RIGHTS-INDIA: Academic Cheats Death Twice, Ruffles Police

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Feb 10 2005 (IPS) - When Delhi University lecturer Prof. Syed Abdul Rahman Geelani took three bullets outside his lawyer’s house on Monday night, it was his second close brush with death after escaping the hangman’s noose under India’s former draconian anti-terrorist laws.

Geelani has long been symbol of resistance against the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), passed by a right-wing government anxious to be seen to be conforming to U.S. demands on its ”global war on terror” following the Sep. 11, 2001 aerial attacks on New York and Washington. The act prescribes the death sentence in its special POTA courts for anyone found guilty of supporting terrorist groups.

The bullets he took in his stomach, this week, has now given him near iconic status in the country.

In December 2001, Geelani was accused of helping a Kashmiri suicide squad that was trying to blow up the Indian Parliament. Nonetheless, it was a botched attempt.

Two years later, he acquitted by the Delhi High Court on the grounds that there was lack of credible evidence against him.

But Geelani has been hauled back again and is attending hearings in the Supreme Court where an appeal by the police is pending against his acquittal.

Many of the lecturer’s friends believe the attack was the police’s handiwork because certain officers are upset with Geelani’s acquittal in the High Court and the possibility of him exposing them in the Supreme Court.

While the right-wing, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government was voted out of office eight months ago, its successor the avowedly secular Congress party made good on an election promise by scrapping POTA – which was found to have been used largely against minorities, political rivals, and marginalised groups such as tribals.

But although Geelani’s celebrated case hastened the withdrawal of POTA, he is himself far from being safe.

Geelani’s lawyer and human rights activist Nandita Haksar, had little doubt also that he was attacked by ”hit men” from the Special Branch of the Delhi Police and said so publicly.

”The police have been constantly interfering and shadowing him everywhere after his acquittal by the (Delhi) High Court and even posted policemen outside our house,” said Haksar and her husband Sebastian Hongary.

Haksar said she found it scary that there were police types perpetually hanging around outside her house and refusing to identify themselves. This was what led her to believe that what happened may have been an attempt at an extra-judicial killing.

And as if on cue, the Delhi Police called together a press conference to indignantly deny any role in the attempt to eliminate Geelani with Police Commissioner Ranjit Narayan describing Haksar’s charges as ”baseless” and a ”figment of the imagination.”

Police officials said Geelani could have been targeted by members of Kashmiri militant groups or for personal reasons but Haksar believes that only the police could have had a motive in wanting him dead.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked Delhi police to submit a report on the investigations into the attack within a week.

Surgeons removed three bullets from Geelani’s stomach on Wednesday morning and doctors declared his condition stable, although his intestines were ruptured in ten places.

The attack drew another round of support from leading human rights activists for Geelani, whose main crime seems to be the fact that he is the son-in-law of hardline Kashmiri separatist leader Ali Shah Geelani.

On Tuesday evening members of such well-known organisations like People’s Union for Democratic Rights were joined by other groups representing teachers and students of the Delhi University and the Jawaharlal University in demonstrating outside the police headquarters.

Among the protestors was Arundhati Roy, Booker Prize winning author and human rights activist, who described the attack as ”an assault on the democratic traditions of the country.”

Roy demanded to know how Geelani, who has been under constant surveillance by Delhi Police ever since his acquittal in October 2003, could have been fired at so easily. Also, she said she was baffled as to how the assailants could have escaped so easily without leaving any trace of who they might have been.

The Geelani case has become a symbol of the larger struggle of marginalised individuals against the Indian state.

If Geelani supporters are successful in drawing attention to crude investigation methods and many questionable police shoot-outs by the police, then it could open a Pandora’s box.

But as it is, there still seems to be some elements determined to provoke communal tensions between India’s Hindu majority and minority Muslims who form 14 percent of the billion strong population.

In a statement, the People’s Union of Civil Liberties said ”clearly there are people in this country who want to take the extra-judicial route to suit their whims.”