Anti-terror ops being ruined, IB tells Centre

‘Kumar’s Role Was Limited To Relaying Info’

TNN | Jul 7, 2013

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: With the possibility of itssenior officer Rajinder Kumar being prosecutedby theCBIin theIshrat Jehan “fakeencounter”case growing by the day, the Intelligence Bureau has cautioned the government that the yardstick being applied by the CBI to fix the official’s culpability could imperil counter-terror operations.
    Sources said top IB officials have bluntly told the home ministry that the CBI’s approach towards Kumar and four other IB officers does not take into account either the nature of their job or the operational requirements of the shadowy war against terrorism.
    They said Kumar’s role was limited to passing on intelligence inputs about a Lashkar-e-Taiba module that was on the prowl, and IB officials from now would be wary of associating themselves with counterterror operationsif hewere to be prosecuted for murder when he was only doing his duty. “We have conveyed our view to the home minister and the home secretary as candidly as we could,” said an official.
    “This is an asymmetric war waged against an enemy who does not play by the rules. Government has to appreciate that no counterterror operation can succeed if the officials were made to follow the rules which are applicable in the case of common criminals,”saidsources.The role of the IB team in Gujarat in the Ishrat case stopped at collecting, processing and sharing of inputs, they said.
    “They did not do anything different from what wasdonein theBatla House caseor theAnsalPlaza case, which pertained to passing on the intelligence inputs on terror plots,” said the official.

INTEL GROUSE

If CBI prosecutes IB officer Rajinder Kumar, it will imperil counter-terror ops in future, IB tells govt
Kumar’s role was limited to passing on intel inputs about a Lashkar module on the prowl, it claims
Adds IB not responsible for what the Gujarat cops may have made of the inputs passed on to them

No IB role in Ishrat encounter: Officials

An official stressed that the IB cannot be held responsible for what the Gujarat Police personnel might have made out of the inputs passed on to them.
    While distancing the agency from the alleged fake encounter, he claimed that the intelligence gathering in the case had the makings of a successful counter-terror operation and would have been appreciated had it not been for alleged extrajudicial killings.
    Giving details of the case, he said, the IB worked on the breakthrough made by Gujarat Police’s Crime Branch when the latter managed to zero in on two Indian youth who had returned to India after training in a LeT camp in Pakistan. Identified as C1 and C2 in CBI’s chargesheet, the duo disclosed, IB sources claimed, to the Crime Branch about LeT commander Muzammil’s plan to target five senior Sangh Parivar leaders in mid-May, 2004. Interestingly, the plan had been made on the assumption that the BJP was going to win the election and that there would be a huge victory rally in Ahmedabad around May 15 when Lalaji (LeT’s code name for L K Advani) and Mubarak (Narendra Modi) would be present, perhaps because Advani, who represents Gandhi Nagar in Lok Sabha, would be on a thanksgiving visit.
    The Crime Branch shared the information with the IB and they together managed to get CI and C2 to agree to lure a LeT sleeper cell to Gujarat.
    On his part, Muzammil did not abort the plot despite noting that the BJP had “failed” at the hustings, and dispatched a Pakistani LeT operative, Zeeshan Zohar, to Gujarat. Zeeshan, one of the two Pakistanis killed in the alleged encounter, was taken by CI and C2 to an accommodation which the IB and the Gujarat Police were keeping under 24x7 surveillance.
    Muzammil also arranged for the delivery of a weapon through another Indian operative of Lashkar who was subsequently killed in an encounter in Uttar Pradesh. The delivery of the weapon occurred near a place of worship in Ahmedabad with the officials of IB and Gujarat Police watching from a distance. They did not intervene because they wanted to catch the entire module, though they took the precaution of ensuring that the weapons remained in the possession of C1 and C2. “This was because we were not sure what the Pakistani would have done with the weapons”.
    Shortly afterwards, Amzad Ali Rana, another Pakistani who was killed in the “fake” encounter also arrived. Rana who was earlier active in J&K and had even suffered a bullet wound for which he was treated here, found something amiss about the accommodation that CI and C2 had arranged, and insisted on moving out with Zeeshan.

Vanzara said he had sanction of political bosses: police witness

Ahmedabad, July 6, 2013

 

CBI charge sheet quotes witness statement

The charge sheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case does not name Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and the then junior Home Minister Amit Shah, but it contains a statement by a police witness saying that he had heard Crime Branch DIG D.G. Vanzara telling his junior that he had the sanction of political bosses for the encounter. The charge sheet submitted on Wednesday has, as an annexure, this statement by Deputy Superintendent of Police (Crime Branch) D.H. Goswami under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code before an additional judicial magistrate of the Esplanade Court in Mumbai. Mr. Goswami said that when he went to the Crime Branch office along with Superintendent of Police G.L. Singhal two days before the encounter, Additional Director-General of Police P.P. Pandey, Mr. Vanzara and Intelligence Bureau official Rajinder Kumar were present. Mr. Goswami said he heard them discussing some Lashkar-e-Taiba operation, with Mr. Rajinder Kumar asking Mr. Vanzara to consult the Chief Minister.

Mr. Vanzara said he would speak to safed dadhi (white beard), that is Mr. Narendra Modi, and kali dadhi (black beard), meaning Mr. Amit Shah. According to Mr. Goswami’s statement, two days later, hours before the encounter, when Mr. Singhal objected to the plan to kill Ishrat and others, Mr. Vanzara told him that he had the approval of the political bosses.

The first charge sheet by the CBI has strong references to the role of Mr. Rajinder Kumar in the encounter, but it has not fixed charges against him.

It says that Mr. Kumar met Mr. Vanzara and Mr. Pandey at the government bungalow number 15 in Shahibaug to discuss the plan to eliminate Ishrat, Javed Shaikh, Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar.

Depicting the death as an encounter in the First Information Report was also discussed.

Call data

Call data records obtained by the CBI show that Mr. Kumar and Mr. Vanzara spoke with each other 37 times, often at odd times, during the week leading to the day of the encounter.

The IB official also spoke to Mr. Pandey 10 times. Though the charge sheet has called the encounter a “joint operation” by the IB and the Gujarat police, it has named only Mr. Vanzara and Mr. Pandey as the accused.

 

Copyright© 2013, The Hindu

Ishrat killing a fake encounter: CBI

AHMEDABAD, July 4, 2013

4 Gujarat police officerscharged-sheeted, IB officials named as facilitators for now

The Central Bureau of Investigation’s first charge sheet in the nineteen-year-old Ishrat Jahan encounter case filed on Wednesday stated that the alleged killing was a joint operation of the Gujarat police and the Intelligence Bureau and named seven State police officials as the accused.

The agency, which submitted its charge sheet at a crowded court room at the Special CBI court here, has not fixed charges against four IB officials allegedly involved in the conspiracy, saying it needed more time for investigation.

But the names of the IB officials — Special Director Rajinder Kumar, Assistant Director (Ahmedabad) M. K. Sinha, Deputy Superintendent of Police Rajeev Wankhede and P Mittal — figure in the charge sheet as those who allegedly facilitated the killing by generating fake intelligence inputs as well as by being present at the crime scene.

Gujarat police officers involved in the staged encounter and the joint police commissioner heading the crime branch then, P. P. Pandey, have for the record stated that it was the IB alert that a Lashkar-e-Taiba module was out to assassinate Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi that triggered the shooting.

The chargesheet states that the college girl Ishrat and three others were abducted and then killed in a staged encounter by officers and men of the Ahmedabad Crime branch.

As the team of CBI counsel arrived at 5 pm in the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate H. S. Khutwad in the presence of hordes of journalists waiting since morning, it told the judge that the charge sheet was quite bulky and could not be brought to the court room but would be verified in the records room.

The CBI counsel read out the operative part from a summary and completed the verification process after over an hour. The Gujarat police officials chargesheeted are Additional Director General of Police P. P. Pandey, Deputy Inspector General of Police D. G. Vanzara and Superintendents of Police N. K. Amin, G. L. Singhal, J. G. Parmar and Tarun Barot. Besides them, the name of a commando Anaju Chaudhary also figures in the document.

The cops have been charged with murder, criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, illegal confinement and destruction of evidence. Sections of the Arms Act have also been imposed on them. The CBI has found no charges against nine cops whose statements it had recorded under Section 169 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

A CBI counsel told The Hindu that there would be a supplementary chargesheet against the IB officials and others, though he refrained from saying if any politicians had been named. He said there was no time frame to file the second document.

Contrary to media speculation, the first chargesheet neither refers to then Minister of State for Home Amit Shah, who is now the BJP general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh, nor the Gujarat Chief Minister.

The chargesheet has not been released to the media but, according to sources, says that when the victims were in illegal confinement, D. G. Vanzara, P. P. Pandey, Rajinder Kumar and N. K. Amin had grilled them.

Later Pandey, Vanzara and Rajinder Kumar planned the plot at Vanzara's bungalow.

In April 2004, Jeeshan Jowher and Amjad Ali were picked up while Javed alias Pranesh Pillai and Ishrat Jahan were picked up in June.

It says, among many other things, that following instructions from D. G. Vanzara, police officer G. L. Singhal picked up a bag full of weapons and handed it to over constable Nizammuddin, who passed it on to Tarun Barot.

Four Gujarat police officers charge-sheeted, IB officials named as facilitators for now

 

Copyright© 2013, The Hindu

E-soldiers waging cyberwar for Modi

Paul John TNN
Ahmedabad: Try criticizing Gujarat CM Narendra Modi on social media and you will be ambushed by a cyber army.Praise him,and there will be hundreds joining the chorus.

If Modi has the strongest footprint in cyberspace,much of the credit goes to these 7,200 e-soldiers.Most of these war-room youth hail from the small towns of Gujarat,while the rest are from other states.They are a force multiplier for the Gujarat CM,who has gained a considerable following among the youth of urban India.

The sharp quips against Modi-baiters on the net are the coordinated effort of these youth,who use specialized software to add friends and Likes to Modi pages on Facebook and Twitter and also send mass messages.The young IT team is armed with social media tools like twitter dashboards,Facebook and Twitter blasters,and multiple accounts.Plus,a lot of time at hand.Their undying efforts are amply reflected in the more than 21.01 lakh Facebook Likes and 18.03 lakh Twitter followers that Modi has garnered.

Modis e-brigade is spearheaded by a team of 160-220 volunteers between 20 and 28 years of age from across the state.Students in their early twenties  from  Nadiad, Anand, Sabarkantha, Gandhinagar, and Banaskantha are trained by the BJPs IT cell generally in batches of 10- 25 in different districts of the state.

Nadiad,one of the most active IT cells,is headed by party worker Nandita Thakur.She encourages young tech graduates form DDIT Nadiad to handle Modi campaigns on social networks.These youngsters have successfully mobilized 7,200 active members through various groups in these networks.This massive network of Like Modi netizens then motivate other groups by posting messages and even create trending topics on Twitter,with multiple postings of hash-tagged terms like #pappu,#rambovspappu.

7,200 e-soldiers march for Narendra Modi

Paul John & Hitesh Chavda, TNN Jun 30, 2013, 04.48AM IST

AHMEDABAD/ NADIAD: A recent and successful operation of NaMo nerds - the zealous champions of Narendra Modi in cyberspace - demonstrated how the nerds aim to channel online fawning into real-life action.

The 'Narendra Modi Army', a popular Facebook group which operated from Gwarlior, managed to rustle up a crowd of protesters outside L K Advani's home after Modi was elected as the BJP's election campaign chief.

Modi's cyber-devotees - most of whom are volunteers - congregate in scores of online groups like the 'Narendra Modi Army'. Among the most active of such groups on Facebook are 'Narendra Modi 4 PM'; 'Bharat Maa Ka Lal' ; 'Bond of India 2014'; and 'Modi: Hit and Fit for PM 2014'. On Twitter, Modi fans run 54 accounts.

Though the BJP has not declared its prime ministerial candidate, Modi's virtual warriors are treating that as inevitability, creating the 'NaMoBharat' feed on Twitter and Facebook; and developing specialized android and iOS apps that enable micro-targeting on social networks.

While on targeting, it must be noted that any nerd who gets out of line is targeted with unrelenting aggression. For instance Partesh Patel, 27, who used to run 'Modi nu Gujarat' fan page on Facebook, today gets ominous late-night calls and vulgar messages on his social networking platform.

"I am being treated like this only because I left the BJP's IT cell," Patel says. "I was a volunteer there and I have more than 95,000 likes and an equally strong membership on my page even to this day. I now campaign for the Congress because volunteers like me who spent close to a decade campaigning for the BJP are not recognized."

The NaMo nerds, however, press on. They are showing the effectiveness of social media tools like Twitter dashboards and friend-adders in scaling up fan numbers. As for the BJP IT team itself, its core members are Hemang Jani and Maulik Bhagat.

The duo's team posts live updates on dozen-odd social media pages. Jani also employs a team of graphic designers who make cartoons which are popular on the net. The head of BJP's IT cell, Rajeeka Kacheria, a beautician, has introduced the 'BJPKemp' software that collated news reports from every constituency during the Gujarat assembly elections. The data was used to assess voter mood.

Youngsters who sustain the Modi buzz online are rewarded with the ultimate prize of fandom - an opportunity to meet Modi. "In Gujarat young college students are taken in batches by BJP zonal heads for an exclusive photo-op and meeting with Modi," says a senior IT cell member. "This is how the numbers are gathered."

Modi vs Rahul: Who's winning e-war?

What do people talk about on social media pages in relation to leading politicians of the country? A recent survey by Blogworks offers some insights. For example, the survey reveals that caste and religion are the most talked about subjects around Narendra Modi with 69,498 conversations. Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi had spurred just 7,572 conversations on caste and religion. However, Gandhi evoked the most mentions around law and internal affairs.

Gandhi also received the maximum negative mentions around the theme of corruption, according to Blogworks. Interestingly, he has also received a high number of negative mentions for being portrayed as a youth icon, the survey says. Development and economy drove the most positive conversations for Modi, who also has a larger share of positive mentions when compared to Gandhi, claims the survey.

The key driver of positive conversations for Nitish Kumar is development and economy. But the negative mentions on this theme are in fact higher than the positive mentions.

"The social media has emerged as a new means of political dialogue - the anti-corruption and the Nirbhaya campaigns are examples," says a senior BJP IT cell member. "It has the power to drag one away from the conventional-media noise and put you in a peer-to-peer public discourse." He says opinions are formed through individual interactions with people one connects with on one's social networks and not through media. "These people will include family members, friends or colleagues with similar interests," he says. "It's a sort of word-of-mouth advertising."

US spent $630,000 to ‘buy’ Facebook fans

PTI

Washington, July 4:  

The US State Department was today under fire for spending $630,000 over two years to win millions of “likes” on its Facebook pages at a time of severe government austerity measures.

A scathing report by the department’s independent watchdog took the coordinators of its social media outreach policy to task saying it needed to “direct its digital advertising to specific public diplomacy goals”.

The report by the Office of the Inspector General found that two advertising campaigns launched in 2011 and 2012 cost some $30,000 with the “goal of building global outreach platforms for engagement with foreign audiences by increasing the number of fans… on four thematic Facebook properties”.

“Many in the bureau criticise the advertising campaigns as ’buying fans’ who may have once clicked on a post or ‘liked’ a photo but have no real interest in the topic and have never engaged further,” read the report released late last month.

Although each of the four thematic pages run by the Bureau of International Information Programs managed to attract some 2.5 million fans by mid-March, only about 2 per cent of those actually actively engaged with the sites by ‘liking’ topics or sharing information posted on it.

“Many postings had fewer than 100 comments or shares; the most popular ones had several hundred,” the report said.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the report had been taken seriously and vowed most its recommendations would be implemented before the start of the 2014 fiscal year in October.

“Online advertising has significantly decreased. It’s now at $2,500 a month,” she said, adding that “still allows us to reach out and communicate with a wide range of individuals living overseas”.

The State Department has embraced the wide outreach made possible through social media, but is still developing guidelines for how such sites as Facebook and Twitter should be used in the world of diplomacy.

(This article was published on July 4, 2013)

Keywords: US, Facebook, government austerity measures, social media outreach, digital advertising, Jen Psaki

Copyright © 2013, The Hindu Business Line.

Malegaon blast: NIA may term 9 Muslim accused innocent

 

Deeptiman Tiwary, TNN Jul 1, 2013, 05.01AM IST

 

• (Mumbai Police's elite ATS and CBI had charged nine Muslim youths with triggering explosive devices on September 8, 2006 at Malegaon. (TOI photo by Prashant Nakwe))

NEW DELHI: The nine Muslim men arrested and charged in connection with the 2006 Malegaon blast case may soon find an official stamp of their "innocence". The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which has chargesheeted Hindutva radicals in connection with the case, is likely to tell a Mumbai court that the arrested men do not stand accused in the Malegaon blast case.

The NIA's statement will be in reply to a discharge application filed by two of the nine accused in Mumbai's Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act ( MCOCA) court on the basis of NIA's chargesheet. The two accused, Mohamed Ali Shaikh and Asif Bashir Shaikh, on Wednesday filed an application seeking discharge from the case stating the NIA chargesheet had proved the involvement of a right-wing terror group.

"As and when the court asks us for a reply, we will state that they are not accused in our case. The court has two more chargesheets (one filed by Maharashtra ATS and another by CBI) to look at. It will be the court's prerogative to discharge them," a senior NIA officer said.

The statement will be a big relief to the nine men and of great significance to the case as investigations are still on. It will, in a way, be the first official clean chit to the nine men, seven of whom are out on bail. The other two, Mohammed and Asif, who have moved court, are still in Mumbai's Arthur Road jail in connection with the 7/11 train blasts.

Mohammed and Asif said in their application that the NIA chargesheet had contradicted those filed by the ATS and CBI. "The supplementary chargesheet of the NIA prima facie reveals that statements of all witnesses recorded by the ATS was taken under duress," the accused said in the plea.

According to NIA's chargesheet, Lokesh Sharma, deceased Sunil Joshi, Dhan Singh, Rajendra Chaudhary, Manohar Narwaria and absconding accused Ramchandra Kalsangra and Nanded resident Ramesh Venkat Mahalkar alias Amit Hakla are responsible for the blast.

Meanwhile, sources said Dhan Singh, one of the accused chargesheeted by NIA, has contested the discharge application filed by Mohammed and Asif and has also questioned investigations done by the agency.

After the blasts, Maharashtra ATS had chargesheeted nine Muslim men in the case. On the day it filed the chargesheet, the case was transferred to CBI which later filed a supplementary chargesheet supporting ATS's case.

However, following Aseemanand's confession of Hindutva radical hand in the blasts, the case was transferred to NIA.

Night of HORROR

June 30, 2013

When will the villagers of Kunan Poshpora in Kashmir, who were subjected to mass sexual violence by soldiers 22 years ago, get justice?

Silenced...Photo: Nissar Ahmad

he night of February 23, 1991, in the snow-bound villages Kunan Poshpora in Kupwara district of Kashmir, families were indoors, warming themselves with kangris or under quilts. The quiet of the night was shattered by sudden loud knocking on their doors. The army had arrived for another “crackdown” to flush out terrorists who they suspected were hiding in their village.

Militancy was at its peak in the valley, and it was routine for security forces to surround villages and pull men out of their houses for questioning. That night they were taken into two of the houses which were converted into interrogation torture chambers. Men were laid face down on logs, their face immersed in pots of chilli powder, and they were administered electric shocks.

Unknown to the men, bands of soldiers had entered each of their homes, where they brutally raped by turns girls and women from the ages of eight to 80, even as screaming children watched in horror. One woman recalls that — while she was still conscious — eight drunken men took turns in raping her. Another testifies that her four-year-old daughter was so traumatised seeing her mother gang-raped that she jumped out from her window, leaving her permanently disabled. Next morning, the men were instructed not to return home until the army contingent left. When they did, they found their houses ransacked, the women in their homes naked and bleeding, often unconscious, surrounded by devastated children.

Two days later, they gathered courage to file their complaint in the police station, but were refused. Only after they demonstrated outside his office, District Magistrate S.M. Yasin visited their village. He reported later that the soldiers “behaved like violent beasts”. Under his pressure, the police registered an FIR on March 18, 1991. But a month later, the Director Prosecution concluded that the case prepared by the police was “unfit for launching criminal prosecution”. Another month later, on October 21, the criminal case was closed without trial as the perpetrators were “untraced”.

For a desolate 11 years, nothing moved in what is probably the largest single case of mass sexual violence in independent India. The State was under a prolonged spell of President’s rule. Subsequently a succession of elected governments came and went, but no Chief Minister found time to reach out to the forgotten stricken people of Kunan Poshpora, nor any of the State’s senior political leaders.

In 2004, the impoverished villagers, mostly small farmers and farm workers, pooled money to file an application for belated justice in the State Human Rights Commission. The Commission recorded statements of many of the survivors (although the villagers took the precaution from the start of only asking only married women to complain, not unmarried girls, so that this would not block their chances of marriage later). It took another seven years for the Commission to finally conclude, on October 16, 2011, that personnel of the 4{+t}{+h}Rajputana Rifles, 68 Mountain Brigade, had raped women of Kunan Poshpora on the night of February 23-24, 1991. It ordered the State government to pay the affected persons at least two lakh rupees each, and recommended that the criminal case be reopened and reinvestigated by a Special Investigation Team headed by an officer not below the rank of an SSP, and that the investigation be taken to its logical end in a time-bound period.

Even this did not stir the State government to move, despite a brief storm in the Assembly. Finally the MLA who represents their village, who was also the Law Minister, called a few older men from the village to meet the Chief Minister. He also distributed cash of one lakh rupees to 39 women. But the criminal case was still not reopened. Finally, a group of University students helped women of Kunan Poshpora petition the Supreme Court in March 2013, seeking implementation of the order of the State Human Rights Commission.

In June 2013, Seema Mustafa, senior journalist, invited a delegation for the Centre for Policy Analysis to visit the survivors. The team included Sehba Farooqui, AIDWA, Mohammad Salim, CPI-M, Bhalchandra, CPI, EN Rammohan, retired police officer, John Dayal, human rights activist and me. As we heard the men and women who gathered to meet us, it was evident that their wounds were unhealed, their agony unabated. It was as though the outrage occurred not 22 years earlier, but just yesterday.

Many women wept wordlessly. An old man whose aged mother was raped and who became permanently disabled by the torture he suffered that night, cried out: “When one woman was raped in Delhi, all of India lit candles in her memory for 15 days. But where is justice for us?” Young men spoke of the stigma as they grew and their classmates would ask whether their mothers or sisters were raped. Women spoke of 15 hysterectomies, the difficulties in getting their daughters wed, and the way memories of that night corroded their marriages and their lives.

Despite the orders of the High Court, the police filed another closure report before the Kupwara Sessions Court recommending the case again be closed without trial, in May 2013, claiming again that the perpetrators could not be traced. On June 10, 2013, a protest petition was filed on behalf of the survivors, alleging mala fide by the police because despite written information regarding involvement of 125 personnel of 4{+t}{+h} Rajputana Rifles, the police had not questioned them, neither was an identification parade conducted. Just days after our visit, on June 18, 2013, District Judge Geelani rejected the police recommendation for closure, and asked the police to “unravel the identity of… the perpetrators”.

“Without justice, what is the point of living?” a village headman lamented to us. “Twenty-two years have passed since that terrible night. A hundred girls and women in Kunan Poshpora were gang-raped by soldiers of the Indian army. Until today, not a single person has been punished. How can we live?”

An old man whose aged mother was raped and who became permanently disabled by the torture he suffered that night, cried out: “When one woman was raped in Delhi, all of India lit candles in her memory for 15 days. But where is justice for us?”

Copyright© 2013, The Hindu