Dalit School boy beaten to death by upper caste students in Tamil nadu

A friend gone: Students of Mallur Government HSS grieving the death of their classmate Raman at his village on Tuesday.

SALEM: Tension prevailed in the suburban town of Mallur since early Tuesday morning following the death of a Dalit school student.

He was reported to have sustained injuries in a clash between two groups of students that took place on the campus of the Mallur Government Higher Secondary School, a fortnight ago.

Heavy police pickets were posted in the town to avoid any untoward incident. Police also denied permission to those who attempted to take out a rally to protest against the attack on the boy, which they claimed had subsequently led to his death.

The 19-year old boy, Raman, one of the twin sons of a daily wage labourer, who studied Plus-One, was said to have suffered severe internal injuries from the clashes that broke out between a few boys.

Raman allegedly vomited blood while he was in the class room on November 19 and was taken to private nursing homes at Mallur and Salem and was diagnosed with heart valve damage. He was rushed to a Chennai hospital where he died on Monday.

Anand, the boy’s father, told The Hindu that immediately after a violent clash in the school on September 25, he preferred a complaint with the Mallur Police Station against a few students who beat Raman when the latter went to park his cycle in the stand. “But police have neither registered a first information report nor initiated any action so far,” he charged.

SC/ST students studying in that school alleged caste based discrimination both by the school management and other upper caste students.Investigations have revealed that there is separate parking space for the SC/ST students alone in that school.

Headmaster N. Athiappan said the school staff council suspended two boys, who beat Raman, for 15 days.

HINDU TERRORISTS

An Officer, But Not A Gentleman?

The arrest of an army officer has raised fears of a new dimension to terror, reports RANA AYYUB

WHILE INVESTIGATIONS into the Malegaon blast of September 29, which killed six people at a mosque just before Eid, have yielded conclusive proof of the involvement of extremist groups in the attack, they have also provided worrying evidence of the participation of army personnel in its plotting and execution. The disturbing trend came to light with the arrest of military intelligence officer Lt Colonel Srikant Purohit, India’s first serving army officer ever to be arrested. According to Anti- Terrorism Squad (ATS) officials, Purohit had siphoned off money from the military to fund Abhinav Bharat, a two-year-old right-wing extremist organisation implicated in the blasts. During questioning, Purohit allegedly said he came in contact with Abhinav Bharat’s working president and blast case prime accused, Major (retd) Ramesh Upadhyay, during postings with military intelligence in Nashik and Pune. He is said to have told the police he was influenced by terror attacks across the country and the violence he had seen in Kashmir between 2000 and 2005, when he was on intelligence wing postings in places like Kupwara and Anantnag. Purohit had then been part of the MI-25, also known as the Intelligence Field Security Unit, whose main job is to run sources across the border. Though the investigating agencies deny that Purohit masterminded the Malegaon attack, they call him one of its key conspirators.

Purohit’s links with the Bhonsala Military School commandant Col (retd) SS Raikar and with Upadhyay, both under arrest, suggest that more armymen could be involved. Purohit has allegedly organised meetings at Deolali with men involved in the blasts and ex-army men.

Purohit underwent narcoanalysis and brain-mapping tests, in Bangaluru on November 9. He is due to be produced in the Nashik magistrate’s court on November 15, where further details of his invol - vement could be revealed. ATS officials have said they are also trying to establish his role in the 2004 blasts in Maharashtra’s Marathwada region, as well as in the explosion apparently caused by a bomb going off accidentally at an RSS worker’s house in Nanded in 2006. Several factfinding agencies point to Purohit and Mithun Chakraborty, as being the same person. Chakraborty was named by one of the Nanded accused as an arms trainer in Sinhagad, Pune. He has so far evaded arrest; the accused’s statement made under narcoanalysis described him as a tall, well-built man who sported a beard and was known as ‘Fauji’.

Speaking to TEHELKA, Himani Savarkar, Hindu Mahasabha head and a key Abhinav Bharat member, stated how Purohit told her that “something needed to be done to curb Islamic terrorism”. She added: “He was pained by what he saw and sympathised with Abhinav Bharat’s stand, but wasn’t able to dedicate much time to the outfit because he was in the military.” Savarkar denied any knowledge of Purohit’s role in the blasts, but said people wanted to avenge the deaths of those who died in terror attacks.

ALSO UNDER investigation for the Malegaon blast is the Bhonsala Military School, where 54 people are suspected to have received arms training in 2001; their names were on a laptop Purohit owned, which has unaccountably gone missing during the investigation. The military school has been the venue for Bajrang Dal camps, where the terror plot is said to have been hatched. A meeting was also held here this April, which all the blast accused are said to have attended. TEHELKA spoke to the school’s secretary, Diwakar Kulkarni, who said the school had answered the questionnaire the ATS had sent it on the training camps held on its campus and denied any knowledge of them. However, he seemed to have no answer when asked how the authorities could not have any idea of the training provided at the camps when the school constitution requires its officials to be present at all times, in all meetings.

The ATS has presented five of the accused — Ramesh Upadhyay, Sameer Kulkarni, Ajay Rahirkar, Rakesh Dhawre and Jagdish Mhatre — in the Nashik court, after which they were sent to judicial custody. The court was told that the ATS had discovered that Dhawde, a gun expert, was wanted in the 2003-04 blasts in Jalna, Purna, Parbhani and Nanded. It was also revealed that Rahirkar, Abhinav Bharat’s treasurer, had received a huge sum from hawala transactions, which he supplied to the other accused at Purohit’s behest.

The ATS has also picked up two men from Vapi and Pune, Sunil Ghawre and Anil Mahajan. While Ghawre is an active member of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Hindu Jagran Manch, he was also close to Swami Ashimanand who ran the Shabridham ashram in Gujarat’s Dangs district, which was raided by the ATS. Ghawre was close to both the Swami and Malegaon main accused Pragya Singh Thakur, and apparently helped Thakur plant the motorcycle used in the explosion at the blast site. The ATS has also intensified its search in Malegaon for locals who would have played a key role in the attack. If sources are to be believed, some men, including a doctor, have already been detained. Meanwhile, the political angle to the case has also become obvious with the ATS filing an application in the Nashik court to question a high-profile BJP leader from UP. Public prosecutor Ajay Misra said the application had been filed after the UP Government failed to cooperate. The leader in question is speculated to be a BJP MLA from UP, and is a close assosiate of Yogi Adityanath, a BJP leader in eastern UP. The police have also reportedly arrested some more people from UP, including a high profile seer. The police is also reported to have detained some more people from UP in the case.

While the investigation has revealed the hand of ultra right-wing terror organisations behind previous blasts, it has also woken up investigating agencies in other states to look at other blasts in a new light. If sources are to be believed, an Andhra Pradesh police team will visit Mumbai to interrogate those arrested in the Mecca Masjid blasts once the ATS finishes its interrogation. Meanwhile the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI), which had been accused of laxity in the Nanded blasts case, appears also to have woken up. A team of CBI officials came to Mumbai recently and met ATS officials. CBI director Ashwani Kumar also said that there seemed to be a possible link between the Nanded and the Malegaon blasts.

With nine people arrested so far and numerous detentions made every week, the truth about the army personnel’s involvement in the Malegaon blasts may finally be coming out.

TRUTH BEHIND THE LAW COLLEGE STUDENTS CLASH

Three students were seriously injured in a violent caste clash that broke out between two groups of students at Ambedkar Law College.The students waged a pitched battle, even as a posse of policemen waited outside the gates and news photographers clicked pictures.Knives, iron rods, wooden logs and tubelights were freely used by the clashing students. The police remained silent spectators, waiting for a call from the college principal for help.Tension has been running high inside the campus since October 30.

According to police sources, a few Dalit students objected to the institution being referred to as just ‘government law college’ without the pre-fix ‘Dr Ambedkar’ in posters put up inside the campus by students from a caste Hindu community.It degenerated into an ugly skirmish and police advised the principal to look into the matter and set up a peace committee. The efforts of the college authorities and the police to bring unity among the students were in vain.Since it was the first year Dalit students who confronted seniors on the poster issue, the latter allegedly vowed not to allow them to sit for the examination.


On Wednesday, trouble started when the caste Hindu students tried to prevent freshers of the Dalit community from appearing for the semester examination.As a group waited with lethal weapons inside the college to attack the junior students, a few seniors escorted them inside the examination hall. Suddenly, the armed group attacked the Dalit students. Chitirai Selvan (21), a fourth year student, sustained serious injuries in the ear and back of the head and was admitted at Stanley hospital.A group of Dalit students retaliated.In the attack, Arumugham (20), a third year student, was injured and brought in a semi-conscious state to Government General Hospital. Ayyadurai (20), a second year student, sustained injuries to his right hand, forehead and leg. A third year student, Bharathi Kannan, was injured in both hands, forehead and thigh.Finally, the principal called the police, who rushed in and chased the students away.The police filed a complaint with the police naming Gubendran, Ravindran, Chithiraiselvan, Manimaran, Vetrikondan, Prem Kumar and Ravi Verman. Three of them were taken into custody by the police.

First Black President of the United States

Obama creates history

WASHINGTON: Democrat Mr Barack Obama on Tuesday scripted history capturing the White House in a landslide trouncing Republican John McCain to become the first Black President of the United States.

After an extraordinary nearly two-year election campaign, the 47-year-old Illinois Senator, born to a Kenyan father and White American mother, secured 338 electoral college votes against 155 of McCain, according to CNN projections.

The 72-year-old Mr McCain conceded defeat and urged all Americans to join him in congratulating his rival. In his concession statement in Phoenix, he said Mr Obama had his goodwill and he believed that the victor would make necessary compromises to bridg e differences and defend the security of the country in the “dangerous world.”

Mr Obama will be sworn in as the 44th US President on January 20 next year, replacing Republican incumbent Mr George W Bush at the end of his eight-year rule and marking a new milestone in American history 45 years after the peak of civil rights movement of Martin Luther King.

The charismatic Democrat, who had defeated Hillary Clinton in the primaries to clinch the party nomination, led a landslide expanding his party's majorities in both chambers of the US Congress - House of Representatives and Senate, rejecting Bush's leade rship.

The Democratic winner immediately faces huge challenges in the form of worsening US economy and the mess he inherits from Mr Bush in the American war in Iraq. - PTI

Dalit youth killed in police firing

Dalit youth killed in police firing

UNBEARABLE: Villagers grieving the death of K. Suresh at E. Kottaipatti in Madurai district on Tuesday.

MADURAI: K. Suresh, a 19-year-old Dalit youth, was killed in police firing at E. Kottaipatti, one-and-a-half km from Uthapuram in Madurai district. The incident followed a clash that broke out between the police and villagers, who were protesting against Sunday’s attack on the convoy of Puthiya Tamilagam leader K. Krishnasamy.

The villagers of E. Kottaipatti demanding the arrest of people involved in the attack, had erected barricades by cutting trees and placing stones on the roads, preventing the entry of vehicles. Simultaneously, there were protests in Elumalai where Dalits and non-Dalits, armed with weapons, hurled bottles and stones at one another. S. S. Krishnamoorthy, Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Madurai Range, who was on his way to Elumalai, was prevented from proceeding further at E. Kottaipatti. The police asked the villagers to remove the barricades. There was a heated exchange of words, between the villagers and police, which escalated into a clash.Muruga Devi (40), mother of the deceased, said the police hurling abuses at women, started attacking them with lathis, injuring many. They also assaulted the men. When she was attacked, Suresh came to her rescue. But the police opened fire, without any warning, killing him on the spot, she alleged. Suresh was working as a wiring technician in a firm in Tirupur.

There were bloodstains on the road as the police dragged the body for around 500 metres before taking it into a vehicle. E. Kottaipatti has a population of 600 families where Dalits are in majority. Inspector-General of Police (South Zone) Sanjeev Kumar, camping at Elumalai, told The Hindu: “Villagers armed with deadly weapons blocked the DIG’s vehicle heading towards Elumalai. They started throwing stones and three policemen were injured in the attack and the police opened fire.” He said adequate security had been provided, with a DIG, two Superintendents of Police and two companies of police. Four more companies of police would be deployed.

Solatium

Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi has announced a solatium of Rs. 2 lakh for the kin of Suresh. A Revenue Divisional Officer would hold an inquiry.

Muslims in Army

Muslims in Army : Hiding what`s well-known

The reason for the Muslim under-representation in the Indian army, or the Sikh over-representation, is something that lies partly in history, and its public disclosure would harm nobody.

There’s something surreal about India’s debate on Muslim under-representation in the Indian army. If the defence minister says the army has done no head-count of its Muslims, how did the army give an exact Muslim figure of 29,093 last month? The figure is backed by a retired lieutenant-general who says the Muslims are 2 per cent.

Whatever the exact percentage, a huge Muslim under-representation in our army is a fact. So is a huge Sikh over-representation. See the contrast. Sikhs form 1.86 per cent of India’s population but number around 8 per cent in the Indian army. Muslims form 13 per cent of India’s population but are 2 per cent in the army. Why should this truth about Muslim under-representation be suppressed? Or that of Sikh over-representation? But an irrational love of secrecy causes Indian rulers to hide information whose public disclosure would harm nobody.

Just as Muslims are under-represented in the army, so are the Bengalis, Biharis, Oriyas, south Indians or Gujaratis. And just as Sikhs are over-represented, so are the Jats, Dogras, Garhwalis, Kumaonis, Gurkhas, Marathas, Pathans and Punjabis.

The reason for this disparity lies in history. The Indian army’s recruitment pattern was set 150 years ago by India’s 1857 uprising. Traumatised by the rebellion, the British army adopted a recruitment policy that punished the groups which rebelled and rewarded the ones that stayed loyal. Because Muslims of Awadh, Bihar and West Bengal led the uprising, the British army stopped hiring soldiers from these areas.

Also blacklisted from these places were high-caste Hindus whose regiments in Bengal had also mutinied. In contrast, the British raised the recruitment of castes that had stood by the British to put down the uprising. These castes were the Sikhs, the Jats, Dogras, Garhwalis, Kumaonis, Gurkhas, Marathas, Pathans, plus Punjabis, both Hindus and Muslims. Honoured as martial races, they received preferential treatment in army recruitment for the next 90 years. Like any institution, the Indian army’s a prisoner of the past.

Even today, it favours enlisting men from the martial races. Their over-representation in the Indian army is huge. Figures bear this out. Of 2.87 lakh jawans hired by the army in the last three years, a disproportionate 44,471 came from three “martial” states, Punjab, Haryana, and the mountain state of Uttaranchal. So these states which account for 5 per cent of India’s population provided 15 per cent of India’s army jawans.

In contrast, the fewest recruits came from “non-martial” West Bengal, Bihar and Gujarat. These three states account for 30 per cent of India’s population, but they provided only 14 per cent of army jawans in this three-year period. So the Indian army has not only a religion-based disparity in recruitment, but also one based on caste and region. A glimpse of this discrimination was provided by a press release issued by a defence office in Jammu five years ago. Seeking recruits for the Indian army, the press release said: “No vacancies for Muslims and tradesmen.” Meaning that martial Dogras were welcome to apply, but not Hindu business castes like the Baniyas and the Khatris.

About the Muslim under-representation in the Indian army, the reasons are three. One was Partition. Before Independence, Muslims were around 25 per cent of the Indian army and 25 per cent of undivided India. But when India broke up and Muslim soldiers were asked to choose between India and Pakistan, they joined Pakistan en masse. So Muslim numbers in the Indian army dropped so drastically that they were only 2 per cent in 1953, according to India’s then minister of state for defence. Jawaharlal Nehru himself expressed concern that “hardly any Muslims” were left in the army. And Muslim numbers never really picked up in the last 60 years for a well-known reason.

India’s military establishment hesitates to hire Muslims as soldiers because it suspects Muslim loyalty to India. This discrimination is a natural outcome of India and Pakistan’s bitter hostility over 60 years. In similar situations, the same thing happens all over the world. The Israeli army doesn’t trust its Arab soldiers in jobs related to defence security. The Buddhist Sinhalese army under-recruits its Hindu Tamils lest their sympathies lie with the Tamil Tigers. After 9/11, US army recruiters would probably screen a Muslim American volunteer more thoroughly than a Christian American. Thanks to our four wars with Pakistan, the same anti-Muslim animus works here in army recruitment.

Proof of it lies in an enormous mass of documentary and other evidence which expresses distrust of Muslims. Otherwise, why does India have separate regiments for the Sikhs, Jats, Dogras, Garhwalis, Kumaonis, Mahars, the Nagas, even the Gurkhas, but not a single Muslim regiment? This is tragic but it’s a truth which shouldn’t be suppressed. It should be acknowledged and dealt with.

Events have consequences. Muslim under-recruitment in the Indian army is a consequence of Partition. India and Pakistan’s hostility is seen in both countries in Hindu versus Muslim terms. So it’s natural for India’s Hindu army establishment to distrust a Muslim who wants to join as a soldier.

This prejudice itself discourages qualified Muslim youths from applying, which drives down Muslim numbers even more. Another reason for Muslim under-recruitment is the relatively poor education of Muslims. When they try to enlist as soldiers, they are simply out-competed by better-educated Sikh, Hindu, and Christian youths. So Muslim leaders are quite right that Muslim under-recruitment in the army deprives the community of a good, life-long source of employment. It’s a sad situation not so easy to correct.

In life, however, one man’s meat is another man’s poison. The under-representation of Muslims and other caste or regional groups benefits the over-represented ones. The composition of the Indian army is totally askew numbers-wise. West Bengal’s population is eight times that of Uttaranchal. But Uttaranchal provided almost the same number of army recruits as West Bengal last year. Compare a “martial” Punjab with a non-martial Gujarat. Punjab’s population is half that of Gujarat. But it provided four times as many people to the Indian army as Gujarat. The Indian army hired far more recruits in Rajasthan than in Tamil Nadu though Tamil Nadu’s population is higher. Essentially, the Indian army is dominated numbers-wise by Sikhs and Hindi-speaking Hindus of north India. The current status quo suits them perfectly.

Natural disasters affect Dalits most, says expert

Natural disasters affect all communities but their impact on the Dalits and other marginalised social groups in India is the greatest, says an Indian social activist and researcher. “Disasters affect the Dalits the most because of the nature of their habitations, their isolation from the surrounding communities of upper castes and restrictions on access to relief and rehabilitation,” Prasad Sirivili said in an interview.

A contributor to the latest report on the world’s minorities by the London-based Minority Rights Group (MRG), Sirivili said that almost everywhere in India, the Dalits lived in the low lying areas, which were prone to flooding.

The better lands in the villages, on higher ground, were always arrogated by the richer upper castes, Sirivili told IANS over telephone from New Delhi.

A study of the monsoon floods of 2007 in various parts of India showed that 60 percent of the dead were Dalits.

“At the flood or cyclone relief shelters, Dalits often do not get a place. And when relief comes, the upper castes arrogate most of it. When the time comes for rehabilitation and compensation, again there is gross discrimination,” he said.

“One of the reasons for this is that the Dalits are generally not property owners to get any compensation, but the other equally important reason is that government agencies go by property lost and not livelihood lost.

“While property loss is compensated, livelihood loss is not. The Dalits may not have lost property, but they have lost their livelihood,” Sirivili pointed out.

At present secretary of the New Delhi-based National Campaign on Dalits Human Rights (NCDHR), Sirivili said that if the Dalits sought better relief, rehabilitation and compensation, they get assaulted.

“False police cases are foisted on them and sometimes they are even murdered by members of the local dominant castes.”

A Dalit himself, Sirivili has a doctorate in economics from the University of Hyderabad. Before taking charge of NCDHR in New Delhi, he headed the Sakshi Human Rights Watch in Hyderabad.

One of the interesting findings of his studies in various parts of India is that government-sponsored economic and social development schemes and market forces have actually created new opportunities for discrimination against the Dalits.

“Take irrigation for example. When irrigation is introduced, it is meant to benefit the entire village, but actually it benefits only the upper castes. Water is denied to the Dalits, and if they demand they are put down ruthlessly.

“Women’s self-help societies are meant to promote women’s development, but this has created a new area for discrimination. The Dalits are discriminated against or marginalized in the womens’ self-help societies. In the panchayats also, they are not listened to. In some places the Dalits have to sit separately.”

Asked if there were regional variations in India or whether the plight of the Dalits was the same all over, Sirivili said: “Conditions are a little better in south India because of certain movements of social equality in the 20th century. But discrimination and untouchability are still facts of life in rural India.

“That such things get reinforced with economic and political development is particularly disturbing,” he added. Clearly, development is not a panacea for social ills, as is generally believed.”

Hindutva’s terror link

The revelation that a militant section of the Hindutva network was behind the September 29 bomb blasts in Muslim-dominated Malegaon in Maharashtra and Modasa in Gujarat has shattered the myth propagated by the Hindutva campaign that only Islamist fundamentalism breeds terrorism. Indeed the Sangh Parivar’s loaded argument has been that while all Muslims are not terrorists, all terrorists are Muslim. Saffron rabble-rousers have had no compunction in lobbing this charge at the Muslim community as a whole. While it has become almost an article of faith with the parivar to link Islamist fundamentalists with terrorism, today, with the arrests of radical Hindu activist Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and four others, among them a retired Major, the Sangh and its affiliates find themselves warding off the same accusations. Prima facie, the case against the Sadhvi and her accomplices is serious. The Anti-Terrorism Squad of Maharashtra, which has been on the trail of Hindutva terror since 2006, has charged them under the Indian Penal Code for murder as well as under sections of the Indian Explosives Act, 1884, and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.

The antecedents of the accused, the suspected role of former military personnel in providing training to them, and the recovery of military-grade explosive material (possibly RDX) from the blast sites, have added to the discomfiture of the BJP and the parivar, which claim to be India’s only truly nationalist forces. The Sadhvi is a former activist of the BJP’s student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. She and her accomplices were associated with several right-wing Hindu extremist organisations. There is another deeply worrying aspect to the case: How did the accused lay their hands on military-grade explosives? The other question is how far the trail will go as the investigators pursue the leads provided by this lethal mix of Hindutva and terror. There is no escaping the crisis that this has set off in the parivar. The BJP’s first response was to deny that any Hindutva outfit could be involved in terror. But party chief Rajnath Singh, who has been photographed with Pragya Singh Thakur, has subsequently gone on the offensive, insisting that she must be presumed innocent unless proven guilty. What all this highlights is the imperative of acknowledging that terrorism is too serious a challenge to be left to opportunistic, subjective interpretation. Combating terror is a responsibility governments and political parties across the spectrum must take up in a united and cooperative way.

BJP's leader remain silent on Kandhamal crisis

Rajnath Singh

BHUBANESWAR: Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh on Sunday said if the party came to power at the Centre it would bring in a new law to deal with terrorism.

At a press conference here, Mr. Singh blamed the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre for linking terrorism with Muslims.

“Terrorism will not end in the country when Ministers in the Central government seek citizenship for Bangladeshi infiltrators and term the SIMI a socio-cultural organisation,” he observed, while criticising the UPA government for doing away with the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

The BJP president, who was here to attend a meeting of the party’s Orissa unit, held the UPA government responsible also for the financial crisis facing the country.

“The problem of inflation and price rise facing the country was the result of the wrong policies and mismanagement of the UPA government,” he said.

As regards the Kandhamal crisis, Mr. Singh condemned the killing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Laxmanananda Saraswati in the district on August 23. He, however, was silent about the anti-Christian violence that followed.

Demanding that the Orissa government strictly implement the law pertaining to conversion, the BJP president said that if required, the Central government should also bring a law to check conversion by use of force or allurement.