Indian judiciary is in a coma, says The Caravan editor Vinod on Aseemanand's acquittal
On 16th April 2018, the NIA Court acquitted all five who were accused in the Mecca Masjid blasts, citing lack of evidence.
Vinod K. Jose, Executive Editor of the Caravan which had carried a voluntary confession of one of the key accused, Swami Aseemanand, is deeply upset by the NIA’s claim of “Not enough evidence”. Here is his facebook post about the acquittal :
“No evidence, no evidence & no evidence. Agencies and courts hearing terror cases across India, that had RSS men involved are making a mockery of justice. In 2014 The Caravan magazine had managed nine hrs confessions from Aseemanand from Ambala jail out of his free will, NIA had said it was coming to pick up the tapes. But it never did. The CBI passed on many volumes of evidences to the NIA when it took over all Hindu terror cases. Hemant Karkare’s Maharashtra ATS also passed on its painstakingly gathered evidences. The bureaucrats who worked dubiously in this period, later contested on BJP ticket to parliament, all became MPs, and some became ministers. NIA failed cases one after the other, and the celebrated new agency’s record suddenly became worse than the CBI. (NIA today is not National Investigation Agency, but No Investigation Agency.)
If the justice system in India failed or not, anyone who wanted to know what was going on India from 2005 and 2014 in the cases of Hindu terror groups, I suggest to read brilliant Leena Reghunath’s profile of Aseemanand. It is a must read at least once in your lifetime.
The piece was based on Aseemanand’s confessions from inside Ambala Central prison, the man who prided to be staying in the same cell as Gandhi killer Godse.
If you don’t have enough time today to read the whole article, just read two graphs from the screenshot attached. It will tell you why the plot was huge and the case was a big litmus test on Indian democracy to know if it had the guts to pursue justice. The Congress failed. And the BJP govt made sure no damage was done to the men and ideology. At the end everyone is happy. Except the families of 117 people killed in those 3-4 blasts.
Also, going by today’s headlines in the national papers, the NIA judge resigned from service soon after giving the judgment yesterday morning. Why?
Will we ever know the reason? Soon after his resignation, when people started asking why the judge resigned, a disinformation campaign started by a certain section of lawyers that a corruption case against the judge was with the High Court, but the High Court has rebutted it. We heard in Judge Loya story: Rs 100 cr offer for a favourable judgment, and when refused, finally death in mysterious circumstances. Indian judiciary is in coma. And if a democracy can’t investigate without fear and conduct a trial freely what has that society come to?”
Below is the original post.
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Assam to lift all cases against Koch Rajbongshis in Foreigners' Tribunals: CM Himanta Biswa Sarma
Guwahati, Apr 4 (PTI): The Assam cabinet has decided to lift all cases pending against people from the Koch Rajbongshi community in the Foreigners' Tribunals, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Friday.
They will also no longer carry the tag of 'D' or doubtful voters, he said.
''There are 28,000 cases pending in different Foreigners' Tribunals in the state against people of the community. The cabinet has taken a historic decision of lifting the cases with immediate effect,'' Sarma said at a press conference here after the cabinet meeting.
The government believes that the Koch Rajbongshis are an indigenous community of the state and they are an inextricable part of ''our social and cultural fabric'', he asserted.
The people of this community are poor and have suffered a lot over the years, he said.
''They will no longer carry the tag of foreigners or ‘D’ voters,'' the CM said.
Foreigners Tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies, particularly in Assam, established to determine if a person residing in India is a "foreigner" as defined by the Foreigners Act of 1946, based on the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order of 1964.
These tribunals are designed to address matters related to citizenship and the presence of “foreigners” in India, specifically focusing on cases where someone is suspected of being an illegal immigrant.
There are 100 Foreigners’ Tribunals across Assam.
The Koch Rajbongshis have a sizeable presence in Assam, West Bengal, Meghalaya, and parts of Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan, and they demand Scheduled Tribe status.
