Man accused of serious crimes is to lead India's ruling party
NB: This is not surprising. The culture of contempt for law and human life has long been a part of India's 'mainstream'. Of the 539 current MP's in the Lok Sabha, 186 have criminal charges registered against them, 112 of these for heinous crimes. (Refer here, and here. In the last Lok Sabha, the figure was 158 MP's, with 77 being charged with heinous crimes). Can such persons be trusted to uphold the law of the land? Hooliganism has become respectable, violence has become normalised. We can only hope that officials who are sworn to serve the Indian constitution will remember their oath of office. India's citizens will need to be alert, for the elite has clearly indicated what it wants - 'growth' at the cost of justice. DS
Modi Aide Accused of Murders to Lead India Ruling Party
Andrew MacAskill in New Delhi; Kartikay
Mehrotra in New Delhi
Accused of fake encounters involving Sohrabuddin Sheikh, Tulsiram Prajapati among others, Shah spent three months in the Sabarmati jail before he secured bail in 2010. The Supreme Court had banned Shah from Gujarat in 2010 amid concerns that he would intimidate witnesses. The case was transferred to Mumbai in 2012. In 2011, the CBI had alleged that Amit Shah, as a former Gujarat minister, was heading an extortion syndicate culminating in the fake encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his wife. The CBI counsel had cited the purported statements of several real estate owners and businessmen to a bench of the Supreme Court, asserting that they had had testified that the former Gujarat minister of state for home had let loose a reign of terror by engaging top police officials like D G Vanzara to extort money by threatening to kill them in fake encounters... read more:
http://www.outlookindia.com/news/article/Murder-Accused-Amit-Shah-Appointed-BJP-President/848862
See also:
The BJP and Justice, Chapter 2: Ishrat Encounter Cop Reinstated // Muzzafarnagar Riot accused becomes Union minister
Very short list of examples of rule of law inIndia
The Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi
Modi Aide Accused of Murders to Lead India Ruling Party
Amit Shah is on trial for ordering three murders, kidnapping
witnesses, running an extortion racket and hiring criminals to shoot up a
rival’s headquarters. Between court hearings he’ll now be running India ’s ruling
party. Shah was named president of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya
Janata Party today, two months after its anti-corruption platform helped secure
the biggest electoral mandate in 30 years. Shah is accused of ordering
extrajudicial killings carried out by police in Gujarat
almost a decade ago when he served under Modi. He denies wrongdoing.
“There is no need to introduce Amit Shah,” Rajnath Singh,
home minister and outgoing BJP president, told reporters in New Delhi today. “He has enormous imaginative
abilities, is rich in organizational skills and has tremendous management
abilities to ensure victories.” The move helps consolidate Modi’s power in
the party while leaving him open to criticism that he’s doing little to change
the political culture in India ,
where a third of lawmakers in the national parliament face criminal charges.
Despite the accusations, Shah’s record running campaigns is exemplary: he
hasn’t lost in about three decades. As Shah awaited trial this year, Modi
put him in charge of the BJP’s campaign in Uttar Pradesh, India ’s most populous state. The party took 71
of 80 seats, its highest total ever. Shah was a fixture in Modi’s campaign,
standing next to him during victory celebrations along the Ganges
river after the BJP’s win. Shah made no comments at today’s press briefing.
‘Master of Strategy’- “When
it comes to elections, he’s proven to be a master of strategy,” said Jay
Narayan Vyas, a BJP spokesman in Gujarat and former cabinet minister under
Modi, adding that a Shah-managed campaign hasn’t suffered defeat in 28 years.
“Like a good chess player, he plots, carefully plans and then makes his moves,
which is why he has so much success.” Shah, 49, met Modi in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh,
a conservative Hindu nationalist group linked to the BJP. Even though they’re
from different backgrounds -- Shah is a former stockbroker from a wealthy
family, while Modi is the son of a tea stall owner -- the two men became close. Shah’s appointment “represents the culmination of Modi’s
takeover of the party apparatus,” said Milan Vaishnav, an associate in the
South Asia program at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “Modi is, of
course, the de facto party leader already. This makes him the de jure leader as
well.” –
Gujarat Murders - In 2003, two years after
Modi was elected as chief minister of the western state of Gujarat ,
he appointed Shah as the youngest member of his cabinet. He oversaw a dozen
portfolios, including home, prisons, and law and order. During that time,
Shah ran an extortion racket with the help of police officers as well as
Sohrabuddin Sheikh, a local businessman, according to a 2010 report filed by India ’s Central Bureau of Investigation. In one case, Shah extracted 7 million rupees ($117,000) from a businessman
after threatening to harm his family, the report says. In 2005, Shah and
Sheikh had a falling out, according to the report. Soon after, it said, police
in plain clothes picked up Sheikh and his wife while they traveled on a bus in
central India. The pair
were brought to Ahmedabad, Gujarat ’s biggest
city, where Sheikh was killed in a murder that was made to look as if he was
shot while trying to escape, the report said. Sheikh’s wife, who witnessed the abduction of her husband,
was murdered and cremated in the home village of one of the policemen,
according to the police report. Another witness in the case was killed nearly a
year later, it said.
‘Two-Man Team’
Shah made phone calls to the accused officers during the
period when Sheikh and his wife were abducted and murdered, the police report
said. The Gujarat government subsequently
acknowledged that the officers killed Sheikh, according to court documents. Ram Jethmalani, Shah’s lawyer, declined to comment when
contacted last month, saying he isn’t authorized to talk to the press. Shah has
routinely denied any involvement in the killings. “The fact that this gentlemen
has an alleged involvement in various criminal cases reflects poorly on the
BJP’s claim of probity and clean government,” Manish Tewari, a spokesman for
the Congress party, which ruled the country for 10 years before Modi took
power, said by phone.
A special CBI court in Mumbai last week exempted
Shah from appearing in court because of his political work in Delhi , and scheduled another hearing on July
17, The Hindu reported. The nation’s top court banned Shah from Gujarat in 2010 after being charged amid concerns that he
would intimidate witnesses. The case was transferred to Mumbai in 2012. “Shah
ran the police force in Gujarat like it was
his own private army,” said Rubabuddin Sheikh, a brother of Sohrabuddin Sheikh.
“The BJP is just a two-man team now between Shah and Modi. Everyone else is
just a bunch of goats following the hands that feed them.”
http://www.outlookindia.com/news/article/Murder-Accused-Amit-Shah-Appointed-BJP-President/848862
See also:
The BJP and Justice, Chapter 2: Ishrat Encounter Cop Reinstated // Muzzafarnagar Riot accused becomes Union minister
Very short list of examples of rule of law in
The Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi
Ulema now demand expulsion of Taslima Nasrin
Terrifying implications of the Staines judgement
Murder of TP Chandrasekharan 2012
Terrifying implications of the Staines judgement
Murder of TP Chandrasekharan 2012
