On June 1, 2006 news of the aborted attempt by
Pakistan-infiltrated terrorists on the RSS headquarters in Nagpur made
news headlines nationwide. Even as the chief ministers of three states,
Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, announced an unprecedented award
of Rs 10 lakh each to the police team that was responsible for aborting
the attack, the local police announced that the attack was by the
‘Fidayeen’ of Pakistan.
The police version as appearing in the local press gave
out basic information that contained inherent contradictions. Intelligence
of a possible attack had been received by the Nagpur police as far back as
February-March 2006 (see accompanying CC interview with Special IGP,
Maharashtra, ATS, KP Raghuvanshi), following which the police had provided
heavy security cover at the RSS headquarters. The
terrorists were shot dead in the encounter with the police who also
claimed that the dead carried details of terrorist groups and links in
‘diaries’. No terrorist group has claimed any credit for this attempt.
Following doubts about the official version raised
within the citizenry and the media, several groups came together to form a
fact-finding team headed by a former judge of the Mumbai High Court to
investigate the incident.
The team visited the site of the encounter and spoke to people residing
in the vicinity; they visited the RSS headquarters and the Government
Medical College Hospital. The team repeatedly sought appointments with the
commissioner of police (CP), SPS Yadav and other police officials. The CP
too declined to meet the team. Instead, the CP questioned the credentials
of team members, asked who funded the team, what international connections
the team had and similar questions with the apparent intention to
intimidate the team pursuing its efforts to help society learn the truth.
Nonetheless, the team gathered enough information to reach certain
conclusions and place them before the people of India. Since that date the
harassment of team members and attempts to malign their motives and
reputation through the local media have continued unhindered. ‘Church
groups’, ‘foreign funded’ and ‘supporters of naxalites’ are terms being
deliberately bandied around to damage the team’s credibility.
Excerpts from the report:
According to the police, it was the special squad of the
city police who, on high alert following specific input from intelligence
agencies, spotted a white Ambassador car with a red beacon light (MH 20
B-8979), moving in a suspicious manner in Lakdi Pul in Mahal area and
started tailing it. Two cars, a Tata Sumo and a Qualis were used in the
operation. The tailing cars were unmarked and all police personnel in them
were wearing plain clothes.
When the Ambassador car with red beacon atop moved towards
RSS headquarters, one of the constables in the Tata Sumo casually asked
the young occupants about their intentions. Rattled by the enquiry, the
militants opened fire on the police vehicle even as they tried to get
away. In the process they dashed into the barricade near the eastern side
of the RSS HQ. The alert policemen, led by PSI Rajendra Tiwari, PSI Arvind
Saraf and PSI JA More, replied to the gunfire. It was their bullet-proof
jackets that saved police personnel. The terrorists also threw a hand
grenade at the police party but it failed to explode. They threw the
grenade without pulling out the pin.
The gun battle lasted about 20 minutes in which the
militants fired 76 rounds while the policemen retaliated with 63 rounds.
The terrorists had three AK-M automatic weapons, 12 hand grenades and 5.6
kg of highly explosive materials with them. They also had three spare
magazines for their firearms, each carrying 30 rounds. They had 120 rounds
each, according to CP Nagpur, SPS Yadav.
Analyses and findings
According to newspaper reports (Navbharat Mahanagar of
June 5, 2006), Shri RR Patil (state home minister) had earlier stated that
the government had information about the attack three months prior to the
incident. Shri Nitin Gadkari, a prominent BJP leader from Nagpur, was
asked to cooperate with police security. Another BJP leader, Shri Eknath
Khadse had stated three weeks earlier that there was necessity to increase
protection to sangh headquarters. The director general of police had paid
two-three visits in this connection. Indeed, police protection around the
RSS headquarters was instituted with a three-layered police cordon.
Although the headquarters are located in a very congested old city part
with only small lanes to approach it, which makes it difficult for any
large-scale terrorist attack, there were metallic barricades erected
everywhere blocking vehicular traffic towards it from all sides with a
police posse guarding them…
How did the lapse in security take place so as to allow
the terrorists’ red-beaconed car to get so close? Even after suspecting
foul play (indeed there was enough evidence of that at the first sight of
the red-beaconed car roaming in the wee hours), why did the police not
intercept it at any of the turns after it took a turn towards Badkas Chowk?
The police vehicles, after all, were far superior to the 20-year-old
Ambassador!
Ø
This incident fits well in the
pattern formed by a few previous incidents like an incident in Ahmedabad
wherein three terrorists, including a college student from Mumbra, were
killed. The incident occurred in the wee hours when there is hardly any
possibility of any eyewitness other than the police. In the encounter the
terrorists open fire first but get killed without causing even a scratch
to the police. The police possess intelligence information but still end
up in a fight to the finish with the terrorists. They always recover a
diary on their person with all information of their plan, telephone
numbers, some bills, etc.
Ø
A terrorist suicide attack will
normally aim at inflicting maximum damage to the enemy in exchange for
their own lives. The sangh headquarters surprisingly did not have even its
usual occupants, all the important leaders being away. It is not
acceptable that the execution of such an act will be indulged without
certain basic information as this. From this viewpoint the Dr Hedgewar
Smruti Bhavan in Reshambag would perhaps have been a preferred target as
it had a congregation of 1,200 RSS cadre from all over the country at the
time.
Ø
The team heard from the
eyewitnesses that the police had a rehearsal of the encounter a fortnight
ago on the same spot and hence they [the eyewitnesses] continued to think
it was another such until after the end when they saw actual dead bodies
being taken away by the police. The police corroborated the version of
people that they had drills at the spot.
Ø
There are conflicting versions of
how the car approached the ill-fated spot. One version says that the car
knocked down the barricade and crossed it but stopped at the spot. Another
version says that the car stopped at the barricade, its inmates were
interrogated by police and firing ensued. According to this version,
firing began before crossing the barricade but actually it did on the
other side. How the car went past the barricade is the mystery. The
version of knocking down the barricade and the car passing over it is not
plausible because the fallen barricade would make a wedge of more than
five inches’ height at the end of which the base support would turn into a
spike of the same height. It is not possible for a car to negotiate this
hurdle from a small distance. How then did the car go past the barricade?
Ø
Unfortunately, the mystery does
not end there. If the car was past the barricade, why did it stop at the
spot? One version explains this by saying it simply failed. Another
version says that the police party reached there and the terrorists had to
stop and begin firing.
Ø
How exactly did the firing begin?
There is one version that there was a policeman at the barricade (the
police official who spoke with us on the spot denied that there was any
police at the barricade at that moment) or another police version saying
that a policeman from the Qualis interrogated the inmates of the car about
their identity and firing began. In either case, it is unlikely that the
policeman involved would escape the volley of bullets from the AK-M
assault rifle of the terrorists, which sprays nearly 10 rounds per second.
Ø
In the context of this confusion,
we find the testimony of the eyewitness Nitin Daudkhani and his parents
far more plausible than anything that is being officially circulated. This
testimony must be respected because it is a direct witness to the
incident. According to this testimony, the barricades fell with a thud
(which woke the Daudkhanis up); some people shifted them aside and drove
the car past it and stopped. The driver got down and ran behind to
disappear from the Daudkhanis’ sight. Immediately, a volley of bullets
followed from behind and lasted for about 15 minutes with some pause in
between. There was no firing from the car. During this exchange, two dead
bodies fell out of the two doors of the car. This testimony at least
removes the doubt as to how the car went past the barricade. It is also an
eyewitness testimony that basically contradicts the official account.
Ø
This throws up some more
questions. Why did the car stop? The answer could be because of the dense
firing from behind. Why was there no firing from the car? Either the men
were killed or immobilised in the first round of fire. But what happened
to the driver? He may have dropped dead. These logical questions need to
be answered and their answers could have far-reaching possibilities.
Ø
Why did the Maruti Omni van parked
in the Daudkhanis’ courtyard not have any bullet mark? The car could have
escaped the bullet mark only in the event of orderly or controlled firing.
How the firing could have been orderly or controlled is a question not
within the power of the fact-finding committee to answer.
Ø
There are many other major and
minor loopholes in the versions dished out by the police: the spot at
which the police claimed to have first spotted the terrorists’ vehicle and
thereafter saw it, after some time gap, is one and the same… do the police
mean to say that the attackers were waiting over there until then?
Ø
The police version says that the
car was being used between Jammu and Srinagar. Would deadly terrorists
drive a 20-year-old car over 3,000 km to reach Nagpur? According to the
police they had not travelled straight to Nagpur and came via Patna where
they bought their shoes.
Ø
If the terrorists were smart and
brazen enough to procure and use the PSI uniform in a red-beaconed car,
they would obviously have known how such cars are used and that such a car
could not have had, as all of its normal occupants, PSIs. Would any
organised terrorist commit such a blunder when instead they could have
disguised a man in plain clothes, a man as a VIP?
Ø
The police commissioner in his
first public statement after the incident described them as ‘Islamic’
terrorists and Pak-based ‘Fidayeen’. The fact remains that their
identities are still not established. Although the papers have carried
their names and places in Pakistan, the Nagpur police have yet not
confirmed them. If so, on what basis has the CP declared them Islamic
terrorists and Pakistani Fidayeen?
Ø
If the terrorists had fired an
approximately equal number of bullets, there would be some marks on the
walls on the side of the police. There is hardly any mark of terrorist
bullets to be seen on the other side, except on one police vehicle – the
Tata Sumo. The other vehicle, we were told, did not have any damage. The
location and number of bullet marks on the blue Tata Sumo (police vehicle)
that was behind the Qualis, carrying 9 police personnel, and stood closer
to the Ambassador car and hence was expected to have more bullet hits:
this also raises serious questions that need to be answered.
Demands
1. A judicial enquiry committee headed by a retired judge
of the Supreme/High Court be ordered into the incident to reach the truth.
2. The reward declared by several states to the police
personnel involved in the action should be withheld until the truth is
established by the above committee.
3. The identity of the slain youth be determined and be
made public.
(Justice BG Kolse Patil, retd., headed the team and Suresh
Khairnar of Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Nagpur is its
convenor. Other participants and their organisations included Arvind Ghosh,
AK Ghosh, PUCL Nagpur, Anil Kale, Surendra Gadling, Indian Association of
People’s Lawyers, Nagpur, Gaffar Shakir, Dharm Nirpeksh Nagrik Manch,
Nagpur and Arvind Deshmukh, TV Kathane, Bahujan Sangarsh Samiti, Nagpur,
among others.)