Complainant blasts Swamy’s “political vendetta” charge

By Md. Ali, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: After the Delhi Police filed an FIR against Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy for spreading enmity between two communities through a hateful newspaper article, Swamy has been on defensive and trying to project the case as political vendetta for his active role in exposing the 2G scam. But the first and original complainant against Swamy’s article has blasted the charge.
The Crime Branch of Delhi Police on Monday registered the case under Section 153A (spreading enmity between communities) of Indian Penal Code for his article published on 16th July 2011 in the DNA newspaper. Swamy said that the FIR about three months after his article was published is a clear case of political vendetta.


Subramanian Swamy
“I wrote the article in July. The FIR is filed in October. The motive seems to be my stand on 2G (spectrum scam)," Swamy has been quoted as saying.
But the first complainant against Swamy’s hateful article, Mr Shehzad Poonawala, a 24-years law student in Delhi, said the complaint against Swamy was registered with the Delhi Police within 24 hours of the publication of his article in July itself. Harvard-educated economics scholar, Swamy’s article 'How to wipe out Islamic terror' was published on 16th July in Mumbai-based English daily DNA. Aggrieved with the highly inflammatory and hateful article, Shehzad Poonawa had approached Defence Colony Police Station in Delhi on 17th July with a written complaint against Swamy.
In July the 2G scam probe was not as hot as it is today and the Central Government was not facing as much humiliation as it is today particularly after the exposure of PMO note making the thing messier than ever. Rather the Congress-led UPA had an upper hand for not hesitating to send even cabinet minister to jail for his alleged involvement in the scam.

When Shehzad approached the Defence Colony police to file FIR against Swamy on 17th July the police using their discretionary powers filed a complaint, not an FIR, pending it for further enquiry. In his complaint, Shehzad said that Swamy “intentionally promoted, by written words, enmity on the grounds of religion and disharmony, hatred and ill will between different communities namely Hindus and Muslims which is in contravention of Section 153A(1) (b) and 153B(1) (c) of the Indian Penal code, 1860.”
Two days later i.e. on 19th July, Shehzad approached the Delhi Police Commissioner. The Commissioner’s office referred the case to the Joint Commissioner of Police/Southern Range for further necessary action. Shehzad also approached the National Commission for Minorities. Promptly acting on his complaint the commission shot a letter to Delhi Police for registering an FIR and to Election Commission of India to deregister Swamy’s party Janata Party.
A Delhi court had also asked Delhi police to go into the merits of several complaints against Swamy’s article and take proper action.
After a thorough probe now the Delhi Police has registered an FIR and it informed the minority commission on Monday about the FIR. Swamy has been booked under section 153 of IPC for promoting enmity and hatred between two communities which entails a non-bailable warrant and could land him in prison up to three years.
“Pointing out false reason of political vendetta, Swamy is just trying to portray himself as a victim and a martyr, who is being made a victim of political vendetta. But the truth is that it’s Muslims whom he targeted and who are victims of his hatred,” Shehzad told TwoCircles.net on Tuesday
“In totality, if you see across the country, there was not just one complaint but a series of complaints against Swamy for his hate filled article,” Shehzad added.
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Shehzad said that what Swamy wrote and later celebrated on, is against law and constitution of India. That’s precisely the reason why legal action should be taken against him.
Swamy in his article had suggested to Indian Hindus to collectively respond to terror acts. His article was published three days after the Mumbai serial bombings of July 13. "We need a collective mindset as Hindus to stand against the Islamic terrorist... If any Muslim acknowledges his or her Hindu legacy, then we Hindus can accept him or her as a part of the Brihad Hindu Samaj (greater Hindu society) which is Hindustan," Swamy wrote in the article.
Swamy had said that the terror attacks are done by Muslims in order to scare the “Hindu psyche and create the fear of civil war.” He appealed to all the Hindus of the country to unite against radical Muslims and asks them to take inspiration from Jews. “Fanatic Muslims consider Hindu-dominated India “an unfinished chapter of Islamic conquests,” said Swamy.
"Others, who refuse to acknowledge this, or those foreigners who become Indian citizens by registration, can remain in India but should not have voting rights (which means they cannot be elected representatives)," he added in his edit page article.
[Photo Courtesy: thehindubusinessline.com]
Source : http://twocircles.net/

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Why “they” love to hate a young, educated Muslim?

By Shehzad Poonawalla,
It’s been 63 years since we became independent but how many more years it will take for us to become liberated is anyone’s guess. As vocal democrats and committed secular liberals, my family has been at the forefront of shunning those who speak the language of fundamentalism and violence, whatever be the hue of this hate-filled ideology- green or saffron. For us, those who instigate in the name of political Islam and those who uncork the poisonous vials of political Hindutva, represent the two sides of the same coin.
My brother Tehseen has been a prolific writer and an open supporter of better ties between India and Pakistan. In article after article, he has justified why we need to choose peace over war and how India’s true position in the comity of nations would be attained by eliminating visible poverty, which should be our most important constitutional commitment. Yet it seems that, a vocal section, those who have made nationalism and patriotism their sole privilege, would continue echoing an outdated line of how my brother is sympathetic to Pakistan (because he happens to be Muslim) and should be asked to leave India.

Translation: "Mr. Shehzad Poonawalla. Jay Maharashtra We have learnt through Facebook that you are going to celebrate Valentine's Day. V-Day is western culture. It is alien to Hindu Culture. Therefore, the Shiv Sena opposes it time and again. Therefore, we ask you not to celebrate V-Day. Or else we will protest against this in the 'Shiv Sena' style. This be noted. Janu Akhade Former Councillor (Pune Municipal Corporation) Vadgaon Sheri Vidhansabha Matdar Sangh Jayesh Pawar Shiv Sena functionary/incharge, Yerwada, Pune"

And this is not the first time (and perhaps it won’t be the last time) that those who harbor this mindset will target us. Will they succeed in making us change our secular ways? Never! Today, this politics of targeting and branding is something every young, educated Muslim must be ready to contend with. Is it unfair? Surely it is. But can we get disappointed with our democracy and our country India for what a right winged good-for-nothing fringe element does? Certainly not.
Yes we will have instances of Shiv Sena writing threatening letters to us “warning us of Shiv Sena style action” if we screened the movie My Name is Khan or chose to do fund raisers for de-worming of slum children or even filing complaints against us as they did against my brother for proudly donning the Indian flagpin on his chest! Ironically, Bal Thakeray always kept accusing Indian Muslims of wearing the Pakistani flag on their sleeves so one wonders why his henchmen had a problem when a young Muslim chose the Indian Flag! But then I guess, the Shiv Sena is a reflection of this fringe element that cannot see India as a secular nation brimming with the Gandhian-Nehruvian Ganga-Jamuna Tehzeeb. What was even more disturbing was the fact that the Pune Police actually asked my brother to visit the Police station and “warned” him against wearing the flag as if he were a criminal! But we are in no hurry to let go off a right the Indian people have laid down their lives for. For over a century our forefathers, Tilak and Maulana Azad, fought against the British to raise the national flag and not a single piece of legislation, be it the Flag Code or any other set of rules and regulations, prohibits an Indian from wearing the flag pin with pride and respect. So why must my brother back down? Because the Shiv Sena threatens us to do so?
The targeting will continue be it as ridiculous as the “hatetehseen” group created on a popular social networking site Facebook to denounce my brother as an enemy of India or it may be more serious, as we have seen in Gujarat in 2002, where a systematic genocide of over 2000 people was sponsored by the State, with its chief minister “acting as a Modern Day Nero” as observed by the Supreme Court. The young educated Muslim will have to contend with a large number of biases and resultantly it shouldn’t be a surprise that a large proportion of undertrials/convicts languishing in jail happen to be Muslims which is perhaps much higher than the ratio of Muslims to the total population. However, the representation of Muslims is very low when it comes to government jobs, schemes and services, enrollment into universities, availability of health and sanitation facilities, access to political power or to loans from public sector banks (even though Muslims being a largely entrepreneurial community would need greater access to capital!)- which has been well documented by the Sachar Committee and Ranganath Misra Report. But none of this should end up scarring or making us feel victimized simply because this is not how the larger, secular majority in India behaves. One still believes that Indian Muslims are in a far better position than Muslims elsewhere and therefore it is incumbent upon each one of us and this silent, secular majority to defeat this narrow, parochial mindset based on cultural misrepresentations and hatred.





And there is reason why I believe that we can defeat these communal forces. It’s because we as a nation have chosen our constitution to have a secular mandate and agenda right from the very Preamble. It is because for every villain of Gujarat there are hundreds of heroes like Vir Rathod, Harsh Mandar and Teesta Setalvad who have helped in providing refuge, securing justice and are lobbying for laws like the Communal Violence Bill recently drafted by the National Advisory Council which will prevent the repetition of Gujarat 2002. And for every 30 odd people who chose to hate my brother Tehseen for his secular ways, there are over 5000 who chose to stand by him and support him.
Jai Hind!
(The author is law graduate from Pune’s Indian Law Society and political activist)
 Source : http://twocircles.net

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