Lies, damned lies, and testimonies

(updated below)

So far as hoaxes go, this is amongst the worst kind. First the victims suffer in the hands of murdering communalists. Then one of their own refurbishes and contaminates testimonies in a misguided attempt to make them sound worse, leaving the victims to next suffer a skeptical public questioning their claims and disbelieving their motives.

I am referring to the Gujarat riots, a horror show 7 years past, where NGOs are still struggling tooth and nail against the unsympathetic state government to get justice. Amongst the biggest backers of the effort for justice was Teesta Setalvad. Now, it turns out that some of the heinous crimes that had stirred the public to outrage may have been phony, scripted by Teesta Setalvad etc and filed through false affidavits.

The Special Investigation Team responsible for the arrests of those accused in Gujarat riots has severely censured NGOs and social activist Teesta Setalvad who campaigned for the riot victims.

...The SIT also found no truth in the following incidents widely publicised by the NGOs:

* A pregnant Muslim woman Kausar Banu was gangraped by a mob, who then gouged out the foetus with sharp weapons

...The SIT said it had been alleged in the Gulbarg Society case that Pandey, instead of taking measures to protect people facing the wrath of rioteers, was helping the mob. The truth was that he was helping with hospitalisation of riot victims and making arrangements for police bandobast, Gujarat counsel, senior advocate Mukul Rohtagi, said quoting from the SIT report.

The story came out in the Times of India (ToI), not the most respectable newspaper, nevertheless, one with a very strong network of journalists. (Thanks for the heads up, Quirky)

Meanwhile, at the website of Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP, Setalvad's NGO), all links on the home page are currently defunct. However, I did find their response to the ToI story.

ToI continues to stand by its claims.

And the truth, as they say, is out there.

****

To be honest, my past admiration for Teesta and what had appeared to be a consistent effort on her part to fight communalism, make me wonder: is there is some other angle to their story? Perhaps Teesta was misled regarding the events? Perhaps, like in the Best Bakery Case (where the bakery was set afire during the riots, burning to death most people hiding, and the prime witnesses - Zaheera - changed her testimony around), victims have recanted their testimonies under pressure? Perhaps the government report is biased?

But the truth is reputed to be the simplest explanation: was in fact the Zaheera/Best Bakery case, (Teesta Setalvad got a clean chit and Zaheera got a sentence for perjury) another event where Setalvad had masterminded the lies?

For now, it appears that an overzealous, media-pandering individual lied about the nature and extent of crimes committed during the Gujarat riots, either to forward to her own agenda, or in a misguided attempt to stir more sympathy for the victims.

I just hope tainting by association doesn't spoil the prospects of justice for the real claims in the basket.

***

Update:

ToI's report may be inaccurate after all.

ToI had based its story on the SIT report; however SIT - "slammed reports that riots witnesses were tutored to give false evidence for exaggeration of the situation, by activists and organisations helping the victims". This news article, appearing in the Hindustan Times, also claims that the what is being masqueraded as "findings" of the report are simply statements of state police officials, aka the government machinery (as Setalvad's letter to ToI in response to the original article also suspected).

(Thanks for the comment Dilip)

In the name of God

A 9-year-old child is repeatedly raped by her step-father and ends up pregnant. The tiny body, incapable of supporting even one fetus, ends up with twins. Giving birth may kill her, warn doctors, and carry out an abortion. The media latch on to the story and realize with a shudder that crimes of this genre - incestuous rape - are on a rise in their country, Brazil.

And in this gruesome episode, what is the public outcry about?
Whether the abortion is appropriate.

That's right, a child has been the victim of extreme violence and is now on the road to lose her life in childbirth, and a section of the populace is wondering whether the abortion was right in the eyes of God.

Meanwhile, Brazil's Roman Catholic Church decides to take a stand.
It excommunicates the mother and the associated doctors for carrying out the abortion. It lets the child stay in the fold because she is too young to be excommunicated. The father however, is deemed sufficiently worthy to beg for God's forgiveness.

***

A 17-year-old girl is flogged in public. Lying face-down on the ground, with men holding her position by gripping her hands and feet, she is whipped with a leather strap over the same area of her buttocks over and over again. She cries out to be forgiven for her crime and struggles vainly, but forget mercy, one of the men watching her suggests she be held more tightly.

Her crime: to be seen in public with her father-in-law, when in fact she should have been chaperoned by a man who is either her husband or a blood relative. To be seen with someone else was equivalent to having an affair with him, decreed the Taliban, who control the Swat Valley in Pakistan (where this episode took place), and who, by the way, are in line to be the region's official controllers as per a 'peace treaty' underway.

A mobile phone video of the punishment was widely circulated in Pakistan and has drawn protests from the public, however, there is no dearth of defenders:

"How can we term it un-Islamic?" said Mufti Munibur Rehman, a leading Muslim scholar in a televised debate. "this is the punishment that is writen in the holy Quran."

(quote as reported in The Wall Street Journal)

***

Here's what I think:
If you need God to point out what is cruel and what is just, then no religion can save your soul.