FRESH UPDATES BELOW: TEHELKA INTERVIEWED HAMID GUL IN 2001, TEHELKA HAD ISI related expose as early as 2000?
Before we get to the substance of today’s post let us set the record straight for my fellow INI blogger Rohit (who takes his secular right of center beliefs very seriously and Offstumped respects that) you can read more on this here.
Now to the subject of this post. A lot has been speculated on the motive and the impact thereof from the latest Tehelka sting. It is clear from the subdued and muted response from the principal opposition in Gujarat that there is not much in this sting to make a case against Mr. Modi to sway public opinion inside Gujarat. There however remains the issue of public opinion outside of Gujarat. This question becomes important in the light of the following facts and some recent events. First the facts.
It must be remembered that before March of 2001, Tarun Tejpal was a relatively not so famour journalist and it was his maiden expose of alleged corruption in the Defense sector and on camera footage of then BJP President Bangaru Laxman that shot his outfit Tehelka into fame. One of the allegations at that time that was summarily dismissed was that Tehelka was acting on the behest of the ISI. However something interesting happened a couple of months later, an incident that has more or less disappeared from public memory. Offstumped has the chronology for you.
May 6, 2001: Delhi Police arrest six suspected ISI agents in New Delhi. The arrested were plotting to kill Tarun Tejpal, editor-in-chief of the portal tehelka.com and his colleague Anirudha Bahal
Aug 23 2001 : The Delhi police have chargesheeted the RJD MP from Bihar, Mr. Mohammad Shahabuddin, his alleged associate, Mr. Bhupinder Tyagi alias Avdesh, and nine others for allegedly conspiring to eliminate Tehelka.com CEO, Mr. Tarun Tejpal, and one of his journalists.
Dec 30 2003 
The report which did prove costly for former Bihar Director General of Police D.P. Ojha and led to his sacking, revealed that Shahabuddin alias ?Shahabu?, the notorious RJD MP from Siwan, had hatched a conspiracy to eliminate Tehelka.com CEO Tarun Tejpal by hired criminals.
What is interesting is how little investigative journalism Tehelka engaged in against those who apparently conspired to kill its CEO and its star reporter ?
Just 8 stories in all on the many Shahabuddins?over the last 7 years of Tehelka’s existence. Just 2 of those 8 stories on the don from Siwan.
If that is odd, dig this !
May 26, 2007 in a piece on Crime & Punishment, Anand ST Das recounts Shahabuddin’s many crimes but not a word on the plot to kill Tarun Tejpal.
Sept 17 2005 in a lengthy piece? Sankarshan Thakur treads dusty Siwan deep inside Bihar to trace Shahabuddin’s whereabouts, once again not a word on the plot to kill Tarun Tejpal.
If that is strange enough consider this. Nothing anywhere on Tehelka.com on the alleged plot to kill Tarun Tejpal.
So one may ask what then of the chargesheet in the Metropolitan Court in New Delgi and the report by the DGP of Bihar on the plot to kill Tarun Tejpal, allegedly at the behest of the ISI. Well let us examine what the man himself had to say about the alleged threat.
In Sept of 2003 a Nepali Hindi Daily reported that the plot to kill Tarun Tejpal was hatched by an ex-Nepalese Minister. Tejpal who is in the business of knowing things by sting or stink, surprisingly feigns utter ignorance
?I have no idea about this threat. I do not know of any Salim Ansari. But he is a contract killer and the person wishing to eliminate me may be somebody else.??
??Five persons hired to eliminate me and my former reporter from Tehelka.com, Aniruddha Bahal, are in Tihar Jail. We learnt from the police that they may have been planted by the ISI (Pakistan?s Inter Services Intelligence). However I do not know too much about that either.?
Now remember the arrests in the plot to kill were made in May of 2001 which was just a couple of months after the first Tehelka expose implicating George Fernandes and Bangaru Laxman hit the wires. For two years after that till 2003 Tarun Tejpal had Z level security which is amongst the highest levels of state provided security. It is very odd that within a couple of months of hitting fame, a hitherto not so famous journalist attracts the attention of a cross border plot to kill and then enjoys the highest levels of security for 3 years there on but has nothing to say on the plot while we see deafening silence from his investigative outfit on the alleged plotter.
Now dig this. India Today interviews Bhupinder Tyagi, the hitman who was hired by Shahabuddin but was arrested in May 2001. Tyagi goes into great details of Shahabuddin’s travels to Birganj and Kathmandu several times to meet ISI operatives. Now the Tehelka sting goes public second week of March. Tyagi is arrested first week of May. Which essentially leaves about 5 weeks for someone in the ISI to think up the plot, send out feelers to Shahabuddin, organize the logistics for several meetings, identify the hitmen, arrange the weapons and then for the hit team to visit New Delhi, conduct reconaissance and get arrested. Now the first insinuations linking Tehelka to ISI come in the last week of March. So in less than 4 weeks all of the above happens.
Incredible isnt it for a relatively unknown journalist to become the target of a cross-border plot to kill in less than 4 weeks of fame.
It is also incredible for an investigative journalist to feign ignorance of the plot after years of enjoying Z security but strangely letting the case die while not having a word to say about the alleged plotter.
Well the links to ISI real or imaginary have criss-crossed Tejpal’s paths more than once. When one looks at the impact of the latest stink outside of Gujarat one cannot but help view them in light of the recent terrorist attacks and the radicalization of Muslim youth. Offstumped had only recently pointed out that the radicalization of the disenchanted mind is of greater concern. The riots we can detect and control but the radicalization we have no measure of Offstumped had then said.
With this sting that concern has?just gotten magnified hundred fold.
With footage?laced with scenes?from Parzania where the distinction between fact and reality blurs this sting is more potent than an Al-Qaeda training video or a Bin Laden message.
It was irresponsible and its likely impact on radicalisation of the disenchanted mind unfathomable.
If this was about justice, Mr. Tejpal’s outfit would have done the responsible thing of presenting all the corroborating evidence to the Nanavati Commission first. By not doing so Mr. Tejpal’s motives remain highly suspect.
EPILOGUE: Offstumped has uncovered an interview of Hamid Gul, former DG of ISI, by Tehelka in Sept 2001, a couple of weeks after a chargesheet was filed in a Delhi Court on the plot to kill Tarun Tejpal by alleged ISI backed hitmen. No mention of this plot in the interview.
Another expose by Tehelka in 2000 about passing information to ISI.
Filed under: Uncategorized
[...] Posted by truecongresspolitics on October 25th, 2007 http://offstumped.nationalinterest.in/2007/10/26/the-tehelka-that-was-not/ [...]
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/stung-by-godhra-expose-modi-bans-tv-channels/51225-3.html
Stung by Godhra expose, Modi bans TV channels
Very good analysis.
It’s easy to see why Tehelka licks Congress boots. A BJP govt is a threat to Tejpal’s life. With friends like what he has, the fellow doesn’t need enemies.
“The footage laced with scenes from Parzania where the distinction between fact and reality blurs this sting is more potent than an Al-Qaeda training video or a Bin Laden message.”
The operating mode of ISI is Hindu-Muslim violence by placing bombs in Masjids followed by bombs in temples or public places. That has been tried for past three and it’s not working. So invoking Tejpal and his Tehelka seems to be perfectly sane tactic to get the same results.
Quality of investigation is mediocre, to be charitable, and can’t be sustained in courts – it’s about creating suspicion and about validating conspiracy theories. What else is a better way to do it?
“It was irresponsible and its likely impact on radicalisation of the disenchanted mind unfathomable.”
ISI has been finding recruits since a decade before godhra. It is naive to think that these video give them some capability that don’t already have.
It is the systems response to these revelations, that will decide whether it creates more radicals or not. Instead of demanding prosecution of these criminals, you bring some conjured up evidence against tehelka. They are ISI stooges , because ISI allegedly wants to kill them. What a perverse mind you have. You remind me of those creationists, who say god put fossils to test their faith.
“It is the systems response to these revelations”
How did you get convinced that these are “revelations”?
Seems like you’re the one who’s perverse here, since you want to push under the carpet the fact that Tehelka DID use sleazy techniques deploying sex workers in its so-called stings.
OK.. here are the lost comments for the previous post (courtesy Google):
Nikhil:
Hmm…here are some parts of the transcript this blog might not like.
Haresh Bhatt : Modi had given us three days… to do whatever we could. He said he would not give us time after that… He said this openly…After three days, he asked us to stop and everything came to a halt…
Babu Bajrangi : Modi made everything all right, otherwise who would have had the strength… It was his hand all the way… If he’d told the police to do differently, they would have f****d us
Narendrabhai had come to see that things didn’t stop the next day… He went all around Ahmedabad, to all the places where the miyas [Muslims] were, to the Hindu areas… told people they’d done well and should do more…
Rajendra Vyas : Modi first said that we would take revenge… the same thing I myself had said publicly… I hadn’t even eaten anything then… Hadn’t even had a drop of water… I was in such a rage that so many people had died, tears were flowing from my eyes… but when I started using my strength… started abusing… he [Modi] said, Rajendrabhai, calm yourself, everything will be taken care of… What did he mean when he said that everything would be taken care of?… All those who were meant to understand, understood…
Ramesh Dave : We went to the [VHP] office that night… the atmosphere was very disturbing… Everybody felt that [we had taken it] for so many years… Narendrabhai gave us great support…
Arvind Pandya : Narendra Modi came and he gave oral instructions to the police to remain with the Hindus, because the entire kingdom is with the Hindus.
It is a sad reaction that brutality/inhumanity is supported by some in the veil of development and attributing motives to messengers !!
an interesting dynamic is at work here. Modi is insisting on talking the language of development, whilst his haters are adamant on communally charged electioneering. That’s an interesting reversal of roles in indian politics.
RK…
Yeah interesting dynamic at work !!!
The Principal of a school has been caught molesting girls !! The principal doesnt want to talk about it. He wants to talk only about the board results of the school which are excellent.
What kind of fools are those who are worried that he is still the Principal of the school !! Lets “move on” and look at the board results. Whenever the Princi gets those “bouts of lust”, “in the heat of the moment”….we can feel happy by seeing the merit list !!!
And that Chaprasi/peon who caught the principal in the act, he was wearing chappals when he entered the room. Whereas the school rules clearly state that he had to wear Shoes !!! How horrific !! What moral right does the peon who doesnt follow rules, has to say anything against the Principal who got us in the merit list !!
//
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/stung-by-godhra-expose-modi-bans-tv-channels/51225-3.html
Stung by Godhra expose, Modi bans TV channels
//
Does CNN-IBN have any copy of Government Order passed to block the TV channels signed by the Chief minister of Gujarat ?
It was blocked okay, then why blame modi for that ?
If such travesties are extrapolated the following news headline would also make perfect sense:
“Gujarati’s suffer from constipation because Modi is their CM.”
how long will offstumped continue to fool itself?
it is sinking slowly into a point of no return.
Nikhil,
You got your analogy all screwed up dude. Let me rectify your bloopers.
“What kind of fools are those who are worried that he is still the Principal of the school !!”
These are not fools. These are crooks. Now follow me carefully.
A group of school girls while going to school are abducted and molested by a bunch of goons. The immediate reaction of some feminists (yeah, feminists) to this brutality is that the girls invited trouble for themselves by wearing ‘provocative’ clothes. The spokesperson of these self-styled feminists, one Ms Beasta Stalevad, tells Washington Post:
“Let us not forget the provocation. These girls were not going for a benign assembly. They were indulging in a blatant and unlawful mobilization to provoke and sexually frustrate innocent boys in the school.”
Soon enough, some more molestations happen, and Beasta Stalevad and gang change tune. They start attacking and abusing the school principal as responsible for teh molestation, while carefully avoiding the subject of earlier molestations that they justified.
The principal braves and survives this campaign of calumny by rape-justifiers. Even the parents of the school children repose faith in him. He goes to make his school a great school. The school posts spectacular results.
Then Six years later, Beasta and gang start their vicious campaignh again, with the help of an outfit that is known to have used prostitutes to snare people They DO NOT WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE MOLESTATOIN OF THE GIRLS THAT THEY INITIALLY JUSTIFIED, nor do they want to talk about the molestation of girls in a Kashmir school which they allege the principal there himself encouraged them to experience, nor do they want to talk about a real instance of principal molesting girls that happened in West Bengal. They just repeat the old lies all over again. They throw in a bit of variety into their campaign using words like “morality”.
Who are the fools, comrade Nikhil?
[...] because it very typically goes into the running around the issue mode. Offstumped resorted to a conspiracy theory, and I felt let down after reading this type of response that we are having to the expose. He [...]
I am copy pasting my blog written on ‘Tehelka Expose on Gujarat’s riots – Offstumped reaction’.
Modi – ‘a mass murderer’ ?
Who proved? Tehelka expose.
Is Tehelka, a court of law?
Definitely not.
If A says one thing, merely by saying so, it is not admitted as truth.
If A says one thing against B, by merely saying so against B, is not proved as truth.
Rule of natural justice required that B has, and must have, the right to defend what is said against him by A.
If any one, at this juncture, says Modi is a ‘mass murder’, he/she is incurring the charge of libel or defamation.
People of Gujarat rejected in 2002, this charge or any other charges against Modi. Don’t then heap insult on Gujarat electorate. You are a democractic country. Respect the verdict of majority.
This time round, Modi is presenting before the electorate what he has done for his state and its people. When he says he is leader of 5.5 crores people of Gujarat, he means he represents all cross sections of society.
Modi will earn in the days to come poetic justice by the very people of Gujarat whom he proudly represents.
It’s O.K. during election, all parties indulge in hyperbole and injudicious mix of truth with untruth.
Everything is fair in love and war, and now election.
I am defending Modi solely on the ground that he is not declared a culprit, anywhere or at anytime by the Court of Law, or the due processes of Law. If he is proved guilty, well nothing wrong if due punishment is meted out to him. Poetic justice will ultimately prevail.
Offstumped has done a duty by exploring motivating factors behind Tehelka’s deeds. What is wrong about it.
If Tehelka’s one-sided expose/s are taken to be court judgments, the day will not be far off, reule of jungle will break over throwing rule of law to the wind. Instead of a democratic country, India will become become anarchy.
Yossarin,
Have a good time trying to defend the indefensible Butcher of Gujarat a.k.a the Modern-day Nero.
Btw, U have been talking about the Media/Congress spinmeisters for sometime now.The way u are doing it for the Butcher of Gujarat and BJP, I dont think there is anyone to beat u on this. Congratulations and keep it coming.
RS, Naive aren’t you. This “sting” would have been taken seriously if it was done anytime between 2003-2006.
This is actually an expose on Tehelka, Aajtak and other media itself. We now know (we had earlier suspected) of their political links and biases.
None of what I said supports the riots, so don’t go along making intellectually poor assessments about me.
- Sri
Srirangan,
Maybe u want to re-read what u wrote. I am sure when u realise ur mistake u will regret taking on me.
Any one to name a single,ya just a ‘SINGLE NON SIKH’ rioter shot by Police during 1984 ‘Holocaust’! I will concede the debate immediately when told the name.
Till then ‘Modi is as ‘pristine pure’ as anyone else is.
A Sikh is made the PM and told,O,Lo we made a Sikh a PM so we are ‘Secular’!All sins of 1984 are washed! Ask the many it is an affront on the fair names of Sikhs.
4000+ Sikhs were dragged and killed on the National Capital Delhi’s roads and the then PM said,”When a big tree falls the earth is bound to shake”!!
In Godhara 56 including women and 12 children were roasted alive as if they were ‘tandoori chickens’… need to see photographs… see the KK’s comments he has provided the link.
Of course,it is my personal opinion and so many others too who voted for Modi.What do the ‘bleeding hearts’ want? Shoot Us!
One simple question to any one,why should a Sonia led government sponsor ‘Tehalaka’ by giving ad on this portal’s mast head? WHY? What does SHE expect back?
PI.
Dear Reader,
The Truth about Teesta Setalvad
This is to inform the readers that Teesta has no moralright to talk of truth. Her track record shows thatshe has spoken untruth many times to malign Hindus. Igive herewith just two examples: (1) She has blamedHindus for blasts in Malegaon.If you click %u201Cwww.sabrang.com %u201C, you find an article headed as %u201Cevidence of Hindu terror%u201D written long back evenbefore the probe started. After the probe the ATS found the evidence that the terrorists were members of
the banned organization SIMI ( Students of Islamic
Movement of India).
(2) In September 1998 two nunswere raped in Zabua, MP; before the probe, Teesta
blamed Hindus for the rape in her article of Sabrangof October 1998. After the probe, it was found thatthe rapists were all Christians. Teesta had nocourtesy to apologise for her serious lapse.
The hypocrite has been expose and it’s the responsibility of aware indian to bring those information in public domain so we can stand firm against those people who want to dismantle our nation by triggering communal tension
TEESTA BLOG
http://teesta.blogspot.com
“Apna quom ke liye Jhoot bhi Bholna” — TEESTA to Zahira
Killig hindus is ok just because they are 85 crores in india and its been happening for 100s of years and it is not new today but we dont need to worry them but killing muslims is wrong i.e they are minorities and they are precious to us to make our country secular and we should think about what other countries thin about india? We should pamper them asmuch as we can to make them happy. We shouldnt force them for common civil code/marriage law i.e it is against their religion. We should respect others religion atany cost. We should give more Haj subsidies to them to please them and make them happy and not worry about other poor people i.e anyway they are poor for 100s of years and noting is going to change even if we spend that haj money on poor people i.e we cant help all poor with that money so it is going to be waste. Muslims love india i.e they are living in india and didnt goto pakistan at the time of partition and it is our duty to protect even if they kill hindus we shouldnt worry toomuch about them. It is ur fault to travel on that train otherwise u wont end up in that fire.. unless u come out of ur house nobody can rape u so it is ur mistake to hang out in public places and traveling in trains and die in bomb blasts.. Nothing wrong with mullahs or congress/comm parties .. they are there to guide us i.e we are not educated and instead of spending money on educating everyone is wasting money so they are saving that money for india and we follow whatever our mullahs or congress party leaders ask us to do..
How tehalka is cheating
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070030925&ch=10/27/2007%2011:30:00%20PM
Whatever is being written about Gujarat must be taken with a ton of salt. While I do not deny that a significant number of innocent Hindus and Muslims were killed, reports have been deliberately doctored to give them a anti-Hindu hue.Some of the incidents quoted here on Tehelka have been countered by investigative journalism in the past or its authors (like Arundhati Roy) have retracted their statements or have not been able to prove them when challenged. reproduced below is an excerpt from a recently published book : Lies, Lies and More Lies.The Campaign to Defame Hindu/Indian Nationalism (ISBN 0595435491): page 81 “More recently, the reporting of events in the troubled state of Gujarat are other examples of hyperbole. Before elaborating on specific instances of deception, let me state that we cannot and should not condone the senseless violence that happened there. By the same token we cannot accept the malicious dissemination of falsehoods. Writing about the Gujarat riots, Arundhati Roy (noted novelist) had this to say (Outlook, May6, 2002):“A mob surrounded the house of ex-Congress MP Iqbal Ehsan Jaffri. His phone calls to the director-general of police, the police commissioner, the chief secretary, the additional chief secretary (home) were ignored. The mobile police vans around his house did not intervene. The mob broke into the house. They stripped his daughters and burnt them alive. Then they beheaded Jaffri and dismembered him.” The description is graphic; the veracity of the incident taken almost for granted coming from a writer of Arundhati Roy’s reputation. But, alas, that’s where we make the mistake. Fame and honesty are not interlinked as the following paragraph clearly indicates. Jaffri was killed in the riots but his daughters were neither “stripped” nor “burnt alive”. T.A. Jafri, his son, in a front-page interview titled Nobody knew my father’s house was the target (Asian Age, May 2, Delhi edition), says, “Among my brothers and sisters, I am the only one living in India. And I am the eldest in the family. My sister and brother live in the US. I am 40 years old and I have been born and brought up in Ahmedabad”. So if Ehsan Jaffri had only one daughter (singular) who was safe and sound in the United States, where did Roy get her facts about not one but daughters (plural) being stripped and burnt ? Was it the fantasy of a writer’s mind? Or was it willful deceit aimed at maligning her ideological adversaries? Arundhati Roy did apologise for her mistake in a letter published in Outlook May 27, 2002. Could this have been a genuine mistake, one is tempted to ask? But when such “mistakes” occur periodically, the chances of them being accidental appear remote. They appear to be in fact calculated machinations aimed at achieving a specific goal as the following incident further proves. In the same article, Roy claims: “Last night a friend from Baroda called. Weeping. It took her fifteen minutes to tell me what the matter was. It wasn’t very complicated. Only that Sayeeda, a friend of hers, had been caught by a mob. Only that her stomach had been ripped open and stuffed with burning rags. Only that after she died, someone carved ‘OM’on her forehead”. Disturbed by the thought of such a ghastly act, Balbir Punj (a BJP Member of parliament-Senator) had this matter investigated. In Outlook (Jul 08, 2002) he wrote: “Shocked by this despicable “incident”, I got in touch with the Gujarat government. The police investigations revealed that no such case, involving someone called Sayeeda, had been reported either in urban or rural Baroda. Subsequently, the police sought Roy’s help to identify the victim and seek access to witnesses who could lead them to those guilty of this crime. But the police got no cooperation. Instead, Roy, through her lawyer, replied that the police had no power to issue summons. Why is she hedging behind technical excuses?” So when asked to prove her allegations, Arundhati Roy developed cold feet; definitely not the attitude of a crusader for truth. Similarly you must have read some accounts of what preceded Godhra. There were wild accounts of an altercation between Ram sevaks (Hindu pilgrims) and Muslim stall-owners, and of abduction of a Muslim girl by Ram sevaks. All this emanated on the basis of a fictitious e-mail as revealed by Prem Shankar Jha (Outlook, March 25).”
Yossarin, have alook at this article!!
http://www.livemint.com/2007/10/29012332/Sting-ends-up-helping-its-targ.html
how about you stop trying to become an investigative journalist yourself and leave it to those who know what the hell they are talking about. It is utter ignorance of people like you that is mind numbing to the core. You would rather find ways to prove how something so blatant, like the killings in gujrat at the hangs of modi and his goons, is a ‘farse’ and a ‘political conspiracy’. wake up and smell the blood my friend. wake up and see what is real..
stopcircumventingBi^&ches,
>>how about you stop trying to become an investigative journalist yourself and leave it to those who know what the hell they are talking about
That would be an assumption that the journalist know their job and they are doing it right. I wouldn’t give them such an easy pass, wonder why you are?
Press is supposed to report. Bloggers will comment on what’s being reported. Sorry, but that’s blogoshpere for you. Don’t like it, troll at journalist’s site and not on blogs.
Good one Offstump, keep it coming.
Dear Sir,
Please understand all these journalists have been brought up “prim and proper” by studying mostly in “Christian evangelists schools”; I include convents in the same wavelength. They should have read in History some time where it is said that Goebbels the Third Reich’s propaganda Minister had said, “repeat a lie a thousand times and one day people will think that it is the truth”, a.k.a. Arundhati’s and Teesta’s.
Regards,
vck
[...] Tehelka’s Sting Operation The tehelka that was not – Offstumped An interesting view on Tehelka – Kishore [...]
Tarun Tejpal and Arundhaaaaaattttti …are two anti-national elements …looking for some quick money and recognition….through some really horrible sham journalism…..
[...] am I to believe the Tehelka Sting? Despite its not so honorable past, and despite the several holes poked in its theory? Much to shock/dismay, it was sensationally [...]