Bad ideas, Debates, Law

The ban on SIMI and Indian democracy

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Dr Shahid Badar, national president of Students Islamic Movement of India, recently decided not to contest any more the ban on SIMI, his stated reason being:

“to put an end to this mindless, futile, unequal, unethical and unjust exercise in which the Government has shamelessly used the Judiciary to achieve its ends of casting a shadow of criminality on the entire muslim community.  I have therefore chosen not to contest the declaration of the central govt.”

This is the full text of the affidavit filed by him before the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Tribunal.

BEFORE THE HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE SANJIV KHANNA,

Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Tribunal,

Delhi High Court Building, Sher Shah Road, New Delhi

In Re: Students Islamic Movement of India

I, Shahid Badar, son of Shri Badre Alam, aged about 38 years, resident of Village Manchobha, P.O. Kakrahta, P.S. Sadar, District Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, presently at New Delhi, do hereby solemnly affirm and state on oath as under:

  1. I was the President of the Students Islamic Movement of India (hereafter, SIMI) on 27/09/01 when for the first time the Central Govt declared the organisation an ‘unlawful association’. The declaration by the Central Govt. under Sn. 3 (1) was accompanied with a direction under the proviso to sn. 3 (3) that the declaration was to have immediate effect, i.e. even before it was adjudicated and confirmed or cancelled by the Tribunal under sn. 4 (3). Being a law-abiding organisation, from the date of the declaration, i.e. 27/09/01, the organisation ceased to exist.
  2. On the date of the declaration itself, the govt. of the day ensured that all the offices of the organisation were sealed and its bank accounts frozen.
  3. On the intervening night of the 27th and the 28th of September 2001, before I was informed that SIMI had been declared an unlawful association, I was arrested and charged with being a member of an unlawful association, a cognizable offence under sn. 10 of the UAPA, 1967. My lawyers advise me that this is in violation of a basic principle of ‘Rule of Law’ every law student is taught as part of their course on jurisprudence – criminal sanction cannot be retrospectively applied.
  4. While I was still in custody, I was served with a notice by the tribunal constituted to adjudicate the validity of the declaration of SIMI as an unlawful association. As the last president of SIMI before it was declared an unlawful association, I engaged counsel to contest the proceedings on my behalf. When the tribunal upheld the validity of the declaration, I petitioned the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, which was pleased to grant leave to appeal and admit the appeal as Civil Appeal No. 9208 of 2003.
  5. The declaration of 27 September 2001, of SIMI as an unlawful association, was to expire on 26 September 2003. However, on 26 September 2003, the govt. issued another notification, once again declaring SIMI an unlawful association. I was still in custody, but once again, contested the declaration and then appealed the decision of the tribunal upholding the declaration, before the Hon’ble Delhi High Court. Vide order dated 04 January 2008, the Hon’ble Supreme Court was pleased to transfer the petition to itself and have it tagged alongwith pending Civil Appeal No. 9208 of 2003.
  6. On 8th February 2006 the Central Government once again declared SIMI an unlawful association. When the Tribunal constituted to adjudicate the validity of the notification was pleased to uphold the notification, I once again filed a Special Leave petition. The Hon’ble Supreme Court was pleased to grant leave and the petition is currently still pending before the Hon’ble Supreme Court as C.A. No. 1323/2007.
  7. SIMI has therefore been more or less continually banned since September 2001, making a complete mockery of the intention behind the UAPA and the safeguards supposedly built into the statute to prevent abuse.
  8. As yet, the Hon’ble Supreme Court has heard none of the three appeals filed by me.
  9. On the occasion of the last declaration by the govt. of 07th of February 2008, I once again appeared through counsel and this time the tribunal constituted in terms of the UAPA and presided over by Hon’ble Ms. Justice Gita Mittal, returned a resounding verdict clearly holding that the central govt. had no grounds to declare SIMI an unlawful association. The tribunal therefore cancelled the declaration of the central govt.

10.  However, although the tribunal’s report answering the reference was sent to the Central Govt., neither my counsel nor I, were intimated about the fact of the report or the cancellation of the central govt’s declaration of 07th of February 2008. I gathered the news only the next day from media reports.

11.  Shockingly however, I also heard, once again from media reports, that the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India had stayed the judgement of the Tribunal in a mentioning motion made before it at 2 p.m. the next day, i.e. the 06th of August 2008. Interestingly,

  1. The govt. had not even intimated me, or the lawyers who were representing me, that the tribunal had cancelled the declaration.
  2. The govt. had not informed my counsel or me that they intended to mention the matter before the Hon’ble Supreme Court.
  3. The Hon’ble Supreme Court did not deem fit to ensure that any attempt was made to intimate my lawyers or me of the mentioning
  4. Nevertheless, by order dated 06th August 2008, the Hon’ble Supreme Court had stayed the cancellation of the declaration of the central govt. of SIMI as an unlawful association.

12.  That after the present tribunal was constituted as well, I was served with notice to appear in the present proceedings. I therefore asked counsel to appear before this Hon’ble Tribunal and seek information regarding the basis on which the organisation has once again been declared unlawful.

13.  However, a perusal of the notification and the background note reveals that it is once again a tissue of the same old lies, with minimal cosmetic changes.

14.  From my experience of contesting the declarations of SIMI as an unlawful association, I am left with no other option but to conclude that the intention of the Government seems to be to crush any voices of dissent from marginalized communities. It appears that the central govt. is using the provisions of the UAPA and the good offices of the judiciary to send out a message that some Fundamental Rights are not available to Muslims and that to be Muslim is to be suspect. This is state terrorism.

15.  Importantly, in not a single case since the imposition of the first ban on the 27th of September 2001, has any conviction against any member of the association in respect of an ‘unlawful activity’ attained finality before any court of law. Every case registered against members of the association has ended, either in acquittal or discharge of the accused.

16.  Insidiously, numerous muslim organisations, many of whom have never had any relationship with SIMI, are sought to be tainted by false, baseless and completely unfounded allegations that they are front organisations or otherwise connected with SIMI. The list increases with every subsequent tribunal constituted.

17.  Personally, on every occasion that the matter was contested before the tribunal the central govt. made completely false, unsupported and sweeping allegations against me of fund raising and continuing the activities of the unlawful association.

18.  I have never committed any offence whatsoever, either during the period when the declarations have been effective, or before the organisation was declared an unlawful association.

19.  I completed my ‘Bachelor of Unani Medicine and Surgery’ (BUMS) programme from Aligarh Muslim University in the year 1998 and run a small clinic in Village Manchobha, where I live, and where I offer my services to people irrespective of their race, caste, class or religion. This is my practice of Islam.

20.  My medical practice, and through it, service to the community is very important to me. For several of my clients, I am the only source of medical care. I am therefore not in a position to leave Village Manchobha for extended periods of time.

21.  In view of the above facts, I want to put an end to this mindless, futile, unequal, unethical and unjust exercise in which the Government has shamelessly used the Judiciary to achieve its ends of casting a shadow of criminality on the entire muslim community. I have therefore chosen not to contest the declaration of the central govt.

22.  The contents of the above affidavit have been read over and explained to me in Urdu.

Deponent

Verification

Verified at New Delhi on this the 01st day of May 2010 that the contents of paragraphs 1 to 21 of the above affidavit are true and correct to the best of my knowledge, information and belief. No part of it is false and nothing material has been concealed therefrom.

Deponent

27 thoughts on “The ban on SIMI and Indian democracy”

  2. Interesting link, Ajit. But even if one were to take the South Asia Terrorism Portal, run under the imprimatur of KPS Gill, as some sort of objective information, it seems to list only endless details of arrests, not convictions.

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    1. isn’t KPS Gill the same gentleman who was known as the Supercop and was in 1996 convicted for outraging the modesty of a woman IAS officer.

      Given the unenviable record of filing false complaints, lying on oath and perjury committed by the police that surfaces with sickening regularity in courts of law across the nation, I would be slightly wary of taking the word of a cop, or a former cop for that matter, in matters of Human rights and about those suspected of terrorism etc.

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  3. Well, a search for the word ‘convicted’ should settle that. It was the first thing I did.
    I don’t understand the dig at Gill. Should we then regard the head of SIMI as an objective source of information ?
    I take the SATP site to be a possible source – with information that is categorical enough to be confirmed or refuted if one really wants to ascertain facts. I prefer such information to opinions.

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  5. And Ajit, coming to your claim about SIMI workers being convicted on charges of terrorism, since you are making this claim, why are you asking others to run a search? Please do it yourself and let us know.

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  6. Perhaps I did not do the search properly or whatever, but the SATP site that Ajit gave does not yield any information on convictions of SIMI activists. Even if only for further deconstruction, I would like to have that information, and it has to be from the SATP site, otherwise Ajit’s comment is revealed to be the blind faith in “anti-terrorism” rhetoric parading as facts that it seems to be.
    If the SATP site does give us that information, at least I can imagine Ajit to be trying to be fair.

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  7. SATP is usually very thorough with its data..

    While I am not “Ajit” :), given that I browse SATP quite often at leisure, here goes:

    1. Dec 27, 2008: A trial court in Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh convicted nine cadres of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) to two years imprisonment and imposed a fine of INR 500 on each for promoting communal hatred

    2. July 5, 2007: Four persons, including two Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) militants, were convicted by a court in New Delhi for possessing explosives and conspiring to wage war against the country. The other two persons, held guilty under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Explosive Substances Act, are members of the outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).

    3. July 16, 2003: A POTA Court in Delhi convicts two SIMI activists for their active involvement with the banned outfit..

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  8. Thanks Somnath for doing Ajit’s job. Now I’ll do mine…

    Nos. 1 and 3 are not about terrorism. They’re about spreading communal hatred and being associated with a banned outfit.

    As for No. 2, read that full paragraph on the SATP website (be as thorough as they are!) See the last line in particular.

    The claim that no SIMI member has ever been convicted *for terrorism* stands.

    One exception is Yasin Patel, whose alleged crime was sticking posters (which is not terrorism) and whose witnesses are all policemen! His case is pending in the High Court. And this is not on the SATP website. This is here: http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne160808adoubtful_crime.asp

    Surely Ajit Sanzgiri and you see something wrong when such a large number of SIMI people, or allegedly SIMI people, area arrested but not a single terrorism-related conviction in years?

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  9. He writes as if SIMI=muslim community.There are many political organizations run by muslims and some contest elections.So his argument that government by acting against SIMI is acting against the muslim community is not at all convincing.I know one organization with past state president of SIMI as its president. So although SIMI might have been banned its members (ex and current) might be affiliated
    with other organizations and might be continuing their political work. Of course with suppoters Tehelka, SIMI can claim anything and try to fool the public. But see this link
    http://www.sabrang.com/srikrish/intro.htm
    Read for yourself what is said about SIMI.
    I know that it is not ‘politically correct’ to cite this and argue that SIMI is not an innocent organization as it is made out to be.
    Google for SIMI and Ghazni
    and decide for yourself.

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  10. Wow shivam, now you have to take recourse to “legalese” to justify the innocence of SIMI! Is defence of SIMI the new badge of secular credentials?

    SIMI represents the very strand of jehadi thought today that transcends borders in search of the global pan-Islamic polity (fortunately for India, it has affected a very microscopic minority of Indian muslims)…To somehow ascribe innocent victimhood on the organisation has to be a leap of liberalist views..

    Yoginder Sikand, to me one of the prime scholars on muslim socio-political trends, and surely no one’s idea of a hindu fascist, has written extensively about SIMI..Here’s a (slightly) old article by him in Countercurrent, again surely no one’s idea of a “hindutva” platform..

    http://www.countercurrents.org/comm-sikand150706.htm

    Talking about conviction, so carrying explosives, grenades, RDX are all innocent activities – which all of us tend to do at some point in our lives!?

    Conviction rates are low – but thats the nature of the terror problem..How many convictions were achieved during the two decade long terror reign in Punjab? Have we ever been able to convict Wassan Singh Zafarwal, or Jagjit singh Chouhan??Criminal jurisprudence as well as investigative techniques are always a few steps behind the terror groups..More so now, with the essential tools of terror – mobile phones, bomb-making material, technology for making the bomb – having become so ubiquitous..these should not become excuses for not doing thorough police work, but simply an enunciation of the difficulties…

    We will need to evolve better technologies, better “laws” and everything else, but where is the justification for defending an organisation whose stated aim (in its “legal” avatar) was to establish India as part of the “Khilafat”, and invite “Ghazis” from all over the world to carry on the mission for that in India??

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    1. Conviction rates are low, and that can be changed if “we evolve better technologies, better “laws” and everything else..”

      Why such haste ? What if conviction rates are low because the existing laws and technologies are not applied properly, effectively and with sincerety ? And what if the widespread failure of prosecution is not accidental, but actually a part of the overall design ? If you stick to the law correctly in one instance, you would have to stick to it in every instance right ? And that can hurt when policemen or ruling party members fall foul of the law (which happens more as the norm than as the exception.)

      Some times, in an evil mood, I cannot help thinking that good defense lawyers who get actual offenders off the hook are not a bad thing for our society. They are showing us how grossly the state violates its own law.

      Ridiculous isnt it ? The police do not investigate properly, the prosecution does not prepare the case properly, they cook up charges, present bogus witnesses, and falsify evidence. Every time. Every time. Take a close look at any prosecution case, and you would think it is actually a spoof. But most of the time, they dont even know that their cases do not hold water and they dont care. They know that they can get a conviction when they want one. And most of the time they dont want it. It is so much simpler to deal with enemies outside the court. They go to such extraordinary lengths to lose their cases and then the public opinion builds up – we need better laws (read more draconian) . Why? So that they can be applied even more selectively?

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  11. Anant,

    Your points are no doubt valid..Police reforms have been given a short shrift for a long time, and our policing standards are a shame..However, it is also a fact that terror crimes represent a qualitiatively different challenge from what a “city police” force is trained for..Any lawyer/police official with some experience can tell you that…A “typical” murder, for example, has a murder weapon (the most important “evidence” in a murder investigation), and a motive…In a terror incident, in 9.9 out of 10 cases, the terror weapons are not found (or cant be found) and there is no “motive” against those killed – the motive is to create general mayhem..Why do you need new laws? Because existing tenets of CrPC do not allow you intercept communications (not just phone, but internet, IP phones, sat phones etc)…they dont allow you to track money transfers across borders using formal and legal banking channels…

    Terror modules are flexible, small entities, increasingly with no clear (or invisible) “centre of gravity”….A sleeper cell would consist of 2-3 people living perfectly normal lives for years (or even decades) across multiple cities…ACtivated through a satellite telephone instruction (transcripts of which which cannot be retrieved easily post facto as the satphone operators are not in India) from (say) Pakistan… One person organises the “bomb” (which is very easy these days to make out of commercially available materials), another surveys a target area and a third person collects the bomb and places it in the target area…After the deed is done, all three disperse off either to their “normal” lives, or simply disappear across the border..

    Getting witness, evidence and basically complying with criminal juriprudence standards for such cases require a very different level of technical sophistication as well as different sets of laws..

    There is absolutely no gainsaying the fact that policing needs to be a million times better in India..

    The question here however is different..

    Do we need to certify SIMI as a harmless conservative society just because we have only had three convictions of SIMI members in the last 5-6 years? Or hang on to “reasons” on how the convictions were not for “terrorist” actions? The reasoning is a bit in the same lines of Pakistan saying that they cant proscribe HAfiz Sayeed and LeT because there isnt “proof” – even as they go around preaching jihad against India!

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  12. Somnath,

    I appreciate the fact that terrorist outfits are a new category that calls for new responses. I also appreciate the fact that it takes a very high level of moral rectitude and intellectual rigour and a keen political sense to watch against the urgent imperative of ‘prosecuting the prosecution’ blending with unwitting promotion of positively offensive actions.

    But, that is precisely why, I think we need to be very careful about what we wish for. New laws and technologies without first going through a thorough overhauling of the existing police, investigative, intelligence and prosecution practices – we will end up with a molotov of new technologies and old attitudes. The absolute callousness and impunity with which these things are dealt with by lawmakers and law enforcers – makes one feel that, it is better if they do not do anything at all because what they do only makes things worse. (For a minor example of how these things are working take a look at SR Sankaran’s note titled ‘ amendment to an amendment’ in the 24th April issue of EPW).

    The trouble is that this is not just a matter of admin reforms. It is political in a very deep sense and the victims can be theoretically just about anybody – including you and me, although it seems that the largest numbers of them belong to particular sections of the population. The scale and degree of this victimization is much much bigger than what the media will ever admit.

    Just think – the government thinks that they can declare a ban on an organisation and apply it retrospectively to the president of SIMI – and actually succeed in doing so – they can do this to anyone. Is it possible that they dont know the law ? is it possible that they cannot come up with a more reasonable and just way of pining down the man ?

    It is just that they dont have to be reasonable!! Thats all. And that is just the kind of behavior that prompts other people to behave in unreasonable ways. It escalates into more laws.

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  13. The quoted statement says this:

    “Importantly, in not a single case since the imposition of the first ban on the 27th of September 2001, has any conviction against any member of the association in respect of an ‘unlawful activity’ attained finality before any court of law. ”

    This says nothing about whether the convictions are about terrorism or something else.

    From the SATP site:

    “2008:December 27: A trial court in Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh convicted nine cadres of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) to two years imprisonment and imposed a fine of INR 500 on each for promoting communal hatred.”

    and again:

    “2007:July 5: Four persons, including two Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) militants, were convicted by a court in New Delhi for possessing explosives and conspiring to wage war against the country. The other two persons, held guilty under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Explosive Substances Act, are members of the outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).”

    Any other help needed with reading ?

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    1. Ajit,

      Shahid Badar claims that there is NOT a single instance of conviction of SIMI members having ATTAINED FINALITY in any court of law.

      You say he is incorrect and cite two instances of trial court convictions from the SATP site.

      Are you suggesting that the trail court convictions are final and any further recourse that the accused may take to the law by way of appeals in higher courts is meaningless by definition ?

      Or do you have any other evidence of his Shahid Badar’s dishonesty ?

      Or are you discrediting Shahid Badar simply because he is Shahid Badar and you are Ajit and you are confident that you can conjure up evidence and interpret it as you please as and when needed ?

      Thanks for your help, but I am sorry – not only have you mis-read that affidavit and the SATP site, but you actually misquoted Shahid Badar in your very first comment.

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    2. In decision of July 5 2007, the court has made this remark that no membership of the convicted persons to any organization has been proved. It is the police who claimed that they belonged to SIMI.

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  14. Anant,

    apart from the legal minutiae on the “finality” of judgement, what really is the point?

    About shahid badar’s honesty, in 2001, he published pamphlets that said “No to democracy, No to secularism, Yes to Shari’a” and “Waiting for the next Ghazni to invade India”….

    Shaid Badar has not only not denied this, but justified it later…Its a bit specious for someone like him now to take recourse to secular, republican criminal jurisprudence to argue his “innocence”…

    Thats part of the problem with terror crimes in a democratic society….The “other guy” can frequently revert to “normal” laws meant for normal situations, and there are numerous civil rights/liberal/”progressive” groups arguing his case, even if the reality faces everyone starkly in the face…

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  15. The point simply is this: you cannot subvert the law and jurisprudence just because someone is a suspected terrorist. Because once you subvert the law or take short cuts here, not only are you destroying the promise of the constitution of India of equity to the poor and the marginal, but in fact you lose the only moral ground on which you claim to be different from the ‘terrorist’. Why does that seem like legal minutiae to you? Even an unlettered old woman in a village will be able to see the absurdity in this. (Perhaps, only such people can see it.)

    If you say that Shahid Badar lied in this affidavit, you have to show that he has lied in this affidavit. You cannot prejudge him in the court. If you do that, you may as well close down the courts.

    For the rest, what you are describing seem to me more like political problems than like a terror problem to me and I do think it is really short sighted and in many instances plain mala fide to use the court room to meet a political challenge. You can try Narendra Modi for the Gujarat Killings. But can we put him on trial for being a Hindutva vaadi ?

    Seriously, this man says your constitution is humbug (if he did as you say) and in all indignation, you go and prove him right in the court. And then you get all upset that the civil rights/liberal/”progressive groups are preventing you from doing that. What can I say ?

    Anyways, thanks for the conversation, I may not have much more to add to this. :(

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  16. Somnath, we are discussing an affidavit submitted in court; the term “conviction” is a legal term here, not a poetic flight of fancy. And yet every time your never-to-be-shaken prejudices are challenged with evidence, you go – “ooh wow, ‘legalese’! ‘Legal minutiae!!’ What will you Muslim-loving pseudo-secularists stoop to next!!!”
    Arrests are NOT convictions. Routinely, the police arrest wildly and irresponsibly, with little, none or cooked-up evidence. Even in the latest instance of Kasab, the Indians arrested by the police were acquitted (another legal term – we are incorrigible, aren’t we?) precisely for the absurd nature of the evidence that the police produced – hand-drawn maps showing various sites to be attacked, in this age of GIS, as the judge caustically observed.
    On kafila we have documented many many times the ways in which police have been demonstrably proved to have extracted false confessions – for instance, parents confessed to having killed their son, and were in jail till the missing boy turned up alive in the village after a year or so. Nothing, as far as we know, was done to the police who extracted that confession.
    So yes, arrests are not convictions. In the SATP site which provides you with your intellectual stimulus, Somnath, the sentence Shivam asks you to go back and read says, after the entry for July 5, 2007: “However, the court on February 23 acquitted them in all these cases for lack of evidence.” In other words – NO CONVICTION.
    And Ajit, who quotes the entire passage above, and asks if we need help with reading, OMITS this one crucial sentence! The dishonesty that Ajit has shown is appalling – did you really think nobody would go and read it themselves, or that many of us had not already done so? But of course, many readers of kafila may not follow it up back to the link, so why not just lie, you might just get away with it.
    Politically Incorrect Indian draws our attention to the article on the Srikrishna Report that is critical of SIMI for communal activities – ALONG WITH “hindutvawaadi parties” in the same paragraph. None of those hindutvawaadi parties have been banned, have they? And to quote the Srikrishna report for THIS! Did you read it? Do you know that is a damning and definitive indictment of hinduvavaadi political organizations – not one of which has been brought to justice for the blood they have shed – let alone banned.
    Somnath – Yoginder Sikand is critical of all kinds of communalism, and he has been critical of SIMI too. However, you, Ajit and PCI, on the other hand, selectively applaud secular voices when they are critical of Muslim communalism, but actively white-wash Hindu communalism and Hindutvavaadi violence against minorities. If communal hatred should be a basis for bans on political organizations, we know where to start the banning.
    Anant – it is not you who may not have much more to add – it is Somnath, Ajit and PCI who really really have exposed themselves, and have nothing more to say, as far as we are concerned.

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  17. Anant, if Shahid Badar was only saying “your constitution is humbug”, then the fight would have been political, not juridical/criminal..Unfortunately, he doesnt say that, whichever spin you put on his statements..He says (and he has never denied it, and in fact justified it) that India should be brought under a Sharia rule, and Ghaznis should be invited to invade India – most people (including the “unlettered village woman”) would understand what this means…For the more “lettered”, there are tons of accounts on what it means from an Islamic politico-theological perspective – you can start with MJ Akbar’s eminently readable “Shade of the Swords”…If you still think that Shahid Badar is only challenging the Indian state from an intellectual perspective, and does not pose a physical threat to Indian people, well, then I havent got anything to say..

    Nivedita, I actually happen to read what I quote (or comment on) quite carefully..the last sentence that you are referring to alludes to acquital on this: “police had claimed to have solved six bomb blast cases, including the 2001 Sena Bhavan blast”….It does not refer to their conviction under a) the explosives act and b) under the charge of waging war against the country, which is explained right at the begining…Why were they so charged? Because they, along with two hizb militants, were caught with RDX, grenade launchers and other explosives…Very innocent accoutrements, often found on “normal” people?

    And my reference to the “legelese based quibbling” is stemming right off what Shahid Badar says in his affidavit:

    “15. Importantly, in not a single case since the imposition of the first ban on the 27th of September 2001, has any conviction against any member of the association in respect of an ‘unlawful activity’ attained finality before any court of law. Every case registered against members of the association has ended, either in acquittal or discharge of the accused.”

    Note the point – nowhere does he claim lack of conviction only on the grounds of terrorist crimes, his touchstone is any “unlawful activity”…

    But somehow, it has now been spun around (here) to imply that no SIMI activist has been ever convicted for “terrorist” crimes…Though it would be interesting to understand from Shivam, anant et al what their definition of “terrorist” crimes is, and whether possession of grnade launchers falls under that or not..

    The second spin of course is that conviction is not somehow “final”, as the cases may be lying in appeal in appellate courts…This is so untenable that its surprising that its even brought up…Conviction by a trial court is enough grounds for punitive action taken against all public servants..Conviction in a trial court, even if suspended by the appellate court (which hasnt been the case in any of SIMI’s cases) is enough for punitive provisions of the RPI Act to apply on candidates looking to fight elections…conviction by a trial court is taken to be “final” in a range of activities of the convicted person – applying for a government job, or applying for a passport, or even starting a business…

    But of course, some “reason” has to be found isnt it, to defend SIMI?

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  18. persisting with the ban appears evidence of a knee-jerk reaction. An organization banned in 2001 seemingly at the behest of the US is now virtually toothless, but there’s nothing to stop extreme elements from joining one group or the other. The very fact that evidence against so-called SIMI terror activities never stands on its own in a court reveals its actual lack of muscle.
    By giving the SIMI so much importance, the govt’s agencies may actually be missing the real McCoys.

    As the home ministry’s website points out, there are at least 34 banned terrorist organizations. Several are from the northeast and they continue to operate with impunity and a fluidity, changing names to reemerge at will.

    The world of terrorism has changed much since 2001, and the government’s response shd be similarly adaptable.

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  19. Hmm, yes, as I thought, Somnath, you have nothing more to say, really, but you’re going to keep saying it anyway. AS someone said in response to another one of your endless regurgitations of official police/govt handouts which seem to form your sole reading matter (apart from kafila!) “uff, yeh Somnath…”
    Ab kuch vaqt sochne ka bhi nikaliye…

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  20. Somnath,

    I dont understand. Are you doing this deliberately or do you really not do the homework ? The Indian Passport Act and the RPA do not have any penal sections in them. Nor do the portions of service rules that you are referring to. They are all about maintaining public confidence.

    So, they restrict the freedom of the person in question to act in ways that can potentially cause public harm or sabotage investigation. (If you look at the passport act, you will see that it is not just conviction, even if a person is accused, his passport application can be rejected. That is a precaution. Not a penalty !!

    Same with RPA. You want to make sure that a person who is under a cloud does not occupy public office – because there is a risk that the person can sabotage and in any case, it will lead to undermining of public confidence. Exactly when and how to apply these provisions is a matter of contestation and open to appeal.

    If you are saying that an organisation like SIMI is a threat to public confidence or security and therefore there must be reasonable restriction on their actions – fine, cite the relevant law but be aware that within a reasonable period of time, you have to establish guilt. You cannot restrict someone’s freedom indefinitely merely on suspicion.

    In any case you are wrong about people ‘finding any reason to defend SIMI’. Most people who are concerned about what I am referring to above have a lot of other things to do. SIMI just happens to be one of hundreds of thousands of cases.

    And I am responding only because I am appalled at the kind of public display of callousness and constant misinformation about things that have consequences for so many people who do not have access to the internet.

    Of the 3.5 lakh prisoners in India, 70 per cent are undertrials and 70 per cent of undertrials are booked for petty offences. That is, we are talking about a lakh and half families on any given day who have someone important to them sitting in jail for an indeterminate period of time.

    And here you do not even bother to use google carefully, and yet want new technologies. If you ask me I would say, banning people who use google search engine for more than 5 minutes in a day from all public places should be number one priority on security measures in India. :) They are a positive threat to anybody’s security and sanity.

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  21. IF SHAHID BADAR HAS SAID THAT

    India should be brought under a Sharia rule, and Ghaznis should be invited to invade India

    AND IF HE IS BEING TRIED FOR MAKING SUCH STATEMENTS

    FOR ONCE I AGREE WITH SOMNATH

    HOWEVER SHOULD NOT THE ENTIRE LEADERSHIP OF THE RSS THAT WANTS TO DECLARE INDIA AS A HINDU RASHTRA and that INSISTS THAT ONLY HINDUS MAY STAY IN INDIA BE ALSO ARRESTED AND CHARGED FOR ANTI NATIONAL ACTIVITIES AND TRIED ON GROUNDS SIMILAR TO THOSE ON WHICH BADAR IS BEING TRIED.

    OR IS IT THAT THE RSS CAN NOT BE FAULTED BECAUSE IT PURPORTEDLY SPEAKS FO ALL HINDUS

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  22. Just struck me that you might go and google the two acts and come back disputing my first sentence that there are no penal provisions. Yes, sorry about that haste. What I meant was that there are can be no penal provisions in those acts for offenses committed under some other law. The provisions in those acts are about obtaining passport fraudulently or misuing it and about getting elected fraudulently or about subverting the electoral process.

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  23. I have written a long story for a Urdu magazine in 2009 and it got published in The Milli Gazette also. It has a long list of Muslim youths who have been charged in the name of SIMI but acquitted from several courts. This is not updated list as it was published in 2009, before 4 years. Now, I hope, the list would be just double of it.
    http://www.milligazette.com/news/5196-lift-the-sinister-ban-on-simi
    http://www.milligazette.com/print/issue/1-15-january-2010/6

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