As the political reactions poured in after the arrest of alleged Indian Mujahideen terrorist Yasin Bhatkal, one reaction stood out.
It was the Samajwadi Party’s Kamal Farroqi saying, “Police should ascertain whether Bhatkal’s arrest is based on crime or religion.” The implication was clear. He was suggesting that Bhatkal had been arrested not because he is a terrorist, but because he is a Muslim.
A similar story has been playing out on the other side of the religious divide. It concerns alleged godman Asaram Bapu, who is now accused of sexually assaulting a minor girl. He has earlier been accused of murder as well. In his case, the Bharatiya Janta Party,which was clamouring death sentences for rapists, was silent, except for a few leaders who spoke out in support of the suspect. BJP leader Uma Bharati made a statement saying, “Asaram Bapu is innocent…false cases are being lodged against him in Congress states.”
In both cases, the striking thing, for any honest and unbiased person, should be the partisan nature of the politicians who were trying to politicise cases against suspected criminals. Everyone likes to complain about how corrupt the police is, how they never do their jobs, and so on. Yet when they actually do go about doing their jobs, who do we find obstructing their ways?
Why, politicians, of course. In the two cases mentioned above, it is politicians who are clearly aiming at votes of one religious co munity or the other.
Such politics is definitely against the interests of delivery of justice. It is also against the interests of the country, and every person who lives in it. The issue of terrorism and the Muslim community is a sensitive and complex one. It is true that several Muslim youths arrested as terror suspects have subsequently been found innocent by courts of law. It is also true that several have been found guilty of involvement in acts of terrorism going back to the Mumbai serial blasts, whose main suspect, Dawood Ibrahim, remains at large. The existence of Dawood Ibrahim is not fiction. That there have been serial bomb blasts in many cities in India from 1993 to now is not fiction. That some of these acts were carried out in revenge against communal attacks by the Hindu right wing is not fiction. In fact, the Babri Masjid demolition and Gujarat riots were specifically cited in the mails sent by the Indian Mujahideen following their terror attacks in 2008. The riots do not justify the terror attacks, but then, those riots themselves shouldn’t have happened in the first place. It all happened because of power politics and a cycle of vengeance going back 500 years. That is not just harmful, it is ridiculous.
In its report on the Babri Masjid demolition, the Liberhan Commission of Enquiry wrote that, “For some, the temptation of power is supreme…there is always an urge and a quest to use politics for one’s own purpose — nothing matters beyond politically desirable results, however achieved.” Looking now at the statements of certain politicians on Yasin Bhatkal and Asaram Bapu, it is clear that the same tendencies are still very much present. It is up to ordinary Indians, both Hindus and Muslims, to see that eventually, only loss and harm can result from supporting suspected criminals, whether terrorists or rapists, merely because they belong to one community or another. We must not let politics get in the way of justice.