Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 6: The BJP is in a quandary. While in Uttar Pradesh the party is in support of the charge of “conspiracy by vested interests” and the opposition parties trying to defame the state government and the UP police in the Hathras dalit gang-rape case, it is opposed to a similar charge in Maharashtra where the Shiv Sena-led state government accused the BJP of trying to defame it and the Mumbai police in the Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s mysterious death case.
Minutes before the UP government filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court on Tuesday morning on the Hathras incident accusing the “vested interests” of trying to “destabilize” the government by organizing state-wide and nation-wide caste conflicts, the UP police in a bid to strengthen the state government’s stand in the apex court, announced that it had arrested four persons including one Siddique Kappan having “links” with the “Popular Front of India” (PFI), a Kerala-based organization of the Muslims often accused of indulging in subversive activities.
But no sooner the police announcement came, the New Delhi unit of the Kerala Union of Working Journalists wrote a letter to the UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath pointing out that Kappan was the secretary of the organization and was on his way to Hathras purely on journalistic assignment on Monday to cover the current developments in the UP village when he was arrested by the police outside Hathras. The union also pointed out that the four arrested included one more journalist besides Kappan and they had nothing to do with PFI.
“Our efforts and the efforts by some advocates based in Delhi to contact him were not successful. The Hathras Police Station and the State Police department have not provided any information so far on taking him into custody,” president of the association Miji Jose said. “Siddique was trying to do his duty as a reporter,” he added.
The UP police, however, insisted that the four arrested including Siddique were PFI operatives who were going to Hathras as part of the design to encourage caste and communal conflicts to defame the UP government. The police claimed to have “recovered some literature” as a proof of their links with the PFI and seized their laptops and mobile phones for further probe. .
The UP government also attempted to justify the Hathras police action to burn the body of the rape victim in a hurry in the dead of the night. In its affidavit it said the police was “forced” to cremate the victim’s body at night due to “extraordinary circumstances and a sequence of unlawful incidents”. It also claims the cremation was done “in the presence of family members who agreed to attend to avoid further violence.”
The newspaper reports quoting the close relatives of the victims, however, pointed out that the relatives were not allowed to even see the body before the cremation and that the hurried cremation was marked by a disregard to protocol and heavy handedness by a police force that did not let her family perform her last rites.
Rejecting the opposition parties’ allegations against the government and the state police, the UP government’s affidavit insisted that despite its diligent probe in the Hathras case, “different false narrative started gaining momentum at the behest of some vested interests”. It added that it recommended a CBI probe in the case as it “will ensure that no vested interests will be able to create a fake and false narrative with oblique motives.”
In its affidavit the UP government also referred to three statements reportedly provided by the victim before her death. In the first, the state claimed, the victim and her mother “clearly stated that she was not injured anywhere else other than the neck, that accused was only Sandeep and that nothing else had happened”. It also said the victim’s brother spoke about “family enmity” between the victim and the accused. The second statement, the victim said the accused “molested” her. The third statement by the victim raised rape charges against four men.
As the hearing began, The Supreme Court said the Hathras gang-rape and murder of the Dalit woman was a “horrible and extraordinary incident” and asked the UP government to clarify whether the witnesses in the case were being given adequate protection.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India S A Bobde and comprising Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, directed the UP government to file a separate affidavit clarifying the protection given to the witnesses. It said the apex court would try to ensure that the investigation into the incident is smooth. “We want to know from you whether the witness protection plan is in place. File an affidavit,” CJI Bobde told solicitor general, Tushar Mehta, who was representing the state government.
The court also asked the state to ascertain whether or not the family of the victim has engaged a lawyer. It further sought details of the scope of proceedings before Allahabad High Court. “We want to widen the high court proceedings and make it more relevant,” CJI Bobde said.
The court was hearing a petition filed by social activist Satyam Dubey and two lawyers, Vishal Thakre and Rudra Pratap Yadav, seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate into the crime.
Tushar Mehta told the top court that the state government was not opposing the plea for CBI probe but requested that it should be done under the supervision of the Supreme Court. The state government also took exception to media outlets and political parties sensationalising the incident. “We are not treating this as an adversarial litigation. There are different narratives in the public domain. One innocent life has been lost. It should not be sensationalised,” Mehta said.
The further hearing in the case was adjourned till next week.
Apparently encouraged by the UP government’s stand on the Hathras issue accusing opposition parties of “conspiracy” against the state government, in Mumbai the Maharashtra government on Tuesday announced an investigation into the “conspiracy to defame the Mumbai and Maharashtra police” in the Sushant Singh Rajput’s death inquiry case.
Announcing the investigation by the Mumbai police’s crime branch and cyber-crime branch of the Maharashtra police, the Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh blamed the opposition BJP for it. He asked the BJP and former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to apologise for defaming them.
The inquiry was ordered on the basis of a report by the Mumbai’s police’s cyber unit submitted to commissioner Param Bir Singh saying at least 80,000 fake social media accounts were created across nine countries as part of an “orchestrated campaign” to discredit the force and Maharashtra government over the investigation into Sushant’s death.
Singh said the campaign was run against Mumbai Police to demoralise them.
Rajput, 34, was found dead in his Mumbai home on June 14, setting off speculation about the cause of his death. Mumbai Police called several members of the film industry for questioning before the actor’s family filed a police complaint in Bihar alleging a conspiracy behind the death and blamed his girlfriend actor Rhea Chakraborty for it.
Even as the CBI, the Enforcement Directorate and the Narcotics Control Bureau are still probing the case, a medical team from New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) constituted at the behest of the CBI has supported the line of investigation taken by the Mumbai police and has ruled out the possibility of Rajput’s murder.
Deshmukh cited a Michigan State University report on social media campaign over Rajput’s death and said it found BJP hatched the conspiracy to defame Mumbai and Maharashtra police. Deshmukh said the BJP used “a few people outside the state” as “puppets” to defame Maharashtra. “The study report has stated that SSR [Sushant Singh Rajput] case study reveals the BJP’s hand in hatching the conspiracy theory in the case.”
Just as Yogi Adityanath blamed a section of the electronic and print media of “instigating subversive activities,” Deshmukh said a few TV channels were at the forefront of this conspiracy hatched by the BJP. “Cyber crime cell of the Maharashtra police will investigate the fake accounts created as part of the conspiracy,” Deshmukh said.
He cited the view of the AIIMS team and said it has endorsed their stand that no poisoning was involved in the death. “The Supreme Court… applauded Mumbai police’s investigation. A few BJP leaders targeted the Mumbai police for the political gain in the Bihar elections. They even crossed the limit and called the Mumbai police mafia.” Deshmukh alleged that Fadnavis had also targeted the Mumbai police, doubting their competence.
BJP, however, rubbished Deshmukh’s charges. “We strongly condemn political and false allegations… The BJP or Devendra Fadnavis will never indulge in any illegal activity. Deshmukh is the most irresponsible home minister Maharashtra has had so far. He should conduct the probe. We are not against it,” said BJP leader Atul Bhatkhalkar.
Meanwhile, the National Commission of Women (NCW) has sought explanation from BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya, Congress leader Digvijay Singh and actress Swara Bhasker on allegedly revealing the identity of Hathras victim on Twitter. It has also directed them to delete the posts.
“… you are hereby required to provide a satisfactory explanation to the Commission on receipt of this notice and shall remove and refrain from transmission of such pictures/ videos on the social media as they are widely circulated by your follower which is prohibited by the existing law,” the NCW directed.