Tag Archives: counter-terrorism

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Everyday Life, Government, Images, Language, Law, Violence-Conflict

The UAPA in Madhya Pradesh – The JTSA Report in Perspective, and Beyond: Sharib Ali

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Guest Post by SHARIB ALI

REPEAL UAPA: JTSA REPORT IN PERSPECTIVE, AND BEYOND

The state fabricates terror. There is enough evidence to take it to court on that count. Yet, how does one construe ‘fabrication’- what is implied by it? First, that the state has orchestrated elaborate attacks- violence to terrorize its people for certain legal, electoral and political ends. Second, that it has, through the use of laws like Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA)  against specific segments of its population has consciously manufactured a state of terror- a collectively imagined perception of threat that the nation faces from a particular people. The ends, always remain the same.

Though there is evidence of the agencies of the state, or actors within them, expressly participating in orchestrating large scale terror attacks (think col. Purohit), it is the latter- where terror within specific communities is manufactured in the eyes of the law and the people- that I deal with here, today. ‘Guilt by Association’ – The JTSA (Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association) report on UAPA cases in Madhya Pradesh, is a crucial case in point.

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Countryside, Violence-Conflict

Crossed Wires: Intelligence and Counter-intelligence in Chhattisgarh

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First published in The Hindu
On May 16 this year, adivasis, attending the weekly Sunday bazaar at Unchapur in Chhattisgarh’s Rajnandgaon district, found six corpses stretched out on the main thoroughfare of the village. In a note placed on one of the bodies, the CPI (Maoist) took responsibility for executing the six villagers for succumbing to “the lure of money” and serving as “police informers”.
The Rajnandgaon killings are a manifestation of the escalation of the confrontation between Maoist cadres and security forces in Chhattisgarh. As the scope of the conflict has widened from purely armed engagement to the disruption of intelligence networks, the Maoists and security forces have both enlisted civilian support for intelligence gathering. This has made the adivasis targets in a war being fought in their name.
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Bad ideas, Everyday Life, Government, Law, Politics, Violence-Conflict

Your Rights End Where My Terror Begins

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A phone in poll today on CNN-IBN’s Face the Nation:

Should human rights take a back-seat in favour of tougher terror laws?

65% say Yes!

Thus speaketh the great Indian middle-class- Enough is enough!

Continue reading Your Rights End Where My Terror Begins →

Politics

Human Rights Defenders As Petty Swindlers: It is all Maya

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“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running and robbing the country. That’s our problem.”

– Howard Zinn, Failure to Quit

Three month old Babu who is affectionately called Yuvraj also is not in a position to read the changes in his mother’s face nor can comprehend why everyone in the family has suddenly started looking tense these days. For the kid the world remains the same, but for his family members it has rather changed a lot.

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Excavation, Government, Law

Was it a recce or a planned raid?

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DCP Alok Kumar
DCP Alok Kumar

Guest post by AZIZ BURNEY, Editor, Rashtriya Sahara (Urdu), Delhi

It is a truth universally acknowledged that anything viewed from various angles presents various shapes. It is also a fact that your angle of view determines to a large extent the picture registered by your brain. An askew angle of view is bound to distort the picture. Reality defies comprehension without proper perspective. To date, we have not been able to understand what kind of picture the Delhi police is trying to draw in order to explain the incidents of September 19 as they happened. Continue reading Was it a recce or a planned raid? →