(From our correspondent)

Nearly 11 years after the mecca Masjid bomb blast claimed many lives, an NIA court in Hyderabad acquitted all five persons accused, including Swami Aseemanand and three former RSS activists. The court cited “lack of evidence” to justify this step.

This is surprising considering the fact that the Indian ruling establishment and its media spread all kinds of theories and accusations in this period. Within hours of the Mecca Masjid blast on May 18, 2007, in which 9 people were reported killed and 50-60 injured, the Hyderabad police had arrested around 90 Muslim youth from different parts of the old city of Hyderabad, on grounds of mere suspicion. While the Hyderabad police began investigating the case, the Central Bureau of Investigation stepped in and carried out a parallel investigation. The police filed a charge-sheet against 21 Muslim youth, but all of them were acquitted in January 2009 for “lack of evidence”.

In 2010, the CBI arrested Swami Aseemanand and 6 other members of a group called Abhinav Bharat, reportedly associated with the RSS, in connection with the Mecca Masjid blast. This was accompanied by much propaganda by the then UPA government and the media, about “saffron terror” (Bhagwa Atankwad). According to the media, the CBI arrest was based on a confessional statement by Swami Aseemanand, in which he was supposed to have confessed to organizing and carrying out acts of terror across the country, in revenge against “terror acts of Muslims”. Later, he retracted his confession, claiming that it was given under “pressure and torture”. It may be recalled that Swami Aseemanand was earlier accused of the Malegaon blast cases of 2006 and 2008, of the Ajmer Dargah blast case in 2007 and the 2007 Samjhauta Express train blast case. While he still faces trial in the Samjhauta Express trai blast case, he has been acquitted in all the other cases.

The entire process of arrests, trials and acquittals by the state agencies, stretching over the last 11 years, has been based on flimsy grounds. It has only enabled the inciting of vicious communal hatred and suspicion, first arresting Muslim youth as “terrorists”, then later others in the name of “saffron terror”, and finally “not finding evidence” against any of them.

Investigations by the agencies of the state in various other such terrorist attacks in public places have also been aimed at inciting hatred and suspicion rather than revealing the truth..

Families of the victims of the Mecca Masjid blast, all those who were arrested, as well as political and human rights activists following the course of the investigation, are raising the question as to whether the state had any serious intention at all, in bringing out the truth behind the blasts and punishing the guilty.

Why is it that the ruling establishment never brings out the truth and punishes those guilty of terror? To understand this, we need to see who benefits from organizing these terrorist attacks.

Certainly innocent people lose their lives, their near and dear ones, and entire communities who are branded as “anti-national” and “Pakistani agents” could not have benefited by these crimes. People who were jailed and tortured or killed in police custody or hanged without conclusive proof could not have gained by organising terror attacks.

However, terror acts serve definite political aims of our rulers. It serves to break the unity of the people, in their struggle for a solution to their common problems. It serves to divert the attention of the people from pressing issues such as poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, and other ills.

Clearly, it is the ruling class which benefits from these bomb blasts and terrorist killings. State terrorism has become the preferred method of rule to divide and rule over the people.

State terrorism, including state-organised communal violence, is carried out, both through the official state agencies as well as through numerous groups created, sponsored, protected and financed by the state. These groups freely operate, carrying out communal and sectarian propaganda, inciting people against one another, organizing loot, rape and murder, with the authorities turning a blind eye and often actively assisting the murderous hordes.

People across society have to come together to demand complete and thorough investigations into these horrendous crimes. We must demand that the truth behind the terror attacks be revealed. We must demand that the guilty be convicted and punished.

By admin