Monday, November 26, 2012

‘Why is papa not home despite SC acquittal?’ - Zeeshan Shaikh | The faceless State - Seema Mustafa - The Free Press Journal, Mumbai

http://freepressjournal.in/why-is-papa-not-home-despite-sc-acquittal/

The Freepress Journal

 November 26, 2012 12:31:00 AM | By Zeeshan Shaikh

‘Why is papa not home despite SC acquittal?’

Mumbai : 26/11 has a tragic resonance not only for the families of the 166 victims but also for the family of a man who was falsely implicated on charges of preparing ground for the terrorists.

Yasmeen Ansari (36), wife of Faheem Ansari, a 26/11 accused who was acquitted by the Supreme Court in August this year, went through hell in the last four years trying to remove the tag of terrorist from her husband’s name.

Yasmeen and her daughter Iqra (9) who are living with the family of Fahim’s elder brother Usman Ansari in Mumbra said, “After Faheem’s arrest, the stigmatised family faced so many losses that his elder brother was reduced to a rickshaw driver from a businessman.

 ”Thanks to our faith in Allah and people like late advocate Shahid Azmi and general secretary of the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Maharashtra Gulzar Azmi, who stood by us even when relatives started distancing themselves from us, we were able to clear our name,” said Yasmeen, who now makes a living as a seamstress.

 Yasmin, who has studied till the 10th standard at Madanpura in Central Mumbai, was married in 1997 to Faheem, the youngest among nine siblings, who lived at Hanuman Nagar, Goregaon (W).

 He was arrested in Rampur district on February 9, 2008 by the special task force of the UP police in connection with the attack on the CRPF camp on the night of December 31, 2007 in which several CRPF personnel were killed.

 Yasmeen said her husband didn’t even go to Rampur. “Faheem had gone to Lucknow to buy dresses to sell in Mumbai. I am not sure if it was February 1 or February 3, but it was somewhere between these dates that Faheem went to Lucknow after which his phone was unavailable.” Yasmeen said she was on the way to Bareilly jail to meet Faheem when 26/11 happened and TV channels started saying that he was one of the accomplices of the terrorists.

 February 11, 2010, was one of the worst days in Yasmeen’s life when she received a call from her brother who asked her to switch on the television. “As soon as I switched on the TV, everywhere there was news that Shahid Azmi, the lawyer of Faheem Ansari, was shot in his office. After learning about his death, I was worried about the ongoing case as only the final argument was left but my husband was acquitted by the Sessions Court in 2010.”

 The Supreme Court acquitted Faheem Ansari and Sabahuddin Ahmed on August 29 this year for their role in 26/11. Faheem’s family has demanded compensation from the Central Government for the financial losses they had suffered in last four years.

 The Jamiat-Ulema-e-Maharashtra, which is fighting cases for more than 100 terror accused, had not charged a single penny in Faheem’s case which was fought in Sessions Court then challenged in the High Court and later in the Supreme Court. “We believe in our judiciary and we are sure that we will succeed in getting an acquittal from Allahabad High Court in Rampur CRPF camp firing case,” said Yasmeen.

 In October, the Akhilesh Yadav government in Uttar Pradesh had appealed to the court asking if the case against Faheem and the other accused in the CRPF camp attack along with three more terror attack cases can be withdrawn, discharging the accused. However, Faheem’s family is waiting for the response of the court, which will come on November 29 on Akhilesh’s appeal.

 ”My nine-year-old daughter Iqra who stood first in her school is confused and keeps asking me the same question: since the court had acquitted her dad, why is he not coming home,” said Yasmeen.

Zeeshan Shaikh
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The Freepress Journal

Edit    November 26, 2012 12:43:34 AM | By SEEMA MUSTAFA

The faceless State

The Indian State seems to have lost its compassion somewhere along the way. Its first reaction, as the Mumbai incident indicates, is to use its brute might to suppress even innocent and minimalist dissent.



A Facebook post said it all. The young man, a Muslim, “hailed” the hanging of Pakistan terrorist Ajmal Kasab saying that his death would at least put an end to the weight that some political parties and groups were making Indian Muslims carry. And that while they basically did not give a damn they were made to carry the cross through insinuations and direct comments by communal forces always looking for shadows where none exist.

Kasab’s hanging has not stirred a leaf in India, or for that matter even in Pakistan amidst society that one generally acknowledges as sane. Except for extremists like the Lashkar e Tayaba whose reactions are expected, even the villagers in Faridkot in Pakistan where Kasab ostensibly lived, chased away reporters saying they were not interested in the issue at all. The young man had crossed every civilized line when he, along with nine others, picked up the gun to shoot down Indian citizens in Mumbai in one of the worst terror attacks this country has ever seen.

In fact the debate post Kasab is not about whether he should have been hanged, but about the death penalty per se and whether it should be abolished or not. The one intelligent move that the UPA government made was to ensure that the hanging took place without the media being informed, as that prevented the 24-hour news channels from sensationalizing the issue to a point where it could have taken a nasty turn. Immature commentary, jingoism, ridiculous interpretations before the hanging by hysterical anchors, would have vitiated the atmosphere and given a handle to vested interests to make communal hay.

As it is India was already reeling under the shock of the arrest of two young girls for an innocuous Facebook post on the death of Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray. The news channels with their incessant coverage turned a political leader at best into a hero, with not a single worthwhile analysis in the mainstream media of his contribution to Indian politics, his declared admiration for Adolf Hitler and how that had influenced his politics. An atmosphere had been created by the television channels where the innocuous post allowed the government and its police to arrest them after sundown, in an action that sent tremors of fear through the city and anger through the country. They were charged with inciting communal hatred, with not a word about those who had forced a shutdown with the simple threat of physical retaliation that did not want anyone taking chances.

In one stroke the Congress-NCP government demonstrated that it was on the same page as the Shiv Sena insofar as even mild dissent was concerned. Two, it had the authority and the reach to monitor Facebook posts and three, with the arrests it sent out the message to all others using the social media that they should be careful of airing their views lest they meet with a similar, or worse fate. The public outcry forced the government to release the girls and dilute the charges, but last heard the cases had not been withdrawn and they had to appear before the courts every week. In fact the Shiv Sainiks maintained more discipline in the death of Thackeray than the Congress party and the NCP who bent over backwards to prove their loyalty with the arrests and the decision to give him a state farewell.

The State fails when its citizens live in fear. And not fear of each other but of the state’s inability to provide them security, protect them from violence, and give them justice as and when required. All over the country more and more sections of society are being added to those who have lived a fearful existence for decades now, with the percentage of the oppressed and victimized growing as India supposedly marches forward towards economic growth and emergence as a world power. Both goals cannot be realised by leaving behind large sections of Indian society from the map of growth, equality and justice but this is a point that our politicians seem to be in denial mode about.

Fear of arrest, fear of attack, fear of violence has crept into daily life along with all the other crippling problems of food security. Those living in the big bungalows in state capitals have little idea of this, and how this fear is generating helplessness, resentment, disaffection amongst those at the receiving end of the stick. This is evident from the outpourings in the social media that of course insecure governments, not just in India but elsewhere too want to curb. But it is also evident in the scale of protests breaking out at different levels in this country, and the tendency of the protestors to stay out on the streets for longer and longer periods. The fishermen who stood in the water for days on end to demand their just basic livelihood rights withstood the agony of swollen feet, blisters and bites as their life outside had become so meaningless, and were worthless without some compensation and support.

The Indian State seems to have lost its compassion somewhere along the way. Its first reaction, as the Mumbai incident indicates, is to use its brute might to suppress even innocent and minimalist dissent. And unfortunately, unless the people are present in sufficiently large numbers to beat back the authority of the state there is never a second reaction. There is a severe disconnect between the politicians and the people, with the first unable and unwilling to appreciate the sensitivities and aspirations of the second. This has led to a divide that expresses itself in violence by the state, and every now and again by the people seeking redressal and justice.

In Delhi one becomes aware of a small clique, as against the burgeoning humanity of India, that lives in another world where the rich (industry) make common cause with the powerful (politicians) and the influential (media) as all seek to get into this exclusive group of power brokers. They protect each other, and also determine the levels of indifference and callousness to the ‘other’ India to ensure that it does not impinge on their consciousness in any significant manner. The funeral of known thugs and mafia dons attracts the politicians and the film stars and the industrialists, but there was not one person standing to hold the hands of the traumatized girls still wondering what they had done that was so wrong.

SEEMA MUSTAFA

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