hindustan
30th July 2007, 08:46 PM
By Moorthy
India's Haneef hypocrisy, NDTV Syndrome and Muslim Victims
There has been sickeningly grotesque spectacle all across Indian
media, particularly on NDTV, who have gone bonkers with headlines
about release of Muhammad Hanif, a man who was closely associated with
Indian Muslim terrorists who attempted to blow 1000s of innocent
people to smithereens.
This perverse obsession of India media, backed by Congress and
lefties, of appeasing Muslims by portraying them as victims, has
resulted in obscuring the threat from the ever widening Islamist
terrorist network, and consequent national and now international
ramification. Its time to show M uslims a mirror.
Dutt's assertion that Indian majority see his treatment by the
Australians as sinister attack on Indian national pride is an utter
balderdash. It is only NDTV and like that has tried to create such an
impression. The fact is that most Infidels, Indian in particular,
rather see one alleged Muslims be incarcerated rather than see 100's
innocent killed. Her pandering to Muslims makes this woman oblivious
to the fact that Australia, though a recent victims of Muslim
terrorism, has not suffered even a fraction of what Indians have been
suffering in recent past and past mllenia. This woman talks about
sympathy for this Muslim without providing any credible verifiable
evidence for any existence of such sympathy except one artificially
generated by her channel run by traitorous bearded Bong. In fact,
Infidel Indians across the globe are rightly angry that India has been
now been linked with international terrorism and Indians will now be
viewed with suspicions. Then she chides Indians for there hypocrisy by
alleging that Indian are more ruthless that Australians in trampling
on the rights of alleged terrorists. How stupid can one get?
Haneef: India's hypocrisy
By Barkha Dutt
As we galvanise public opinion against the arrest of an innocent
Indian in Australia, how about sparing some of that anger for the
innocent Indians in India?
OUR schizophrenia as a people is astounding. Right now we are consumed
with self-righteous indignation over how Mohammed Haneef, an Indian
citizen and an initial suspect in the Glasgow bomb blast, was treated
by the Australians. In his humiliation, we see a sinister attack on
our national pride.
In the decision to scrap his visa, we see the premature death of our
own emigration dreams. We want our government to be less effete in its
intervention. We think this is about racism, not terrorism. In itself,
this is a worthy (if slightly selfish) and laudable emotion. By all
accounts, the 27-year-old doctor from Bangalore was victimised,
hounded and tortured. A magistrate had clearly ruled that there was no
evidence to link Haneef with the bombing conspiracies in either
Glasgow or London.
And yet, an innocent man was held in solitary confinement with the
ludicrous explanation that the solitude was actually designed to give
him more 'privacy'. Haneef eloquently argued his own innocence,
describing himself as a "Muslim with moderate views" who believes that
"every drop of blood is human". When Australian Prime Minister John
Howard still went on to declare grandly that he was "not
uncomfortable" with the young doctor's continued detention our outrage
was spontaneous and entirely legitimate.
But, what if Haneef had been arrested in Bangalore instead of
Brisbane? What if a suicide bomber had rammed his explosives-laden car
into the airport at Srinagar, instead of Scotland? And what if our
investigating agencies had then told us that Haneef was a dreaded
terrorist because he had loaned his mobile sim card to one of the men
involved in the attack? Would we have been as concerned then about
whether an innocent man had been locked away?
Would we have demanded transparency from our judicial process on the
grounds that the evidence was sketchy? Or would we have simply ranted
about how India is a soft state and Islam a factory for
fundamentalists? We have branded the Australians as racist, but would
we have called ourselves communal? The overwhelming anger at Haneef's
arrest would be a lot more reassuring, were it not underlined by a
distinct double standard.
Turn your mind back to the Parliament attack of 2001. It was
indisputably an attack on the nerve centre of India, and the desire
for visible justice was entirely understandable. But, in a case eerily
similar to Haneef's, didn't our investigating agencies almost put an
innocent man on death row? The special Pota court trying the case in
its early stages convicted a Delhi-based college teacher along with
the other accused and sentenced him to death. The entire case against
Professor SAR Geelani was based on the fact that he had some
telephonic contact with the prime accused in the days before the
attack.
It was left to the Supreme Court to conclusively throw out the case
against the professor and acquit him of all charges. But even today,
intelligence officials and investigating officers insist that their
case against him was foolproof and they had been let down by the
courts. I don't remember any public outrage defining the national
response to the Professor Geelani case. If anything most people seemed
willing to believe the police and were impatient and dismissive of the
do-gooder human rights activists campaigning for his release.
More recently, Tariq Dar, a Kashmiri model who made it big in
Bangladesh was locked away on charges of terrorism. Accused of playing
a role in the Delhi blasts of 2005, he spent three months in custody.
Finally, the police were forced to concede in court that they did not
have enough evidence to build any case against him, and he was able to
walk free. The judge who acquitted him was passionate in her ruling.
"It's astonishing," she wrote that "without an iota of evidence
against him, Dar was kept in custody for 90 days which could be a
lifetime for any common citizen." But do you remember anyone you know
sharing her anger? Haneef spent almost a month in custody, and we find
that appalling. Yet, we were distinctly unmoved, when someone closer
home, spent much longer in prison. How can we possibly explain this
hypocrisy?
According to the Herald Sun, an Australian citizen, Roy Somerville,
who never met Haneef emerged as an unlikely benefactor and offered to
post the ten thousand dollars in bail because he believes in a 'fair
go'. The newspaper quotes the Brisbane resident as saying that if the
police only charged Haneef for giving his cousins an old sim card,
then it was "bullshit". Can you imagine anyone in India bailing out a
stranger implicated in a case of terrorism?
Of course, it is true that Australia has never known what it feels
like to live in the shadow of militant violence and so its civil
society may find it much easier to be benevolent compared to us. It is
also true that the involvement of Kafeel Ahmed, an engineer from
Bangalore in the Glasgow attack, has busted several myths we have
about ourselves. Readers of this column may remember that just a
fortnight ago, I argued that political correctness on the left and
religious bigotry on the right had strangulated honest conversation
about the linkages between modern-day Islam and terrorism. There is an
undeniable need to stop candy-flossing the impact of fundamentalism.
India cannot pretend anymore that none of its citizens fancy
membership to the Global Jehad club. We need to examine where our
secularism has failed.
But equally, we still need to keep our democracy healthy. This means
that as citizens of a progressive modern country we should be able to
demand transparency from our investigating agencies. It also means
that when people are locked away on flimsy charges, we owe it them and
to ourselves to speak up, even if their politics and antecedents make
us uncomfortable.
70 per cent of the men and women in India's prisons are still awaiting
trial - that's a staggering 300,000 people. Some have already spent
more time in jail just waiting for a court date than they would have
had they been found guilty. So, as we galvanise public opinion against
the arrest of an innocent Indian in Australia, how about sparing some
of that anger for the innocent Indians in India?
courtesy khaleej times
India's Haneef hypocrisy, NDTV Syndrome and Muslim Victims
There has been sickeningly grotesque spectacle all across Indian
media, particularly on NDTV, who have gone bonkers with headlines
about release of Muhammad Hanif, a man who was closely associated with
Indian Muslim terrorists who attempted to blow 1000s of innocent
people to smithereens.
This perverse obsession of India media, backed by Congress and
lefties, of appeasing Muslims by portraying them as victims, has
resulted in obscuring the threat from the ever widening Islamist
terrorist network, and consequent national and now international
ramification. Its time to show M uslims a mirror.
Dutt's assertion that Indian majority see his treatment by the
Australians as sinister attack on Indian national pride is an utter
balderdash. It is only NDTV and like that has tried to create such an
impression. The fact is that most Infidels, Indian in particular,
rather see one alleged Muslims be incarcerated rather than see 100's
innocent killed. Her pandering to Muslims makes this woman oblivious
to the fact that Australia, though a recent victims of Muslim
terrorism, has not suffered even a fraction of what Indians have been
suffering in recent past and past mllenia. This woman talks about
sympathy for this Muslim without providing any credible verifiable
evidence for any existence of such sympathy except one artificially
generated by her channel run by traitorous bearded Bong. In fact,
Infidel Indians across the globe are rightly angry that India has been
now been linked with international terrorism and Indians will now be
viewed with suspicions. Then she chides Indians for there hypocrisy by
alleging that Indian are more ruthless that Australians in trampling
on the rights of alleged terrorists. How stupid can one get?
Haneef: India's hypocrisy
By Barkha Dutt
As we galvanise public opinion against the arrest of an innocent
Indian in Australia, how about sparing some of that anger for the
innocent Indians in India?
OUR schizophrenia as a people is astounding. Right now we are consumed
with self-righteous indignation over how Mohammed Haneef, an Indian
citizen and an initial suspect in the Glasgow bomb blast, was treated
by the Australians. In his humiliation, we see a sinister attack on
our national pride.
In the decision to scrap his visa, we see the premature death of our
own emigration dreams. We want our government to be less effete in its
intervention. We think this is about racism, not terrorism. In itself,
this is a worthy (if slightly selfish) and laudable emotion. By all
accounts, the 27-year-old doctor from Bangalore was victimised,
hounded and tortured. A magistrate had clearly ruled that there was no
evidence to link Haneef with the bombing conspiracies in either
Glasgow or London.
And yet, an innocent man was held in solitary confinement with the
ludicrous explanation that the solitude was actually designed to give
him more 'privacy'. Haneef eloquently argued his own innocence,
describing himself as a "Muslim with moderate views" who believes that
"every drop of blood is human". When Australian Prime Minister John
Howard still went on to declare grandly that he was "not
uncomfortable" with the young doctor's continued detention our outrage
was spontaneous and entirely legitimate.
But, what if Haneef had been arrested in Bangalore instead of
Brisbane? What if a suicide bomber had rammed his explosives-laden car
into the airport at Srinagar, instead of Scotland? And what if our
investigating agencies had then told us that Haneef was a dreaded
terrorist because he had loaned his mobile sim card to one of the men
involved in the attack? Would we have been as concerned then about
whether an innocent man had been locked away?
Would we have demanded transparency from our judicial process on the
grounds that the evidence was sketchy? Or would we have simply ranted
about how India is a soft state and Islam a factory for
fundamentalists? We have branded the Australians as racist, but would
we have called ourselves communal? The overwhelming anger at Haneef's
arrest would be a lot more reassuring, were it not underlined by a
distinct double standard.
Turn your mind back to the Parliament attack of 2001. It was
indisputably an attack on the nerve centre of India, and the desire
for visible justice was entirely understandable. But, in a case eerily
similar to Haneef's, didn't our investigating agencies almost put an
innocent man on death row? The special Pota court trying the case in
its early stages convicted a Delhi-based college teacher along with
the other accused and sentenced him to death. The entire case against
Professor SAR Geelani was based on the fact that he had some
telephonic contact with the prime accused in the days before the
attack.
It was left to the Supreme Court to conclusively throw out the case
against the professor and acquit him of all charges. But even today,
intelligence officials and investigating officers insist that their
case against him was foolproof and they had been let down by the
courts. I don't remember any public outrage defining the national
response to the Professor Geelani case. If anything most people seemed
willing to believe the police and were impatient and dismissive of the
do-gooder human rights activists campaigning for his release.
More recently, Tariq Dar, a Kashmiri model who made it big in
Bangladesh was locked away on charges of terrorism. Accused of playing
a role in the Delhi blasts of 2005, he spent three months in custody.
Finally, the police were forced to concede in court that they did not
have enough evidence to build any case against him, and he was able to
walk free. The judge who acquitted him was passionate in her ruling.
"It's astonishing," she wrote that "without an iota of evidence
against him, Dar was kept in custody for 90 days which could be a
lifetime for any common citizen." But do you remember anyone you know
sharing her anger? Haneef spent almost a month in custody, and we find
that appalling. Yet, we were distinctly unmoved, when someone closer
home, spent much longer in prison. How can we possibly explain this
hypocrisy?
According to the Herald Sun, an Australian citizen, Roy Somerville,
who never met Haneef emerged as an unlikely benefactor and offered to
post the ten thousand dollars in bail because he believes in a 'fair
go'. The newspaper quotes the Brisbane resident as saying that if the
police only charged Haneef for giving his cousins an old sim card,
then it was "bullshit". Can you imagine anyone in India bailing out a
stranger implicated in a case of terrorism?
Of course, it is true that Australia has never known what it feels
like to live in the shadow of militant violence and so its civil
society may find it much easier to be benevolent compared to us. It is
also true that the involvement of Kafeel Ahmed, an engineer from
Bangalore in the Glasgow attack, has busted several myths we have
about ourselves. Readers of this column may remember that just a
fortnight ago, I argued that political correctness on the left and
religious bigotry on the right had strangulated honest conversation
about the linkages between modern-day Islam and terrorism. There is an
undeniable need to stop candy-flossing the impact of fundamentalism.
India cannot pretend anymore that none of its citizens fancy
membership to the Global Jehad club. We need to examine where our
secularism has failed.
But equally, we still need to keep our democracy healthy. This means
that as citizens of a progressive modern country we should be able to
demand transparency from our investigating agencies. It also means
that when people are locked away on flimsy charges, we owe it them and
to ourselves to speak up, even if their politics and antecedents make
us uncomfortable.
70 per cent of the men and women in India's prisons are still awaiting
trial - that's a staggering 300,000 people. Some have already spent
more time in jail just waiting for a court date than they would have
had they been found guilty. So, as we galvanise public opinion against
the arrest of an innocent Indian in Australia, how about sparing some
of that anger for the innocent Indians in India?
courtesy khaleej times