Anza Kanwal
On the midnight of 18-19 February 2007, India-Pakistan Samjhota Express train was bombed in which 68 Pakistani nationals were killed. A Hindu extremist Swami Aseemanand, a leader of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has confessed that he was involved in several bombings incidents. He also claimed to have been a part of the incident. On 20 March 2019, a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in India’s Haryana state acquitted four individuals accused in the Samjhauta Express bombing case. Twelve years after the incident, the apparently strong indictment of the accused has been trumped with a simple one-line message: the investigating agency has failed to prove the conspiracy charge and the accused deserve the benefit of the doubt. The fact that the prosecutors failed to apprehend three out of the eight people it wanted to charge-sheet is in itself indicative of just how impossible the trial was. Reports say there are no plans to challenge the ruling in a higher court.
It is worth mentioning that the ruling is an insult to the 42 Pakistani victims of the Feb 18, 2007, bombing of the train that had set off for Lahore, and a sharp reminder of how opponents of sub-continental peace are allowed to get away with the biggest crimes. It is a rebuke to the more than 20 victims of the explosion with Indian nationality and it is a snub to the efforts of those investigators of Haryana, where the incident took place, who tracked the suspects in a high-pressure probe. he verdict in the landmark case came two weeks before voting starts in India’s national election in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist leader, is seeking re-election. Among those acquitted last week was Swami Aseemanand, an influential Hindu monk belonging to a group with historic ties to Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
There is a painful contrast between the work of police investigators assigned to look into this blatant act of terror in the initial stages and a special court of India’s National Intelligence Agency which announced the judgment. That police team overcame all kinds of pressure to first reject the opinion that this was an act carried out by a Muslim extremist group, and then to actually announce it was a job carried out by organised Hindu extremists. The prosecution termed it a criminal conspiracy which threatened the “unity, integrity, security and sovereignty” of India. If these strong words offered any hope to the families of the victims and to pro-justice people generally, the rhetoric eventually gave way to the usual politics.
The Hindu extremist parties, including Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal, want the ‘majoritarian transformation’ of India, whereby the primacy of just one community (Hindu) can be asserted over all the others. In other words, it was this agenda of extremist Hindus, which allowed them to engage in violent activities. They want India to be a full-fledged Hindu state with the superiority of Hindus over other communities. For this purpose, they usually employ three techniques: Banish all minorities out of India; or force them to convert into Hinduism; and if they do not accept these two conditions, then kill them to purge Bharat of the people other than the Hindus. Thus, all the dedicated Hindus are following these lines.
In short, the plight of Indian Muslims, especially, during BJP’s era has surpassed all previous records. There is a need to expose Modi’s fundamental policies dictated by RSS, to unleash atrocities on Indian minorities and still showcase India to be a secular state. Unfortunately, secular claims are not substantiated by the ground realities. The reality is that India has an unwritten mandate of pushing the minorities against the wall through State policies as well as by hardliner Hindu politicians. On the other hand, India is protesting with nationwide stir against the CAA-NRC-NPR and false rumours claiming 65% Indians supporting the new Citizenship (Amendment) Act have emerged to mislead citizens. As protests continue across the nation, 11 state CMs have rallied against the implementation of the National Register of Citizens in their respective states. These 11 states account for 54 per cent of India’s landmass with 56 per cent of its total population. PM Modi’s claims that no NRC has been discussed by his government has proved untrue, misleading since Home Minister Amit Shah, as well as President of India and other BJP leaders, have strongly declared NRC will be implemented across the nation no matter what may come.
True to form, Delhi tried to find refuge in the exchange of allegations with Pakistan where both sides have pointed a finger at the other for not seriously prosecuting groups blamed for terrorist acts inside each other’s territory this despite many appeals that have highlighted what dangerous consequences a half-baked probe of such acts could lead to. Pakistan’s reaction to the Samjhauta ruling has been as predictable as it is sharp. Islamabad’s response aptly underlines the fact that the terrorists had publicly confessed to their ‘odious crimes’. It says the verdict smacks of duplicity and hypocrisy and exposes the Indian policy of patronizing Hindu terrorists. The distinction though is that it did begin with confessions but the proceedings progressively degenerated into a cover up for the accused.
