Can this happen for a Muslim?
The only difference between these two cases is that Ranbir was a Hindu youth and was alone so his case has been settled within five years and 17 police personnel have been sentenced to life imprisonment. The youths of Hashimpura were Muslims and 40 in number so their case has been begging justice in the learned courts for 38 years. There is no judge like Mr Malik who could give justice to the survivors and hang the perpetrators in Khaki.
By Hafeez Naumani
By sentencing police inspector, sub-inspector and constables to life imprisonment for the kidnapping and brutal murder of a young man, Ranbir, Mr JPS Malik, the learned judge of CBI’s Special Court has added a golden chapter in judicial history.
These 17 police personnel had in a fake encounter in Dehradun riddled the body of an educated young man, Ranbir Singh, with 29 bullets. We need not much to say about Ranbir except that he hailed from a Hindu family, was highly educated and had gone to Uttarakhand in search of employment.
Be it the police of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi or Maharashtra it behaves like the unbridled bulls. It is because governments that have been ruling the country for the last 60 years possess slavish mind-set and did not have the courage to change the police manual incorporated by the British in 1860 to control us, the Indians, through police. The result of this is that what was witnessed [in July 2009] in Dehradun and far worse than this in 1978 occurred in Meerut in its Hashimpura area where on the pretext of questioning 40 Muslim youths were picked up from their houses, hurdled together in a truck by the mad dogs of Provincial Armed Constabulary and were shot in scene like a target practice on the river bank.
The only difference between these two cases is that Ranbir was a Hindu youth and was alone so his case has been settled within five years and 17 police personnel have been sentenced to life imprisonment. The youths of Hashimpura were Muslims and 40 in number so their case has been begging justice in the learned courts for 38 years. There is no judge like Mr Malik who could give justice to the survivors and hang the perpetrators in Khaki.
In Maharashtra’s well known city Pune, that for a long time was also known as Puna, the ‘valiant’ activists of Hindu Rashtra Sena attacked, Mohsin Shaikh, a highly educated young man like Ranbir, when he was returning home after offering prayers, and continued beating him with sticks, hockey sticks and iron rods, until his soul had not returned back to its Creator. It is being said that his only fault was that he had an Islamic —not like Narendra Modi’s— beard on his face and a cap on his head like the one our Prime Minister was once seen scared even to touch. It is also said that there has never been such an incident in Pune before. After this incident many Muslim youths have shaved off their beards and have discarded the long kurta and shalwar that had for some time become popular and have now started wearing pants and shirts.
Every Indian Muslim has been shaken by Mohsin Shaikh’s martyrdom and they are worried about its possible effects on Muslim peers like him. Let us add with Mohsin’s martyrdom the campaign by Ram Sena of Karnataka launched in Manglore demanding a ban on Azan [call for morning prayers] before 6.00AM because it disturbs their sleep. There is already a Supreme Court order prohibiting the use of loudspeakers from 10PM to 6AM.
We do accept that loudspeaker is neither a part of Azan; nor is it mandatory. On the contrary to some overcautious scholars its use violates a Sunnah [practice of Prophet PBUH]. It has been only 15 days since new Government was sworn in and its work that formally begins after President’s speech, started yesterday. However, since the evening of 16 May an atmosphere had been created that in 2014 elections Hindus have won and Muslims have been defeated. As for the Hindu politicians, who the Muslims vote for, remain Muslims’ friends for as long as they need their votes. After the elections they become and behave exactly like Maharashtra’s Chief Minister Prithviraj Chauhan or NCP’s leader Sharad Pawar. None one of them has been heard of either going to Mohsin’s house or assuring the Muslims of Pune that the killers of Mohsin would also be dealt in the similar fashion as the police officers who had killed Ranbir in Dehradun and that there was no need for any Muslim either to feel compelled to discard their attires or to remove Islamic identity from their faces.
There used to be only one Shiv Sena in the country and years ago it had started a campaign to force Muslims out of Mumbai. In those days many sensational news stories originated from Mumbai that sent a wave of concern and anguish among Muslims. In those days there happened to be a young lawyer in Lucknow named Akhlaq Ahmad Khan Durrani. Incensed by the incidents in Mumbai he got a full size poster headlined ‘Muslim Sena’ printed from a press and got it displayed all over Lucknow. It gave an account of the developments in Mumbai and advocated for the establishment of a Muslim Sena to defend the community should similar incidents take place in Lucknow. Immediately the next day Pioneer published a 3 col. wide and 9 inches long photograph of the poster with as much vitriolic comments as possible. The impact was that the police of kotwali of Qaisar Bagh and the police of Aminabad station spread in each corner to arrest Durrani. From wherever he might have been at that moment Durrani left for the railway station and leaving everything in his possession behind, fled to Mumbai. Who knows how many senas [armies] are there today but no action is taken against them because these senas are not Muslim senas.
Translated by Urdu Media Monitor. Com from Avadhnama, Lucknow, 11 June 2014