In place of removing the doubts being raised in the media about the escape from most secured Bhopal Central jail, the BJP crowd is condemning all those who are raising questions as anti-national and even claiming that questioning the misdeeds of the police is not only anti-national but also endangering the national security. Some of them have even equated the Madhya Pradesh police to the army men fighting on the frontiers and the havaldar killed in the prison premises has been accorded the status of martyr. This is sheer nonsense and denigrating our armed forces. BJP crowd is making all efforts for politicalisation of the event while accusing the opposition parties of using it for political gains.

Interestingly, after long time the Media realized that it had been committing blunders by terming the under trials as terrorists. No charge had been proved in the court of law yet, hence they remain under-trials and cannot be termed as terrorists. This has been going on for long and time has come to challenge this type of blundering. Neither the Media nor the BJP crowd be allowed to term any under trial person as terrorist or criminal. The defense lawyer of the murdered eight who allegedly indulged in jail-break has claimed the proceedings in the court were near completion and most probably four of them were bound to be acquitted.

This is not impossible. In the past, in at least two dozen cases, people arrested on charges of terrorism and kept in jails for two decades or more have been acquitted by the courts as the investigating agencies failed to substantiate the charges. Even in the case of terrorist attack on Parliament the court had punished the arrested persons not on the basis of evidence gathered by the investigators but to satisfy the “conscience of the nation”. In cases like Malegaon, Mecca Masjid and Samjhauta Express, arrests were made of innocent people of minority community. Later it was found that these attacks were handiwork of different Hindutva organizations like Abhinav Bharat. Though in some of these cases the minority community accused were released but no action was taken against those police officers who had cooked up the stories to implicate innocent people. Still attempts are on to soften the cases against real culprits like Colonel Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya.

Time has come that the secular democratic forces in the country start objecting to labeling people as terrorist just because police or other investigating agencies have arrested some body. After the Bhopal fiasco, the Supreme Court should take suo-motto notice of all those cases in which hundreds of youth from minority community are languishing in jails for years together and in some cases police has failed to even substantiate the FIR. High courts should be asked to review all such cases and release all those against whom police has no proofs. Furthermore, all those responsible for such arrests including the police and other agencies be punished and those who languished in jails for years be appropriately compensated.

Demanding strict adherence to the law in no way be treated as endangering national security. The rulers have to be forced to stop labeling opponents as anti-national on any pretext. This has to be treated as contempt and they need to be hauled up in the court of law.

Going back to the alleged jail break and the murder of those who allegedly ran away from the Bhopal Jail.

The stories cooked up by the Madhya Pradesh government and various versions doled out by jail administration and police can be simply termed as laughable. If one believes these stories, we have to believe that the most secured jail of the country had locks that could be opened by keys made out of tooth brush. We have also to believe that the eight accused were expert in jumping the 35 feet wall by ladders made out of bed sheets and used wooden pieces. We have also to believe that they were expert in carving out knife from their utensils to slit the neck of the policeman on duty. They had enough bed sheets that they used to tie up another police man on duty and used the remaining for making the ladder.

We have also to believe that, it was just coincidence that the CCTV cameras failed in the particular barracks, search lights were not working and policemen on watch towers were not on duty. Chief minister Chauhan has announced that the escape from jail will be investigated by the Madhya Pradesh police. He does not want any other agency to investigate as he fears others may spill out the truth.

A section of the media has raised questions about the decision of the accused taking eleven hours to cross just 15 kilometers to hide themselves. About their dressing including watches on their hands are also causing doubts. Apprehensions have been expressed that the whole escape and killing of these eight was well planned and some vested interests were behind it?

The escape from jail and the killing of the policeman need to be separately investigated, not by Madhya Pradesh police but by an independent agency under the supervision of the judiciary.

So far as the encounter killing of the eight is concerned, all indications are that it too was pre-planned and police deliberately killed the accused as it was under instruction not to arrest any one of them alive as he may spill out the real story. Police and the ministers of the BJP state government have issued statements contradicting each other. If there was firing from the accused, who provided them pistols and other weapons? Videos have become viral that clearly indicate that the people who were allowed to escape from the jail need to be killed. None should be left alive. Why? There are number of eye witnesses who have talked to Media refuting the claim of firing by the escapees. Of course, some of them said that the accused did pelt stones and police replied it by firing on them. One video indicate that the escapees were pleading for surrender but the police officer advised that none should be left alive.

Supreme Court in the past had opined that all encounters, fake or genuine, need to be investigated to bring the truth before the people. Madhya Pradesh CM does not want any probe of the claimed encounter. Why? Bhopal encounter is a fit case for the Supreme Court to order Judicial probe under its own supervision.

We have repeatedly asserted that the Narendra Modi is creating problems after problems just to hasten the process of communal polarization and rouse the sentiments of the people in the garb of promoting its version of nationalism. It creates problem to en-cash it during the election campaign. It raised the issue of Gau Raksha before the Bihar assembly poll by killing Akhlaq of Dadri on the false charge of storing beef in his refrigerator. It wanted to exploit the issue of “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” and patriotism on the eve of the assembly elections in Delhi. On both occasions it had faced humiliation. Our people do understand its dirty game plan. Keeping in view the coming assembly elections in five states, it is keeping alive tension in Jammu and Kashmir as well as on Indo-Pak border. Bhopal episode is an addition to this game plan.

So far as Terrorism is concerned, it needs to be studied and understood properly. We have repeatedly asserted that the theory of terrorism that the American imperialists propounded after the Washington attack had nothing to do with the problems we have faced. Unfortunately, it was the previous NDA government headed by A.B. Vajpayee that swallowed the American prescription and Vajpayee himself coined the phrase that “all Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims”. Soon after this, a series of terrorist attacks took place and the government started arresting Muslim youth on cooked up charges. This continued under UPA regime. Now Modi government is pursuing this disastrous course more vigorously. It is becoming a real threat for the unity and integrity of the country as well as our cherished goal of a flourishing secular democracy.

It is high time that all those who want to preserve the secular democratic fabric of the country and defeat the fascistic onslaught of the Modi government should come together and mobilize and activate the masses against such sinister moves. (IPA Service)