Commentary/ Varsha Bhosle

"India for sale"

Last week, I caught former Punjab police chief K P S Gill being interviewed by the anchors on STAR News. The questions posed were as are to be expected from the media - with a slant on India's security forces being irresponsible and her citizens mostly consisting of tortured victims of police brutality. Mr Gill gave curt and cogent replies, till Barkha Dutt asked, "Don't you think terrorism should be handled sensitively?"

Mr Gill looked utterly lost (in his place, I'd have used my gun). After a long pause, he said: "Let me put it to you, how does one handle terrorism sensitively?" Is terrorism the delicate act of delivering babies? Hell, no! It delivers innocents, yes. To harp-land.

The suicide of former Tarn Taran Senior Superintendent of Police Ajit Singh Sandhu, who threw himself before the speeding Himalayan Queen Express on 23 May, has raised valid questions about the predicament of the police. But that's only my take on things; according to the Times of India, it has "led to a fresh debate about the means adopted by the Punjab police to wipe out militancy from the state."

The fact remains that Mr Sandhu is credited with stamping out terrorism from Tarn Taran - once known as the capital of Khalistan - and had personally led armed encounters and ambushes during the worst phase of terrorism in Punjab. He was responsible for the killing of Gurbachan Singh Manochal, chief of the dreaded Bhindranwale Tiger Force, and several other lynch-pin terrorists.

Naturally, the SSP had thus drawn the attention of Punjab-based human rights groups: Mr Gill affirmed that the state is rife with organisations that are fronts for foreign agencies and which have turned litigation into an art with which to neutralise the police. At the time of his death, Mr Sandhu had 43 cases registered against him and was facing trial in several lawsuits of rights violations, including the murder of a civil liberties activist.

Last year, he was suspended from the force and remanded to judicial custody - where he'd been attacked by hard-core terrorist Nishan Singh Kalanaur. After being released on bail, Mr Sandhu sank into depression, spending all his time at home or in the courts. The day he died, he was scheduled to attend a hearing on an application seeking the cancellation of his bail... A suicide note recovered from his car read, "Jalaalat ki zindagi nalon mar jana changa hai" (It's better to die than to live a life of degradation).

It has me wondering about these human rights groups and their liberal champions. True, the police have to be made accountable; checks are necessary; absolute power corrupts absolutely... But terrorism is not a problem that can be tackled gingerly. Terrorists do not recognise human rights. They attack not only the police and the army, but civilians, too. And they don't wear uniforms.

The forces which fight them need special laws and privileges - for they face death for us: we, who don't have the balls to do what they do to keep the country intact. What the Punjab police underwent, and what the security forces are undergoing in Kashmir, is nothing less than a low-intensity war.

Two days after Mr Sandhu killed himself, and while senior police officers were issuing statements decrying the propriety of the inquiries, there was a furor among civil libertarians (a full-page highlight by ToI) over the government's move to bring in another anti-terrorist law to replace the repealed Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act. You see, never mind the severe anti-terrorist laws the liberals' masters pass, India just cannot have one...

The US has the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act which was rushed to passage in time for the first anniversary of the attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City. The Washington Post said, "As the name of the legislation suggests, the bill became a vehicle for new restrictions on appeals to federal courts by death row inmates, provisions long-sought by some GOP leaders but not directly related to terrorism of any sort...

Like many other laws enacted by the 104th Congress, President Clinton signed it reluctantly and members of both parties expressed some satisfaction and some dismay with what they had accomplished." No matter how "reluctantly" (Ha!), the law *was* passed.

In Britain, The Times of April 3, 1996 reported, "The Prevention of Terrorism (Additional Powers) Bill took less than 11 hours to work its way through the Commons. The Lords have made it clear that they will not amend the Bill when they debate it this morning and by tonight it should be law. At Westminster, few MPs and civil servants could remember a day like it. Emergency Bills are used only when the country is considered to be facing a crisis and the Opposition and the Lords give their support." Please note that TADA, whose low conviction rate is a moot point for its detractors, was modelled on the British PTB - and the conviction rate under the latter, too, is less than one per cent.

All this haste when Britain has just the IRA to contend with. India has Khalistanis, Jamait-e-Islami, Hurriyat Conference, Jamait-Al-Quran Hadis, Tamilnadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam, Al-Ummah, Islamic Movement of India, Student Islamic Movement of India, Islamic Youth Centre, People's Democratic Party, Jihad Committee, Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam, Muslim Volunteer Force, Muslim United Liberation Front of Assam, Muslim Liberation Front of Assam; the Christian Mizo National Front; the China-funded National Socialist Council of Nagaland; ULFA, LTTE...

Tell you what, I'll do a separate piece on terrorist groups another day. Oh, and I haven't listed gangsters who fall in the disruptive activities slot... BTW, these details are culled from national newspapers: I don't make up tales, as some dingbats in Arena suggest. Also, truth isn't "minority-bashing."

But such is the perversity of secular Indians. In March, the masthead story in The Bombay Times screamed, "Zubeida will turn three years old this July. Daughter of Rahin and Yakub Memon, two of the 11 members of the Memon family charged with masterminding the March 12, 1993 bomb blasts that rocked Mumbai... The chances of Zubeida's reunion with her parents seem dim... these *poor* people do not have the money to pursue the case till the Supreme Court." Excuse me while I barf, but is this a "human interest" subject? I wonder why this dipweed didn't do a similar story on those children who will never reunite with their fathers - since the latter were splattered all around Century Bazaar in 1993!

To top that, we had Samajwadi Party MP Raj Babbar and his cohort Abu Asim Azmi - whose bail-application for his involvement in the shoe scam was refused by the Bombay High Court - agitating for the release of all TADA detenues. And guess who's real close to Babbar: Defence Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav. I feel very safe, I'm sure. It is precisely this sort of element that caused Mr Sandhu to take his own life - after making Punjab habitable for them.

The police not being insulated against political interference - as evinced by the transfers of effective officers to appease whichever "hurt" entity that demands it - is primarily what renders cops frustrated and demoralised. In January 1995, the Intelligence Bureau raided the Muslim University in Lucknow, arrested the suspects (including one Pakistani), and had to release all on orders from the then chief minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Former director general of the Border Security Force, Prakash Singh, warned, "(the raid) has not suited the Mulayam Singh government politically. The message gone around is not to take action against the enemies of the State if it is expected to have a political fallout... IPS and IAS officials have lost their spine and are toeing the political line without protest." Did any of our intellectuals protest? Why would they? Hey, India's for sale.

If officers who have been previously thwarted at bringing criminals to justice - checked by politicians, advocates or human rights groups - made the most of TADA and used fake encounters to decimate recognised terrorists and gangsters, why in God's name should I condemn them? I would happily let them loose on politicians and civil libertarians, too.

Last week, a team of human rights activists visiting Kashmir issued a statement saying it found the security forces "guilty of random arrests, torture, fake encounters, rape and molestation". Care to know what had prompted the scrutiny? The hunger-strike by Hurriyat Conference leader Yaseen Malik. Right, now that we've lost Punjab thanks to the darn Ribeiros, Gills and Sandhus, let's mess up Kashmir...

In the other corner, the J&K government (not headed by lying Hindutvawadis, please note) investigated 2,600 cases of alleged human rights abuse from January 1992 to September 1996 - and found 2,288 of them false. A spokesman said that a large number of complaints were plainly motivated.

History tells us that Mankind has always waged war, that there never will be an end in sight. We take our freedom for granted, but freedom is won and kept at great cost. The only way we can remain free is to be prepared to fight for it. This requires properly trained and equipped personnel of high morale ready to do battle. To do less is suicide. To dishearten them is self-destruction.

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