12-13-2006, 03:08 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>'Afzal innocent, attack inside job' </b>
Pioneer News Service | New Delhi
ZARA YAAD KARO QURBANI
Five years ago this day, there was Kamlesh Kumari and there were the terrorists. The CRPF constable had died, staving off an attack on India's temple of democracy, its Parliament. Later, Mohammad Afzal Guru was found guilty of facilitating the attack, waging a war against the state and sentenced to death.
Today, Kamlesh isn't the newsmaker; Afzal is. To mark the fifth anniversary of the attack on Parliament, an assortment of self-appointed "human rights" crusaders and conspiracy theorists came together at a book launch and demanded his freedom. They took it upon themselves to plead the case for Afzal during a discussion on 13 December - A Reader (Penguin). Â
With participation by <b>Arundhati Roy, Indira Jaisingh, Nirmalangshu Mukherji, Praful Bidwai and Shuddhabrata Sengupta </b>- all of them have contributed chapters to the book - the discussion revolved around how Afzal was actually innocent, had been framed by the Indian state, and how the attack on Parliament was, by implication, stage-managed.
<b>Roy also compared the suicide strike on Parliament to the Godhra train incineration, not as two terrorist attacks - as most Indians may understand it - but as twin inside jobs, deliberately done to provoke a reaction.</b>
The author activist - who added the "absurd binary of BJP and Congress" to her list of pet hates, which range from President George W Bush to India's nuclear tests to the Narmada dam to a proposed Tata car plant in Singur - also used the event to rhetorically ask 13 questions. These questions figure in Roy's introduction to the book and, in her opinion, mask the<b> "untold ... inside story" of 13/12.</b>
Three of the questions imply that Roy is privy to information that hitherto has not come into the public domain. If true, they represent a scoop that should add a Pulitzer to the Booker Prize she has already won:
<b>The NDA Government had prior information on the attack on Parliament, Roy alleges. In question one she claims that then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee presided over an "informal meeting" on December 12, 2001, where he predicted the attack. No details are provided as to the venue of and participants at the meeting</b>
<b>In question three, Roy approvingly quotes Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi as saying, "I counted six men getting out of the car. But only five were killed. The close circuit TV camera recording clearly showed six men." "Who was the sixth person," Roy asks, "where is he now? The Graham Greenesque 'Sixth Man' that Roy claims Dasmunsi saw is, to her, crucial to the truth. In a sense, she sees Dasmunsi's testimony as crucial to Afzal's defence.</b>
<b>Question six of Roy's 13 queries would suggest that she has inside information on secret troop movements by the Indian Army: "Is it true the military mobilisation to the Pakistan border had begun long before the 13 December attack?" Again no details are provided</b>
Walking out the book release at the India Habitat Centre, one listener compared it to the ongoing conference in Teheran of "experts" who deny the Holocaust. It is not known whether Arundhati Roy had been invited. <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Is there any relationship between Arundhati Roy and Afzal? Why cops are not checking her history?
Pioneer News Service | New Delhi
ZARA YAAD KARO QURBANI
Five years ago this day, there was Kamlesh Kumari and there were the terrorists. The CRPF constable had died, staving off an attack on India's temple of democracy, its Parliament. Later, Mohammad Afzal Guru was found guilty of facilitating the attack, waging a war against the state and sentenced to death.
Today, Kamlesh isn't the newsmaker; Afzal is. To mark the fifth anniversary of the attack on Parliament, an assortment of self-appointed "human rights" crusaders and conspiracy theorists came together at a book launch and demanded his freedom. They took it upon themselves to plead the case for Afzal during a discussion on 13 December - A Reader (Penguin). Â
With participation by <b>Arundhati Roy, Indira Jaisingh, Nirmalangshu Mukherji, Praful Bidwai and Shuddhabrata Sengupta </b>- all of them have contributed chapters to the book - the discussion revolved around how Afzal was actually innocent, had been framed by the Indian state, and how the attack on Parliament was, by implication, stage-managed.
<b>Roy also compared the suicide strike on Parliament to the Godhra train incineration, not as two terrorist attacks - as most Indians may understand it - but as twin inside jobs, deliberately done to provoke a reaction.</b>
The author activist - who added the "absurd binary of BJP and Congress" to her list of pet hates, which range from President George W Bush to India's nuclear tests to the Narmada dam to a proposed Tata car plant in Singur - also used the event to rhetorically ask 13 questions. These questions figure in Roy's introduction to the book and, in her opinion, mask the<b> "untold ... inside story" of 13/12.</b>
Three of the questions imply that Roy is privy to information that hitherto has not come into the public domain. If true, they represent a scoop that should add a Pulitzer to the Booker Prize she has already won:
<b>The NDA Government had prior information on the attack on Parliament, Roy alleges. In question one she claims that then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee presided over an "informal meeting" on December 12, 2001, where he predicted the attack. No details are provided as to the venue of and participants at the meeting</b>
<b>In question three, Roy approvingly quotes Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi as saying, "I counted six men getting out of the car. But only five were killed. The close circuit TV camera recording clearly showed six men." "Who was the sixth person," Roy asks, "where is he now? The Graham Greenesque 'Sixth Man' that Roy claims Dasmunsi saw is, to her, crucial to the truth. In a sense, she sees Dasmunsi's testimony as crucial to Afzal's defence.</b>
<b>Question six of Roy's 13 queries would suggest that she has inside information on secret troop movements by the Indian Army: "Is it true the military mobilisation to the Pakistan border had begun long before the 13 December attack?" Again no details are provided</b>
Walking out the book release at the India Habitat Centre, one listener compared it to the ongoing conference in Teheran of "experts" who deny the Holocaust. It is not known whether Arundhati Roy had been invited. <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Is there any relationship between Arundhati Roy and Afzal? Why cops are not checking her history?