Defending Terror Accused

When the Vice Chancellor of Jamia Millia University offered financial assistance to some of its students accused of masterminding bomb blasts in Delhi, there was a hue and cry. Jamia is a central university, which receives funding from the central government through the UGC. In other words, the tax payers’ money was proposed to be used to defend terror suspects. The matter assumed political overtones when the Minister of HRD after a meeting with Jamia’s VC supported his stand. The VC claimed that law assumed everyone to be innocent till proven guilty. Therefore Jamia was not wrong in arranging the legal defence of its students.

This raises interesting questions. If the arrested students did not belong to the minority community, would Jamia and the politicians who swarmed the campus in their support after the encounter of Batla House have still adopted the same stand? Is the real motive to help the so-called innocents or to appease the sentiments of minority community with an eye on their votes? When an employee of a university is arrested even on a petty criminal charge and held in detention for more than 48 hours, the service rules prescribe his suspension. When Jamia’s students have been arrested on a serious charge of promoting terror and are in custody, they are being glorified and offered legal aid by those who are responsible for maintaining discipline in the university.

In a reprehensible bid to encash Muslim votes, the politicians have not only questioned the police action in which a senior police officer was himself shot dead, but also demanded a probe even before the investigation is complete. There was a ludicrous suggestion that the police officer may have been shot dead by his own colleagues to justify a fake encounter. Such absurdities call for a willing suspension of disbelief. The underlying assumption is that Muslims are under attack and whenever a terror attack takes place, only Muslim names crop us. What do the critics expect? A combination of Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Christian names to prove our multi- religious society with perhaps a Parsi name to garnish the recipe? Which names came up when Punjab was on the boil in the eighties? Muslim or Sikh? Similar stories of repression of Sikhs were floated by the vested interests while hundreds of poor Hindus who were dragged out of buses in Punjab and shot dead in cold blood.


The approach belies a lack of seriousness in tackling terror. Almost as a re-run, an ex-Major of Indian Army accused of training those involved in Malegaon blasts in which Muslims were on the receiving end, is being offered legal help by VHP. This is equally condemnable. In a civil society, which respects the rule of law, it is tantamount to indirectly funding terrorism. If the only concern is that the accused may not go undefended, let those keen to act as “Good Samaritans” like the Minister of HRD, the VC of Jamia and the VHP know that the courts are required to appoint amicus curie or friends of court to defend those who lack the means to do so. The powers that be are expected to let law take its own course. If we want India to survive as a democratic, secular and unified nation, we will have to learn to respect the law.