Shahina the Terrorist

This report about my friend Shahina came in Malayalam newspaper Janmabhoomi. Titled "Shahina tried to sabotage the Delhi blast case as well", it says "Shahina, who tried to sabotage the Bangalore blast case, is understood to have tried to sabotage the investigations of the Delhi blasts that happened in 2008 September."

So how did Shahina sabotage the Bangalore blast case? By exposing some bogus witnesses the Police had manufactured. The case against her is that she intimidated and tried to influence the witnesses. (A video of her "intimidating" one of the witnesses could be found here).

Seeing this report in Janmabhoomi, I don't know whether to cry or laugh.

In this case, I know Shahina and was with her during the post Delhi blast days. So I know this is nonsense. But in many other cases we see similar reports -- in Janmabhoomi, in Mathrubhumi, in Kerala Kaumudi.. and we tend to believe at least a large part of it. Because we do not have any reason not to believe it.

This news tells me how foolish I was. A late realization, but I think better late than never. Thanks Shahina for being a twist in the story. I know it has not been that great an experience for you, but still.

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(In September 2008, a significant part of an article by Shahina that appeared in The Hoot was used in an email that the media houses received "from Indian Mujahideen". She wrote about that experience in Hindustan Times later. The blog post mentioned in that note can be found on this diary, here).

Sitting Ducks : A Beemapalli reflection

In a guest post, Bobby Kunhu tries to put down his mixed feelings on his visit to Beemapalli (near Thriruvananthapuram, Kerala) after the police firing that happened on May 17.



It is with the utmost hesitation that I write this. Hesitation because I think I have not understood, nor have many others who have written about the May police firing in Beemapalli. Not that there is any ambiguity in anybody's (who has visited the place) mind about the specific incidents that took place on 17th of May this year. As a part of a small fact finding team trying to tie up its report, I'd rather use this space to raise contextual questions about the police firing that have been haunting me since I heard the first reports of the firing.

At the outset, I need to assert as a human rights lawyer (and independent of the socio-economic realities of Beemapalli) that what happened on May 17th in Beemapalli is one of the worst possible crimes - where lives of 6 people were taken by forces of the state, without following the procedure established by law - in other words extra-judicial murders - and calling it by any other name is as offensive as the incident itself. In my mind, the incident involves the police allegedly firing 50 rounds of bullets at a gathering in a coastal village. The facts are that 43 people were injured and 6 died in the police firing. The fact is that all the people who died and were injured were Muslims. The fact is that there is no credible evidence shown that the crowd fired at was violent or provocative. The fact is that there is no damage reported from the police side. The fact is that the police bypassed the usual procedures that need to be adopted before a firing. Having made that assertion, let me move on to the first set of concerns that have been haunting me.



Silent Media, Silent Opposition

The first of these is the general social and political reactions to Beemapalli firing. In fact one of the factors that led me to take the initiative in organising a fact-finding was the deafening silence that followed the violence in Beemapalli. It looked like that only "Muslim" organisations were interested in taking up the issue. Even the political opposition did not seem like wanting to capitalise this serious lapse in governance. When I tried prying into the possible reason, a newspaper report lauding the media for acting sensibly by maintaining silence and thereby averting a communal issue was literally thrown at my face. (The report was titled, Signs of a Mature Media, Opposition).

But was this violence communal to start with? The victims of the violence did not seem to think so - despite all of them belonging to one single community!!

Interestingly apart from the high profile Lavalin case, the national and Kerala media was filled with stories of racist violence in Australia around this time. Then how did such gruesome violence fail to capture collective social imaginations? The only plausible answer that comes to my mind is the identity of those killed and injured in Beemapally - they were all from fish worker Muslim community - and do not have messiahs touting their cause.

There are other reasons as well for my arrival at this hypothesis. The first being that in the past couple of decades state violence in all its manifestations is being directed against traditionally and structurally marginalised groups. Formal expressions were demonstrated in Muthanga, Chengara and now Beemapalli. Insidious and subtle expressions through changes in reservation structure, discourse on terror used to de-legitimise communitarian political expressions and so on.

Dangerous Activities

Interestingly Beemapalli, being a Muslim ghetto has figured many a time in police narratives on terror. It would take another full essay to analyse this. It is in this context that couple of weeks after the firing, an intelligence report dated before the firing was leaked to the press. This report warns the state police of dangerous and illegal activity in Beemapalli and Malappuram. Much to my amusement, what the newspapers omitted was that this "dangerous" activity is the trade in pirated CD/DVDs that Bheemapally is notorious for. Interestingly, this has been subsequently used to close down this trade and increase police presence in Beemapalli. One of the speculations that was aired as a reason for the extreme violence from the police firing was to gain a foothold into this lucrative terrain.

Claims on Coastal Resources

The next reason is rooted in the socio-economic conditions prevailing in coastal areas generally and Beemapally specifically. The Indian coast has been a simmering pot of discontent for sometime now - aggravated especially after the tsunami. This discontent is rooted in multiple contestations for coastal resources and fish-worker resistance articulated through their right to the coast as a common property resource. I have been witness to a number of concerted efforts to divide the coastal community during the tsunami rehabilitation process. Some of these experiences have been documented as well. These contestations are grounded in the fact of the vulnerability of the coastal communities and Dalit and Muslim communities amongst these are even more vulnerable. Beemapally violence needs to be seen in this context as well. Portrayal of the police violence in Beemapally as communal riots instigated by a Beemapally mob by the police and a section of society including segments of the Catholic church subtly fails to acknowledge that the neighbouring hamlet Cheriyathura is inhabited by Latin Catholics. This reading is inherently dangerous as it pits two similarly placed vulnerable communities against each other.

Two Beemapallis and a Free Run

Further, Magalene, a fish worker leader confirms my suspicion that social indicators in Beemapalli are much worse compared to neighbouring fishing hamlets. She points to the fact that there are two Beemapallys in existence - one glossy Beemapally made of the DVD/CD trade and the other fish-worker hamlet which lacks even basic hygiene and sanitary requirements. She also points to the abysmal female literacy and empowerment in this hamlet in support of her claim. This also perhaps points to a hegemonic social apathy towards people that are forced to live on the fringes - a certain lack of value for their lives. This also could have contributed to the unchallenged free run that the Police is having with their version of the violence and attempts to portray their violence as a communal clash.

My next set of concerns is regarding the impunity with which the Police framed a community as communally volatile and in all probabilities is getting away with it. In his report to the government, DGP Jacob Punnose claims that the police fired 50 rounds and there are 43 injured and 6 dead - indicating that police fired to hit. This also dispels claims that several rounds were fired in the air. Of course there are other unsubstantiated claims in DGP Punnose's report. But what gets my nerve is the shoddy framing that the police has indulged in, without having done any homework whatsoever - is this born out of a confidence that the Police force would get away with murder since the people killed are fishing Muslims? The confidence of the police seems to be bolstered by the collective silences and framing of Bheemapalli as a dangerous area mentioned above. It needs to be remembered that DGP Punnose is spearheading the demand for Police reforms and reducing political control over the police. In the process many vital questions remain unanswered, including questions that would legally place the violence as cold-blooded murder within criminal jurisprudence.

The silence on Beemapalli violence opens many cans of worms - including the deeply hegemonic nature of Kerala's responses to its marginalised, latent communalism within the administration and media and so on and so forth. The responses to Beemapalli has left me perplexed, especially after having visited the place. But, having spend considerable time and energy on conflict situations, my sense is that Kerala might be sitting on a social time bomb, if it continues this lackadaisical attitude towards its marginalised population.

I believe Beemapalli calls for a classical "secular" response and honest peace building exercises that would instill a sense of confidence in Beemapally residents that they are not being persecuted - but that might be a difficult job and would call for extreme commitment.

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Sudeep adds: This diary earlier carried a first response to the firing news, various responses to that, and a couple of news reports. Here.

[Image courtesy: Pop Art Machine]

Biggest Police firing ever in Kerala..

..and nobody is talking about it.

My friend called me yesterday and told me about what can be called the biggest ever Police firing that happened in Kerala a few days back. It killed five people, and injured about 40 others. He was surprised that I did not even know about it.

I have Mathrubhumi at home, my father is active in Kerala's political scene, I have journalist friends.. Nobody told me about it.

May be nobody wants to talk about a "communal" incident.

I did some googling and found some details. From interesting sources.

"Islamic Terrorism" website says,

"Muslims, Christians clash in Thiruvananthapuram Kerala, 5 killed, 38 injured".

Sounds cheeky. But only when one gets to the fine print, it does tell so much:

"Securitymen in different uniforms stood guard in front of shops which remained closed for the second day after the police firing to avert communal clashes claimed five lives."

OK - so it is not the Islamic terrorists who killed five people. It was the Police. The article goes on:

"It all began on Saturday when a goon from Cheiryathura, a Christian belt, tried to extort money from merchants at Bheemappally, a Muslim-dominated region. After being manhandled by the locals, the goon, Shibu, rushed to Cheriyathura only to return with a company of his men to retaliate. The gang from Cheriyathura set ablaze a fishing net at Bheemappally.

Though the police intervened on Saturday night itself, they lowered their guard assuming normalcy had returned. On Sunday afternoon, a group of youth from Bheemappally stormed into Cheriyathura, hurling bombs at the people of the rival side. The police opened fire, killing four people on the spot, as the mob moved towards a local church. Another person succumbed to injuries on Monday. Nearly 38 men have been injured in the incident.."

New Kerala site says, "Four people were killed in this Kerala capital Sunday after clashes between groups of two communities forced the police to open fire, an official said."

A Police firing that kills five people is not a joke. Not even in the infamous Muthanga firing could match that. Yet, nobody seems to be interested in taking up this issue, except for some Muslim groups (at the risk of being branded communal).

Congress-led UDF is busy celebrating victory, and CPM is busy finding reasons for their wash-out. Muslim League has decided to speak about it after three days (See news in today's Hindu).

New Indian Express is probably the only major news paper link that reported the incident. (Again, with a funny title: Four killed in communal clashes in Kerala).

Then I saw one e-mail with link to news on NCHRO page (Kerala Police fires at fishing community, four dead) on a mailing list. Nobody responded to that mail on the list.

I wonder where do we go from here.

Delhi Encounter: an interesting whodunnit

The whole encounter and the mysteries behind it are reaching new highs. It beats Agatha Christie.

Those who say the encounter was fake are living in wonderland, says Praveen Swami in The Hindu.

In reply came a detailed response Shuddhabrata Sengupta: Curioser and Curioser (those who have read Alice in Wonderland would know :-))

Latest news on this (from rediff): Delhi cops file Jamianagar encounter affidavit

"Ever since the Jamia nagar encounter at L-18 Batla House occurred, it has been surrounded by controversies. While the Home Ministry and the Delhi cops claim that it was this encounter that helped them solve the mystery surrounding the recent spate of bomb blasts in the
country, several activists have been claiming that the entire operation was fake.

The Delhi police while justifying their actions state in a detailed affidavit that their initial plan was to conduct a raid at Batla House..."

Whatever be the truth, there sure is an element of entertainment a sense of fear.

Additional DGP lashes out at Nanavati

"I am a police officer, committed to the Constitution, who has filed four affidavits before the Nanavati Commission. Every commission has the responsibility to analyse and probe the truth about the information even if it is scribbled on a torn piece of paper. As the report of a senior Intelligence officer in the state, my affidavits have their own seriousness in the state where genocide (it would be a big lie to history as well as to humanity to term the atrocities unleashed in Gujarat as Hindu-Muslim riot) took place. Many things, with proof, about the situations that led to the riots and the roles of the senior officials in them have all been included in the report submitted before the commission.

I have been threatened by Government Pleader Aravidn Pande and Home Secretary Murmu that it would cause repercussions if I tell the truth before the Commission. I have even recorded their speeches and presented before the Commission. The Commission had the responsibility to verify the truth about them. The Commission should also have recommended punishment for me had the affidavits I submitted been false. Instead of this the Commission canonized the perpetrators of the riots.."

says R. B. Sreekumar, who was Additional DGP in Gujarat. [full article]