Polls 2012: Muslims in Meerut still nurse wounds of two-decade old riots - By Iftekhar Gilani - DNA

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_polls-2012-muslims-in-meerut-still-nurse-wounds-of-two-decade-old-riots_1647668

Polls 2012: Muslims in Meerut still nurse wounds of two-decade old riots

 
Published: Thursday, Feb 9, 2012, 9:00 IST
By Iftikhar Gilani | Place: Meerut | Agency: DNA

Emerging from a printing press, with ink soaked hands and drenched clothes, Iqbal Ahmed can be taken for any other labourer. But he is a medical graduate; his life totally changed 25 years ago when he was among the hundred-odd picked up from Hashimpura locality of Meerut when it was engulfed in the worst-ever communal riots.

He was a lucky one to be taken to jail. For, others were shot dead and thrown into the Upper Ganges and the Hindon Canal allegedly by the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) of UP.

Iqbal’s life was so battered that he became mentally wreck and could not continue practicing medicine.

This communally sensitive western UP is now calm. The bloody riots in 1989 sent the Congress packing out of power in the state.

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi may be trying hard to re-build the party edifice, enticing various communities including Muslims, but the residents here are hardly in a mood to forgive his party.

In the dingy alley of Hashimpura, there are few takers for the Congress’s promises of employment opportunities for youth and quotas for minorities and free electricity connections to the poor. 

“What we need is justice and security and not doles,” says Laiq Ahmed, president of the local unit of Muslim Majlis.

Shrieks of 70-year-old Peeru, a walking skeleton, rents the allies of Hashimpura as she recounts how her 16-year-old son Nizamudin was dragged and pushed into a PAC truck. Mentally disturbed, she still awaits the return of her son.

Jamaludin Ansari (75) recalls that even BJP leader LK Advani had sympathised with them when he visited the area and was confronted with the story. Then a owner of a roaring scissor manufacturing business, Ansari is now meeting both ends by running a small shop inside his dingy hovel.

His 22-year-old son Qamruddin was killed in cold blood. He even didn’t get his body, despite identifying his clothes in Kotwali.

“Since then everything got shattered. My customers were mostly Hindus, they refused to visit my factory out of fear and prejudice,” says the old man.

Unlike Gujarat, where hordes of NGOs have descended to seek justice for the 2002 riots victims, old and frail residents of Hashimpura and Maliana localities, whose sons were killed 25 years ago, are left to their own to pursue the case in Delhi’s Tis Hazari court, which recently concluded examining the 91st witness.

The anger against the Congress is palpable. “We will never forgive the party till we get justice,” says Ansari, only to add in the same breath that other secular parties like the SP and the BSP have also looked the other way, not even initiating disciplinary actions against the PAC personnel.

Out of the five survivors of the bloodshed, Babudin, now 43, shows three bullet marks on his body — the PAC had picked him up from his house and fired at him.

Now as stakes run high in the UP elections, the issue hardly finds reverberations in the poll lexicons of the Congress and the SP, who are pitted against each other in the Muslim dominated seat.

After delimitation, Hashimpura has been merged with Meerut cantonment, thus saving local Congress candidate Yusuf Qureshi from their wreath. Qureshi, a lawyer and PhD, is pitted against SP’s Rafiq Ansari. It has sharply divided Muslims on caste lines.


While butchers and those associated with meat business are backing Qureshi, weavers, labourers and others are vouching for Ansari. Meat shop owners ask their customers to vote for Qureshi.


But hardly the issue of Hashimpur figures in the lexicon. The role of the Mulayam Singh Yadav government in the past, which is supposed to be favourably inclined to Muslims, did nothing for getting justice done in the case.

The incident which sealed the fate of the Congress finds no mention in the manifestos. Justice still seems a faraway proposition for the victims of Hashimpura.

Israeli angle to Maldives 'coup' - Report by Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis - New Delhi

Though world media including Indian, BCC, CNN are silent on the subject, an Israeli angle has surfaced in a report by IDSA - that is funded by the Indian Ministry of Defence. It functions autonomously.

http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/PoliticalTransitioninMaldives_akumar_090212

Israeli angle to Maldives 'coup'
 

" The hardliners also opposed Nasheed's restoration of diplomatic relations with Israel, his attempts to transform the school curriculum which was narrowly focussed on Islamic principles, and his defence of a 'modern' Islam that is open to other faiths. They also wanted the government to stop Israeli flights and tourists from coming to Maldives."
-----------------

IDSA COMMENT

Political Transition in Maldives

Anand Kumar

February 9, 2012

The dramatic events which took place in Maldives on February 7, 2012 has led to the ‘involuntary’ resignation of the country’s democratically elected president. Although the political situation is likely to stabilise in the short-term with the elevation of Vice President Dr. Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik to the position of president, multi-party democracy established in the country after the 2008 elections has received a definite setback.

Waheed has vowed to uphold the rule of law. He intends to form a government of national unity and has assured that presidential elections would be held in 2013 as planned. Justice Abdullah Mohamed, whose arrest triggered these developments, was released soon after the presidential change over.

A section of people in Maldives as well as in the international community have described the resignation of Nasheed as a coup. In fact, the Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) to which Nasheed belongs has alleged that the resignation had been engineered by "rogue elements" of the police and military, along with supporters of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. MDP also alleged that the opposition threatened the president with a bloodbath if he refused to resign. For his part, Nasheed stated in a televised address that he chose to resign to protect the public from further violence.
Political uncertainty has been prevailing in Maldives for some time now. Nasheed’s problems began when his party failed to get a majority in the Maldivian parliament after the 2009 general elections. Nasheed wanted to relax strict Islamic laws to promote tourism, which is the largest foreign exchange earner for the country. However, his attempt to step-up facilities for tourism was defeated because of the assertion by the religious right and the judiciary. In the year 2010, Nasheed was forced to roll back his plan of allowing more multi-national companies from setting up resorts on unutilised islands.

Nasheed had received the economic crisis as a legacy from former president Gayoom who had left the country on the verge of bankruptcy. Maldivians have been protesting against soaring prices. Last year, the country also faced a major dollar crunch. India has been helping Nasheed’s government with occasional financial support to tide over these problems.

In the present political crisis Islamic radicals have also played an important role. There has been growing Islamic radicalism in Maldives. Islamic radicals have been trying to create problems for the government of Nasheed who represented the moderate stream in the country. Islamic radicals even demolished the monument constructed by Pakistan at Addu city on the occasion of the 17th SAARC summit in November. Showcasing Pakistan’s pluralistic heritage, the monument showed the different stages of cultural development in Pakistan from the Harappan and Buddhist past to its Islamic heritage before being proclaimed an Islamic Republic. However, inflamed religious passion in a section of the Maldivian population impelled them to destroy the monument.

The Maldivian government was also forced to briefly close all hotel spas and health centres in resort hotels in December 2012 after the hard-line Islamist Adhaalath party claimed that these were fronts for prostitution. This decision was however reversed as the country critically depends on tourism.

The hardliners also opposed Nasheed's restoration of diplomatic relations with Israel, his attempts to transform the school curriculum which was narrowly focussed on Islamic principles, and his defence of a 'modern' Islam that is open to other faiths. They also wanted the government to stop Israeli flights and tourists from coming to Maldives.

The country plunged into a constitutional crisis when Nasheed ordered the arrest of the Chief Criminal Judge Abdulla Mohamed in a joint operation by the Police and Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) on January 16. The judge had ordered the release of a government critic and opposition leader Mohamed Jameel Ahmed, who, according to him, was illegally detained. The arrested person had allegedly defamed the government during a television interview in which he accused Nasheed's government of working against the state religion, Islam, with the support of Christians and Jews.

There is no doubt that the judiciary in Maldives is in a mess. A large number of unqualified and incompetent people have come into the judiciary towards the end of Gayoom’s dictatorship. However, the public in general disapproved of the arrest of Judge Abdullah. The Supreme Court of Maldives passed an order for his immediate release, but it was ignored by the Nasheed government. This alienated some conscientious lawyers and led to the resignation of SAARC's first woman Secretary General, Fathimath Dhiyana Saeed. She joined the protestors along with her husband.

It also created confusion in the country and rumours started circulating that Nasheed wanted to fill the judiciary with his men. 

Nasheed is an honest man but unfortunately he is not an astute politician. Due to the mishandling of the situation a political stand-off with religious overtones was transformed into an impasse between his government and the judiciary, which prompted many of his supporters to desert him. Nasheed’s mishandling of the situation precipitated the crisis resulting in his ouster.

In recent times India has invested a great deal of political and economic capital in the Maldives. When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Maldives for the SAARC summit, he also visited Male and signed a framework agreement with the Maldivian government. 

This includes joint efforts against piracy and joint patrolling of seas and aerial surveillance. The Indian Navy helps the MNDF in preventing piracy. And the Indian private sector GMR group is building a new airport in Male.

For India, political uncertainty in Maldives is a cause for concern. 

Maldives is strategically located and sits astride important sea lanes of communication. Several external powers including China and Pakistan are looking to gain footholds in the country. They might use the prevailing political uncertainty to their advantage. It is in India’s interest that Maldives is able to tide over the present political crisis successfully and multi-party democracy survives in the country.