The ‘Fidayeen’ Who Never Was

WITH SYED Liyaqat Shah being granted bail by a Delhi court, two myths have been have been demolished- the first that the Indian Judiciary is not the villain it is made out to be when it comes to dealing with Kashmiris and the second, that the Delhi Police is no saint which it professes to be! And now that the National Investigation Agency (NIA), after carrying out extensive investigations, has found no evidence of the terror charges slapped on Shah by the Delhi Police, the question is- will New Delhi take appropriate action against those who were instrumental in framing Shah?

Even without having gone into details, it was evident right from the beginning that there was no case against Shah. For, if he had indeed come on a ‘fidayeen mission’ (in which he would go on a killing spree until he himself was killed), then would he have been so naïve to have brought his wife and children along? Yet, the Delhi Police thought otherwise and disregarding the clarifications issued, not only by the J&K Police but also Chief Minister Omar Abdullah himself, went on to claim that that by making this arrest, they had averted a ‘major tragedy’. And to prove its point, the Delhi Police even claimed to have recovered arms and ammunition on the night of March 21-22, from a guest house in Delhi’s Jama Masjid area at Shah’s instance. But what it perceived to be a ‘water- tight’ case has rightly been thrown out of the court!

It is pertinent to note that while granting bail to Shah, the court made the following observations:

“The alleged recovery from the said room is made in the absence of the accused. The carrying out of the search without the knowledge and in absence of the present petitioner/accused creates doubt of petitioner/accused being involved in terrorist activities.”

“No substantial evidence has come up against the present petitioner till date and the prosecution/NIA has failed to make out a prima facie case against the present petitioner/accused till date.”

And, it is also pertinent to note that this is for the first time that a person booked on terrorism related charges being investigated by the NIA has been granted bail by a court.

Delhi Police has lately been in the limelight for the wrong reasons and perhaps the idea to come out with a spectacular achievement may have been prompted by an urgent need to redeem its tottering public image. But, it cried, “wolf” too soon and instead, landed up by putting its feet into its own mouth once again. And it goes to the credit of Omar Abdullah and the J&K Police, who after making their unambiguous statements clarifying that Shah had returned under the ‘rehabilitation policy’ and was not on any terror related assignment, maintained a dignified silence. The Delhi Police on the other hand went ballistic, making sensational disclosures regarding this arrest and giving an impression that, had Shah not been arrested, New Delhi would have been subjected to a repeat of the 26/11Mumbai type attacks!

Now that the case against Shah has fallen flat, it would be the best for the Union Government to come out clean and prove it does not have an anti- Kashmiri bias. So, it needs to immediately initiate legal action and prosecute those Delhi Police officers guilty for, firstly, booking an innocent person on framed-up charges of a very serious nature and secondly, for ‘terrorising’ the public by making false and misleading claims. And this is all the more important since the Delhi Police functions under the direct supervision of the Central Government!

Tailpiece: A joke presently doing rounds in Delhi goes like this – the Union Government agreed to remove AFSPA from Kashmir and pull out all the security forces by replacing them with the Delhi Police. But the separatists and the civil society refused the offer since they feel that they are better off having AFSPA and security forces around, rather than the Delhi Police, which is a law unto itself!

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