Laws being tightened and loosened – for BJP

The BJP government at the Centre is busy baking laws and amendments one after another,  with an intent to suppress or kill voices of dissent.  The ruling party and its followers are unable to stand even the faintest voices against the ill-advised attempts to take away civil rights and to butcher democratic  freedoms.   

Examples of this range from the UP sangh singer's song asking either to chant Jai Sriram or be ready for the grace,   right down to the BJP's infantry soldier in Kerala preparing to despatch Adoor Gopalakrishnan to the moon.   The sangh stalwarts from ministers to MPs are in an attempt to flex muscles and shouting at those who point out the demerits of draconian laws during parliamentary debates,  in effect floating a catch phrase 'either with us, or with the terrorists' to bully critics.

Even as law-making is going on with fanfare to nip critical voices in the bud on the one hand,  BJP is on the other, expediting moves to thwart the possibility of legal machinery and its operations running counter to its interests.   In several blast cases with alleged role of Hindutva terrorists,  and in which National Investigaton Agency had taken them to convictions,  now the accused are being released in cases one after another.  Their cases are being whitewashed,  and instead terrorist stories being re-written in such a way as to implicate enquiring officials and those who spearheaded prosecutions earlier.   Thus in the new 'post-truth' era,  landmark terrorist cases of the country get dissolved and the prosecution narratives being presented to  the people as mere fabrications.  The sangh parivar as an organization and as the engine of the government,   are engaged in this exercise.   A case in point is making the CBI give a clean chit to the accused of Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case who were convicted as the villains of the incident,  but later acquitted under the shadow of BJP rule.    A similar course was adopted in closing the prosecution cases against the accused in Muzaffarnagar riots in UP too.

The four people shot to death during the firing by Gujarat police on 15 June 2004,  were 19-year old Ishrat  Jahan from Mumbai,  Keralite Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pilla,  Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar.   As per the police version at that time,  terrorists who had plotted to kill the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi,  were shot dead,  but subsequent CBI investigations found the killings as fake encounter.   It was as a result of the enquiry that followed that former IPS officers DG Vanzara,  NK Amin and PP Pandey were convicted.    The culprits who came out on bail after Modi became prime minister,  have been trying to wriggle themselves out of the case completely one by one.   The BJP government lent every help within its powers in this exercise.   It is at the end of it that now CBI has now given a written undertaking to the court that there will not be any CBI move against Vansara and Amin.   As for the families of the fake encounter victims,  even if they go in appeal to higher courts,  it is certain that CBI will not be with them,   and therefore it will be a futile exercise  Thus,  as it happened in the Sohrabuddin case,  Ishrat Jahan case is also destined to go into oblivion.

The trickery by BJP's UP government, in the Muzaffarnagar riot cases is more intriguing than this.   In the 2013 communal riots in Muzaffarnagar,  65 people were killed and thousands rendered refugees.  In cases related to this where Muslims were victims,  the arrested culprits were released free on the pretext of lack of evidence;   but in cases involving Muslims as accused,  they are arrested after five years without even getting bail - clear case of double justice meted out by BJP government in UP.   Out of the 41 cases taken up for trial so far involving Muslims being attacked, all accused in 40 cases were acquitted.   The method adopted for this has been by intimidating, coaxing or cajoling witnesses and preventing them from deposition,  and then getting cases dismissed as having no strong grounds.   An example:  through the murder of milk-trader Ashbab in last March,  they proved that those who are not ready to fall in line will be killed.   Ashbab's murder happened when he was scheduled to appear as witness in the murder case of his two brothers.   In addition to scaring away witnesses in this manner,  the government ordered the withdrawal of 70 cases involving arson and looting.   There are 20 cases of this type remaining.   And that erases all hopes of justice being delivered to the riot-affected and the dependants of victims.   Thus, the country is witnessing each day the Hindutva dispensation of  tightening the noose of law for adversaries and loosening it for followers.