Indian Justice via US and British courts By Ghulam Muhammed

Thursday, April 08, 2010

Indian Justice via US and British courts

When Times of India carried the news about a process served on Kamal Nath, India’s Union minister, by a US court at the instance of a New York based organisation: Sikhs for Justice, for alleged involvement in 84 riot crimes, the signal has gone out to 150 million Muslims too, that there is a new route to get justice  for crimes in India committed against them in communal riots, if they too could move relevant courts in US and UK, seeking relief under Alien Torts Claims Act, through proper representations, to seek ‘compensatory and punitive damages for several allegations, including crimes against humanity, degrading treatment and wrongful killing.’ The trend seems to have started with Palestinian organisations in UK, filing court cases in UK against Israeli government for its invasion of Gaza and war crimes committed by its forces. The first celebrity to face the prospect of arrest was Israel’s former Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, who cancelled her planned visit to UK, at the eleventh hour, after being informed of the process issued against her by a London court. There have been rumours in various circles about leaders from India’s extremist political organisations being under threat of court proceedings against their role in communal riots. Bollywood Music director Nadeem Saifee was saved by British courts, who were not sympathetic to Indian government’s record in treatment of its Muslim minority. Nadeem filed for huge compensations and India government had to make the payment in UK. Recently, a move is being discussed against Rediff web service, for posting highly inflammable and defamatory articles on its site. The parent company of Rediff is listed in the US and may be liable to the jurisdiction of US courts on defamation and hate crimes. It will be a sad day for Indian judiciary, if cases may be filed with International Court of Justice, for crimes committed in India addressing to human rights and genocide. India government has still to move against perpetrators of murders, arson, loot during the Mumbai riots even after 20 years. The majority of victims had been Indian Muslims and the prepatrator of the crimes are roaming free, even though formally identified by a government appointed Sri Krishna Commission.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com 

www.GhulamMuhammed.Blogspot.com

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 ’84 riots: US court summons Kamal

New York: A US federal district court has summoned road transport and highways minister Kamal Nath for his alleged role in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots based on a case filed by a Sikh outfit.

    In the civil case filed under the Alien Torts Claims Act, the petitioners sought compensatory and punitive damages for several allegations, including crimes against humanity, degrading treatment and wrongful killing.

    Nath, who is incidentally here on a visit, said he was “surprised and appalled’’ as the case has been filed 25 years after the anti-Sikh riots in India.

    “I really have no clue about it. I don’t have a basis and I don’t know the authenticity. I don’t know the validity. It was for the first time that I saw it,’’ Nath said. He has been served a notice and has to respond within 21 days, failing which the court will give a default judgment on the matter.

    “A piece of paper was given to me. I will have to see what the piece of paper is all about,’’ he said. Nath stressed that he had never been charged in any court. “Nobody has ever charged me in India. But if the US charges me 25 years later for something that has happened in India... well it just reflects on the authenticity,’’ he said.

    “For the last 25 years I wasn’t involved...suddenly in 2010 I get involved...There was nobody who stood up and said that he was a victim or that I was in any way connected. So I’m surprised and appalled.’’

    The case was filed by two Sikhs, Jasbir Singh and Mahinder Singh, on behalf of New York-based organisation Sikhs for Justice.

    Their attorney Gurpatwant Pannun claimed Jasbir lost 24 members of his family and Mahinder, who was two years-old then, lost his father.

    “In India it is impossible to hold human rights violators,’’ Pannun said. The Sikh group said that they are acting now because they have given up hope for action to be taken in India. “We waited for all these years because commissions were being set up...there was hope but because of his position Kamal Nath has successfully avoided justice for 25 years,’’ said Pannun. --- AGENCIES

The end of impunity - By Teesta Setalvad - The Indian Express

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-end-of-impunity/585869/0

02mar10

The end of impunity

teestasetalvad

The struggle of man (or woman) against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. — Milan Kundera

It was not simply the number of lives lost, though the number — perhaps 2,500 — is not insignificant. It was the cold-blooded manner in which they were taken. It was not simply that 19 of Gujarat’s 25 districts burned while Neros watched, fiddled and smirked but the sinister similarity in the way they were set alight. Militias were armed with deadly training, weapons, technology and equipment; with a lethal brew of deadly intent, inspired by constructed tales of hate, using the February 28, 2002 edition of a leading Gujarati daily that urged revenge; all combined with a deadly white chemical powder that seared to burn and destroy already killed bodies. And, of course, truckloads of gas cylinders, in short supply for cooking, were used instead to blast mosques and homes. Mobile phones and motorcycles made communications easy and movement swift.


Part of the plan was to humiliate, destroy and then kill. Another was to economically cripple. But at heart the desire was to construct a reality whereby a whole ten per cent of the population lives (and a few even prosper) as carefully whipped into shape, second-class citizens. Most incidents that racked the state, except the famed Best Bakery incident, took place in the glare of the day, not the stealth of the night. Critical to the plan to mutilate and humiliate was to subject women and girls to the worst kind of sexual violence. Tehelka’s “Operation Kalank” records victorious testimonies of rapists and murderers who claim to have received personal approbations from the man at the helm. Over 1,200 highway hotels were destroyed, more than 23,000 homes gutted, 350 large businesses seriously damaged (and are still unable to recover) and 12,000 street businesses demolished.


Genocide is about economic crippling as much as death and humiliation. The Concerned Citizens Tribunal — Crimes Against Humanity 2002 called the happenings in Gujarat a genocide, because of the systematic singling out of a group through widely distributed hate writing and demonisation, the economic destruction, the sexual violence and also because over 270 masjids and dargahs were razed to the ground. The bandh calls on February 28 and March 1 by rabid outfits and supported by the party in power enabled mobs free access to the streets while successfully warding off the ordinary citizen.


Eight years on, it is this level and extent of complicity that is under high-level scrutiny. The involvement of high functionaries of the state in Gujarat did not begin, and has not stopped, with the violence. It has extended to destruction of evidence that continues until today, the faulty registration of criminal complaints, the deliberate exclusion of powerful accused and, worst of all, the utter and complete subversion of the criminal justice system by appointment of public prosecutors who were not wedded to fair play, justice and the Constitution — but were and are lapdogs of the ruling party and its raid affiliates. The proceedings in the Best Bakery case in the Supreme Court and the judgment of April 12, 2004 strips our legal system, especially lawyers, of the dignity of their office.


The hasty granting of bail to those involved in the post-Godhra carnage remains a scandal. While over seven dozen of those accused of the Godhra train arson have been in jail, without bail for eight years — and today face trial within the precincts of the Sabarmati jail — powerful men, patronised by the state’s political hierarchy who are accused of multiple rapes and murders roam free in “vibrant Gujarat” even as the trials have resumed. The few that are in jail — ten of the 64 accused in the Gulberg society carnage, eight of the 64 accused in Naroda Patia massacre, two of the 89 in the Naroda Gaam killing, eight of the 73 in the Sardroura massacres (all the 84 accused of the massacre at Deepda Darwaza roam free on bail) are those with no political godfathers. A vast majority have lived in freedom even after committing unspeakable crimes. All this and more is being investigated under the orders of our apex court on a petition filed by Zakia Ahsan Jafri and the Citizens for Justice and Peace. For the first time in our history criminal conspiracy and mass murder are the charges, the chief minister and 61 others the accused. Will the wealth of evidence be matched by the rigour of investigation? Will the will to prosecute surmount political considerations? Will the Indian system throw a spotlight on what surely must be its darkest hour? As we stood, remembered and prayed in painful memorial, with lit candles at the Gulbarg Society this Sunday we did so in both faith and hope.


The writer is the secretary of |Citizens for Justice and Peace