AISA Fact Finding & Solidarity Visit To Dalit Hostels Attacked By Ranveer Sena In Ara & Muslim Families Affected By Communal Witch-Hunt In Darbhanga
Unite Against The Politics Of Feudal Anti-Dalit Violence And Minority Witch Hunt!
The tormenting of Muslim youth in the country in the name of war against terror continues and after Batla House, Azamgarhand Malegaon, it is now the turn of Darbhanga (Bihar) to bear the tyrannical onslaught of minority witch hunting. In 2012 alone, several Muslim youth belonging to Darbhanga have been arrested in different parts of the country on various flimsy grounds as part of a so called counter-terrorism action of the government.In Ara in Bihar, following the killing of Ranveer Sena chief Brahmeshwar Singh, Ranveer Sena mobs attacked, burnt and looted dalit hostels.
In the wake of the attack on dalit hostels, and several recent incidents of witch-hunt of young Muslims, an AISA team is visiting Ara and Darbhanga to meet the affected students and families, express solidarity, and bringfacts to light.The incidents at Ara and Darbhanga, as well as the firing by brutal and communal police at Forbesganj, expose the reality of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar behind his posturing as a ‘secular’ face of NDA in contrast to Narendra Modi. Meanwhile therefusal to ensure justice or even an impartial probe into the Batla House killing, and the failure to ensure justice for theMuslim youth of Azamgarh and Malegaon, who had been falsely implicated on the charges of terrorism and bomb blasts,even after results of several investigations have conclusively proved the role of Sangh Parivar behind the attacks, exposesthe ‘secular’ claims of the UPA Government, which not taken a single initiative to ensure justice in any of these cases otherthan shedding crocodile tears every now and then on the eve of elections, adding insult to the injury.The rise in the number of cases of minority witch hunting in Darbhanga clearly shows that even as Nitish Kumar takes uponhimself the right to distribute the certificate of secularism to his allies, his own self proclaimed secular credentials aredangerously dubious. The case of Naqee Ahmad, who was overnight turned from a police informer to a terrorist by the Maharashtra ATS, without a word of protest from the Chief Minister is sufficient to call the secular bluff of Nitish Kumar. Itshould be noted that after the Maharashtra ATS announced that it had ‘cracked’ the case and arrested Naqee, the DelhiPolice Special Cell and Home Ministry floundered for a while. But instead of defending their informer, they chose to‘congratulate’ the ATS for solving the case. The Delhi Police and Home Ministry obviously felt that it was better to maintainmutual solidarity and sacrifice the hapless informer rather than risk exposing the tactics of false framing that all investigativeagencies, after all, employ!More recently, the cold blooded murder of Mohd. Qateel Siddiqui illustrates this tragic and outrageous reality once again.He had been arrested in November 2011 on charges of involvement in the Jama Masjid shootout, and several blast cases,and has been in jail since then. However, the Maharashtra ATS had failed to file a charge sheet against him in the 7 monthsfrom November 2011 till June 2012. By rights, Qateel should have been free, given the failure of authorities to assemble anyproof against him. Yet, he remained in jail, and the ATS kept claiming he was a ‘key Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative.’ On8 June, it got reported that notorious Maharashtra gangsters Sharad Mohol and Alok Bhalerao strangled Qateel to deathinside jail itself. It is said that these gangsters killed Qateel because their ‘patriotism’ could not bear to allow this ‘terrorist’to remain alive!Several questions are raised by this killing.· Qateel was kept, not in the barracks, but in the high security part of the jail where there is supposed to becontinuous surveillance. How come the gangsters could commit the murder unsupervised by jail authorities, then?Is it not likely that the Yerawada jail authorities are complicit in the murder?· The ATS and IB claimed that Qateel was the key to unravelling the IM network. Now that he has been killed, howwill the ‘IM network’ be exposed? Or is it possible that he was killed precisely to hide the fact that theinvestigating agencies failed to collect any proof for their claim?!· Has the IB and ATS had Qateel killed, in order to avoid having to admit the inconvenient fact –that they jailed aninnocent man, and that the true terrorists are yet to be identified and arrested?
Lying underneath the tall claims of development in Bihar is the untoldstory of brutal feudal oppression and communal hate-mongering. It needsto be asked that what is it about Nitish’s rule that makes possible theresurgence of the Ranvir Sena style violence on Dalits, the Forbesganjstyle firing on the minorities, and the denial of justice in case of BathaniTola massacre and ex-JNUSU president Com. Chandrasekhar’s murder!!The AISA fact finding and solidarity team of students of JNU andJamia Millia Islamia including JNUSU Vice President andCouncillors from SSS and SLL&CS are visiting Ara and Darbhangafrom June 28-July 1.
