By Mohammed Siddique, TwoCircles.net,
Hyderabad : In first of its kind move by the Indian NGOs and Human Rights Organizations, a national level People’s Tribunal will start its three day sitting in Hyderabad from Friday (August 22) to hear the stories of atrocities, torture, harassment and victimization by the police and intelligence agencies of the members of Muslim minority in the name of fight against terrorism.
The People’s Tribunal with a jury comprising of retired High Court and Supreme Court judges, senior lawyers and human rights activists, will hear as many as 70 such innocent victims or their family members their tales of horrors.
The People’s Tribunal, which will sit at the Siasat Auditorium, will also hear the versions of the lawyers who dared to take up the cause of the innocent people and who were attacked in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and other place.
The Tribunal is being organized by Anhad and the Human Rights Law Network and Peace along with several other organizations from different states including People’s Union of Civil Liberties, AP Civil Liberties Committee, Aman Samudaya and Qaumi Mahaz from Gujrat.
The Prominent social worker and president of ANHAD, Shabnam Hshmi told a news conference on the even of the Tribunal’s hearing, that the jury will hear every case and give its verdict. “What comes before the jury will be compiled in to a report and with in a month it will be submitted to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Home Ministry and International human rights organizations”.
The members of the tribunal include Justice SN Bhargava, Justice Sardar Ali Khan, Professor Ram Puniyani, Prof Haragopal, prominent lawyers like K G Kannabiran and Prashant Bhushan, and a serving IPS officer from Uttar Pradesh VN Rai.
Detailing how the innocent people from Muslim minority were being picked up in hundreds and thousands across the country in the name of fight against terrorism after every bomb blast, Shabnnam Hashmi said that the national Tribunal was an attempt to raise voice of protest against the atrocities.
“We have chosen Hyderabad for the Tribunal because the cases from Hyderabad are one of the worst cases in India. The kind of torture which young boys have under gone in Hyderabad by the police and intelligence agencies is unprecedented. There have been similar cases elsewhere but not so many people were subjected to third degree torture. We want to express our solidarity with the victims and place the facts before the people”.
Giving the example of Andhra Pradesh she said the victimization of Muslims was happening not only in BJP ruled states but also in the Congress ruled states. “When we fought against NDA we never thought that the Home Ministry of UPA government will behave in this manner but unfortunately this is exactly what it is doing. We have many times urged the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi that the Home Minister should be removed but nothing happened”, she said.
She alleged that the people who were coming from Rajasthan to depose before the tribunal were picked up by the police. “The IB (intelligence bureau) and police across the country is watching this tribunal very closely”, Shabnam Hashmi said.
“The findings of the jury after hearing the depositions of the victims will be compiled in to a report and it will be submitted to the Prime Minister”, said Shabnam Hashmi, the head of NGO Anhad.
Ram Milkote, a human rights activist from Andhra Pradesh said that innocent youth of the minority community were being targeted by the police and intelligence agencies, picked up and tortured in the name of fighting against terrorism. Giving the example of a medical student from Hyderabad Ibrahim Junaid¸ who was arrested and tortured and then released but deprived of appearing in annual examination, she wondered what kind of message such incidents will send to the educated Muslim youth. “Such incidents will only send more and more Muslim youth to the underground activities”, she said.
“Each time there is a bomb blast the long arms of the Indian state reach out to pick up some scapegoats to cover up their incompetence in providing security to its citizens. After each bomb blast or surprise violent act, arrests are made, organizations name but police and investigative agencies have not been able to prove their claims in most such cases. The people arrested continue to languish in jails or suffer other kinds of victimization. More often real culprits remain at bay and the threat remains undiminished”, Shabnam Hashmi said.
She rued that media had also failed to perform its duty of investigation and verifying the facts and it was carrying the press notes of the police and Intelligence Bureau with out dropping even a comma as its own version. “Media is playing both the positive and negative role. On the one hand it was the media which stood up by the Kashmiri journalist Iftikhar Gilani and played an important role in getting him released and on the other hand the same media was failing to expose the atrocities against the minority community in the name of fighting terrorism”.
He said with in five minutes of any blast the police and the media name the suspects and pin the blame of some particular individuals as guilty as if there is no need for any trial by court of law.
“We are against all the terrorist attacks. We are saying you arrest the real culprits but stop the atrocities immediately”.
Along with the hearing by Tribunal, a photo exhibition on the victimization of Delhi based Kashmiri journalist Ifitkhar Gilani was also being organized. Shabnam recalled that while a section of media carried the planted stories of police and intelligence saying Gilani had confessed to be ISI agent, another section of the same media stood with Gilani and fought for his release. The exhibition will be inaugurated by the Editor, Times of India, Hyderabad, Kingshuk Nag who had courageously stood the pressure of Gujrat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and exposed the Gujrat police’s role in 2002 pogrom.