The Central UPA and State Government are targeting educated Muslim youth for the bomb blasts in various big cities in the country. In this connection governments, police and intelligence agencies claim to possess sufficient evidence of involvement of such youth in ‘terrorist’ activities. After every such incident, on behalf of the police and government, full information about the alleged terrorists is being given via the media. This raises the question that despite such detailed information being available, what has the police system of the government been waiting for, rather than taking preventive action? On behalf of the government, Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) has been accused of being guilty for the bomb blasts in the past few years. The government has banned the SIMI under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

Gita Mittal, justice of the Special Tribunal constituted under the above referred Act has raised difficult questions on the entire government propaganda. In her order running into 263 pages and ordering the removal of the ban on SIMI, Justice Gita Mittal has stated that the government has presented no evidence for proving the necessity of the ban even though the government was given opportunity for this many times by the Tribunal. The order has acknowledged that there is no evidence against any activist of SIMI being involved in terrorist activity. The order has exposed the hollowness of the claims of the government.

The Central Government appealed in the Supreme Court against this order. The Central Government says that a Cabinet note was presented before the Tribunal but it was not given due importance. Along with the statements of 77 senior officers of the I.B. and other intelligence agencies were given to the Tribunal. Even according to the government’s own claims, the central government could place no evidence before the Tribunal other than the Cabinet note and the statements of senior intelligence officers. According to the petition submitted before the Supreme Court by the Central Government, SIMI is an organization of Muslim students and youth which has been infiltrated by Muslim terrorist organizations of Jammu & Kashmir, like Hizbul Mujhaiddin and Lashkar–e-Tayyaba. After making such claims, the government distanced itself from the answerability of presenting any evidence against SIMI. Even the police of the BJP government of Rajasthan acknowledged before the government that it had no evidence of the involvement of SIMI in the bomb blasts in Jaipur on 13^th May 2008.

Some interesting things been stated in the Central Government petition before the Supreme Court. According to it, SIMI is opposed to Indian Nationalism and is working to establish an Islamic system. If in the eyes of the government propagating a religion based system is itself terrorism -then why has the central government not banned RSS, BJP and their allied organizations who openly advocate a ‘Hindu Rashtra’. Or is it that in the eyes of the government ‘Hindu nationalists’ are true nationalists as PM, Manmohan Singh has written in his letter to Advani. Then what is the strength in the argument of secularism and Indian Nationalism ? Altogether the Central government’s petition contains an acknowledgement that there is no evidence of SIMI being involved in terrorist activities. Even then propaganda by the government and the media continues of SIMI’s terrorist activities.

While the Central and State governments are torturing innocent Muslim youth merely on the basis of ‘suspicion’, the attitude towards American citizen Ken Haywood is also remarkable. A few minutes before the Ahmedabad bomb blasts, an email sent in the name of Indian Mujahideen from the internet address of Haywood had claimed responsibility for the blasts. Ken Haywood lived in Mumbai and worked for a company named Campbell White, which has no office at all in Maharashtra. The investigation was continuing when on 17^th/ 18^th August Ken Haywood, his wife and his two children flew from Mumbai to Delhi and from Delhi airport to America. Haywood at that time was continually under surveillance by the media and the police. Local police was posted outside his house. But he was allowed to leave the country on his own passport. The responsibility of the check at the airport lies with the Central Government’s intelligence agency, the Intelligence Bureau (IB), but in the light of facts it is clear that Ken Haywood could not have left the country without the permission of the state and central governments.

The interesting issue is that neither did the media give importance to the suspicious situation in which Haywood left the country and neither did the BJP and the Congress and nor their ‘anti-terrorism’ brigades make any noise about it. The issue of Ken Haywood was so suspicious that there was talk about his being linked to the American Intelligence Agency. Even if the Indian media exercise extreme tolerance on this issue, there is discussion in other countries of the involvement of American Intelligence Agencies in bomb blasts in India. In a report in pravda.ru of 22^nd August 2008, which discussed the involvement of American CIA and Israeli Intelligence Agency Mossad in the bomb blasts in India, it was stated that America and its supporters got blasts done at Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Bangalore and the Indian consulate at Kabul. It is natural for both, the Congress and the BJP to remain totally silent on the question of American Intelligence Agencies.

After the Ahmedabad bomb blasts BJP leader Sushma Swaraj stated at a press conference that she has evidence of involvement of Congress in the bomb blasts in BJP ruled states. In reply to this Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh stated that  these blasts were being got done to rescue the BJP from crisis. Later the BJP distanced itself from the statement of Sushma Swaraj. The Congress also ignored Digvijay Singh’s statement. Both parties and their Governments forgot their mutual discord and have devoted themselves to the campaign against Muslim youth. Leave alone other things, the media also allowed this issue to die out taking these statements of these ‘well known leaders’ to be inconvenient slips.

Another twist came in the midst of all this on 24^th August when two activists of Bajrang Dal were killed in a blast in Rajeev Nagar in Kanpur. These two were killed in a blast in a lodge. Police recovered 8kg of explosives from the site. Few years earlier in Nanded in Maharastra, two people from RSS were injured while making bombs in similar circumstances. False beards were also recovered from the site of blasts at Malegaon. But despite evidence police and intelligence agencies did not think it proper to investigate this further and these incidents were brushed under the carpet.

Where government and its agencies are giving investigations a burial despite there being evidence, the widespread propaganda against Muslim youth, their random arrests, tortures and encounters are on in full swing. After all what is the real purpose behind the targeting of these educated youth?

Wherever minorities, especially Muslims achieve a somewhat good standard of living, any section among them advances in trade or other commerce, these places become the centres of communal violence. Bhiwandi, Meerut, Bhagalpur, Moradabad- all these areas have the same story. Even those towns and cities which remained peaceful in the communal division of 1947 were engulfed in communal riots. What else is it if not deliberate targeting of Muslim minorities?

This is the thinking behind the campaign targeting educated Muslim youth. The way this campaign is being carried on, its aim appears to be to keep Muslim youth outside the spheres of higher education, technical education and employment. The share of Muslims in government jobs, in bank loans and in availing other government facilities is quite low. In this context the behaviour of all the ruling class parties is similar, whether they are the rightist BJP, the centrist Congress or the ‘leftist’ CPM, CPI. Privatization of education and the high fees is resulting in very few Muslims being able to educate their children anyway A dirty campaign is on to remove even those who are able to get some education out of the sectors of jobs and of higher education.

This is the purpose behind declaring Azamgarh District of UP as ‘atankgarh’ (den of terror). A section of Muslims in Azamgarh are well to do and thus they are being targeted. The Shibli College of Azamgarh, which was a centre of struggle against British colonialism is on the target of Hindu communal forces. The Jamia Millia Islamia University in Delhi, which was known for its role in anti-colonial struggle, is on the target of these forces.

It is necessary to expose the non-factual campaign against SIMI based as it is on lack of evidence. It is necessary to expose the Congress-BJP chorus against Muslims. It is necessary to oppose the communal conspiracies against the people.