Arun Bajpai
Mr Sushil Kumar Shinde the Home Minister of India has issued a special directive to all states a few days back that innocent Muslim youth should not be harassed by the police. Whether we like it or not It implies that the Muslim youth in India are being harassed by the police while other communities in India namely Hindus, Sikhs and Christians were having a good time at the cost of Muslim youths.
Pakistan which is waging a proxy war against India since 1988 had been telling the whole world all along that they are only giving moral support to Muslim community in India because they are being harassed and unduly prosecuted. Now with Indian Home Minister himself coming out with this official directive we have not only strengthened Pakistani claim but have also handed over to Pakistan a good propaganda material. In addition this will breed a sense of prosecution among Muslim youth in India and it is likely that they will fall prey to Jehadis who are on Pakistani pay roll and want to recruit more people from India for terror organisations like SIMI or Indian Mujahideen.
What is really surprising in this directive is that how will Police decide whether a particular youth is innocent or not? This is the exclusive domain of the various courts of India and not the police. The police has to act based on specific complaint.The real problem lies with the clogged machinery of judicial dispension in the country. Currently there are 30 million cases pending in various courts in India. As per the recently released data of National Crime Records Bureau till 2011 the 67.7 percent inmates in Indian jails are those who are under trials, that is to say the accused but still innocent till proven guilty. The convicts are only 32 percent while the things should be other way round. A fairly large number of these under trials are facing only minor offences.
Another set of statics from the same organisation brings out the fact that out of these 254000 under trials in India 69 percents are Hindus, 21 percent Muslims, 4 percent Sikhs,3.5 percent Christians and1.6 percent others. These figures do not justify this directive of the Home Minister unless and until it has a vote bank motive. This directive is akin to recent efforts by the UP Government of SP which was keen to withdraw 198 ongoing terror cases against the jehadis and were only stopped after Allahabad High court stepped. in.
It is really pathetic that Home Ministry of a secular country like, India with its constitution emphasising on secularism, is issuing these type of generalised directives having a definite vote bank overtones. If the Home Minister was really all that worried about undue prosecution of Muslim Youth, he should have identified those states who are at fault and given then strict instructions accordingly. However painting entire India with the same tar is not justified.Very recently the Supreme Court during the hearing of Batala House encounter case had rightly commented that why identify criminals by religion, criminals are criminals.
It is time the politicians in India realise that the country has changed in a big way in last few years thanks to communication explosion and social net working sites. Today with 11 million people using internet and more than 15 million using mobile in India the aam admi has become more discerning.This game of politicians of dividing population on caste and religious lines to garner votes will not gell any more. Home Ministry must come out with specific measures to ensure that no youth irrespective of religion are harassed by police.
Need of the hour is for the ruling Government in power to implement the Police reforms as recommended by the SC in 2006.All terror related cases must be tried by fast track courts with a time bound urgency. The judges in their judgements must comment on the malafide intentions of police during the process of investigations if they find any and such investigating officers must be punished with a heavy hand. The need of the hour is fast and swift justice and not religion specific generalised directives.
(The author is a Brigadier)
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