FOCUS
HINDU TERROR: JUDICIAL SILENCE & MEDIA BLINDNESS!
Within 48 hours, that is not even two full days after “Banners in Lucknow carry photos of anti – CAA vandals” appeared at major road crossings in Lucknow, Allahabad High Court took suo motu notice of the “Name & Shame” move by the UP government.
In fact the court took notice the following day itself, on Saturday night and convened a bench headed by the Chief Justice Govind Mathur. The bench heard the matter on Sunday at 10am, a court holiday, giving a loud message that the court considers the matter serious. In an oral observation the Allahabad High Court said. “The UP governments move to ‘name & shame’ anti-CAA activists accused of violence by putting up hoardings with their photographs and names is ‘highly unjust’ and an “absolute encroachment of their privacy”. On Monday the court met to direct the state government to get all these ‘name & shame’ hoardings removed immediately. It is another matter that government in the meanwhile got an ordinance passed and bought 6 months time, so that a proper law can be enacted so that those accused of destruction of public properties are made liable for both jail term and to make good all losses by compensating the government for losses of property.
In a country where rampant destruction of public property is the norm, an initiative such as taken by the state government was long overdue. No government worth its salt should take this violent demonstration by anybody lightly, causing loss of life and property. The protesters must be made accountable for the loss of public property caused by them. In all fairness courts should have only played along. Instead, they took an entirely opposite view in the name of right to freedom & privacy. The court skirted the issue of balance between freedom and responsibility. They go hand in hand. One cannot have freedom sans responsibility, period.
However, what was surprising in this judicial activism of taking up suo motu notice of this “Name & Shame” issue, when there are ‘N’ numbers of issues about which court should have been equally, if not more, disturbed. Be it, child rights, the issue of missing children, the state of juvenile homes, the living condition in prisons across India, violence against women and many more pressing issues, the conscience of the guardians of law remain unstirred by them.
That brings us to the explosive facts narrated by two books published recently, where authors have highlighted the blatant abuse of governmental powers in trying to manufacture fake narrative, during 2006/2010, which the courts failed to question. We are left wondering why the courts have not taken suo motu notice of the facts contained in these books. The startling details contained therein can cause untold repercussions on India’s political and social life, if found true.
RVS Mani, a former central government official in the Ministry of Home Affairs wrote and published the book “THE MYTH of HINDU TERROR – Insider account of Ministry of Home Affairs 2006-2010”.
Book has some very damaging information regarding the alleged machinations in the corridors of power. However, strangely the entire media decided to ignore the publication. There have been no comments or reactions from the main stream media houses to those serious charges leveled by the former MHA official RVS Mani.
He openly accuses important lights of UPA regime like Shivraj Patil, P. Chidambaram, Sushil Kumar Shinde, all Union Home Ministers at different times during 2004/2013. The book is extremely disturbing in that, it documents various important cases in which investigations were derailed and evidence suppressed and newer ones manufactured. RVS Mani suggests that the state machinery was systematically subverted to undermine criminal investigations in order to sustain a false and questionable narrative of Hindu Terror.
Although the book in its entirety does not deal with the ‘Myth of Hindu Terror’, it is more on the ringside view, full of uncomfortable questions, of how Union Ministry of Home Affairs, the most powerful of all ministries, functions. We will reproduce verbatim what the author had said in the book, which covers the period of 2006 to 2010.
Sometime in the summer of 2006, RVS Mani, an Under Secretary in MHA, was called by the office of the then Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, where he found himself with a former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Digvijay Singh (DS) and a Maharashtra cadre police officer Hemant Karkare (HK) sitting with the minister. RVS Mani, apparently couldn’t link the connection between DS & HK unless it was driven with an unstated purpose.
“Without imputing motives to any individual, what was the police officer doing with a politician of a neighboring state? What was intriguing, which no one from the media at that time asked was: what was the relationship between a political leader and an IPS officer of a neighboring state?” asks RVS Mani (P/22).
RVS Mani writes about Hemant Karkare asking questions on terror attacks in different parts of the country. According to him, “From the deliberations in the Home Minister’s office, it was clear that they were not happy with the intelligence input, that Muslims were aiding terrorists. The way information was sought from me made it very obvious that the source of this input was being deeply evaluated. There were repeated references to Nanded, Bajarang Dal, etc. in their conversation” (P/21).
Reportedly one Samir Kulkarni of Nanded was allegedly storing explosives in his workshop which exploded on 20/04/2006. The case was handed over to CBI. In the investigation that followed, it was found that Kulkarni was actually running some small business in his workshop and probably set fire to his workshop to make a false insurance claim. Samir Kulkarni was also a visitor to the local Bajrang Dal office in Nanded. CBI had these details of the case in their reports and made no reference to any terror dimension. However, soon the incident found its way to the press as HINDU TERROR, via Ministry of Home Affairs.
Indians are privy to the serial blasts on 11-06-2007 in the first class railway compartments of Mumbai suburban trains. This blast had caused the death of 187 people including one Pakistani who had planted the bomb and injured close to 900 people. Mumbai Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) had charge sheeted some 13 Indians and they were arrested by the police.
On 08/09/2006, four bomb explosions took place in Malegaon which caused the death of 31 persons and injured 312. Reportedly 9 persons were arrested, who as per their confession belonged to banned SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India). Two of the 9 accused Shabir Masiullah and Sheikh Mohd Ali Alam Sheikh had been to Pakistan for weapons training.
On 18/19 – 02-2007 around midnight there was a blast in train No: 4001, Samjhauta Express (Delhi to Attari). Two bogies were burnt, 68 passengers had died and 12 were injured. Only 48 bodies could be identified of which 39 were Pak nationals and 9 were Indians. A Karachi based terrorist outfit, reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack.
All these above terror attacks that took place in 2006/2007 were diplomatically conveyed for their involvement through the diplomatic dossier sent to Pakistan, informs RKS Mani. However he writes in his Insider Account of Ministry of Home Affairs something entirely different. “The then official position (in 2007) was that this attack was carried out by an Indian group and some Indians had to stand trial for it (Samir Kulkarni, Pragya Bharathi, Lt.Col. Purohit, Aseemanand and others) If that was the position, then why did this incident get included in Pak dossier?” was the assertion and the clear stand of RVS Mani (P/32).
Accusing, former M.P. Chief Minister Digvijay Singh as the creator of ‘fake encounter’ theory, RVS Mani writes “Shivraj Patil, the Union Home Minister was present in Delhi Police Head Quarters to inaugurate a facility on 19th Sept.2008, when the Batla House Encounter was happening. He was briefed on a concurrent basis. He would have also been privy to wireless messages coming to and fro. But he chose to keep quiet when his colleagues in his party painted the encounter as ‘fake’. Especially Digvijay Singh, the one who was pioneering this theory of fake encounters. In spite of the court upholding the cross fire evidence, Digvijay Singh continues to harp that Batla House was a ‘fake encounter’” (P/39).
Along with Digvijay Singh, the other person who pushed the Hindu Terror tag allegedly was Hemant Karkare an IPS officer of Maharashtra cadre. Regarding Karkare, RVS Mani writes “THE ATS was headed by Hemant Karkare, whom I had seen in the Home Minister’s room two years ago, conceiving in collusion with Digvijay Singh, a strategic narrative counter to Islamic terror by authorising a ‘Hindu Terror’ narrative. Immediately after taking over the Malegaon probe by the ATS, the narrative changed. The involvement of Ahl-e-Hadith/ Hadees in the incident was trashed”. “Reports were received from Mumbai about the involvement of certain Hindu organizations in the attack. Some Sadhvi Pragya, Shivnarayan Kalsangra etc. were reported to be the brains behind the attack” P/40. This was despite the fact that field level police officers of the range continued to report that Ahl-e-Hadith/ Hadees was involved.
“At a time when we had the best team in the Internal Security (IS) Division of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the attitude of the government in power and intent to colour every terror incident as ‘saffron’ and their ambivalence in acting against the real perpetrators of the terror attacks was making this country a cannon fodder for those with evil designs against India” moans RVS Mani (P/41).
The 26th Nov 2008 Mumbai attack, which remained to be referred to as 26/11 massacre by Pakistani terrorists shall remain a high water mark in the annals of sub-continental history.
Ten Pakistani terrorists had sneaked into the elite Colaba area equipped with AK47 to cause maximum mayhem to Mumbaikars. Some 72 hours killing spree, spread over 4 days from 26th evening to 29th November morning resulted in the killing of some 173 people including 9 Pakistani terrorists and the capture alive of one terrorist, Ajmal Kasab, by the incredible heroics of Asstt. Sub Inspector Tukaram Ombale.
Rakesh Maria former DG of police in Maharashtra, in his book ‘LET ME SAY IT NOW’ writes, “If all had gone well, he (Kasab) would have been dead with a red string tied around his wrist like a Hindu. We would have found an identity card on his person with a fictitious name: Samir Dinesh Chaudhary, student of Arunodaya Degree and P.G.College, Vedre complex, Dilkhush Nagar Hyderabad-500060, resident of 254, Teachers Colony, Nagarbhavi, Bangalooru. There would have been screaming headlines in newspapers claiming how Hindu terrorists had attacked Mumbai, instead of Ajmal Amir Kasab of Faridkot and his gang from Pakistan!” P/436/37
Indians are privy to the truth that Pakistan did not accept Ajmal Kasab as a Pakistani for a long time. They even had stated that Faridkot is in Bangladesh. To prove that, the attack was perpetrated by Hindu Terror, they even planned to eliminate Ajmal Kasab, in the Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai. The Pakistani handlers had already accepted the possibility that all terrorists will die. They would have indeed died. But for the Supreme sacrifice of ASI Tukaram Omble who managed to hold on to Kasab’s AK47 for Kasab to be caught alive by others, after which Tukaram Ombale dropped dead. According to the book by RVS Mani, Pakistan and probably some elements within India didn’t want Kasab to be interrogated. That was how a plan was hatched by Pakistan to take an Indian official as a hostage to be traded off to get Ajmal Kasab back, and shockingly RVS Mani himself apparently was a target and he miraculously managed to slip out of the possible kidnap attempt. According to RVS Mani, it was only after the botched-up kidnap attempt Pakistan accepted Ajmal Kasab as one of them.
Was this terror planned by ISI, the Pakistani intelligence agency and a section of Indian political class to create a narrative of Hindu Terror to fix the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the political heir of RSS?!
BJP, as a political party had seen resurgence during late 1990s and managed to remain a power to reckon with into years in the 21st century. Clearly BJP was growing as a strong contender for political power in India and Congress was most uncomfortable with the emerging political equation since the biggest loser shall be Congress, which had ruled most of the post independent period of India. Did the Congress and their political friends fail in containing BJP politically, that they planned a false narrative of Hindu Terror!?
Has anybody in the Congress party and their opportunistic political friends ever paused to think, what could be the repercussion of such travesty of truth and resultant growth in terror modules, to the body politic of India and its socio-political fabric. Wouldn’t it be like a Frankenstein's Monster that could devour everything Indian?!
RVS Mani raises many relevant questions in his book, post 26/11 Mumbai attack by Pakistan based terror groups.
In the midst of intelligence input regarding the possible terror attack on Mumbai, the central government decides to send a delegation for a secretary level talk with Pakistan to ‘Oversee Immigration Establishment’, an extremely innocuous need, in terms of priorities, under the circumstances. The delegation, informs RVS Mani, included an Additional Secretary (Border Management) (AS (BM)) Anwar Ehsan Ahmed, which was unprecedented.
The delegation left on 23/11/2008 to return on 25/11/2008, but was postponed the return by a day. Was it planned that way, since it was the AS (BM) AE Ahmed who pushed it for the next day and to spend time at Pakistani hill station Muree, where communication was difficult?
So, when terror struck Mumbai on 26/11/2008 evening, there was no senior official in the Ministry of Home Affairs to take the call. In retrospect, will it be wrong to think that this entire HSLT (Home Secretary Level Talk) was planned with a purpose other than the official agenda on the paper? Especially when two Joint Secretary Level officers briefed the team about the possible attack on India from across the border? Asks RVS Mani, “But was there a mole in the Indian team? We do not know. However the build up to the talks can throw some light, especially the inclusion of Additional Secretary (BM) AE Ahmed as a member of the delegation. This was done at the behest of some political command” writes RVS Mani. P/44
Thus he asks following 5 questions. “Why was Astt.Secy (BM) who is conventionally not a member of the Indian delegation, included? Who lobbied for inclusion of the Additional Secretary in the delegation? Why did the delegation not stick to the predetermined time schedule? Why did the leader of delegation not pay heed to his two Joint Secretaries from two intelligences, instead of overwhelmingly going by the suggestion of his number two? Was there any hidden agenda in the orchestrations of the number two in the delegation?” P/45
Buttressing his argument, RVS Mani, points out that even when RSS headquarters in Nagpur was attacked on 01.06.2006, entire Home department was in Pakistan. Or was it a coincidence?!
Reverting to Mumbai, the scene of the worst terrorist attack on the evening of 26th Nov 2008, RVS Mani indicates veritable dimensions to the emerging probabilities of a vicious kind. He writes “Calls were made to the Home Minister’s residence seeking permission to deploy locally available resources (in Mumbai) so that the damage could be controlled to whatever extent. But clearance from the Home Minister’s residence was not forth-coming (P/49).
Home Minister was Shivraj Patil, in whose office the initial discussion of possible Hindu Terror narrative was being discussed by the former MP Chief Minister Digvijay Singh and ATS Maharashtra Chief Hemant Karkare.
There are many armed forces’ units stationed in Mumbai. “But with no clearance coming forth from the Home Minister, timely action could not be taken and these specialised forces (from Mumbai) remained immobile and unused even as terrorists wreaked havoc on the nation’s financial hub” writes RVS Mani (P/49). He accuses “Home Minister appeared unconcerned during the entire period” (P/50), while conceding that “damage could have been reduced to a great extent if locally – stationed Special Forces had been immediately deployed” (P/49/50)
According to RVS Mani, ‘even the NSG commandos could not reach Mumbai from New Delhi earlier and faster, since Home Minister wanted to travel with the NSG team, but the Home Minister was not ready’.
Was this lackadaisical attitude of the Home Minister, a design?! Was he programmed to act slowly with a purpose?!
When 26/11 happened, ‘these fully armed 10 terrorists, after reportedly swimming some 5 kms from Colaba sea shore, walked past Colaba Koliwada, entered Badhwar Park and walked through railway officers’ residential colony without being noticed’, was the official account.
This account sounds farfetched and incredible. There must have been local support cells, which was neither questioned by the media nor pursued by the government of the day, helping these armed killers from across the Western border.
According to RVS Mani “It is stupid to believe that they passed through unnoticed” (P/51).
Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, RVS Mani states, “we also got credible and strong, inputs that the 10 terrorists were helped by Indian nationals. They came from Colaba area, heavily armed and they just walked into Mumbai & no one noticed? Would that have happened without local assistance? There was an Indian hand and intervention, but it was never investigated since it was stopped at the top level”.
RVS Mani talks about the presence, during the attack, of Additional Chief Secretary (Home), Maharashtra, Chitkala Zutshi in the Taj Mahal Hotel premises, and her questionable escape unharmed along with her unidentified friends when the terror attack was all over the hotel. In this context RVS Mani wrote categorically, “Suffice it to say that any one joining the dots cannot rule out the possibility and infer that many members of the governments of the day or persons having the blessings of the respective government had partnered, harbored and covered up for the perpetrators. This is a strong statement but I have seen the records, been privy to many discussions, formal and informal, and so such an inference is being drawn” P/59. To good measure RVS Mani reproduces a transcript of a call intercepted, between handlers (in Pakistan) and the perpetrators of the attack at the Taj.“Greetings! There are three Ministers and one Secretary of the cabinet in the hotel. We don’t know which room”.
Replying to a question from Abhinandan Mishra of The Sunday Guardian, RVS Mani says “We got credible and strong inputs that the 10 terrorist were helped by Indian nationals. They came from Colaba area, heavily armed, they just walked into Mumbai and no one noticed? Would that have happened without local assistance? There was an Indian hand and intervention, but it was never investigated since it was stopped at the top level. On 2nd March 2010, the Home Minister replied a Loksabha starred question No: 78 that ‘the investigating agencies were informed by Kasab that they (terrorists) were assisted by an Indian’. Was Kasab’s admission not found to be substantiated by investigators or were they asked not to pursue it?”
On persistent demand from the opposition, Shivraj Patil resigned as Home Minister due to “poor handling” of the situation. On 1st December 2008, P. Chidambaram took over as the Union Home Minister. He set up National Investigation Agency (NIA) on 01/01/2009. He handpicked 2 Directors General for NIA, bypassing all due process of appointment to such high positions. According to RVS Mani “In every case assigned to NIA, they overlooked the first set of evidences and replaced it with evidence supporting the Hindu Terror narrative”. “The federal agency- which he said was long overdue and endeared himself to the Supreme Court- the NIA was actually used by the new Home Minister, as an instrument to propagate a narrative of Hindu Terror, Saffron Terror etc. The lack of transparency in appointment of its first and second Directors General was very evident” (P/107).
RVS Mani narrates an incident involving IFS officer HS Puri, who is currently a Union Minister in NDA government. In 2009, when HS Puri, was appointed Permanent Representative of India to the UN, he had identified that US and UN were attempting to include Dawood Ibrahim (DI) in a UNSC Resolution, which would have proscribed DI’s cross-country travel, cross-country money transactions, cross-country movement of arms etc. Puri sought written information from MHA on Dawood Ibrahim, and RVS Mani writes “Only CBI could give such information of evidentiary nature, the back-up evidence was all with them. But no response to Puri’s query came forth from the CBI, India’s premier investigative agency in 2009, when P. Chidambaram was the Home Minister. CBI which always claimed to have mountain of evidence against Dawood, was clearly desisting from sharing this information with the nations nominated Permanent Representative to the UN. Whispers led to the information that some political quarters were against providing any hardcore evidence against Dawood to the UN” (P/135 &136).
The experience of RVS Mani was so exasperating that he writes “It is not the credibility of our documents before international media and agencies alone. Chidambaram had also betrayed the falsity of his responses that had been tabled in both Houses of Parliament in question after question on the steps taken to combat terror” (P/169).
Indians are privy to the knowledge that Aseemanand, Sadhvi Pragya and Col. Purohit were released on bail after being in prison for many years. Thus, the matter is still in courts and if the evidence points to a fabricated false case then all those responsible for the miscarriage of justice should be subjected to the rigors of the law of the land besides the actual culprits.
Winding up this write up it will be only fitting to conclude with a question, “If ministers holding responsible positions, involve themselves in obstructing the course of investigation, then shouldn’t they be treated as abettor of crime and make them accountable to the nation and its citizens?
Hope judiciary represented by courts and our main stream media - both print & electronic react and possibly act on this write-up.
Within 48 hours, that is not even two full days after “Banners in Lucknow carry photos of anti – CAA vandals” appeared at major road crossings in Lucknow, Allahabad High Court took suo motu notice of the “Name & Shame” move by the UP government.
In fact the court took notice the following day itself, on Saturday night and convened a bench headed by the Chief Justice Govind Mathur. The bench heard the matter on Sunday at 10am, a court holiday, giving a loud message that the court considers the matter serious. In an oral observation the Allahabad High Court said. “The UP governments move to ‘name & shame’ anti-CAA activists accused of violence by putting up hoardings with their photographs and names is ‘highly unjust’ and an “absolute encroachment of their privacy”. On Monday the court met to direct the state government to get all these ‘name & shame’ hoardings removed immediately. It is another matter that government in the meanwhile got an ordinance passed and bought 6 months time, so that a proper law can be enacted so that those accused of destruction of public properties are made liable for both jail term and to make good all losses by compensating the government for losses of property.
In a country where rampant destruction of public property is the norm, an initiative such as taken by the state government was long overdue. No government worth its salt should take this violent demonstration by anybody lightly, causing loss of life and property. The protesters must be made accountable for the loss of public property caused by them. In all fairness courts should have only played along. Instead, they took an entirely opposite view in the name of right to freedom & privacy. The court skirted the issue of balance between freedom and responsibility. They go hand in hand. One cannot have freedom sans responsibility, period.
However, what was surprising in this judicial activism of taking up suo motu notice of this “Name & Shame” issue, when there are ‘N’ numbers of issues about which court should have been equally, if not more, disturbed. Be it, child rights, the issue of missing children, the state of juvenile homes, the living condition in prisons across India, violence against women and many more pressing issues, the conscience of the guardians of law remain unstirred by them.
That brings us to the explosive facts narrated by two books published recently, where authors have highlighted the blatant abuse of governmental powers in trying to manufacture fake narrative, during 2006/2010, which the courts failed to question. We are left wondering why the courts have not taken suo motu notice of the facts contained in these books. The startling details contained therein can cause untold repercussions on India’s political and social life, if found true.
RVS Mani, a former central government official in the Ministry of Home Affairs wrote and published the book “THE MYTH of HINDU TERROR – Insider account of Ministry of Home Affairs 2006-2010”.
Book has some very damaging information regarding the alleged machinations in the corridors of power. However, strangely the entire media decided to ignore the publication. There have been no comments or reactions from the main stream media houses to those serious charges leveled by the former MHA official RVS Mani.
He openly accuses important lights of UPA regime like Shivraj Patil, P. Chidambaram, Sushil Kumar Shinde, all Union Home Ministers at different times during 2004/2013. The book is extremely disturbing in that, it documents various important cases in which investigations were derailed and evidence suppressed and newer ones manufactured. RVS Mani suggests that the state machinery was systematically subverted to undermine criminal investigations in order to sustain a false and questionable narrative of Hindu Terror.
Although the book in its entirety does not deal with the ‘Myth of Hindu Terror’, it is more on the ringside view, full of uncomfortable questions, of how Union Ministry of Home Affairs, the most powerful of all ministries, functions. We will reproduce verbatim what the author had said in the book, which covers the period of 2006 to 2010.
Sometime in the summer of 2006, RVS Mani, an Under Secretary in MHA, was called by the office of the then Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, where he found himself with a former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Digvijay Singh (DS) and a Maharashtra cadre police officer Hemant Karkare (HK) sitting with the minister. RVS Mani, apparently couldn’t link the connection between DS & HK unless it was driven with an unstated purpose.
“Without imputing motives to any individual, what was the police officer doing with a politician of a neighboring state? What was intriguing, which no one from the media at that time asked was: what was the relationship between a political leader and an IPS officer of a neighboring state?” asks RVS Mani (P/22).
RVS Mani writes about Hemant Karkare asking questions on terror attacks in different parts of the country. According to him, “From the deliberations in the Home Minister’s office, it was clear that they were not happy with the intelligence input, that Muslims were aiding terrorists. The way information was sought from me made it very obvious that the source of this input was being deeply evaluated. There were repeated references to Nanded, Bajarang Dal, etc. in their conversation” (P/21).
Reportedly one Samir Kulkarni of Nanded was allegedly storing explosives in his workshop which exploded on 20/04/2006. The case was handed over to CBI. In the investigation that followed, it was found that Kulkarni was actually running some small business in his workshop and probably set fire to his workshop to make a false insurance claim. Samir Kulkarni was also a visitor to the local Bajrang Dal office in Nanded. CBI had these details of the case in their reports and made no reference to any terror dimension. However, soon the incident found its way to the press as HINDU TERROR, via Ministry of Home Affairs.
Indians are privy to the serial blasts on 11-06-2007 in the first class railway compartments of Mumbai suburban trains. This blast had caused the death of 187 people including one Pakistani who had planted the bomb and injured close to 900 people. Mumbai Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) had charge sheeted some 13 Indians and they were arrested by the police.
On 08/09/2006, four bomb explosions took place in Malegaon which caused the death of 31 persons and injured 312. Reportedly 9 persons were arrested, who as per their confession belonged to banned SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India). Two of the 9 accused Shabir Masiullah and Sheikh Mohd Ali Alam Sheikh had been to Pakistan for weapons training.
On 18/19 – 02-2007 around midnight there was a blast in train No: 4001, Samjhauta Express (Delhi to Attari). Two bogies were burnt, 68 passengers had died and 12 were injured. Only 48 bodies could be identified of which 39 were Pak nationals and 9 were Indians. A Karachi based terrorist outfit, reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack.
All these above terror attacks that took place in 2006/2007 were diplomatically conveyed for their involvement through the diplomatic dossier sent to Pakistan, informs RKS Mani. However he writes in his Insider Account of Ministry of Home Affairs something entirely different. “The then official position (in 2007) was that this attack was carried out by an Indian group and some Indians had to stand trial for it (Samir Kulkarni, Pragya Bharathi, Lt.Col. Purohit, Aseemanand and others) If that was the position, then why did this incident get included in Pak dossier?” was the assertion and the clear stand of RVS Mani (P/32).
Accusing, former M.P. Chief Minister Digvijay Singh as the creator of ‘fake encounter’ theory, RVS Mani writes “Shivraj Patil, the Union Home Minister was present in Delhi Police Head Quarters to inaugurate a facility on 19th Sept.2008, when the Batla House Encounter was happening. He was briefed on a concurrent basis. He would have also been privy to wireless messages coming to and fro. But he chose to keep quiet when his colleagues in his party painted the encounter as ‘fake’. Especially Digvijay Singh, the one who was pioneering this theory of fake encounters. In spite of the court upholding the cross fire evidence, Digvijay Singh continues to harp that Batla House was a ‘fake encounter’” (P/39).
Along with Digvijay Singh, the other person who pushed the Hindu Terror tag allegedly was Hemant Karkare an IPS officer of Maharashtra cadre. Regarding Karkare, RVS Mani writes “THE ATS was headed by Hemant Karkare, whom I had seen in the Home Minister’s room two years ago, conceiving in collusion with Digvijay Singh, a strategic narrative counter to Islamic terror by authorising a ‘Hindu Terror’ narrative. Immediately after taking over the Malegaon probe by the ATS, the narrative changed. The involvement of Ahl-e-Hadith/ Hadees in the incident was trashed”. “Reports were received from Mumbai about the involvement of certain Hindu organizations in the attack. Some Sadhvi Pragya, Shivnarayan Kalsangra etc. were reported to be the brains behind the attack” P/40. This was despite the fact that field level police officers of the range continued to report that Ahl-e-Hadith/ Hadees was involved.
“At a time when we had the best team in the Internal Security (IS) Division of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the attitude of the government in power and intent to colour every terror incident as ‘saffron’ and their ambivalence in acting against the real perpetrators of the terror attacks was making this country a cannon fodder for those with evil designs against India” moans RVS Mani (P/41).
The 26th Nov 2008 Mumbai attack, which remained to be referred to as 26/11 massacre by Pakistani terrorists shall remain a high water mark in the annals of sub-continental history.
Ten Pakistani terrorists had sneaked into the elite Colaba area equipped with AK47 to cause maximum mayhem to Mumbaikars. Some 72 hours killing spree, spread over 4 days from 26th evening to 29th November morning resulted in the killing of some 173 people including 9 Pakistani terrorists and the capture alive of one terrorist, Ajmal Kasab, by the incredible heroics of Asstt. Sub Inspector Tukaram Ombale.
Rakesh Maria former DG of police in Maharashtra, in his book ‘LET ME SAY IT NOW’ writes, “If all had gone well, he (Kasab) would have been dead with a red string tied around his wrist like a Hindu. We would have found an identity card on his person with a fictitious name: Samir Dinesh Chaudhary, student of Arunodaya Degree and P.G.College, Vedre complex, Dilkhush Nagar Hyderabad-500060, resident of 254, Teachers Colony, Nagarbhavi, Bangalooru. There would have been screaming headlines in newspapers claiming how Hindu terrorists had attacked Mumbai, instead of Ajmal Amir Kasab of Faridkot and his gang from Pakistan!” P/436/37
Indians are privy to the truth that Pakistan did not accept Ajmal Kasab as a Pakistani for a long time. They even had stated that Faridkot is in Bangladesh. To prove that, the attack was perpetrated by Hindu Terror, they even planned to eliminate Ajmal Kasab, in the Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai. The Pakistani handlers had already accepted the possibility that all terrorists will die. They would have indeed died. But for the Supreme sacrifice of ASI Tukaram Omble who managed to hold on to Kasab’s AK47 for Kasab to be caught alive by others, after which Tukaram Ombale dropped dead. According to the book by RVS Mani, Pakistan and probably some elements within India didn’t want Kasab to be interrogated. That was how a plan was hatched by Pakistan to take an Indian official as a hostage to be traded off to get Ajmal Kasab back, and shockingly RVS Mani himself apparently was a target and he miraculously managed to slip out of the possible kidnap attempt. According to RVS Mani, it was only after the botched-up kidnap attempt Pakistan accepted Ajmal Kasab as one of them.
Was this terror planned by ISI, the Pakistani intelligence agency and a section of Indian political class to create a narrative of Hindu Terror to fix the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the political heir of RSS?!
BJP, as a political party had seen resurgence during late 1990s and managed to remain a power to reckon with into years in the 21st century. Clearly BJP was growing as a strong contender for political power in India and Congress was most uncomfortable with the emerging political equation since the biggest loser shall be Congress, which had ruled most of the post independent period of India. Did the Congress and their political friends fail in containing BJP politically, that they planned a false narrative of Hindu Terror!?
Has anybody in the Congress party and their opportunistic political friends ever paused to think, what could be the repercussion of such travesty of truth and resultant growth in terror modules, to the body politic of India and its socio-political fabric. Wouldn’t it be like a Frankenstein's Monster that could devour everything Indian?!
RVS Mani raises many relevant questions in his book, post 26/11 Mumbai attack by Pakistan based terror groups.
In the midst of intelligence input regarding the possible terror attack on Mumbai, the central government decides to send a delegation for a secretary level talk with Pakistan to ‘Oversee Immigration Establishment’, an extremely innocuous need, in terms of priorities, under the circumstances. The delegation, informs RVS Mani, included an Additional Secretary (Border Management) (AS (BM)) Anwar Ehsan Ahmed, which was unprecedented.
The delegation left on 23/11/2008 to return on 25/11/2008, but was postponed the return by a day. Was it planned that way, since it was the AS (BM) AE Ahmed who pushed it for the next day and to spend time at Pakistani hill station Muree, where communication was difficult?
So, when terror struck Mumbai on 26/11/2008 evening, there was no senior official in the Ministry of Home Affairs to take the call. In retrospect, will it be wrong to think that this entire HSLT (Home Secretary Level Talk) was planned with a purpose other than the official agenda on the paper? Especially when two Joint Secretary Level officers briefed the team about the possible attack on India from across the border? Asks RVS Mani, “But was there a mole in the Indian team? We do not know. However the build up to the talks can throw some light, especially the inclusion of Additional Secretary (BM) AE Ahmed as a member of the delegation. This was done at the behest of some political command” writes RVS Mani. P/44
Thus he asks following 5 questions. “Why was Astt.Secy (BM) who is conventionally not a member of the Indian delegation, included? Who lobbied for inclusion of the Additional Secretary in the delegation? Why did the delegation not stick to the predetermined time schedule? Why did the leader of delegation not pay heed to his two Joint Secretaries from two intelligences, instead of overwhelmingly going by the suggestion of his number two? Was there any hidden agenda in the orchestrations of the number two in the delegation?” P/45
Buttressing his argument, RVS Mani, points out that even when RSS headquarters in Nagpur was attacked on 01.06.2006, entire Home department was in Pakistan. Or was it a coincidence?!
Reverting to Mumbai, the scene of the worst terrorist attack on the evening of 26th Nov 2008, RVS Mani indicates veritable dimensions to the emerging probabilities of a vicious kind. He writes “Calls were made to the Home Minister’s residence seeking permission to deploy locally available resources (in Mumbai) so that the damage could be controlled to whatever extent. But clearance from the Home Minister’s residence was not forth-coming (P/49).
Home Minister was Shivraj Patil, in whose office the initial discussion of possible Hindu Terror narrative was being discussed by the former MP Chief Minister Digvijay Singh and ATS Maharashtra Chief Hemant Karkare.
There are many armed forces’ units stationed in Mumbai. “But with no clearance coming forth from the Home Minister, timely action could not be taken and these specialised forces (from Mumbai) remained immobile and unused even as terrorists wreaked havoc on the nation’s financial hub” writes RVS Mani (P/49). He accuses “Home Minister appeared unconcerned during the entire period” (P/50), while conceding that “damage could have been reduced to a great extent if locally – stationed Special Forces had been immediately deployed” (P/49/50)
According to RVS Mani, ‘even the NSG commandos could not reach Mumbai from New Delhi earlier and faster, since Home Minister wanted to travel with the NSG team, but the Home Minister was not ready’.
Was this lackadaisical attitude of the Home Minister, a design?! Was he programmed to act slowly with a purpose?!
When 26/11 happened, ‘these fully armed 10 terrorists, after reportedly swimming some 5 kms from Colaba sea shore, walked past Colaba Koliwada, entered Badhwar Park and walked through railway officers’ residential colony without being noticed’, was the official account.
This account sounds farfetched and incredible. There must have been local support cells, which was neither questioned by the media nor pursued by the government of the day, helping these armed killers from across the Western border.
According to RVS Mani “It is stupid to believe that they passed through unnoticed” (P/51).
Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, RVS Mani states, “we also got credible and strong, inputs that the 10 terrorists were helped by Indian nationals. They came from Colaba area, heavily armed and they just walked into Mumbai & no one noticed? Would that have happened without local assistance? There was an Indian hand and intervention, but it was never investigated since it was stopped at the top level”.
RVS Mani talks about the presence, during the attack, of Additional Chief Secretary (Home), Maharashtra, Chitkala Zutshi in the Taj Mahal Hotel premises, and her questionable escape unharmed along with her unidentified friends when the terror attack was all over the hotel. In this context RVS Mani wrote categorically, “Suffice it to say that any one joining the dots cannot rule out the possibility and infer that many members of the governments of the day or persons having the blessings of the respective government had partnered, harbored and covered up for the perpetrators. This is a strong statement but I have seen the records, been privy to many discussions, formal and informal, and so such an inference is being drawn” P/59. To good measure RVS Mani reproduces a transcript of a call intercepted, between handlers (in Pakistan) and the perpetrators of the attack at the Taj.“Greetings! There are three Ministers and one Secretary of the cabinet in the hotel. We don’t know which room”.
Replying to a question from Abhinandan Mishra of The Sunday Guardian, RVS Mani says “We got credible and strong inputs that the 10 terrorist were helped by Indian nationals. They came from Colaba area, heavily armed, they just walked into Mumbai and no one noticed? Would that have happened without local assistance? There was an Indian hand and intervention, but it was never investigated since it was stopped at the top level. On 2nd March 2010, the Home Minister replied a Loksabha starred question No: 78 that ‘the investigating agencies were informed by Kasab that they (terrorists) were assisted by an Indian’. Was Kasab’s admission not found to be substantiated by investigators or were they asked not to pursue it?”
On persistent demand from the opposition, Shivraj Patil resigned as Home Minister due to “poor handling” of the situation. On 1st December 2008, P. Chidambaram took over as the Union Home Minister. He set up National Investigation Agency (NIA) on 01/01/2009. He handpicked 2 Directors General for NIA, bypassing all due process of appointment to such high positions. According to RVS Mani “In every case assigned to NIA, they overlooked the first set of evidences and replaced it with evidence supporting the Hindu Terror narrative”. “The federal agency- which he said was long overdue and endeared himself to the Supreme Court- the NIA was actually used by the new Home Minister, as an instrument to propagate a narrative of Hindu Terror, Saffron Terror etc. The lack of transparency in appointment of its first and second Directors General was very evident” (P/107).
RVS Mani narrates an incident involving IFS officer HS Puri, who is currently a Union Minister in NDA government. In 2009, when HS Puri, was appointed Permanent Representative of India to the UN, he had identified that US and UN were attempting to include Dawood Ibrahim (DI) in a UNSC Resolution, which would have proscribed DI’s cross-country travel, cross-country money transactions, cross-country movement of arms etc. Puri sought written information from MHA on Dawood Ibrahim, and RVS Mani writes “Only CBI could give such information of evidentiary nature, the back-up evidence was all with them. But no response to Puri’s query came forth from the CBI, India’s premier investigative agency in 2009, when P. Chidambaram was the Home Minister. CBI which always claimed to have mountain of evidence against Dawood, was clearly desisting from sharing this information with the nations nominated Permanent Representative to the UN. Whispers led to the information that some political quarters were against providing any hardcore evidence against Dawood to the UN” (P/135 &136).
The experience of RVS Mani was so exasperating that he writes “It is not the credibility of our documents before international media and agencies alone. Chidambaram had also betrayed the falsity of his responses that had been tabled in both Houses of Parliament in question after question on the steps taken to combat terror” (P/169).
Indians are privy to the knowledge that Aseemanand, Sadhvi Pragya and Col. Purohit were released on bail after being in prison for many years. Thus, the matter is still in courts and if the evidence points to a fabricated false case then all those responsible for the miscarriage of justice should be subjected to the rigors of the law of the land besides the actual culprits.
Winding up this write up it will be only fitting to conclude with a question, “If ministers holding responsible positions, involve themselves in obstructing the course of investigation, then shouldn’t they be treated as abettor of crime and make them accountable to the nation and its citizens?
Hope judiciary represented by courts and our main stream media - both print & electronic react and possibly act on this write-up.
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