Chasing the SIMI Tribunal’s trail was not easy but exposing one of the biggest lies was worth every moment, writes Ajit Sahi after three months in the field
Meet SIMI’s most ardent Cheerleaders as Offstumped investigates why Tehelka has gone out of its way to bat for SIMI
In a crucial investigation over three months, Tehelka”s Editor-at-Large AJIT SAHI tracked the SIMI fictions across 11 cities ?Trivandrum, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Udaipur, Bhopal, Mumbai, Delhi, Aurangabad, Ahmedabad and Gorakhpur. His findings are alarming and distressing. They demand urgent introspection and corrective action? 16 August 2008
But here is the most troubling questions, why did Tehelka decide to bat for SIMI 3 months ago ?
See below a troubling and disturbing list of articles that exposes that lengths to which Tehelka went to bat for the SIMI.
This SIMI litigation is an omnibus case in which the 100 plus accused are now always at hand to be implicated in future cases – August 16 2008
Since when did protest get you called a jehadi? Ask M. Elliyas, he was a SIMI member during the 1990s and retired when he turned 30, three years before the ban – August 16 2008
Of course, said Jawahirullah, he was a SIMI member, but left it way back in 1989 when he turned 30, the age of superannuation. SIMI was then a legitimate organisation. Jawahirullah admitted that, as SIMI?s state president, he had taken on rent an office from the local mosque. But after he left SIMI, he had nothing to do with that transaction.- So much for the Centre?s watertight case against SIMI and TMMK on ?violence relating to killing of Hindus?.- August 16 2008
the Health Department rejected his appointment as the routine police verification showed he had been a SIMI member. The stigma of SIMI is a social handicap for Hasan, a shadow that never leaves his side. ?No one rents me their houses,? says Hasan. Of course, Hasan was once a member of SIMI. In fact, at the time of the ban, he was SIMI?s national general secretary. But until the ban, no case was ever filed against him - 16th August 2008
Yasin Patel is the only SIMI activist to be convicted under POTA. His crime was nothing more serious than an offensive poster – 16th August 2008
Among Abdul Razik?s crimes: books, old issues of a SIMI magazine and a talk on Muslims in the freedom struggle.? His harassment by the police and intelligence agencies began with the ban. His house was often searched; he was often questioned. Never was a case found against him. Even though the ban on SIMI is lifted, the Damocles sword still hangs over him – 16th August 2008
Midway through the tribunal, a key SIMI lawyer is suddenly arrested in an old, forgotten case and released as arguments end. The widely internalised prejudice against SIMI was perhaps revealed most starkly when a Hindi newspaper reporter visited Siddiqui?s retired father in Sultanpur while Siddiqui was still in jail in Gorakhpur. In the course of the interview, Siddiqui?s father told the reporter that as a government servant he had lived in many cities and named a few. The reporter got stuck on one name: Azamgarh. The newspaper report he wrote suggested that Siddiqui must have got close to ex-SIMI president Falahi, who is an Azamgarh native, when his father was posted there – 16th August 2008
Siddiqui was SIMI?s all-India general secretary from 1984-92, and had retired at the end of that tenure upon turning 30. Of course, once the police decided that Siddiqui was a SIMI member ? even though he had left it in 1992 ? there was no stopping them. - 16th August 2008
Moutasim Billah has been a police scapegoat for seven years, even though they acknowledge they have nothing on him August 16 2008?
Judges have been throwing out case after case against alleged SIMI activists because there is little evidence beyond confessions August 16 2008
Chasing the SIMI Tribunal?s trail was not easy but exposing one of the biggest lies was worth every moment August 23rd 2008
Chilling stories of fathers and brothers swallowed by midnight arrests, as family members lack the resources for legal redress? August 16 2008
In case after case, the ex-president of SIMI has been the target of the law agencies? absurd yet sinister charges, August 16 2008
?Police and intelligence agencies insist that former SIMI leader Safdar Nagori is the outfit?s evil mastermind. But again, there is little evidence to nail him? August 16 2008
The stay from the Supreme Court is a murder of justice. August 16 2008
A shadowy, pan-Islamic seditious organisation or merely a conservative Islamist and politically conscious student group? Read and draw your own conclusions on SIMI? August 16 2008
The Centre casually links a septuagenarian religious leader with SIMI ? and then fails to sustain its reckless accusation against him August 16 2008
Mere opinions, a stunning abscence of facts and gross violations of law in the Centre?s case against SIMI are what moved tribunal judge Geeta Mittal to reject the ban. The Righteous SIMI counsel Jawahar Raja and Mobin Akhtar weigh the evidence??August 16 2008
A watertight case claimed by the prosecution in the horrific July 2006 Mumbai train blasts seems anything but that, with many accused reporting torture - August 23rd 2008
A cleric?s dubious arrest over the Ahmedabad blasts is just the tip. A three-month investigation by AJIT SAHI exposes the random targeting of Muslims by the police August 9th 2008
A TV journalist traipses Mumbai?s lanes after the blasts. She meets people ? aggrieved, seething, indifferent. And asks a few uncomfortable questions? August 22nd 2008
Floundering for leads, the police is cracking down on hapless Bangladeshi immigrants May 31st 2008
Filed under: War on Terror
Yossarin,
I just want to say that your tracking is revealing a definite pattern. (Let me admit this: a couple of months back, when you wrote something similar, I was not ready to believe you.)
You are really on the verge of something BIG. Tehelka is seriously on someone’s pay.
I also think that at least some of recent spate of articles (about independence to Kashmir and all other similar B.S.) are disturbing trends of something. Are they the diversion towards this?
Enquiring minds would like to know.
Finally, I know you are not doing this for it, but let me say: thanks for all the work.
Great job. We need a powerful parallel media that can rapidly metamorphose into main stream media. Media that can manufacture opinions which are good for the country is urgently needed. I want to congratulate you for your work that might one day contribute significantly to this currently grandiose idea. I also heard about one Mr.Amitabh Tripathi who is running a hindi daily, more information on that from anybody will be appreciated greatly.
Jai Hind
Great post YossBoss…as always!
>>…merely a conservative Islamist and politically conscious student group?
Politically conscious student group??? Give me a break! The group that has waged a war against India, whose members render seditious speeches, in the name of freedom of speech…aren’t they glad they live in a democracy, paste anti-India posters? Yeah…this is one-hecjk of a politically conscious group…hell-bent on destroying India, with support from both internal as well as external forces, and now aplogists like Tehelka batting for them!
I guess India has been extremely tolerant in letting these SIMI like organisations fester in the first place…other glowing examples come to my mind – IUML, Jamaat and its offshoots…tolerance in India has been stretched to extremes. Its high-time media whores like Tehelka, IBN, NDTV, Trash Paper et al taken to task for advocating the balkanization & the partition of India. These media-pimps should be charged with sedition & treason and public should boycott them, with the pressure bought by forcing companies to withdraw advertising in them.
Moreover, as one of the posters mentioned in an earlier thread, the foreign-links of these organizations should be thoroughly investigated and the FDI in Indian media should be abolished & banned.
BTW, I just wonder as to everywhere else in the world, Christian organizations specifically those indulging in evangelism, proselytization, Catholic church etc are at logger-heads with commies & so-called ‘revolutionary’ marxist-gureilla forces, but in India — the only nation in the world, these forces have colluded together with other anti-national organizations and media-pimps & media-whores like Rajdeep Sardesai, Burqa Dutt, Sagarika Ghose, Suzanne Arundhati Roy, Shabana Azmi, Prannoy Roy, Tarun Tejpal playing their foot soldiers that will not stop at anything until India is detroyed culturally, physically by their devious tactics.
Ajit Sahi, the ‘reporter’ for these cheerleading articles on SIMI proudly writes:
” “To the SIMI bravehearts,” I scribbled in the magazine, then added as a considered afterthought: “Someday, this will be used against me as evidence.”
You betch Ajit, someday it will sure come to haunt you, a traitor who considers SIMI activists to be bravehearts, this scum of the earth, Ajit Sahi is nothing but a modern-day Jaichand incarnate!
Folks, have faith in the intelligence apparatus.
The present political leadership is weak. But that will change. Its hard to imagine a softer political setup than the one we currently have (except with the left having even greater leverage).
The IB is derived from the way the brits setup intelligence gathering against freedom fighters. Not much has changed in the way records are kept and data is collated. Meticuluous is the word.
All these treasonous NGOs, journos, whackademics, untellectuals, calumnists etc have dossiers on them someplace. Dossiers waiting for a govt with spine to initiate legal action against these nitwits who’re right now shooting away thinking they’ll get away with it all. Not likely, IMHO.
The success that our law enforcement and intell services could garner when unimpeded under MOD speaks louder than my mere words. The bozos burning the tricolor in Kashmir and the jhola brigade burning the tricolor intellectually batting for the Maoists or SIMI murderers or xtian cultists have no idea their big mouths have gotten them onto some watchlist somewhere. One of the nice things abt freedom of speech is that it allows idiots to expose their idiocy and traitors to throw up their true colors.
Have faith, folks. India isn’t lost yet.
Yoss the way u wrote, I thought u r going to uncover something extraordinary…:(….this is old news to me…
anyways…
here is some more of the entertainment:
‘I have evidence of RSS and VHP making bombs’
Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh attacks the BJP just like Sushma Swaraj attacked the Congress. ‘Investigate the timings of the blasts’, he tells NEHA DIXIT…..
full article here: http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne230808Incoldblood.asp
read on folks…..read on…
But just make sure you don’t sit on a stove and let your blood boil, it will just increase ur BP and you will die young, probably even b4 ajit sahi
)….there are better ways to deal with these types of exhibitionists…..all your rants and raves like – cheerleaders, motherfuckers, bastards, SOBs SOWs, etc etc will make u look like dumb street urchins and will be taken as complementaries and they enjoy them. After all their articles achieved their purpose, thanks to some morons in this blog, well not some but many (Jiggs!!!, u r not included in the morons list, don’t worry). Don’t tell ur friends in RSS or VHP (Violent Hindu People) or Bajrang dal to go and vandalise their office, it’s of no use. The fun is to make them live under the very govt/party they tried to malign, under the very people whose character they tried to assassinate.
Stay tuned
Can we get “illegal immigrant” watchgroups in every part of India to shoo the Bangladeshi immigrants out. We need to start with Assam
Tehelka’s article “Terror Has Two Faces” by Ajit Sahi – one of Yossarin’s references – starts out as:
‘THERE ARE two versions of what SIMI is. One is SIMI’s own, the other is that of the rest of the world…’
Presumably SIMI’s version is included to show the contrast.
Sahi doesn’t worry about getting the truth of the claims made by SIMI guys independently corroborated. The entire article reads like a weak defense constructed entirely from protestations of innocence from the accused!
If Sahi really ‘leaves it to the reader to decide which version she finds credible’, the least he could have done is to be equally demanding on evidence from both sides.
Looking forward for some more from Yossarin…
Hi Yossarin
What a wonderful work here.
Hats off to you boss….!!
I think in this pseudo secular media propaganda happening in India I see the truth only in your blogs:)
Keep it going!!
comment#2,
Ram Jan,
The Amitabh Tripathi’s website is:
http://lokmanch.com/news
and also there is one more site http://www.ivarta.com
and there are some very good articles by V.sundaram in newstodaynet.com
Yossarin,
Here is an IMPORTANT find, reported by Sheela Bhatt in Rediff:
Usman Agarbattiwala, who was arrested in Baroda, gave initial hints of the operation to the Gujarat police. A confidant of Kapadia, Usman was doing a diploma in human rights at Baroda University. The SIMI leadership wants its cadres to penetrate the legal field, media and human rights outfits all over India.
http://in.rediff.com/news/2008/aug/22spec.htm
Pro-SIMI elements in the media need to be investigated. They are probably a threat to our lives.
Yossarin,
Here is an IMPORTANT find, reported by Sheela Bhatt in Rediff:
Usman Agarbattiwala, who was arrested in Baroda, gave initial hints of the operation to the Gujarat police. A confidant of Kapadia, Usman was doing a diploma in human rights at Baroda University. The SIMI leadership wants its cadres to penetrate the legal field, media and human rights outfits all over India.
http://in.rediff.com/news/2008/aug/22spec.htm
Pro-SIMI elements in the media need to be investigated. They are probably a threat to our lives.
Yossarin,
Here is an IMPORTANT find, reported by Sheela Bhatt in Rediff:
Usman Agarbattiwala, who was arrested in Baroda, gave initial hints of the operation to the Gujarat police. A confidant of Kapadia, Usman was doing a diploma in human rights at Baroda University. The SIMI leadership wants its cadres to penetrate the legal field, media and human rights outfits all over India.
http://in.rediff.com/news/2008/aug/22spec.htm
Pro-SIMI elements in the media need to be investigated. They are probably a threat to our lives.
Yossarin,
Here is an IMPORTANT find, reported by Sheela Bhatt in Rediff:
http://in.rediff.com/news/2008/aug/22spec.htm
QUOTE
Usman Agarbattiwala, who was arrested in Baroda, gave initial hints of the operation to the Gujarat police. A confidant of Kapadia, Usman was doing a diploma in human rights at Baroda University. The SIMI leadership wants its cadres to penetrate the legal field, media and human rights outfits all over India.
UNQUOTE
Pro-SIMI elements in the media need to be investigated. They are probably a threat to our lives.
test
http://in.rediff.com/news/2008/aug/22spec.htm
From the above: Usman Agarbattiwala, who was arrested in Baroda, gave initial hints of the operation to the Gujarat police. A confidant of Kapadia, Usman was doing a diploma in human rights at Baroda University. The SIMI leadership wants its cadres to penetrate the legal field, media and human rights outfits all over India.
Thanks or the link msr, we need parallel media or atleast people who care for the country & love it ( nationalists ) should themselves penetrate the current establishments or encourage their like minded friends, relatives & offspring to do so.
[...] « Cheerleaders for SIMI – Part 1 [...]
the phrase “cheerleaders of terrorism” need to made more popular than secular, pseudo secular , communal forces by repeating so many times and in rhetoric speeches.
I think this one would strike to one and all very easily.
yoss
your comments on this:
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/nba-to-set-up-body-to-regulate-broadcasting-content/71916-3.html
one thing is sure Media is feeling the heat.
Spokesperson of NBA, Annie Joseph said, “They (broadcasters) have to ensure that there is excellence in broadcasting standards, there is credibility in reporting and there is impartiality in reporting because all this will be now subject to another point of view.”
The NBA comprising representaives from the industry believes that the media is meant to expose the lapses in government and in public life cannot obviously be regulated by government
Censorship and free speech are sworn enemies. It is therefore imperative that the journalistic profession evolve institutional checks and safeguards of its own
From Prashant’s IBN link posted above:
“…The News Broadcasters Association (NBA), an umbrella of private news channels, is setting up a broadcasting authority to regulate content…”
Its akin to asking the wolves to guard the hen house! What a joke? After all asking the media, whose accountability has a big question mark hanging over it, to regulate itself is a big joke! One thing we lesser mortals can be sure of, keeping the Indian MSM/ELM’s track record in mind, is the composition of this soi-called regulatory outfit – brimming to the core with ‘social activists’, ‘human rights activists’, two penny litreauters & actors, jholawala brigade masquerading as media personnel, with some judicial lumenaries of the variety of IUCL (Tarkunde, Sachar etc) thrown in for a show of objectivity & impartiality!
Yeah, where does Tehelka get the funding from? If I understand it correct the mag doesn’t even have that many ads. But my suspicions are that the Leftists/extreme liberals in India have always been elites. So money is not a big problem.
However there is a bigger question? Does funding really matter in some sense? I mean let’s say you can conclusively prove that it gets funding from some Saudi operated Islamic charities that also sponsor jihad in some parts of the world? The question is what are you gonna do about it? Are you gonna ban the mag? That will only fuel the fire and create unnecessarily more publicity for the mag? The right approach to counter an ideology is through a different set of ideas through psy-ops and articles in different mags that expose what Y has basically written here. Hey two can play the game.
Guys, it has started all over again afresh. Sanatan Dharma and Hindu ethos is being openly attacked with full force after a very brief respite. Our ancestors tirelessly held out the onslaughts for centuries and its our turn now. Go spread the word that the war has started again. Please stop spending too much time talking about pseudo secularism, anti-nationals, conspiracies & strategies, start acting. Goto temples other public places (NRIs & non- NRIs alike), display big legible posters, pictures, news articles etc etc which will bring the real truth to people. Try to make an impact on Hindus wherever you can find them. Talk openly but shrewdly about missionary activities, violent islam, communist mafia and other anti-national & anti-human idealogies, agendas fearlessly using strongest of the words possible. Request good speakers, intellectuals to embed the message of Hindu ethos and the trouble it is currently facing in their talks. Gather like minded people and conduct small lectures tell people about the crooks & parasites waiting to eat away our hardwork,our wealth, our economy and our heritage. The battle cry from the enemy has already emerged, it our turn to blow the conch. Do whatever you can to educate atleast 10 common average Hindus(actually Indians), do it today and if possible do it right now. The word has to spread fast & clear. If you are not a Hindu but still love India, your family & your hard earned money do the same in your mosque or church.
[...] is an exercise that should have George Orwell turning in his grave. In this penultimate piece on why Tehelka when to such great lengths to bat for SIMI, Offstumped turns the focus from Tarun Tejpal’s questionable background to [...]
@sootradhar
I agree with your view But then let us Expose them.
Why dont we utlise this opportunity and bring the matter where Journalistic Ethics where not taken care by channels/newspaper in reporting to this NBA and wait to see what action they took.
[...] 19 Aug 2008 – Tehelka reveals a 3 month investigation by Ajit Sahi in favor of SIMI [...]