Yakub's Angels

Read these words: “The blast victims are calling it justice. But look at Bada Qabrastan, and tell me if this looks like closure. Or, the start of something”. That comes from one among thousands who attended the funeral of Yakub Memon, convicted and hanged, on July 30, for the Bombay blasts of 1993. A very large crowd of Muslims mourned Memon. A terrorist was turned into some kind of hero by the media and some 5-star activists. Before we move on, let’s refresh. The serial bomb-blasts were made of 13 bombs placed at crowded locations. It was also the first time many Indians learned about RDX, the deadly explosive. For the record, it was also the first serial bomb-blast across the world. If you read about such an attack today or watched the events on TV, I’m sure your blood would boil enough to seek instant death for the perpetrators. But 22 years later Yakub (one of the key perpetrators) has been turned into some kind of hero for the Sickulars. How did things come to such a pass?

The SC handed out a death sentence to Yakub. This was confirmed in a review petition and the President also rejected his mercy petition in April 2014. Everything was peaceful and forgotten till the Maharashtra govt announced around July 15 that Yakub would be hanged on July 30. All hell broke loose. Suddenly, a host of lawyers, media crooks and hacktivists sprang up from nowhere to seek commutation of death sentence, mercy for his crime and so on. Over 250 so-called “eminent” persons petitioned the President for mercy and this is a small list from The Hindu:

And among the many Rudaalis from Politics, media and other assorted hacktivists who glorify terrorists and seek sympathy for them are the following:

First, many of them claimed the evidence was flawed – FALSE. Then they claimed Yakub had surrendered (Based on some unpublished note of the late RAW officer B.Raman cleverly exploited by Sheela Bhatt of Rediff) so deserved sympathy and not death sentence – FALSE. Then when none of that could be backed by reason, they claimed they were against death penalty in principle. In short, save Yakub by hook or crook even when the SC had gone through his case with a fine tooth-comb. Let’s look at some of the hypocrites where death penalty is concerned. Some of the hacktivists are the same ones who frequently scream “Death to the rapists” after every incident of rape.

Hypocrisy on the issue was flowing like a river during floods. There are many other such hypocrites but I will have to save space and not make this anymore lengthy. From July 28 onward petition after petition was filed by Yakub’s lawyers while another mercy petition was submitted to the President. July 29 evening the SC rejected the final appeal and the President too rejected the mercy petition. Wait! It wasn’t over!

Late in the night the lawyers of Yakub filed another petition at the residence of CJI seeking a 14 day gap to the execution. All frivolous attempts to somehow stall the inevitable. It is commendable that the CJI again convened the court early hours on July 30 to hear the final appeal. This too was rejected. That the CJI and SC gave so much latitude is worthy of applause. This wasn’t a routine bail case – it was a case of a man’s life hanging in the balance and the CJI did the right thing and a splendid job. The ones who failed our judiciary were Yakub’s lawyers, our criminal media and activists.

The lead lawyer for Yakub, Anand Grover, after the final appeal was rejected by SC early morning on July 30 claimed he had no motives for defending Yakub and was doing it pro-bono. However, he blurted out unconsciously that he was doing this “because he was against Modi”. That’s the real long and short of it. All this nonsense was rightly described by the AG, Mukul Rohtagi, as “abuse of process”. Yakub’s lawyers were abusing the process of law which provided them such luxurious latitude. The abuse of law and the process was merely because of political persuasions and not because of any quest for justice. This is something law-makers will have to address to prevent such frivolous burning of midnight oil for an unworthy cause. It is the same with all the media crooks. They too crooned for Yakub only because of their political persuasions – Hatred for Modi and portray him as the person under whom another Muslim would be hanged. Simple! Political hatred and money, of course:

People are not fooled. Almost everyone suspects the lawyers, activists and media have a huge amount of cash-flow from some yet “unknown” sources that promote Islamic extremism and domination. Although the noise was much less then, similar voices started agitating against the hanging of Kasab and Afzal Guru (both were hanged secretly by the previous govt unlike Yakub).

Grover, Yakub’s lawyer, even went on to quote Shekhar Gupta’s stupid argument – that the Home Minister was chasing crooks like Teesta and NGOs instead of preventing attacks like Gurdaspur being one of his motives to defend Yakub. Are you serious? This is one of your stupid motives for defending Yakub? This is truly shameful for a highly placed lawyer because there is no context or connection. All those who defended and wanted mercy for Yakub had no real motive for justice other than their political persuasions and possibly cash-flow. Many activists and media morons went to the extreme of even slamming the SC for being unfair. This, when the SC had stretched itself beyond normal to repeatedly hear petitions for Yakub way into the early hours of July 30 and stretching the legal process for a terrorist that would never be done for other ordinary persons. Here’s Indira Jaising, a defender of Teesta (and wife of Anand Grover) mercilessly slamming the SC. Shameful conduct!

And it went on and on and on till the final hammer of SC came down on the appeals around 5am on July 30. “The defence never rests” and it never should is what I consider one my best articles. But stretching it to frivolous levels is not defence but abuse of process motivated by political persuasions and perhaps truckloads of money. Rudaali-in-Chief Barkha Dutt stayed up all night and when the inevitable happened, she rushed to Mumbai to meet victims of Yakub and the 1993 blasts and scavenge on their misery. One way or another feed on the wounds of any kind. That’s our media. And, of course, I have even heard stupid questions like whether hanging Yakub would deter anything. Here’s one sample of such stupidity:

There have been many train bombings in Mumbai since 1993. There have been many terrorist attacks since 1993, thousands have died. Each time the Rudaalis demand sparing the terrorist as it doesn’t deter further such acts. The media glorifies terrorists and some Track-2 media idiots also hobnob with ISI operatives in Pakistan in multiple visits. This is downright illogical stupidity. There are laws and punishment for rapes, thefts and murders – Do such laws or punishments deter such crimes at all? Laws and punishments are no deterrent for “evil” that resides within some men and women. There is no cure for that. Most people would have had no problems had Yakub Memon’s sentence been commuted to life instead of death. But the severe chest-beating by all these crooks only made the public angrier. As against petitions to the President for mercy, some victims also started petitions to the President for death to Yakub. I estimated many in the public wanted death for Yakub not so much because they wanted him dead but because they hold these chest-beaters and terrorist-sympathisers in greater contempt.

There are many more media houses but I have named only a few due to text limits. Life sentence is sometimes worse than death. As Mr Red so philosophically says in “Shawshank” – “They send you here for life, and that's exactly what they take away”.

Either way, those sympathising with a criminal like Yakub are no less criminals (I don’t include his defence lawyers in this). There are other reasons for death sentence. India has paid a heavy price in the past. Most people remember the hijacking of IC814 in December 1999 when we succumbed and released three extreme terrorists who have now set up new terror outfits in Pakistan. There’s the case of Maqbool Butt who wasn’t executed and an Indian diplomat in London was kidnapped and murdered – IndiraG later approved the hanging of Butt (read here). And all those hypocrites who claim to be against death penalty in principle remained absolutely silent when India (under UPA) voted in the UN against its abolishment. I don’t suggest India should have gone with the UN proposal but these campaigners remained silent, including the happy-tongue-hypocrite Shashi Tharoor. Terrorists may kill one of a family only once but our media and activists kill the victims’ families over and over again.

Defence lawyers plead for proper process and proper administration of justice for the criminal. If at all the media or activists campaign for anything it should be for justice for the victims. It is the opposite in India and the reason is very simple – POLITICS & MONEY! And just how well do Yakub’s Angels look after him? Here’s the Indian Express (one among many) who grandly splashed his funeral on the front page:

And the headline says “THEY” hanged him? Who the hell is THEY? The Hindus? The BJP? A wretched country called India? Or The President of India and our judiciary? Yakub’s death was merited by the law and not some individual, group or entity. Such extreme filth to honour a criminal and a terrorist! Naturally, more and more terrorists will rejoice the support they find in our media and with criminal activists. The popular president, Dr. Kalam’s funeral is consigned to a column on the margin. And even there IE displays its filthy political pursuit – the PM was there so too other senior ministers, but their grand choice of a pic at the funeral is the worthless juvenile retard that does nothing for India and is mostly abroad. Now you know who the entities IE and other media house bat for! Naturally, it emboldens terrorists to issue more threats as a friend of Yakub did:

A coward sits in a hole in some foreign country. He issues threats to India because he has support from our media and criminal activists. He knows he has great support with these anti-nationals and our fake intellectuals. Parties like CPM and CPI want the death penalty abolished – guys who have murder as their political policy. There are Rudaalis like Kavita Krishnan who hold candle vigils for terrorists while her party too (CPI-ML) and associated Naxals slaughter people as a routine. Yakub Memon acknowledges guilt and seeks forgiveness while these little terror-supporters bat for him. But more than all that GOI must start acting against internal unarmed terrorists who pass as Yakub’s angels in our media and NGOs. They aren’t holed out abroad, these traitors are right here amongst us. These are sleeper cells that are angels for terrorists.

Indian Express & CNN-IBN - Fake Debates & Reports

This is a follow-up to my previous post on fake debates by CNN-IBN about the Social Media (SM). First the TV channel grandly put out a report on the debate held on the sidelines of the Ramnath Goenka journalism awards. One shouldn’t forget that the debate was anchored by Sagarika Ghose whose hatred for some people on SM knows no bounds. The host of the Goenka awards, Indian Express, then came out with its own report about the event. Quite flattering about SM I must say. The thing to remember is most of these media celebs dismiss SM as a nuisance or at best concede that it’s here to stay. They have forgotten how they themselves arrived on TV. But before we move on, people should recall Sagarika’s famous Look-Live debate that featured Sri Sri Ravi Shankar back in November 2011. Seems their parent company in the US, CNN, is the inspiration for Sagarika and CNN-IBN. Someone pointed me to this hilarious Jon Stewart video. Just watch the stupidity of CNN and how they fool audiences:

Stewart calls it CNN "News slaughtering". That’s right 2 correspondents reporting from the same “parking lot” and delivering the “illusion” of reporting from separate locations. That’s news TV for you. They keep on delivering illusions in the hope that others will be fooled while they can live comfortably in their fake TV-lives. So after CNN-IBN it was the turn of Indian Express (August 4) to deliver some fake story. The IE reporter was in the same parking lot, or should I say the same hall as CNN-IBN where the SM debate was held. So let’s read what their report said (excerpts in blue):

Who's afraid of social media? As the applause for winners of the sixth Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards died down, this question took centre stage. Less than a year after messages on social media spread panic in the Northeast and two girls in Mumbai were arrested for views posted on Facebook, it was a compelling question, with no easy answers….  I&B Minister Manish Tewari called the Internet "the most audacious experiment in anarchy", a "vast, ungoverned space" teeming with individuals who had multiple identities. Democracies and governments had to learn to accommodate voices from this "virtual civilisation".

Anant Goenka, head of New Media at the Express Group, felt that the influence of social media may be overstated. "You just have to look at the numbers," Goenka said. "Twitter reaches the influential. But it reaches less than 10 per cent of the people that conventional media reach." But it could help improve stories, Goenka felt, and it could help journalists find sources online.

So what did you make of that? Now, if you aren’t careful you are likely to miss some lies and some lack of prudence in some of the sentences in the report. Anant Goenka (wonder if he’s a descendant of Ramnathji) reflects a terrible lack of foresight and vision. Oh… but he’s the head of New Media at IE. Any surprise that IE is doing so badly in sales? Those who don’t learn from history are likely to repeat silly mistakes in the future too. Technology doesn’t wait for anyone. It forces change on those who are unwilling to adapt. The typewriter is mostly gone. The concept of “stenographers” in offices has largely disappeared. But we have “stenographers” in the media who report stuff like a box of parrots.

Anant fails to understand how TV itself grew when he claims that Twitter reaches only 10% and that you have to look at SM numbers. Fine! He should remember that TV itself grew from a modest number of lakhs in 1982 to over half the population now owning TV sets. Some states have over 90% TV penetration. While there is no accurate figure for the number available, a fair state-wise estimate can be seen at Wiki. What about mobile phones? When it arrived around 1995-96 people were still dealing with the tiny pagers. Pagers have disappeared. From as much as Rs.16 or Rs.20 per call in 1996 mobile phone-calls are now less than a rupee. Currently estimated at 696 mobile connections, mobile penetration is expected to touch 72% by 2016. Smart-phone users are already 27 million says Nielsen. These estimates are not very off the mark. So why does Anant Goenka believe that the same 10% will remain for SM or Twitter? This is living in a cocoon and unwilling to accept that there will be millions of SM users in the next 2-3 years and it may grow to the mobile-penetration size too. Either this worries the MSM to hold frequent debates slamming the SM or provoke regulation of SM. That is the problem they face.

But the bigger LIE is in the very first paragraph of the IE report. And they expectedly believe that most people will overlook this and move on to the rest of the report. It says: “Less than a year after messages on social media spread panic in the Northeast…” Is that so? How cleverly IE passes fake reporting and one has to wonder what the alleged editor, Shekhar Gupta was doing with such lines. The NE panic wasn’t spread on SM or Twitter. On the contrary SM was helpful in clarifying many of the rumours that were being spread on SMS. Yes the rumours were being spread through SMS and one Anees Pasha and four more were arrested for sending out over 4000 SMSes. In the wake of these SMSes the GOI also banned bulk SMSes for a long time. So why does IE get its kicks with a fake report that SM created the NE panic? Well, if you’re in the same parking lot as CNN-IBN anything will go as long as it helps to slam the SM given the nature of their debate.

Once again, it looks like the only ones really afraid of SM growing are those in the MSM. Ideas whose time has come cannot be stopped or throttled by fake debates and reports. This is more so when technology can make many redundant. I haven’t seen Shekhar Gupta being on the SM (unless he has some alias) but he likes giving lectures about SM. No problem! That’s like a guy who still uses a typewriter commenting on the evils of computer. Anything to survive.

While Pratap Bhanu Mehta Was Sleeping

Ever attended a sales meeting in a company? If you have, I’m sure you would have heard about reasons for successes and reasons for shortfalls. The managers who are burdened with shortfalls often come up with suggestions for the company. It usually starts with “WE should do this” or “WE should do this” or “WE should do this”. The trouble with this manager is he never says “I need to do this or I need to undertake this correction”. That’s the problem with “WE”. That’s the problem with Pratap Bhanu Mehta (PBM) too. On July 11, 2013 he suddenly woke up from a long golden slumber and found “While wewere silent” the UPA crimes had passed without notice. Oh really? His article in the Indian Express starts off with a massive blame “A story of destructive governance and citizens who did not speak out”.

Silent People?

Frankly, I am not in disagreement with the rest of the contents of PBM’s article but it’s just that he thinks citizens were sleeping. The fact is that citizens were well awake and have expressed their criticism of the criminal bad governance of Congress & UPA in many forms. This was through articles, through Social Media and even through protests at Ram Lila and Jantar Mantar. Conveniently, PBM doesn’t touch upon issues of corruption and black-money etc. Alright, doesn’t matter. He is free to choose the issues he wants to talk about and no one should have a problem with that. So he talks about the Power sector, RTE, Industrial performance and so on. Let’s pick on a few as samples and find out who was sleeping and who was silent.

First, the UPA came for the roads sector. We did not speak out.

There are many articles written on the topic. The only thing that the Congress managed is put up posters on all national highways with images of SoniaG and Manmohan Singh as their great accomplishment. Fact is these two have nothing much to brag about. But someone called Sanjay Kulshreshtra (In early 2012?) went far enough to file a PIL in the SC on roads and highways safety which brought out a stunning fact. The govt accepted that in the last 30 years 50% of the highways were built by the NDA. The case brought out some more interesting facts which can be read in the TOI report. I suppose we could call Kulshreshta a citizen, Mr.PBM?

Next, they came for the airline sector. We did not speak out.

Airline sector? What was it about this sector that hasn’t been written about in the last 5-6 years that PBM missed? I could point to hundreds of articles but let me point to one that is not only in-depth but also hilarious. This one is from a guy called @TheKaipullai. “The curious case of Vijay Mallya bail-out and another scam” from November 2011. Enjoy! It is possible Kaipullai may be from Jaffna but we can bestow ‘honorary citizen’ status on him. No?

Then they came for Power sector. We did not speak out.

It’s amazing that PBM could get past a whole paragraph on the power sector without mentioning the Coal scam even once. Reams have been written about it. Never mind. We were sleeping. How about this one that says “Congress govt ruined power sector” where Loksatta party founder Jayprakash Narayan strongly criticises the Congress’ power sector policy? Missed this one too? I guess before writing about not speaking out PBM didn’t bother to check how many have spoken out. Considering Jayprakash Narayan contests elections I strongly suspect he must be a citizen of India.

Then they came for education. We did not speak out.

Ever heard of a Twitter account called @RealityCheckInd Mr.PBM? He has posted hundreds of tweets on the negative impact of RTE. If that is not enough, I recommend you read his post “Is the Right to Education quota really for the poor?” And that is just one post I’m quoting and I suggest you search his site on the topic and you will discover a damn good “Coal” mine. There are many others too who have written about it. It is just that RealityCheckInd and such ‘trolls’ aren’t the people from your coffee-shops that you discuss India with. I think we can grant him the mercy of citizenship. 

Then they came for industry. We did not speak out.

It is true that the TV channels have spoken about Industry only when growth or slow-down figures were dished out to them. The business and finance channels, of course, are too busy sucking up to govt and business groups for their crumbs instead of reporting anything. But even here there have been many who have been sounding warning for many years. There’s Sify in 2008, there’s The Hindu in 2010 and there’s ET in 2011. When they play the oldies on the radio they often ask “where were you when this song was No.1”. Where were you Mr.PBM when all these reports were being churned out? And these reports are “allegedly” written by our own citizens.

There! I could go on and on and establish without any dispute that citizens did speak out while others were sleeping. Even on employment many have screamed the fact that during the NDA regime around 3-crore jobs were created and only 27Lakhs under the UPA regime. I wonder how PBM missed all this unless his entire article was meant to be self-flagellation. There is no need for that. A simple honest admission that “I did not speak out” would have been humble and respectable.

Fact of the matter is that all this while our MSM was obsessed with BJP, their infighting and their PM candidate. Most of all they were and still are busy on how to put Narendra Modi out of the political spectrum. They are guilty of gross negligence where keeping an eye on the Congress-UPA performance is concerned. This includes the Indian Express which was touting Army-movement stories and filing defamation cases. In a previous article titled “The third way out” PBM writes about the negatives of both national parties and that the third front may not be all that bad. On what scientific or historical basis did he come to this assessment? NONE! The Third-Front (or Federal Front as they have christened it now) has elements like SP, JDU, TDP, BJD, TMC, CPM, CPI. I wonder if PBM ever analysed that all these are more or less Congress-UPA allies and as similar to Congress as Siamese twins. 

A very reliable "Source" had another story to this sudden burst of criticism from the IE. You know, IE has been more or less a slave to the Congress for all these UPA years. So what woke them up from their slumber? Well, it could be "Friendly fire" as the source puts it to get a bit more at the negotiating table of doles. Appears PBM may have walked into that trap. Seems far-fetched? The one who fed me this bit is pretty well-informed about the media in Delhi. But let's not read too much into this.

Regardless of his opinions PBM remains a much-respected “intellectual” and the article under discussion shouldn’t cause him any damage. It’s not that citizens didn’t speak out. It’s just that Pratap Bhanu Mehta and his entire clan in the MSM were sleeping. Next time Mr. PBM, please care to listen. 

Image from AndrewTrans.