Wednesday, August 20, 2008
DON'T LET SIMI GO by Ghulam Muhammed
Thursday, August 21, 2008
DON'T LET SIMI GO
According to a front page report in Mumbai's Inquilab Urdu daily, there is a definite connection between the Supreme Court case hearing and UPA Government's counter affidavit against SIMI's exoneration by the Unlawful Activities tribunal. People were bewildered less by the sweep of the arrests of so-called SIMI activists on the suspicions of being involved in the recent Ahmedabad and Surat explosions, but more by the timing of the depth and sweep of media coverage of the mass arrests, giving out so many details on each and every person supposedly involved in the crime. Pages on pages in The Times of India were blackened on the details written out by their own staff. The whole media preparation that has gone into the project is mind-boggling.
As in the case of the now infamous Arushi murder case, the jugalbandi between Police authorities, this time of various states remarkably cooperating with each other for the 'national cause' of demonizing Muslims and the very obliging media lapping up the extensive material supplied by the investigating agencies. None of the media editors bothered to check if the media sentencing of innocents and character assassination of whole community on the basis of a few ‘usual suspects’ arbitrarily picked up by police with big hoopla, without any proof and without any authority to denigrate them, is entirely legal. In fact, in strict judicial terms, with such an organised adverse publicity by the media, the whole case against SIMI in court can be thrown out as mistrial.
The time has come when trial by media should stop.
The other strange fact is that with so much information with the investigating agencies on the supposed culprits, how the alleged criminals were able, or allowed to go through with their nefarious plans, if any.
Now, the cat is out of the bag.
A strong feeling among the dissenting people, whose majorities are getting greater and greater by the hour, is that UPA government, under pressure from their own internal extremist Muslim-haters and for consolidation of their own Hindu Vote Bank, have organised this farce of a grand drama of using summary arrests of so-called SIMI terrorist, so that their case with the Supreme Court, could be successfully processed.
The simpletons are under the impression that the august Supreme Court will be as gullible as the Media, to accept all summary charges made by the investigating agencies and stay the lifting of the ban of SIMI as a student organisation working within Muslim community.
If Supreme Court has the recent Arushi case under observation, where both police and media had gone on a frenzy of spreading concocted stories about the whole murder scenarios, the recent hoopla organised through the medium of pliant media by the UPA government, will fall on its face.
The most glaring aspect of the whole UPA imbroglio is that their own coalition partners, all non-Brahmins, like Lalu Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav, and Ram Vilas Paswan are openly questioning the unjustified arrests and demonisation of SIMI. The stark division between Brahmins and non-Brahmins in the political circles over the subject has never been so public.
It is time Prime Minister should gather courage and stand by the truth.
You can fool some of the people some of the time. Not all of the people all of the time.
Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com
www.ghulammuhammed.wordpress.com
Labels: India's English press, India's Supreme Court, Indian Muslims, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, SIMI
