Indian propaganda war

[idune]

Manufacturing 'terrorists' the Indian way

Almost every other day, newspapers are agog with stories about 'dreaded Muslim terrorists' being nabbed across the country. At the same time, savage violence unleashed by Hindutva groups continues unabated without any effective steps being taken against them. In the ongoing 'war on terror', globally as well as within India, Muslims have come to be framed collectively as 'terrorists', while terrorism engaged in by people belonging to other communities is generally condoned or ignored altogether or, at least, is not described in the same terms.
In India today, Muslim youths are being indiscriminately picked up and tortured by the police, in many cases falsely accused of being terrorists. Many of them have been languishing in jails for years now and yet no one ever seems to care.

Take the case of Muhammad Parvez Abdul Qayyum Shaikh of Gujarat. According to his aunt, Qamar Jahan, on April 2, 2003, while he was on his way to fit a water appliance, he was arrested by CBI officer Tarun Barot and others. For three days his family knew nothing of his whereabouts. On the fourth day, she says, 'We saw the news and realised that Parvez had been arrested under allegations of having a Chinese-made pistol and some gun powder. However, this powder is used for cleaning the Aqua Guard machines.'

Parvez, she says, was brutally beaten and tortured by the officers, with Officer Vanzara allegedly asking Parvez to refer to him as Khuda (God) and beating him ruthlessly. While in jail they forced him to sign on blank papers. He was reportedly taken by the CBI officers to Gandhinagar where he was further tortured for 21 days. He was then charged in the DCP-6 case, tiffin bomb blast case and in the Haren Pandya murder case (the last mentioned of which, incidentally, Pandya's own father accuses Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi [Images] as having instigated). He was sentenced to 14 years in jail for the last-mentioned case, although his aunt maintains that he is innocent.

27 year-old Sardar, a Muslim youth, works as a plumber in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. He was arrested at the age of 17, some months after the February 1998 Chennai bomb blasts. The initial accusation against Sardar was that he had been involved in a street fight. He was apparently kept illegally imprisoned for a month, and only after that was an FIR was lodged against him. This time he was accused of carrying two pipe bombs and rioting. The offence was non-bailable. He was remanded and kept in the Vellore Jail for first 15 months, even though there were no witnesses against him. The special court set up for the bomb blasts refused to let him be tried as he was a minor.

Eventually, nine and a half years later, in the final judgment the court apparently found him not guilty of any of the charges put on him and he was acquitted, but only after having spent almost a decade languishing in jail, where he was brutally tortured. Even after his acquittal the police have allegedly not stopped harassing and hounding him, and they still restrict his movements.

Noor ul-Hoda, the son of a desperately poor daily-wage labourer from Malegaon in Maharashtra, is yet another hapless Muslim man who has, so he insists, been falsely implicated as a terrorist by the police. In September 2006, he was picked up by the police from his home. On the same day, they brought him back, searched the house (without producing a search warrant), and, finding nothing, took him back into police custody. The next day the police charged Noor with possession of 20 books considered as 'illegal literature'.

While in police custody, he is said to have been forced, through torture and threats by his interrogators that they would kill his family, to sign a blank piece of paper, which was later used as evidence of a 'confession'. This was, it is claimed, used to charge him under the draconian MCOCA for allegedly being a member of the team that carried out the Malegaon bombings. This, he says, is completely false as he was at the local mosque on the day of the bomb blasts. The local special executive officer has given an affidavit validating this. Noor claims that Police Inspector Sachin Kadum had threatened him thus: 'Although I am aware of the fact that you are not involved in the bomb blast, we will still capture you and we will see if you can get out of this situation.'

In October 2006 Noor was taken to Bangalore for brain mapping and narco-tests. These proved negative, but the experience was harrowing. During the narco-test he was given powerful electric shocks and was badly beaten. His ribs were also battered. The doctor, Malti, asked him to say what the police wanted him to say or else he would be more deeply implicated in the bomb blast case. 'When I did not repeat the words electric shocks were given to my ear', he says. While he was in the custody of the Nasik police, they tortured him severely at the ATS office, saying that he should state what the police wanted him to -- in other words, to give a false 'confession'.

'In the month of Ramzan while I was fasting I was beaten so much that I fainted', he says. 'Inspector Sachin Kadum and Inspector Khan Gekar used to abuse me and say that if you do not confess we will bring all your sisters here. We will make them naked and photographs will be taken and they will also be beaten,' he adds. They also threatened to implicate Noor's brother in the case. Finally, they were able to force him to make a false 'confession' by taking his signature on a blank piece of paper, but he later retracted this 'confession'.

Muhammad Hanif Adul Razzak Shaikh from Gujarat is yet another victim of state terrorism. On April 28, 2003, around two dozen men rushed into Hanif's house, but since Hanif was said to have been away attending a friend's funeral in Himmatnagar, they dragged his brother, Yasin, to the police station where he was beaten up. They picked him up without an arrest warrant and detained him for 12 days until May 3, when Hanif came back and presented himself at the Crime Branch. He was immediately put into detention and the CBI searched his factory but recovered nothing.

Mohammad Hanif was in the business of making bags. The police claimed that the bomb which was used in the tiffin bomb blast and in another such blast had been made in his factory. But when Hanif refused to accept these allegations, the police tortured him severely and even threatened to arrest his brother Yasin if he did not comply with their orders. After this, they allegedly forced a false 'confession' out of him to implicate him in the blasts. His interrogators tortured him mercilessly and he was then presented in court on May 10, 2003. There, Hanif refused to accept the charges against him, which allegedly prompted the magistrate to say that the police should take Hanif in for some more khatirdari ('hospitality'), by which was meant even greater torture.

During this remand, Hanif was said to have been subjected to third degree torture, brutally beaten and forced to sign numerous false statements. The forced 'confession' was apparently used as evidence to prolong his remand stay. He retracted his statement in the court but after appearing in court for the second time the judge ordered that he should be treated to some more 'hospitality'. After this, he is said to have been compelled to sign another 'confession', on the basis of which he was sentenced to 10 years in jail. During the five years he has spent in jail so far Hanif's wife as well as his mother died. A father of four, one of his daughters has tuberculosis. His small bag-making unit has been closed ever since he was put into jail and his family now lives in abject penury.

Maulana Mohammad Naseerudin of Hyderabad was arrested in August 2004 immediately after addressing a meeting of fellow Muslims at a local mosque. The Anti-Terrorism Squad accused him of conspiring to blow up a Hindu temple in Hyderabad, a charge that he denied. The next month he was released on bail, but on the condition that he would report to the CID office on a weekly basis.

On September 31, 2004, when the Maulana reached the CID office he found the Gujarat police waiting for him. They took him into custody, accusing him of incitement violence in Gujarat in his speeches in the mosque. In actual fact, so it is said, he had preached for relief and aid for Muslims in Gujarat who had been brutalised by the state, the police and Hindutva forces. The police failed to give any evidence at the time of his detention and subsequent trial, simply claiming that he was inciting communal hatred during his sermons.

The news of the Maulana's arrest spread quickly and he was put into a bus and given a drug to incapacitate him. The protestors asked the police for the arrest warrant. 23 year-old Mujahid Saleem Azmi, a friend of the family, started questioning the procedures during the arrest, and, after some prompting by the expanding crowd, the police released the Maulana. A heated exchange between Police Officer Narendra and Mujahid began. The officer shamelessly shouted at Mujahid, 'Have you people forgotten Gujarat? I will finish you all off.' Mujahid replied that he was not scared of his threats and that the officer should conduct himself on the basis of the law. The police officer then said that if he was looking for a warrant he would show him a warrant and took out his gun and fired point blank at Mujahid. The rest of the police officers started firing in the air. They pushed the Maulana back into the van and drove off. The ATS provided safe passage for the police to flee Hyderabad. Meanwhile, Mujahid, 23, was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Thousands of people collected outside the hospital and they asked for a case to be filed against the police. Several different Hindutva organisations came together to try and disrupt the funeral procession the following day. The police used their special division -- the Greyhound Task Force � normally used to combat Naxalism to beat and tear gas the processionists. The Greyhound Task Force forced their way into Mujahid's house and attacked the family with sticks.

Meanwhile, the Maulana was transferred to a prison in Ahmedabad [Images], where, it is said, he was forced to make a 'confession'. He appealed against it, but the special POTA court denied the appeal and accepted the 'confession' of Maulana produced by the Gujarat police. His first bail application took four long months to be heard from the day of his judicial custody. A judgment on the bail application took another year. The application was rejected on the grounds that he was 'anti-American and pro Osama bin Laden'. Another year passed and the high court upheld the POTA court's order. Six months later, the Supreme Court asked for a swift trial, but rejected bail.

Two years have passed since the Supreme Court's order and yet nothing has happened. The Maulana continues to languish in jail and is presently seriously ill. He has only one kidney, a thyroid problem, and early signs of arthritis, none of which has been taken into consideration during his time in prison. His illnesses have worsened. He cannot walk or handle food that he has to chew, but yet, despite several appeals, the authorities continue to refuse to send him to hospital. In the meantime, the police have also arrested two of his sons for allegedly conspiring to take revenge for his arrest.

Scores of cases of innocent Muslims being deliberately targeted by agencies of the State, in addition to Hindutva forces, abound across the country, and the situation seems to be getting worse with every passing day. This is not to say that none of the several blasts that have occurred in India in the last several years could have been the handiwork of Muslims. Sympathisers of some fringe radical Islamist outfits or Muslims seeking to take revenge for the atrocities and large-scale slaughter of their co-religionists, as in Gujarat, might well have planned some of these, and Muslim leaders themselves have rightly called for stern punishment for their perpetrators.

However, the mounting indiscriminate arrests, torture and detention of vast numbers of innocent Muslim youth across the country in the name of countering terrorism not only makes a complete mockery of our claims to secularism and democracy but is a perfect recipe for making Muslim terrorism a self-fulfilling prophecy. And, to make matters worse, at the same time as the hounding of innocent Muslims continues, Hindu mobs are allowed to operate free of any effective restraint, lionised as ardent 'nationalists' as they continue to wreak murder, mayhem and naked terror on Muslims, and now, as in Orissa and Karnataka, Christians. That, surely, is no way to combat terrorism. Far from it, it can only further exacerbate the problem.

Note: The details of the above-mentioned cases have been procured from the testimonies submitted to the jury of the People's Tribunal on the Atrocities Committed Against Minorities in the Name of Fighting Terrorism [Images] organised by Anhad and the Human Rights Law Network in Hyderabad, August 22-24, 2008.

Dr Yoginder Sikand is the editor of Qalandar, an electronic magazine on Islam-related issues, and also an author of several books on the subject.

Manufacturing 'terrorists' the Indian way

 

[idune]

PAID NEWS : The bane of ethical journalism

India has finally woken up to the menace of ‘paid news’ culture in mainstream media. The practice that involves money in unethically acquiring media space for the beneficiaries remained an important issue in India for many years. But lately a number of influential media persons’ organisations have shown their concern with this kind of journalism in the country.

The practice of offering envelopes to reporters remained visible across Asian media and especially India and China for decades. But lately the practice appears to be becoming institutionalised, not by poverty-stricken reporters but by the publishers themselves.

It is alleged that many media houses in India, irrespective of their volume of business have started selling news space after some ‘understandings’ with politicians and corporate people without disguising those items as advertisements.

During the meet of the South Asia Free Media Association (India Chapter) in Mumbai during the first week of December, the issue of paid news was officially discussed with serious concern.


Then came the annual general meeting of the Editors’ Guild of India during the fourth week of December, where most of the members expressed concern at the growing tendency of a section of media groups (both print and visual) to receive money for some ‘non-advertorial’ items in their media space.

The Editors’ Guild sent a letter to each of its member-editors throughout the country asking for pledges that his/her publication/TV channel will not carry any paid news as the practice ‘violates and undermines the principles of free and fair journalism’.

The letter, signed by Rajdeep Sardesai and Coomi Kapoor, President and Secretary General of the Guild respectively, expressed hope that ‘the entire journalist fraternity would come together on this issue’ and defend their credibility with public declarations on the subject in order to restore public trust.

Indian media has been recognised as sensitive, patriotic and a very influential tool in the socio-political sphere since the days of the freedom movement. The father of the Indian nation Mahatma Gandhi initiated his movement with the moral power of active journalism. Today, India with its over a billion population supports nearly 70,000 registered newspapers and over 450 Television channels (including some 24x7 news channels). The Indian media, as a whole, often plays the role of constructive opposition in the Parliament as well as in various Legislative Assemblies of the states. Journalists are, by and large, honoured and accepted as the moral guide in the Indian society. While the newspapers in Europe and America are losing their readership annually, the Indian print media is still getting stronger with huge circulation figures and market avenues. For democratic India, the media continues to be acclaimed as the fourth important pillar after the judiciary, parliament and bureaucratic set-up.

Unfortunately a cancer in the form of paid news has been diagnosed with the Indian media in the recent past. Millions of rupees have been reportedly been paid to media houses.

Some veteran editor-journalists like Prabhash Joshi, the founding editor of the Hindi daily Jansatta, who died in November, and BG Verghese, previously the editor of both the Hindustan Times and Indian Express, warned the Press Council of India that paid news has already turned into a full-blown scandal.

It is worth mentioning that the Mumbai SAFMA meeting had serious discussions and was deeply concerned about the recent trend of commercialisation of mainstream media, and degradation of media ethics and practices in the country. All the speakers in the meeting of SAFMA (which is recognized by the SAARC), were unanimous that the media in the entire region must come forward in a transparent way and maintain public trust.

Addressing the audience, eminent journalist and the rural affairs editor of The Hindu, P Sainath disclosed that the corporatisation of the media world has threatened the existence of free media. “Newspaper owners are greatly influenced by political clout,” P. Sainath warned another media group. It was Sainath who raised the issue of paid news through his regular columns in The Hindu, urging the Press Council and Election Commission to take appropriate action.

“The proprietors now grant space for vivid coverage for the benefit of their ‘friendly politicians’ in the newspapers,” Sainath warned in his speech. “Furthermore, to entertain their growing demands, many media groups have even gone so far as to arrange extra space (during election periods). Let’s finish the culture of paid news; otherwise it will finish us in the coming days.”

An official statement of the SAFMA meet was attended by many distinguished editor-journalists of India and had expressed serious concern at the growing trend of selling news space.

“Recent assembly elections in Maharashtra and elsewhere revealed the spread of the pernicious practice of accepting money for editorial space to contestants. In fact, this evil had been perpetrated by institutionalising it,” stated the South Asian Free Media Association.

Meanwhile, the Press Council, a quasi-judicial body, has decided to investigate, establishing a committee to examine violations of the journalistic code of fair and objective reporting.

The Press Council Chairman GN Ray, a retired justice, acknowledged that a section of Indian media had ‘indulged in monetary deals with some politicians and candidates by publishing their views as news items and bringing out negative news items against rival candidates during the last elections.’

Even a documentary titled ‘Advertorial: Selling News or Products?’ was produced by an eminent media critic and academic Paranjoy Guha Thakurta for India’s national broadcaster, Doordarshan. Guha Thakurta, a member of the Press Council investigative team said in an interview that the committee had received many complains from the journalists that a large number of newspapers and television channels (in various languages) had been receiving money to provide news space (and even editorials) for the benefit of politicians.

Speaking to this writer from New Delhi, Guha Thakurta claims that the paid news culture has finally violated the guidelines of the Election Commission (of India), which makes restriction in the expenditure of a candidate (for any Legislative Assembly or Parliamentary elections).

“Amazingly, we have found that some newspapers even prepared rate cards for the candidates in the last few elections. There are different rates for positive news coverage, interviews, editorials and also putting out damaging reports against the opponents,” Guha Thakurta asserted.

The Indian Election Commission recently asked the Press Council of India ‘to define what constitutes paid political news’, so it can adopt appropriate guidelines. During a recent meeting, the elections body also directed the Press Council to ‘formulate guidelines to the media houses’ to require that the money involved be incorporated in the political party and candidate expenditures.

Lately, the Guild had submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission expressing its grave concern over the paid news phenomenon. A delegation from the Guild, led by its President Rajdeep Sardesai met the election commission on January 22 and urged the Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla to ‘take strong action against both candidates and media persons who violate the disclosure norms of election expenditure in regard to media publicity.’

Rajdeep Sardesai, the Editor’s Guild President and also the chief editor of the CNN-IBN television news channel, speaking to this writer, said that the Guild was ‘deeply shocked and seriously concerned at the increasing number of reports detailing the pernicious practice of publishing paid news by some newspapers and television channels, especially during the recent elections’.

“We strongly believe that the practice of putting out advertising as news is a grave journalistic malpractice. Moreover the trend threatens the foundation of journalism by eroding public faith in the credibility and impartiality of news reporting. It also vitiated the poll process and prevented a fair election, since richer candidates who could pay for their publicity had a clear advantage,” Sardesai added.

While admitting the right of news media to go for advertisements at various occasions, Sardesai insisted that the ‘media houses should distinguish the advertisements with full and proper disclosure norms so that no reader and viewer is tricked by any subterfuge of advertisements published and broadcast in the same format, language and style of news’.

With the same notion, a Guwahati-based media observer Hiten Mahanta claims that many regional newspapers in North East India sell favourable reporting for extra income.

“You can find a number of examples in Guwahati, where the proprietors of the media houses had misused media space for their individual benefits. It is amazing how some newspapers change their point of views towards a politician or party suddenly after getting money (in cash or kind ),” Mahanta said.

There are specific allegations that many journalists in Guwahati, who are among the lowest paid in India with starting salaries as little as US$50 a month, enjoy regular payments like monthly lump sum compensation from politicians in power. Licenses for wine shops are offered to reporters (and accepted happily by many) with the inherent understanding that they only write positive stories and if possible, kill negative reports against their politician-financers.

However, the newspapers of Assam still maintain ethical values in respect of editorial space, as those are not being utilized visibly for earning extra hard cash till now, observers say. But how long this will continue remains a bigger question.

Nava Thakuria

PAID NEWS : The bane of ethical journalism