Nobody Kills Anybody in India Today

An alumnus of IIT and Harvard, and a minister of the Government of India, Jayant Sinha has recently courted infamy by garlanding members of a lynch mob that beat to death 52-year-old Alimuddin Ansari in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand. What is not so widely known is the fact that the minister had organised legal defence for the accused and personally paid for the legal costs. So, the brouhaha over a few garlands is pointless.

Although a lower court had sentenced the eight men to life imprisonment based on pictures apparently circulated by the murderers themselves, just THREE MONTHS after the conviction, on 29 June, 2018, the Jharkhand High Court suspended the life sentence of BJP leader, Nityananda Mahto and 7 Others, and let them free on bail.

Sabrang India reports that after the convictions, Alimuddin’s widow Mariam Ansari made headlines when she had said ‘she was against the death penalty’ for the killers of her husband. But such headlines and noble sentiments are not even a footnote in an India where hatred is the currency of political exchange.

A lawyer representing the convicts was quoted by New York Times saying, “… yes, the mob had roughed up Mr. Ansari but that it was actually police officers who beat him to death, in custody.” The lawyer pointed to photos that have been circulating on social media that show Mr. Ansari looking alert and apparently not badly injured as officers led him away from the mob.

Fast forward to the night of 20-21 July ignoring everything else, another innocent Muslim, Rakbar Khan, was brutally murdered by a mob of cow vigilantes in a village in Alwar, Rajasthan while he was taking home two cows he had purchased.

Strange, strange things happen after the vigilantes accost Rakbar.

1. One of the men in the mob, Naval Kishore, calls up the police at 12.41 AM. From the events that follow, Naval Kishore seems to be small-time big gun among the cow goons, a minor politician from the ruling party, who is a major power in rural pockets.

2. The policemen pick up a grievously injured Rakbar at 1.15-1.20.

3. They provide no medical aid to Rakbar.

4. They make absolutely no attempt to arrest his attackers.

5. They wash Rakbar in custody and dress him up in rather jazzy borrowed clothes.

6. They allow people to photograph Rakbar, who happily upload his pics on the social media.

7. They take the victim to Naval Kishore’s home to arrange – hold your breath – transport for the two cows to a shelter. Later, one of Kishore’s relatives, Maya, tells NDTV that she saw “a policeman beating the man inside the vehicle and abusing him.” Asked if the man was still alive, she says yes.

8. The policemen and Naval Kishore drink tea at a tea stall while the victim is dying on the floor of the police vehicle.

9. After accomplishing the task of sending the cows to the shelter and having refreshments, the policemen start for the nearest hospital.

10. Finally, after more than three hours, they cover the distance of one kilometre between the police station and the hospital at 4 AM. By then, Rakbar Khan is dead.

If you think the revolting chain of atrocious events stopped after Rakbar’s death, you do not know what India has become after four years of glorious saffron rule.

On 25 July, Hindustan Times reported, Rajasthan’s home minister Gulab Chand Kataria, (who defended the new breed of cowboys earlier too), said that Rakbar died in police custody. To quote the shameless minister: “According to the evidence we have collected, it looks like a custodial death.” The not-so-hidden message is that the vigilantes didn’t kill.

Alimuddin Ansari’s killers enjoy their freedom today because identical arguments were used to protect his murderers. Naval Kishore’s relative Maya started the process, the home minister continues with the fibbing. It would be safe to anticipate that Rakbar’s killers too will go out scot free, to be garlanded by some other luminary. This wretched government will find a judge or two who would buy their nonsensical stories. (Why not? Ordinary people wait for justice for years, sometimes decades; tens of thousands of undertrial prisoners rot in Indian prisons for years, but how long did it take to free the saffron murderers?)

If this is a template to save people who murder innocents in for no reason except out of sheer hatred, can you imagine what kind of cold-blooded cunning criminals are ruling us from Rajasthan to Jharkhand?

Secondly, there is a bigger moral of this sordid story, if you sell your soul to a dangerous ideology that sanctifies hatred, you won’t be able to think straight. It doesn’t matter whether you are a semi-educated village politico, or a Harvard Educated former consultant at McKinsey & Company. I would appeal to my friends who still are Modi Bhakts, "Please thiink, if you still can."

These days, my blood boils when I read newspapers. Does yours?

Thursday, 26 July 2018

[Picture of Rakbar Khan's family is from the website of NDTV 24X7]