Terrorism in India Archives

What about Tiger Memon?

VidyutJuly 31, 2015October 9, 2015Leave a comment

There is this niggling thing about the 1993 blasts case that just does not add up. We have Yakub's "confession". We have hanged him. We have evidence about Tiger Memon running the show on the 1993 blasts - manpower, materials, location, the works. What evidence is there against Dawood is not clear to my inexperienced eye. I have not come across anything. Every single interview of Dawood and Chhota Shakeel categorically state that they were framed and completely not involved with the blasts, even in interviews where they claim other crimes with chilling candour "uska kaam kar denge" "ha ha humne hi kya na" "hum smuggling aur gang war karte hain" etc - not the slightest deviation in over a decade. And they have slipped in other places, so rehearsed cunning seems difficult to credit over so long a term. For example, while Chhota Shakeel denied involvement with the IPL, the interviewer successfully used it to goad him into revealing reasons for attempting to kill Lalit #Modi.

If there was evidence against Dawood, I doubt that the TV channel research teams would not find it or that the interviewer would not throw it in his face to provoke him further. Still, I understand how Dawood being the bigger don whom Tiger worked for can be presumed to be involved, anyway. And he most certainly left a bloody trail in #Mumbai that got things so hot for him that he had to leave #India for Dubai well before the blasts - so his killing people in a fit of anger over Babri Masjid is hardly something that cannot be believed. And of course it is believable that the slip ups in the interviews were just a calculated foil for making the denials believable - one thing to confess to attempting to kill gangsters and smuggling money, quite another to admit you killed innocents wholesale in a city where you do "business" (their euphemism for underworld activities).

What is difficult to comprehend is how is how we have reached this point where we hanged someone who *claimed* to be innocent and working to expose the #crime ever since he found out about it and arranged for more accused to return to the country - regardless of whether originally captured or surrendered. I accept that #Yakub Memon is hardly going to confess that he is guilty (which too many criminals do), but it is less difficult to understand why he would let evidence against himself survive at all - regardless of whether he was surrendering to India or just in the habit of roaming around with proofs on terror attacks. More importantly, even the conviction sees him at best involved with the finances and tickets. 1993 was supposedly Pakistan ISI's first #attack on Indian soil. It is unclear how providing tickets to go to Pakistan implies the person buying the tickets knew what they would be used for. Still, let us say he knowingly did it and was guilty and rightly hanged. Or at the very least knew of it and did not prevent a crime of this magnitude. Complete benefit of any doubt. He's dead anyway. Guilty unless proved innocent beyond doubt makes no difference now.

Over the last few weeks, I have been going through hundreds of articles of coverage of this case. Old ones, new ones, whatever. There is hardly anything on Tiger Memon beyond the confessions of Yakub Memon, and as a mention in articles on #Dawood Ibrahim after the first year or two when Yakub's confessions were hot. Now this is the man whom we actually have evidence against. And there is this massive silence on him. No particular chases by our intelligence agencies mentioned. No questions in Parliament about his whereabouts, the person who provided concrete proof against him hanged, while his people who planted bombs get life. Dawood is India's most wanted because of the 1993 blasts apparently, yet the person against whom we have concrete proof is never a topic of hot debate. Even our tug of war with Pakistan is over Dawood.

Ajit Doval is fixated on Dawood, as is the state - successive governments, not just Modi. Yakub's hanging comes on the heels of the first attempt on Chhota Rajan's life by Chhota Shakeel since a decade ago in Bangkok. Yet no one seems to have bothered to ask so much as whether Tiger Memon is dead or alive.

Makes one wonder what is going on. Power in India is often seen as silence on crimes and silencing of witnesses. There is no information of crimes of Tiger Memon before or after the 1993 blasts beyond "member of #D-Company" and the person who is prime witness against him in 1993 blasts is hanged by the state and the state itself has not pursued him with any visible urgency. There isn't so much as a photo beyond 400 pixels and a decade old in the public domain for the person with most evidence against him in the 1993 blasts that have put India on an decades long international manhunt.

Cannot help but speculate whether Tiger Memon is the man who knows too many powerful people in India to be ever allowed to come on the radar.

After Yakub Memon’s execution. Now what? 4

VidyutJuly 30, 2015October 9, 20154 Comments

So #Yakub Memon was finally hanged this morning. The #Supreme Court did a dramatic early morning hearing to hear the challenge to the President's rejection of Yakub Memon's mercy petition, and Yakub lost the case.

Even if he had won it, it would have won him at best 14 more days to live. Perhaps some new trick could be pulled out of some hat and he would live for the rest of his life in jail was the hope.

He lost the petition.

There are many arguments in his favor, many against him. I myself was of the view that #death is an irreversible thing. While there is any redeeming factor, a death penalty seems obscene. I am no legal eagle. If someone seems polite and constructive in #prison, that is redeeming enough for me. I hold no eagerness for the life and death of another to rest on my conscience - however evil. I have no revenge gene. That he could not do more harm was good enough for me.

Regardless of my views, it is the Supreme Court that decided and whether it was a melodramatic thing that could have been avoided with a stay and more leisurely process or not, is all a postmortem of a dead thing. So are other arguments. They will not bring him back. They will certainly feed a justified, but toxic sense of persecution among Muslims.

And they achieve nothing constructive. While the death penalty exists, it will be awarded. How often or not is immaterial. If our whole system is prejudiced against Muslims, it will reflect in the sentences and executions as well. The defeat of the death penalty itself was a goal beyond the scope of this case - or indeed every case when we suddenly wake up. It needs to be an independent war.

I am no fan of the #government. I think it is closet fascist - both in terms of #religion as well as economic view. It is a toxic bunch of opportunists there whose worst sin is not even against those they persecute, but those who repose the most faith in them with expectations they have been led to believe, which are little more than carrots.

I agree that the judiciary itself is swayed by public opinion and has several and severe problems with quality (like every aspect of #India). I agree socio-economic conditions are their own bias of availability of opportunities of #justice, and prejudice in who is perceived as innocent or guilty by default more easily than another - which is possibly something that can never be proved without serious behavioral research.

Yet, flawed as it is, there is a need to stop where the system stops. There is a need to pick and choose battles when it comes to #inequality. A dead person cannot be brought back, and harping on about the injustice to him serves no purpose beyond creating distress, resentment and potentially rebellion among those who experience themselves as persecuted by association.

This will be more harmful to the vulnerable sections of society than the powerful ones - whether financially, communally or politically. Frustration and anger can take over ones life and set people on paths they would not otherwise choose. Yakub Memon himself would not be hanged if it were not for frustrations over another evil incident leading an entire group of people down a path that ruined their own lives irrevocably as well, beyond the unsuspecting others they killed. Even a big don like #Dawood Ibrahim, who lived and breathed #Mumbai can never return to his beloved place of birth again. Uprooted forever. Being a gangster is one thing, being accused of mass slaughter is another. Mumbai is no longer safe for him. He must watch over his shoulder all his life. Know that the people of the city he loves want his head for his actions. There is no coming back. For victims or criminals.

A supremacist majority WANTS minorities to do crimes they can hang them for and counts on prejudices they seed to create an acceptance for their retaliatory crimes as victimhood. We have seen this over and over. There is no fear in bloodlust even though talk of dangers is used to create an aura of threat. Nor do they feel any desperation to avoid loss of life of nameless others on their side beyond their advertizing potential in shaping social prejudices - you need victims for victimhood. It is no coincidence that the second attempt to fell the Babri Masjid succeeded when leaders of the movement killed their own to fuel a frenzy of outraged victimhood. While we still have a modicum of functioning judiciary, fair or not, prejudiced by circumstances or not, it continues to be the best bet of a vulnerable minority.

I do not mean that people who are wronged should shut up and suck it up. I most certainly do not endorse communal domination of any sort.

All I say is that Yakub Memon is dead. I appreciate that he was not killed in secret like Ajmal Kasab or #Afzal Guru and he and those trying to save his life had the opportunity to fight for it till the end. It is time to take a pause and reorient and seek justice in ways that enrich and empower everyone.

Even if you look at Yakub Memon's case, there is so much hindsight on what was not done adequately to defend him, that now leads to a perception of him not getting a proper chance. Well, there are many Yakub Memons still in prison. Illiterate, poor people from various castes, classes, religions. People condemned to crimes so horrid that they have no choice but to accept whoever the court forces to help them because even with money no one may take their cases. Perhaps the learnings of this defeat can help them. That would help the process of justice as well, if good legal help were available to those who did not have it.

A robustly defended accused makes for a clearer conscience in whatever his end fate is, leaving no doubt that the #crime is understood and argued fully resulting to a punishment as per law. It is in national interest. It is in the interest of god knows how many who end up serving sentences because they have no idea how to defend themselves.

And it need not be for the death penalty alone. Just yesterday, as I was contemplating Yakub Memon's case, I found myself preferring the death penalty over a long drawn imprisonment (I know Yakub got both). How many in India serve entire terms in jail before seeing the inside of a court?

I am aware, that this is easy for me to say, not knowing Yakub Memon in any way or having fought to save him or suffered similar or even experiencing first hand what it means to be a Muslim and have a default perception of guilt when accused. All I am saying is that I do care and I respect a battle well and passionately fought and I believe that it is important for everyone that the Supreme Court word remain final - particularly given that it can no longer be changed.

I think the moment of high drama is when emotions cause extreme stands. To save an accused in a horrendous crime and see the end of justice in it as though we aren't killing innocents daily. To stand outside a jail baying for blood of one who spilled ours, while the ones who planted the bombs got their sentences without a fuss, and they live. A moment of climax focuses everything we feel about a subject on a single outcome.

But sometimes, it is time to step back, breathe and look at the living.

#याकूब_को_फांसी_दो #SaveTiger trends as SC dismisses #YakubMemon’s plea

VidyutJuly 29, 2015October 9, 2015Leave a comment

Short, disappointed post just tickled at the irony. In my post "Who profits from hanging Yakub Memon?" I had pointed out that hanging him basically means yet another dead witness in #India's grand tradition of dead witnesses against powerful criminals.

Ironically, as the news of the #Supreme Court dismissing his curative petition on the day before his hanging is scheduled hit Twitter, two of the top trends were ##SaveTiger and #याकूब_को_फांसी_दो.

The savetiger trend is because it is International tiger day today. It is only a supreme and ironic coincidence that the chief accused in the 1993 #Mumbai blasts against whom #Yakub Memon provided proof that broke the case wide open is nicknamed.... Tiger Memon.

Earlier Yakub had been found medically fit to be killed. A perplexing requirement for a hanging. How does it matter if someone is fit or unfit while being killed?

Since then, the #Maharashtra Governor too has refused Yakub's plea.

Yakub Menon even more strange – a case of Chinese whispers? #YakubMemon

VidyutJuly 28, 2015October 9, 2015Leave a comment

At 1:52 this afternoon, Majid Memon, a journalist, wrote an article "Yakub Memon: Break the official omerta - In #Yakub Memon case, state displayed bad faith" about his perceptions about the case and how he had helped verify information Yakub Memon had got with him about the residences of #Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon and another smuggler, Taufiq Jallianwala, whom the #CBI had not known of before. He described videos Yakub had made of their residences, and chaperoning provided by the ISI in Karachi, Bangkok and Karachi again. He described audio recorded by him of Tiger Memon with his associates.

He says that the Narsimharao #government betrayed Yakub Memon due to increasing pressure about being soft on terror and that the various officials - not just of intelligence agencies, but diplomats as well were silent because of a top down omerta and should be granted amnesty from the charge of contempt of court, if they are to testify - B Raman too had hesitated for this reason, as per him.

By 6:04pm, #NDTV has published an article with statements from CBI officers that deny these claims. Shantanu Sen, who led the operation on the CBI end claims they knew there were differences in the Memon family over the blasts and some of them wanted to return to #India as they were not happy in Pakistan. He denies that any deal had been struck and that they nabbed Yakub in Kathmandu. He denied that Yakub Memon had been duped and points out that of the 11 family members who came to India, only four got sentenced. His parents got bail and charges against them would be dropped had the matter come to prosecution before they died.

Mr Chattwal, who had been named by Yakub's ex-lawyer as the CBI contact who told them to get bail and later betrayed them, said that he had received no such instructions and that Yakub had not cooperated with the investigation, but that the evidence was recovered from him at the time of the arrest.

A few days earlier, Ujjwal Nikam, the public prosecutor claimed not to know of the mitigating circumstances B Raman wrote of at all.

One possibility is that there is an evil conspiracy on hand, etc etc.

Is the other explanation more simple?

Is this yet another horrendous example of lack of communication between investigating and intelligence agencies? B Raman who headed Pakistan desk of R&AW and oversaw the arrest clearly saw mitigating circumstances. Shantanu Sen who led the CBI investigation was clearly aware of cooperation as his claim of Yakub Memon not being duped demonstrates (if there was no deal, where would a question of duping arise?). On the other hand, Chattwal, who apparently was the CBI guy at the courts end was not aware of any deal and believes the evidence to have been recovered from Yakub at the time of his arrest. Ujjwal Nikam, public prosecutor who asked for the #death penalty is not aware of any mitigating circumstances at all.

That there was some deal does not take rocket science to understand. If Yakub Memon was not cooperating and had been arrested and evidence against himself recovered, why would he call his family to India? Morever, if Yakub Memon had any evidence proving his own guilt, why in the world would he carry it at all, when he knows the documents he carries will go to Indian authorities? The idea is he came to India expecting justice and mercy for cooperation, not proving own guilt, right?

The 30th approaches and this story only gets murkier.

Who profits from hanging Yakub Memon? 11

VidyutJuly 26, 2015July 26, 201511 Comments

Yakub Memon is the brother of Tiger Memon and provided him and Dawood Ibrahim financial assistance in the planning of the Mumbai train blasts of 1993. After the blasts, Dawood Ibrahim and the Memon family escaped to Pakistan, where they lived under the protection of the ISI.

To make a long story short, anecdotal accounts reveal that the family did not approve of Tiger Memon's terrorist act and wished to return to India and Yakub consulted with a cousin from Bombay with regard to surrendering to justice in India. He had traveled to Kathmandu with documents, video and audio tapes that incriminated Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon. While specific details in the interim are not clear, what is known is that Yakub Memon came to the attention of Nepal police and surrendered and was brought to India by road and flown to Delhi and formally arrested.

After he was arrested, he provided crucial evidence regarding the terrorist conspiracy to Indian agencies that helped, for the first time in conclusively establishing the role of Pakistan's ISI in terrorist attacks in India. He also arranged for his family to travel from Pakistan to Dubai and surrender to Indian authorities and be brought to India.

In essence, Yakub Memon had a peripheral role in the attacks and provided assistance to the investigation that helped establish the real culprits conclusively. While the nature of his agreement with the Indian agencies is unclear, an article by B. Raman, who headed the Pakistan desk of the Research and Analysis Wing of India when Memon was arrested is categorical that his actions and assistance constituted mitigating circumstances and that the prosecution should not have asked for a death penalty.

An article in the Times of India, after his sentencing in 2007 described that the family returned to India after discovering the magnitude of the damage from the attack and to make themselves available for questioning. The understanding was that the women would not be arrested, but only questioned, while the men would be arrested, but assisted to get bail. The family was not involved in Tiger Memon's underworld activities.

According to the Quint, which quotes Shyam Keswani on ABPLive, the Indian government reneged on the deal, rendering the CBI helpless with regard to their agreement with Yakub. "A senior investigating officer of the CBI called us for a meeting in one of the bungalows opposite the Secretariat....The CBI officer told me to file a bail plea and that the CBI would not oppose it. The reason for this, he said, was that Memon had helped the agency unravel things it would not have been able to in 30-35 years...The next day I filed a bail application, but the CBI opposed it tooth and nail. Later I met the same CBI officer and asked him why were you joking with me? He apologised and told me the Government of India has changed its stand... He was betrayed by the Government of India."

And the rest is history.

To the bloodthirsty fanatic supporters of the government, a hanged Muslim terrorist is good news, and anyone questioning that is defending terrorists and against national interest, and so on. The usual tape.

However, in my view, there are several serious reasons Yakub Memon should not be hanged.

What was his role in the actual attacks?

His involvement does not appear to have extended to the actual attacks at all. A chartered accountant helping his brother with finances - which are used in a terrorist attack - does not exactly scream of knowingly carrying out terrorist attacks. A death penalty seems disproportionate for his known "crime".

What is the value of the word of the Indian government?

While the exact nature of the deal with Yakub Memon is unknown, logic would tell us that he would not hae requested for the death sentence for himself and life sentences for his family as a condition of surrender. The government prosecuted him with proofs he willingly provided to bring the real perpetrators to book. We seem to have taken the easiest route to having someone to hang rather than following through on our word as well as pursuing the real culprits. It is whatever deal he made that brought the rest of the family to India. The documentary proof he provided allowed India to make a strong case against the real perpetrators - of this there is no doubt - Tiger Memon and Dawood Ibrahim. India not upholding its part of the deal stinks of dishonesty.

Whose interests are served?

Yakub Memon and his family frustrated the ISI and returned to India and their actions here helped India. Hanging Yakub Memon almost sounds like India serving the ISI by punishing them for betraying Pakistan.

Yakub Memon was advised by his cousin as well as Tiger Memon to not return to India. His hanging for doing exactly that proves that Tiger Memon was right and that the government couldn't care less about guilt or innocence if they have a hanging to show people for a crime.

What is lost with Yakub Memon?

Given the rabid nationalism going high decibel about terrorists, I'm not going to make humanitarian arguments about the death penalty or indeed the terrorist's interest at all. No use. We are beyond that. Life does not matter here if there is a good excuse, and there are a thousand excuses for taking the life of a terrorist.

Given how little regard we have for the country's laws or honor, it seems pointless to expect the word of the country to mean anything when a convenient hanging is in sight. After all, we specialize in saying whatever is convenient and doing whatever is convenient - independently of each other.

Given how little respect we have for anyone pleading to save lives, let us ignore the petition by eminent jurists, politicians and more.

However, what will even give nationalists pause is the question whether we have given up on bringing Tiger Memon or Dawood Ibrahim back? Or is hanging a peripheral accused already in the hands of the Indian government and letting go of the kingpins a part of some bizarre track two? Are we seriously saying that we would not need Yakub Memon to nail Tiger Memon and Dawood Ibrahim to the wall if we succeeded in capturing them? Or is this a quiet admission that we aren't going to get them and we might as well hang someone?

Are we saying that hanging Yakub Memon is in our interest while the main perpetrators are at large? Is his testimony or further information not of any importance in the event we can negotiate an extradition or to bring about international pressure for such an extradition?

All that hanging Yakub Memon proves is that the Indian government cannot be trusted to uphold their part of deals with approvers for intelligence on crimes. It serves terrorist interests by deterring any affiliate who has intel from taking it to the authorities. If they fail to grab the real culprits even with information you provide, you'll be hanged in the place of the culprits.

It is really troubling that the prosecution and courts have chosen to think like an average rioter on the street. One Memon masterminded the blasts and is out of reach, crucify his family!

And for what? The real culprits still roam free in Pakistan. Yakub Memon never bombed anyone. You are no safer with him dead or alive. All we are doing is getting rid of a key witness - legally, this time, advertizing that India cannot be trusted to make deals for intel in an extremely high profile manner and achieving little more than a dead body that would otherwise live in prison for life.

The ISI should probably send a thank you card to the Indian idiots.