In a damning revelation, a Right to Information application has revealed the Jihadi Literature that Delhi Police recovered from amongst the belongings of the slain terrorists killed in an encounter at Batla House in Delhi two years ago. The hateful, provocative and extremist nature of the recovered literature should be a matter of alarm for everyone. Given below is the cover of the book that contained the Jihadi Lit:
Pallavi Polanki writes:
“As far as I know, Panchatantra does not belong to jihadi literature. Why didn’t the police reveal this rather interesting piece of information,” wonders Afroz Alam Sahil, a student who works for an ‘alternative news portal’ called beyondheadlines.in
Sahil received a copy of the lab report from the National Human Rights Commission under an RTI query seeking all documents submitted by the Delhi Police to it in connection with Operation Batla House. [FirstPost]
The Wikipdia entry on this piece of Jihadi Lit reads:
The Panchatantra (IAST: Pañcatantra, Sanskrit: पञ्चतन्त्र, ‘Five Principles’) is an ancient Indian inter-related collection of animal fables in verse and prose, in a frame story format. The original Sanskrit work, which some scholars believe was composed in the 3rd century BCE, is attributed to Vishnu Sharma. However, it is based on older oral traditions, including “animal fables that are as old as we are able to imagine”, including the Buddhist Jataka Tales. It is “certainly the most frequently translated literary product of India”, and these stories are among the most widely known in the world. [Wikipedia].
Scandalous!
More about the Batla House encounter case from Kafila archives:
- 21 September 2008: Some Questions About the Delhi Encounter
- 22 September 2008: A Little Less Melodrama and a Lot More Forensics
- 26 September 2008: Shame is a revolutionary sentiment
- 13 October 2008: Some Questions for the Delhi Police and Embedded ‘Journalists’
- 14 October 2008: Was it a recce or a planned raid?
- 15 October 2008: The Jamia Nagar Encounter: ‘Curioser and Curioser’
- 3 April 2009: A Report on the Batla House Encounter
- 11 July 2009: A Tale of Two Encounters: Dehradun and Batla House
- 14 April 2010: Batla House ‘Encounter’: Whom is the JP Trauma Centre Shielding?
- 11 February 2011: Ravinder Tyagi of Batla House (in)fame in yet another frame up!
- 17 July 2011: Delhi Police Solve Mumbai Blasts Case
See also:
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 
This may be among the list of books seized or recovered, nothing wrong in such search or seizure. But the point is whether it is the only book seized or some other books/documents were there in the list. This item is not clear on that count. When police conduct raids and seize articles and documents along with incriminating ones many ordinary type of documents will also be seized naturally and listed. Please clarify.
LikeLike
haan ji sharma ji, the only book!
LikeLike
Then naturally nothing incriminating on that charge is found and the accused and if they are dead, their colleagues or the public need not worry.
LikeLike
“Then naturally nothing incriminating on that charge is found and the accused and if they are dead, their colleagues or the public need not worry.”
Dear Mr. Sharma, surely you cannot be as dense as this makes you out to be.
LikeLike
Mallik, there need a worry coz those killed were innocent. I am not worried abt the evil forces who did this, coz they are meant to be evil anyways, i am more concerned for the so called good people who purposefully stay blind against this illness of india.
LikeLike
Rita, Certainly I empathize and feel for the persons killed in the fake encounter. What I meant is the police seizure (Panchatantra book) only proves or tends to suggest the innocence of the killed persons and it is not incriminating. And as Dr Mohan Rao satirically commented the police could not even frame people properly and in this instance they did not plant any thing more incriminating. May be their utmost stupidity, may be not – and may be something else.
LikeLike
i do not know details about events like batla house etc. but one point is clear to all people of indian subcontinent. police often recovers ak-47 rifles and bombs from the houses of poor people and landless labourers. therefore i do not give any weitage to such reports. but there is one BIG philosophical puzzle. for many right wing ideologist like Arun Shourie, Mr Gilders of holland and many hundreds of people holy koran is also termed by these people as hate mongering book. as you people all might be knowing, we ambedkarites and Periyar loyalist consider hindu sacred books like geeta, vedas, ramayan etc as offensive to Sc ST people. it is another matter whether we agree with arun shourie, Gilders of holland or whether one agrees or not agrees we ambedkarites like me. but the point is on which criteria we are going to decide some book as offensive or not.
LikeLike
Kinda remind me of of another encounter a couple of years back. What lead the police onto the “terrorists” was that they had asked a police informer for street directions. As their luck would have it, when they were doing this, it just so happened that the barrel of their AK-47 was carelessly left to peep out of their bag which sorta gave them away to the informer.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-01-27/delhi/28037123_1_noida-encounter-amity-police-outpost-ats
LikeLike
The ludicrosity (?) of this is reminiscent of the evidence offered to court against Binayak Sen.
LikeLike
I am SUCH an idiot that I repeatedly find this idiocy difficult to believe. Can’t they even frame people properly? Mr.Anna Hazare please fast to improve efficiency among the police etc.
LikeLike
Should we give the police credit for being too smart or too dense? On the one hand, they pull off an encounter (in which one of their own is killed, by the way) but can’t plant anything incriminating. Reminds me of some mid-twentieth century sci-fi books referred to by Carl Sagan in one of his books – the human race in the story is so advanced that they could build space cities orbiting Neptune, but they forgot photosynthesis.
I know, I know, but even from the agents of the Socialist Indian State, one would expect a little more.
LikeLike
Manan Ahmed points out on Twitter that the 8th century Kalila wa Dimna was the Arabic translation of the Panchtantra. May be that’s what they found :)
LikeLike
What kind of human right commission regards such evidence as sufficient to exonerate the Delhi Police? The NHRC needs to be got rid of if this is the kind of work it does. The NHRC is no more than a farcical justifier of the government oppression rather than an upholder of human rights of citizens.
Of course, this story is too unreal, its something which could have been imagined by Salman Rushdie in some novel of his as an satire but it seems reality wants to outdo magic realism. I would recommend the Delhi Police be awarded the Booker Price for this novel attempt at literary reassessment.
If the delhi police want to be slightly less ridiculous in their activities i would suggest that all officers be issued slightly more incriminating “jihadi literature” which they carry everywhere so they can plant it whenever they involve themselves in an encounter. The koran would suffice.
LikeLike
should i remove Gita from my house? this book encourage War? once upon a time, Arjun….
LikeLike
Thats the way Police works, They had/have an advantage to keep the seized things as evidence of case to be damaged/lost in time. Police and Intelligence authority are the best judge who to be framed up and for what? Tools are ever present.
LikeLike
Does any one remember the story of the rogue policeman who killed a man for his gold chains yesterday 25.9.11 ?
the crooked cop shot his victim with a weapon that was unlicensed, there was another unlicensed weapon recovered from his home.
Where do you think he got them, why were they not deposited with the police
Because they would have been planted on an innocent and recovered from him as evidence of his being a terrorist.
The pigs do it all the time.This is standard police procedure.
Recovery of drugs, pornographic material, stolen property etc etc follows the same pattern.
The police does not, of necessity, have to have communal biases, it would behave in this ham handed manner with any accused,
having a communal bias gives them an added incentive to be at their vicious and scheming best.
LikeLike
I cannot believe this. U guys think the Dekhi police is so stupid to leave Panchantra book. What amazes me is the wish of people to blame India for all their problems. I would strongly recommend reading the complete Batla house and personality profiles of each of the terrorists. The Mumbai blasts, Jihadi literature, Bhatkal connection among others. Also the number of CD’s propgating violence as a means to solve the gujurat riots as revenge. There is much more than one comic book!
LikeLike
Could it be the police took for themselves all the useful “adult” books and what was left behind was only the cartoon book for 5 year olds ? In any case the police botched it, they didn’t do their job properly. Or, they did the wrong job. Without evidence, very hard to say.
LikeLike
Thats the way Police and Law enforcing bodies in most of the countries work. It would be a welcome surprise to know some thing different.
LikeLike
dnt knw if im right ,if police wanted a coverup ,they could have planted jihadi literature or any other evidences if it was a fake encounter ? could they be so dumb ?
This need a proper clarification .It amount to half the truth or half the lie
LikeLike
the truth is explored by only two persons in india. one VT Rajshekar former editor of dalit voice who was forced to shut down his bi-monthly magazine becouse of financial problems. the other one is retired IG of police Maharashtra cadre. he wrote masterpiece book. all research scholars and truth seekers must read it. log on to http://www.whokilledkarkare.com . unfortunately our elite media ( we dalits and chamars call it manuvadi media) never reviewed or talked about it.
LikeLike