Ishrat! Ishrat!! Ishrat!!! I never met you. I was born in India. Circumstances were such that I tried and successfully landed in Britain. Thought nothing of leaving the country. I was young and naieve. My family was not rich.. 'Going abroad' was what it was called. All of us in those days thought that in those countries abroad money grew on trees . All we had to do was go there and the riches of the world will be like picking fruit off the trees. The reality was different. It was hard back breaking manual labour that most us could find to do. We did the jobs that some of us would not have been caught dead doing in India. The legacy of the caste system in India suffering under all the 'Sahib complexes' left behind by the British and our experience of slavery stood in the way of the dignity of all honest labour ,manual or otherwise.
I lived in Britain for three and half years. Those were the years of Enoch Powell. Years of rampant racism of the National Front and Powell. I left for Canada in May , 1968. It was a more open society. I literally broke my back pulling heavy lumber in a sawmill. I went back to school full time working summers to support myself. My family and my wife supported me through my two degrees. I became a Canadian citizen and have tried to do my duty toward my adopted country, the country of my children and six wonderful grandchildren. I am now retired, enjoying playing with my grandchildren, gardening and blogging.
Ishrat, I am now doing what you would never be able to do. Gujarat Police and the Intelligence Bureau(of India) made sure of that. You are not the only one that this has happened to.In independent India there have been thousands of victims of 'riots' ,'pogroms' and 'encounters'.It is just that I am now free from the constraints of the Canadian public life. That means my voice and words are free to go where my heart wants them to go. I have been thinking and writing of different things . Even today my mind has been wandering about Tahrir Square, Quebec train that caught fire and caused destruction and loss of life, George Zimmerman trial in the US and the terror at Bodh Gaya.
Ishrat , you have been on my mind for some time . As I sat down to blog today I could not get you out of my mind. Even my slow moving fingers were refusing to touch the keyboard unless I wrote this note to you. The fingers did not care about my fears. They kept reminding me that I needed to put my fears and reluctance aside. They kept reminding me to follow my heart. I had made hundreds of speeches in my life urging the young in particular to follow their hearts. I pleaded with my fingers that I was not so young now. Finally my fingers and my heart have successfully conspired to awaken in my conscience the duty to speak about Ishrat, to speak about India and repay the debt I owe to the country of my birth, the country and its people that nurtured me for the first 17 years of my life. So here it is, Ishrat.
Ishrat , you were only nineteen. You were studying and working at the same time to support your family. You were found in the company of someone that police allege was a terrorist. They allege that the infamous David Headley had told some one that you were an LeT operative. The same David Headley who is a convicted terrorist and is alleged to have given this information in exchange for being spared the electric chair or the lethal injection.
The CBI(Central Bureau of Investigation) has charged several law enforcement officers in your death. It has taken them 9 years and several judicial interventions to get there. The investigation continues. CBI claim that they are aware of the allegations of at least the acquiescence in, if not the active support of, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in your murder. Yes, murder. The CBI claim this was not a genuine encounter. They say it was a 'fake encounter'. They say you and three others were illegally detained ultimately at private farms. You and others were brought to the place of your death and murdered in cold blood. CBI also maintains some false legal documentation had been prepared before your murder to make the muder look like an encounter.
I am angry that the media and politicians continue to use the term 'fake encounter'. The use of this term diminishes the gravity of the crime of your cold blooded murder. There is no such thing as a fake encounter. Either there is an encounter or murder. There is nothing in between. The position taken by the CBI is clear. Let me call a spade a spade. This was Murder with capital M.
Ishrat, I know the framers of the Indian Constitution intended India to be a country under the rule of laws not of men. It seems from the evidence geathered by CBI that your murder was the result of the 'Rul of Men' and not of Laws. Otherwise how could a senior cop order and participate in your murder based on a go ahead from 'the white beard and black beard', whoever they may have been, and how could various mimisters and police officials meet and conspire to frustrate the investigation?
Some political parties and commentators are fond of reminding us that all four of you murder victims were trrorists. And even if you Ishrat were not a terrorist what were you doing in their cmpany any way? As if everyone they ever associate with , they always investigate thoroughly beforehand! Based on publically available information, one can reasonably conclude that you were most probably an innocent young woman trying to study and support your family even though the other three may have had questionable motives. Even if I am wrong in my assessment of all or any of the four of you regarding terrorism, my position does not change. Your killing was still murder. These politicians and commentators should think what kind of country is India becoming where instead of condemning killings such as yours and asking for rigorous investigations and prosecutions of the killers all we hear is misleading and partisan commentary that is an insult to all right thinking Indians and to the memory of the freedom fighters who fought for equality and justice for all.
There is something called the psumption of innocence. Every one including murderers, thieves, politicians/commentators or terrorists are to be presumed innocent under and before the law until proven guilty in a court of law. The rule of law does not ask any 'white beard or black beard' whether some one can be punished by death or otherwise. Only the rule of men is answerable to men, white beard or black. India I believe is still governed constitutionally by the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. So your death Ishrat was still a cold blooded murder and absolutely unforgivable and more importantly both legally and morally indefensible.
So Ishrat , I know I have not been there for you and others. I have a debt to repay to India, the land of my birth. Obviously words alone are never enough. It is a beginning at best. So Ishrat forgive me for the late start.
Pledging to remain for ever vigilant.
Yours,
Ujjal