvian In Court," is entirely
about P.B. Gajendragadkar, who served as the Chief Justice of India
during the 1960s, and his was a dominant voice in matters of religion.
Going by the manner in which the public debate and political campaign
have proceeded in the area of secularism, there is a perception that
the state's relationship with minority religions, particularly Islam,
needs to be grasped sensibly in order to make sense of its practices.
In an attempt to depart from this dominant perception, the author
devotes two chapters to discussing how the Supreme Court has been
shaping the country's political portrait and, in the process, created a
lot of confusion about the connotations of 'Hinduism' and 'Hindutva'.

According
to him,the confusion is partly due to the absence of Gandhian view of
Hinduism in judicial discourse. He needs to have also noted that
Hinduism in non-Hindutva sense is not completely compatible with the
idea of tolerance. In fact, Dalit scholars such as Gopal Guru, Kancha
Ilaiah, and Gail Omvedt consider that the idea of Hinduism in its
brahminical construct is as pernicious, if not more, as it is in its
Hindutva avatar. Deviating from the conventional path, the author
suggests that secularism needs to be visualised in a broader
relationship not just with Islam but also with Hinduism. He devotes
substantial space to the issue of minorities and Islam, with one
chapter dealing exclusively with the question of Uniform Civil Code,
one of the most contentious issues figuring in the secularism debate.
This well-written chapter, however, could have profited from a
discussion on the drafts that various civil society groups based in New
Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune have been working on since the later part of
the 1980s.

Viewed in the context of the vicious communal
attacks witnessed in Kandhamal recently, where Christians were the
target, the valuable insights offered into the way the courts have
handled conversion-related issues acquire special relevance. How the
Indian state grapples with religious conversion is, as the author says
- and rightly so - "in many ways very central to the constitutional
experiment with secularism." Equally noteworthy is the chapter that
deals with minority rights in running educational institutions.

This
book, however, is not about the "unfettered role of religion and
religious practices." While discussing the core dimension of Indian
secularism, he suggests that the court "rethink its language of
uniformity in favour of one accommodative of religious and legal
pluralism." Otherwise, he warns, religion and faith could be hijacked
by religious fundamentalists. The book, the core of which is a product
of the author's doctoral work, has further enriched the wealth of
scholarship on secularism. In addition, it should serve as a valuable
source for students of law and Indian politics.

http://beta.thehindu.com/arts/books/article107339.ece

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