Ishrat Jahan case: P P Pandey's bail plea rejected

A special CBI court here today rejected the anticipatory bail application of ADGP P P Pandey, paving the way for his arrest in the 2004 fake encounter case of Ishrat Jahan and three others.

Special CBI judge Gita Gopi rejected the anticipatory bail application of Pandey, who had gone underground for a few months after his name surfaced in the encounter case. The court had declared him proclaimed absconder then. The special court was hearing his application afresh on the directions of the Gujarat High Court which had restrained CBI from arresting the senior IPS officer till August 6.

The 1982-batch IPS officer was Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime), Ahmedabad, when Mumbai-based Ishrat, her friend Javed Shaikh, alias Pranesh Pillai, and their associates Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar were gunned down by Crime Branch sleuths on June 15, 2004 on the city outskirts. The CBI had named seven Gujarat police officers including Pandey in the charge sheet filed last month in the case. The charge sheet had termed the encounter to be fake and had also held that it was a joint operation between Gujarat Police and Intelligence Bureau.

Earlier, Pandey's lawyer Nirupam Nanavati had argued that CBI has been chasing Pandey and wanted to send him behind the bars by hook or by crook.

CBI's branding of his client as a proclaimed absconder (in the charge-sheet of Ishrat case) was totally illegal as Pandey appeared before the concerned court as per the orders of the Supreme Court, Nanavati had said. "It is not an error or mistake. It is a deliberate design so as to deprive Pandey of any discretionary order from seeking justice," he said. "CBI does not want to humiliate only my client (alone) but they want to humiliate the entire police brass of Gujarat", he added.

Contending that there was no material against Pandey, Nanavati said he was acting on IB inputs and if IB inputs were to be questioned, there may be a serious law and order problem in the  country. 

However, CBI counsel Ejaz Khan had refuted the charges by saying that the investigation agency had taken over the Ishrat case only on the directions of the Gujarat High Court. "It is mischievous to term this as (result of) political rivalry. We have not come here as a political rival to any one. We are investigating the case on the directions of the Gujarat High Court," Khan argued. Khan said the act committed by some of the accused police officials was "beyond the imagination of a fiction writer". Rubbishing the claim that the probe against Pandey had some ulterior motive, Khan said, "He chose a wrong way which does not befit a senior police officer.

He approached all forums for quashing FIR, staying his arrest, among other prayers. He should have come before a judicial officer and marked his presence." City Crime Branch had in 2004 claimed that the four were terrorists, on a mission to kill Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ishrat-jahan-case-p-p-pandeys-bail-plea-rejected/1151790/0

See also:

Ishrat Jahan link (that never was): Untold story of a J-K encounter

Sajjan Kumar's trial for murder in the 1984 riots to continue

IB’s campaign to vilify Ishrat Jahan

Ex-DGP writes to Pranab Mukherjee over 'IB men's intervention' in Ishrat case

Ishrat Jahan case: IB can seek immunity if they want, says CBI

Ishrat Jehan's mother appeals for justice // CBI Probe Nails IB Officer’s Role // Important interview with Shamima Kauser's lawyer Vrinda Grover

Public Appeal by R.B. SREEKUMAR, FORMER DGP, GUJARAT

Did Narendra Modi, Amit Shah know of the Ishrat Jahan encounter in advance?

Police records show Gujarat riots weren’t a sudden backlash

Mohan Guruswamy - Who lit the Godhra fire? (July 2002)

Sadiq Jamal Case: CBI Files Affidavit, Says Probe In Progress

Gujarat Police killed Sadiq Jamal despite Intelligence Bureau's clean chit

How Varun Gandhi silenced the system - Tehelka expose

1984 carnage - 5 convicted, main accused Sajjan Kumar acquitted

Probe larger conspiracy says Zakia Jafri's counsel, reminds SIT of SC order regarding 2002 riots

Poornima Joshi: Sangh Singh Song

A Hard Rain Falling (private armies and political violence in India) (EPW)

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Shameless abuse of power by UP government - Writer arrested for support of IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal

Even though it has been slammed nationwide for suspending IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal, the Uttar Pradesh government seems to be in no mood to relent. Now, Kanwal Bharti, a writer, has been arrested from Rampur for an online editorial criticizing UP minister Azam Khan for his remarks against Ms Nagpal, who was suspended from the post of Sub Divisional Magistrate of Gautam Budh Nagar.

The writer has been booked for promoting disharmony between two religious groups and defiling a place of worship. A case was registered against Mr Bharti based on the complaint of Azam Khan's personal assistant Shanu Khan. "The police took away my computer too. This will happen in the future too. I believe that no government should use names of any particular religion or caste... it gives a bad name," Mr Bharti told NDTV.

The Uttar Pradesh government had suspended Ms Nagpal for allegedly ordering the removal of a wall of a new mosque being built at a village in Noida and thereby endangering communal harmony. Her supporters say she has been suspended for taking on the powerful sand mining mafia in the area.

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/now-dalit-man-who-wrote-in-support-of-ias-officer-durga-shakti-nagpal-arrested-402129?pfrom=home-lateststories

Kamal Bharti arrested for Facebook post on Durga Shakti Nagpal's suspension
Eminent Dalit scholar, Kamal Bharti, was arrested here today on a complaint by Uttar Pradesh Minister Azam Khan's aide for his alleged Facebook post on suspended IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal. Bharti, author of various books dealing with problems faced by Dalits, in his post said that the Gautam Budh Nagar SDM was suspended for alleged demolition of wall of a mosque. He went on to say that in Rampur a madarsa was recently demolished and its manager was placed behind the bars but no action was taken against the officials who were deputed to demolish the institution. The madarsa was demolished because it was allegedly constructed on the land of a graveyard, sources said. In his post, Bharti said it is the 'will and wish' of the Urban Development minister Azam Khan which prevails and not the law of the land. In the complaint, Azam Khan's PRO Fasahat Ali Khan alleged that Bharti had made a derogatory remark against the UP minister. On the complaint, a case was registered against Bharti at Civil Lines police station and he was arrested, police said. Bharti was produced before the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate V K Pandey, which granted him bail.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/dalit-scholar-kamal-bharti-arrested-for-facebook-post-on-durga-shakti-nagpals-suspension/1151891/

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How to Be a Rogue Superpower A Manual for the 21st Century // Prometheus Among the Cannibals - A Letter to Edward Snowden

At most moments in American history, the revelation that a secret court, which never turns down government requests, is making law “almost” at the level of the Supreme Court would surely have caused an outcry in Congress and elsewhere.  However, there was none..

Today, if you are a twenty-first-century “dissident” and need asylum/protection from the only superpower left, there is essentially none to be had.

It’s hard even to know how to take it in.  I mean, what’s really happening?  An employee of a private contractor working for the National Security Agency makes off with unknown numbers of files about America’s developing global security state on a thumb drive and four laptop computers, and jumps the nearest plane to Hong Kong.  His goal: to expose a vast surveillance structure built in the shadows in the post-9/11 years and significantly aimed at Americans.  He leaks some of the documents to a columnist at the British Guardian and to the Washington Post.  The response is unprecedented: an “international manhunt” (or more politely but less accurately, “a diplomatic full court press”) conducted not by Interpol or the United Nations but by the planet’s sole superpower, the very government whose practices the leaker was so intent on exposing.

And that’s just for starters.  Let’s add another factor.  The leaker, a young man with great techno-savvy, lets the world know that he’s picked and chosen among the NSA files in his possession.  He’s releasing only those he thinks the American public needs in order to start a full-scale debate about the unprecedented secret world of surveillance that their taxpayer dollars have created.  In other words, this is no “document dump.”  He wants to spark change without doing harm.

But here’s the kicker: he couldn’t be more aware of previous whistleblower cases, the punitive reaction of his government to them, and the fate that might be his.  As a result, we now know, he has encrypted the full set of files in his possession and left them in one or more safe places for unknown individuals -- that is, we don’t know who they are -- to access, should he be taken by the U.S.

In other words, from the time Edward Snowden’s first leaked documents came out, it was obvious that he was in control of how much of the NSA’s secret world would be seen.  It would be hard then not to conclude that capturing him, imprisoning him, trying him, and throwing away the key is likely to increase, not decrease, the flow of those documents.  Knowing that, the Obama administration and the representatives of our secret world went after him anyway -- after one man on a global scale and in a way that may not have a precedent.  No thought of future embarrassment stopped them, nor, it seems, did they hesitate because of possible resentments engendered by their heavy-handed pressure on numerous foreign governments.

The result has been a global spectacle, as well as a worldwide debate about the spying practices of the U.S. (and its allies).  In these weeks, Washington has proven determined, vengeful, implacable.  It has strong-armed, threatened, and elbowed powers large and small.  It has essentially pledged that the leaker, former Booz Allen employee Edward Snowden, will never be safe on this planet in his lifetime. And yet, to mention the obvious, the greatest power on Earth has, as yet, failed to get its man and is losing the public opinion battle globally.

An Asylum-less World

Highlighted in all this has been a curious fact of our twenty-first-century world.  In the Cold War years, asylum was always potentially available.  If you opposed one of the two superpowers or its allies, the other was usually ready to open its arms to you, as the U.S. famously did for what were once called “Soviet dissidents” in great numbers.  The Soviets did the same for Americans, Brits, and others, often secret communists, sometimes actual spies, who opposed the leading capitalist power and its global order.

Today, if you are a twenty-first-century “dissident” and need asylum/protection from the only superpower left, there is essentially none to be had.  Even after three Latin American countries, enraged at Washington's actions, extended offers of protection to Snowden, these should be treated as a new category of limited asylum.  After all, the greatest power on the planet has, since 9/11, shown itself perfectly willing to do almost anything in pursuit of its definition of “security” or the security of its security system.  Torture, abuse, the setting up of secret prisons or “black sites,” the kidnapping of terrorist suspects (including perfectly innocent people) off the streets of global cities and in the backlands of the planet, as well as their “rendition” to the torture chambers of complicit allied regimes, and the secret surveillance of anyone anywhere would only start a far longer list.

Nothing about the “international manhunt” for Snowden indicates that the Obama administration would be unwilling to send in the CIA or special operations types to “render” him from Venezuela, Bolivia, or Nicaragua, no matter the cost to hemispheric relations.  Snowden himself brought up this possibility in his first interview with Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald.  “I could,” he said bluntly, “be rendered by the CIA.” This assumes that he can even make it to a land of exile from somewhere in the bowels of the international terminal of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport without being intercepted by Washington... read more: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175725/

Prometheus Among the Cannibals  A Letter to Edward Snowden  By Rebecca Solnit No matter what’s written about him here in the mainstream, the spectacle of a single remarkably articulate and self-confident individual outwitting the last superpower has been, in its own way, uplifting.  Although the first global polls haven’t come in, I think it’s safe to assume that from Bolivia to Hong Kong, Germany to Japan, Washington is taking a remarkable licking in the global opinion wars.  Even at home, we know that, among the young in particular, opinion seems to be shifting on both Snowden’s acts and the surveillance state whose architecture he revealed...

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S. ANAND - Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) sponsors vicious caste violence in Tamilnadu

Since November 2012, in northern Tamil Nadu, the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) has led a campaign with far worse consequences. S. Ramadoss, founder-leader of the PMK, and leaders of the Vanniyar Sangham — the caste outfit that is to the PMK what the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — have been making statements no less outrageous than Muthalik’s. Ramadoss believes that young Dalit men wearing jeans, T-shirts and sunglasses, riding motorcycles and wielding mobile phones are luring girls of Vanniyar and other “intermediary” castes. Last November, the actions of the cadres of the PMK and Vanniyar Sangham, and the hate speeches of Ramadoss, his son Anbumani Ramadoss, and other Vanniyar leaders such as ‘Kaduvetti’ Guru, resulted in a Salwa Judum-style torching of over 250 Dalit homes in three Dalit colonies of Dharmapuri district. In April 2013, there was another round of violence unleashed by the PMK cadre protesting intercaste affairs. According to a report in Frontline (May 31, 2013), they damaged about 500 public and private buses, setting fire to 13 of them, and also cut down over 160 trees. Everyday life was affected in 10 districts with a sizeable Vanniyar population.

This cycle of violence culminated in the July 4 death of E. Ilavarasan, a 23-year-old Dalit who married Divya, a Vanniyar girl. When found dead along a railway track, Ilavarasan was wearing sky-blue jeans, the attire Ramadoss loathed. In fact, it was their elopement and marriage last October that first instigated Ramadoss’s tirades against “love dramas” in which Dalit men were posing a threat to the “honour” of Vanniyar women. In sheer scale — both of moral policing and damage to lives and property — Ramadoss and the PMK have far exceeded Muthalik and Rama Sene. And yet no one feels the need to send pink chaddis to these caste fanatics. Where Muthalik & Co. erred was in attacking the consumerist logic of both Valentine’s Day and the culture of pubs, antagonising a powerful class constituency. Had Muthalik opposed Vokkaliga-Dalit marriages, he would not have been bestowed pink chaddis. Muthalik courted controversy when he declared: “If we come across couples being together in public and expressing their love, we will take them to the nearest temple and conduct their marriage.” Surely, this is ridiculous, but compared to Ramadoss’s war against intercaste marriages, Muthalik sounds like a misinformed reformer. While the former speaks the language of Hindu supremacy, the latter embodies the logic of caste supremacy. Caste or rather jati dharma predates, and is a far more gruesome and pervasive reality than, Hindu dharma.

Caste and Hindutva

What we are witnessing is merely a restatement of the battle at the heart of India’s flawed democracy in the post-Mandal, post-Babri phase: the divisive discourse of jati assertion, where each jati demands its share in power structures in proportion to its share in the population, competing with the discourse of Hindutva that seeks to project a united force of all Hindus. At first, like many social scientists and commentators, I too believed that post-Mandal jati assertion had derailed and subverted the Hindutva agenda, but it is time we realise that caste majoritarianism is by no means in contradiction with communal majoritarianism (a Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam or PMK would happily align with either the BJP or the Congress, depending on what could be gained). The forces of destruction wielded by Mandalite politicos are just as bad as those unleashed in the name of Mandir... 

read more: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/no-pink-chaddis-for-pmk/article4909282.ece

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Ex-DGP of Gujarat R B Sreekumar writes to President over 'IB men's intervention' in Ishrat case

Former Gujarat Director General of Police (DGP) R B Sreekumar has written to President Pranab Mukherjee, appealing him to remove lobbyism of the top Central Intelligence Bureau (IB) and retired IB officers in the investigations into Ishrat Jahan and other alleged fake encounters. Sreekumar wrote the letter on July 15 and has received a letter of receipt from the President's Office and Prime Minister's Office in New Delhi. Sreekumar, in his letter, has opposed the intervention of the former IB director in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case. He has alleged that even the present director endeavours to protect the accused IB officers.

In his letter, Sreekumar said the governor of Andhra Pradesh E S L Narasimhan should not exercise his power on a central investigation agency like the CBI. He wrote, "The governor had violated the constitutional constraints and legal framework within which he had to function, particularly the letter and spirit of Article 51(A) of the Constitution of India. In fact, anybody, including the IB director, endeavouring to protect the accused IB officials allegedly involved in extra judicial killings, should approach relevant judicial bodies, instead of exerting pressure on Union Government.

An executive authority has no powers over CBI under law to guide and influence the course of any investigation. If CBI buckles down under such pressure tactics and professionalise the investigation for helping the accused, this agency would be committing an offence under section 217 IPC." Sreekumar added that the CBI investigations in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case have brought out substantial evidence about the culpable guilt of a few Central IB officials in planning and executing the fake encounter by teaming up with Gujarat police. He added, "In the legal perspective, if any functionary from political and administrative bureaucracy of the Union Executive, being pressurised by protagonists of IB, influences or instructs the CBI to take a particular direction in Ishrat Jahan case investigation... he would be liable for an offence under Section 186 IPC — obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions."

According to Sreekumar, if there's any IB officer found to be fiddling with CBI investigation in Ishrat Jahan case, he should be brought under the clutches of law and should be put under indefensible situation. He pointed out that the IB's role in fake encounters in Gujarat is the only instance in the 125-year-long history of the organisation of its misuse by a state government with the consent of the NDA government in 2002-2004. Sreekumar pleaded that the President of India initiates appropriate steps to prevent and neutralise any move from government or non-governmental forces that impedes the CBI investigations into the fake encounter cases in Gujarat.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/exdgp-writes-to-pranab-mukherjee-over-ib-mens-intervention-in-ishrat-case/1143402/0

See also:

Public Appeal by R.B. SREEKUMAR, FORMER DGP, GUJARAT

Ishrat Jahan link (that never was): Untold story of a J-K encounter

David Headley did not name Ishrat, NIA tells Home Ministry 

Sajjan Kumar's trial for murder in the 1984 riots to continue

IB’s campaign to vilify Ishrat Jahan

Ex-DGP writes to Pranab Mukherjee over 'IB men's intervention' in Ishrat case

Ishrat Jahan case: IB can seek immunity if they want, says CBI

Ishrat Jehan's mother appeals for justice // CBI Probe Nails IB Officer’s Role // Important interview with Shamima Kauser's lawyer Vrinda Grover

Did Narendra Modi, Amit Shah know of the Ishrat Jahan encounter in advance?

Police records show Gujarat riots weren’t a sudden backlash

Mohan Guruswamy - Who lit the Godhra fire? (July 2002)

Sadiq Jamal Case: CBI Files Affidavit, Says Probe In Progress

Gujarat Police killed Sadiq Jamal despite Intelligence Bureau's clean chit

How Varun Gandhi silenced the system - Tehelka expose

1984 carnage - 5 convicted, main accused Sajjan Kumar acquitted

Probe larger conspiracy says Zakia Jafri's counsel, reminds SIT of SC order regarding 2002 riots

Poornima Joshi: Sangh Singh Song

A Hard Rain Falling (private armies and political violence in India) (EPW)

Read More

Ishrat Jahan link (that never was): Untold story of a J-K encounter

NB : Yet another example of misleading headlines. The story below points not to a link with Ishrat, but to the absence of a link..

On the morning of June 28, 2004, about two weeks after 19-year-old Ishrat Jahan and three others were killed by Gujarat policemen in a fake encounter outside Ahmedabad, the Jammu & Kashmir Police shot dead two Pakistani men in Aastanpora on the outskirts of Srinagar city, allegedly after they tried to escape from police custody. One of these two men, Shahid Mehmood, allegedly a commander of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, had been arrested two days earlier, on June 26, 2004. In his confessional statement, Shahid Mehmood allegedly said that he had, after watching TV, identified one of the three men killed along with Ishrat as Amjad Ali alias Salim alias Babar, a Lashkar operative who had been trained by Lashkar's India operations commander Muzzamil for "executing plans" in this country.

This alleged disclosure — by a man who was killed almost immediately after he made it — is the only evidence that investigators have put forward to establish that the victims of the June 15, 2004 Gujarat encounter had links with the Lashkar, and that Amjad Ali was from Pakistan.

Related: 'I identified one of the militants whom I saw on TV as Babar'

In his alleged confession, Shahid Mehmood made no mention of Ishrat Jahan, Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Sheikh, or Zeeshan Johar — the three others killed in the fake encounter. He made no reference to the alleged conspiracy to carry out attacks in Gujarat, or to target Chief Minister Narendra Modi. According to the J&K Police, Shahid Mehmood and Zahid Hafiz, the other Pakistani man killed in Aastanpora on June 28, had put together an 18-man Lashkar module in Srinagar. None of these 18 men — who were booked for providing logistic and other support to the two alleged LeT commanders — mentioned either Ishrat or the others in their disclosure statements.

One man spoke of arranging a "secret hideout" for Babar (or Amjad Ali) at the behest of Mehmood, but he knew nothing more. None of the men made any reference to either Gujarat or Modi. Most of these 18 men, booked under the Public Safety Act and locked away for about two-and-a- half years from mid-2004, were subsequently released on bail. They have been living normal lives for years now.

In his affidavit filed before the Gujarat High Court, R V S Mani, under secretary, Internal Security (VI) in the home ministry, said "two of the persons killed in the police encounter on 15-6-2004 were Pakistani nationals and it was known that they were sent by LeT to carry out terrorist actions in Gujarat". "One of the killed LeT cadre was Amjad Ali@Babar@Salim. J&K Police arrested June 25-28, a group of 18 LeT terrorists headed by the chief operational commander for central Kashmir Shahid Mehmood and his Pakistani associate Zahid Ahmad. 

In their disclosures, they mentioned that Amjad Ali@Babbar@Salim had entered India under express instructions from Muzzamil for organizing terrorist networks," Mani said.

Parikshita Gurjar, ACP (Mahila), Ahmedabad City, who initially probed the encounter and found it to be "genuine", said in her affidavit to the court: "...Investigation by Kashmir Police has established that Salim@Babbar@Amjad Ali was Pakistani terrorist and an associate of Aby Osama (killed in an encounter with Kashmir Police) and was dispatched to Ahmedabad by Muzzamil for VIP target..."

"As per the investigations of Kashmir Police, (he) stayed at the residence of Maulvi Abdul Aziz and... Bashir Ahmad Beg, both residents of Srinagar. These accommodations were arranged by LeT operatives namely Mazid Hussain and Parvez alias Khalid... All this clearly proves that Ishrat was an active associate of Javed (Sheikh) and Salim", Gurjar said.

The J&K Police, which initially claimed to have busted a "Lashkar module" and talked about the "connections of this module" with the "two suspected LeT operatives who were gunned down in Ahmedabad on June 15 (2004)", went quiet as more and more questions started to be raised about the encounter. Sources said the J&K Police did not allow a Gujarat Police team that had travelled to Kashmir to take custody of four of the 18 members of the "Lashkar module" who, according to the J&K Police, had sheltered Amjad Ali.

The Gujarat policemen were allowed to question three of these men, but were refused their custody, the sources said. A senior officer involved closely with the case articulated the apprehensions that the J&K Police had at the time: "Another fake encounter would have been impossible to handle. We knew that these men had no information. They were also all local Kashmiris, and had they been killed, it would have become impossible to defend."

Another officer who was posted in Srinagar in June 2004 described a degree of agitation in the J&K Police after the Ishrat encounter.

"I remember a senior officer calling up someone in Gujarat Police saying, why did you kill a woman? It is going to expose the entire thing," the officer said. "If they had only bumped off the men, nobody would have questioned it. The two men killed in Srinagar were Pakistanis, so nobody raised a hue and cry." Nine years after the two encounters in Gujarat and Kashmir, it remains unclear how, when and where the two men killed along with Ishrat and Javed Sheikh — identified as Pakistani Lashkar militants Amjad Ali Rana alias Salim alias Babar, and Zeeshan Johar alias Janbaaz — were arrested.

The J&K Police did not even investigate Mehmood's alleged disclosure to establish whether the man identified as Amjad Ali Rana was in fact Babar.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ishrat-jahan-link-untold-story-of-a-jk-encounter/1142798/0

See also:

Ishrat Jahan case: Record of telephone talk may land Amit Shah in trouble

Aamir Raza holds Narendra Modi responsible for 2002 gujarat riots, quits BJP

David Headley did not name Ishrat, NIA tells Home Ministry 

Sajjan Kumar's trial for murder in the 1984 riots to continue

IB’s campaign to vilify Ishrat Jahan

Ishrat Jahan case: IB can seek immunity if they want, says CBI

Ishrat Jehan's mother appeals for justice // CBI Probe Nails IB Officer’s Role // Important interview with Shamima Kauser's lawyer Vrinda Grover

Public Appeal by R.B. SREEKUMAR, FORMER DGP, GUJARAT

Did Narendra Modi, Amit Shah know of the Ishrat Jahan encounter in advance?

Police records show Gujarat riots weren’t a sudden backlash

Mohan Guruswamy - Who lit the Godhra fire? (July 2002)

Sadiq Jamal Case: CBI Files Affidavit, Says Probe In Progress

Gujarat Police killed Sadiq Jamal despite Intelligence Bureau's clean chit

How Varun Gandhi silenced the system - Tehelka expose

1984 carnage - 5 convicted, main accused Sajjan Kumar acquitted

Probe larger conspiracy says Zakia Jafri's counsel, reminds SIT of SC order regarding 2002 riots

Poornima Joshi: Sangh Singh Song

A Hard Rain Falling (private armies and political violence in India) (EPW)

Read More

Madhu Ramnath - Local politics on the rocks: Tribal people pitted against granite miners in Andhra Pradesh

The direction given by the Union minister of tribal affairs and Panchayati Raj, V Kishore Chandra Deo, to Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy in a similar context is clear: “You are also aware that the Alienation of Land Transfer Regulation Act (ALTRA) strictly prohibits a non-tribal from purchasing any land or even getting it on leases within the scheduled area.....There are several such cases where tribal land alienation has been adversely commented upon by esteemed High Courts and Supreme Court.” This direction by the minister and the above mentioned amendment are important landmarks. More than 8 panchayats in Seethampeta mandal–with 80 to 90 per cent adivasi population – have been left out of PESA. Without the proper enforcement of the said amendments, these villages and forest areas will be vulnerable to exploitation by mining companies. As mentioned earlier, this mandal was the headquarters of the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) and, of the 24 panchayats, only 16 were under Schedule V. Going by the special provisions quoted above, the rules of PESA & the recommendations of the gram panchayat should apply. Proper implementation of PESA is what would protect the region from devastation – there were about 186 quarry leases pending up to December 2012 in Srikakkulam itself. Otherwise the Savara and other adivasi people will be driven out of their hills for no reason other than the greed of a few powerful men. 

The Kannedhara is a medium-sized hill in Srikakulam district of Andra Pradesh. The hill sprawls across the Puliputti panchayat of Seethampeta mandal and is neither spectacular nor very high – it is dotted with podu patches and tall fish-tail palms – but it is sacred to the Jatapa and the Savara peoples of the entire region. For about 14 adivasi villages that surround the hill, it is a source of sustenance, providing them with wild food, some medicinal plants and fuel wood. The waters emanating from the hill fill up 14 tanks in the plains and helps raise about 2,000 acres (one acre equals 0.4 hectare) of paddy. It is believed that the local deity, Mukkidi Polamma, lives there; Mukkidi Polamma and the Kannedhara Konda have both been worshipped by the people for many generations. 

Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh is located in the north-eastern part of the state. A large part of the district lies along the Bay of Bengal; inland, it borders Odisha, a region of small forested hills inhabited by the Savara people who are known for their unusual shamanic culture, focused around female mediums. Most of them practice shifting cultivation on the undulating terrain, and though the forest seems degraded, the diversity of plants is quite high. The people traditionally grow a variety of pulses and millets and more recently have included jackfruit, bananas, hill-brooms, pineapple, oranges and lemon among their crops. Most of the region is rather dry and receives less than 1,050 mm of rainfall annually. A striking feature as one drives through the district–especially Tekkali division–are the devastated hills that have been blasted for granite, the world famous Srikakulam Blue! Officially, there are 200 granite quarries in the district, all working overtime to help get this valuable stone out of the hills. At present, there are 1,966 mining leases and 8,959 quarry leases in the state, spread over an area of 50,220 ha.

A little background

The word granite is rooted in granum, a reference to the coarse-grained structure of the crystalline igneous rock; a fifth of its volume is quartz and it also has mica and feldspar.

Since 2007, The director of mines and geology (DM& G) in Hyderabad has been receiving applications from companies with a single-minded focus on the Kannedhara: granite! Between August 10, 2008 and May 5, 2010, as many as 19 applications were received and rejected. But the application submitted on May 7, 2010 was recommended by DM &G, Hyderabad. This last application was submitted by Virgin Rock (Pvt) Ltd, with an intention to mine colour granite from the hill for a period of 20 years. The managing director of Virgin Rock is Ram Manohar Naidu, son of Dharmana Prasada Rao, the buildings and roads minister of Andhra Pradesh. When the application from Virgin Rock went to Hyderabad in 2010, Rao was minister of revenue. 

The company sought an area of approximately 20 acres and intended to dump the waste within the leased area and to export the granite in its raw form to Italy, Germany and China. However, this area was that part of the Kannedhara already being occupied and cultivated by the Savara people. In 2005-06 the government, under the Land Distribution Programme, had given pattas to 501 families in Survey No. 289 (the number of the entire Kannedhara Hill which comprises 1,995.85 acres; there are five panchayats and 14 villages under this. The sarpanch of Pulliputi panchayat, Mukkalingam Savara, was well aware of the problems that would befall his people if the hill was mined. Under his leadership, the people were able to come together and resist the company... read more:
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/mining-diaries-andhra-pradesh

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Slavery is a $32 billion industry

All too often slavery in some of its more contemporary manifestations – human trafficking, the exploitation of migrant workers, the buying and selling of women and girls into the sex trade – is considered a labour or human rights issue. Ultimately, though, modern-day slavery is at heart a booming economy – a thriving business in human life. Unless this discrepancy is recognised and addressed in the same way as other global crimes, such as those involving drugs and arms, there is no hope of combating the issue.

Legislation is in place to try to curtail modern-day slavery, a multibillion-dollar industry that operates almost entirely by cash and is estimated by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to earn profits of $32bn each year (pdf). However, while a number of conventions and laws have been passed internationally in the past 10 years to try to stop the business – such as the Council of Europe convention, 2005 (pdf) and the EU directive on trafficking, 2011 – there is no consistent will to implement these measures fully or support them with proper budgets. Across the board, there has been a fundamental failure to address the reality of modern-day slavery – an estimated 21 million people are trapped in some form. UN member states and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime do not effectively implement the UN convention against human trafficking, signed in Palermo in December 2000, which could be making a real difference in combating the issue.

The World Bank could be more insistent in its approach to money laundering across the globe. Although cross-border legislation exists, there seems to be no real push to find out where the cash is being banked and confiscate it. Due to the scale of human trafficking, we know there are huge profits being made. At the same time, the ILO has estimated that global slavery is responsible for more than $21bn of unpaid wages each year. Yet no one is making consistent strides to confiscate the profits and prosecute the ringleaders profiteering from the sale of human beings. Without strong action, criminals will continue to pursue this crime because of the enormous proceeds.

Let's turn to the legislation supposedly in place to prevent trafficking and bring the perpetrators to justice. The US state department's Trafficking in Persons report, the principal diplomatic tool to engage foreign governments on human trafficking, is based on the Palermo convention, still considered the backbone of global anti-slavery legislation. The convention does not, however, promote true cross-border action, and there is no mention of the recovery of cash from the profits of human trafficking.

The 2005 Council of Europe convention and the 2011 EU directive on trafficking are much stronger. Both have been consolidated and include cross-border prosecutions and recovery of money. Despite this, only limited work has been done to implement them, with the amount of money recovered very small. Ultimately, no number of declarations will end the business of human trafficking. We need real investment from governments, and the involvement of people who are trained not only to spot human trafficking but also to follow the money.

At the root of all this inaction is a lack of political will to address global slavery. Many governments remain in denial that the problem even exists. Why? Put bluntly, it is because there is no public demand for money to be spent on the issue. Amid the global economic crisis, the 21 million people who remain trapped in slavery are being ignored.

It isn't only criminals who are profiteering from the trade in human labour. Modern-day slavery is an underground business, intrinsically linked to global supply chains. Individuals and companies are making a huge amount of money out of this business and can make it extremely hard for campaigners and governments to chase the cash back to its true source.

Dealing with the murky links between forced labour and global supply chains is perhaps the only real chance we have of cracking the business of slavery. All private companies should be required to sign up to the Athens ethical principles against human trafficking. By signing this agreement, they will be contributing to the eradication of human trafficking and emphasising that this form of business will not be tolerated.

Conventions and laws have been passed over the past few years – including the British Finance Act – that incorporate strong legislation to combat money laundering. However, more explicit laws on the route of money sourced from human trafficking are needed. Until the profits of this business are monitored and confiscated, no real progress can be made towards ending human trafficking. Ultimately, it's only by cutting off the money that we will stop it.

• Mary Goudie is a senior member of the House of Lords and a global advocate for the rights of women and children. She chairs the UN's women leaders' council to fight human trafficking

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/jul/15/slavery-industry-money-human-trafficking

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