06-26-2007, 08:27 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>'It is all a BJP-conspiracy'</b>
A murder they don't care about
<i>Arun Shourie</i>
The 'cooperative' bank for empowering women liquidated under orders of the Reserve Bank⦠The sugar mill bankrupt, having swallowed over Rs. 20 crore of unpaid loans⦠We see the very same pattern in the other endeavours of our next President. Her bio-data speaks of the Shram Sadhana Trust that she has set up. It runs an engineering college â for rural youth, as the bio-data says.
What do documents show? A Medical Aid Account is set up for students. Naturally, money from it goes to doctors â and, lo and behold, her brother, Dr. GN Patil's name stands out by a mile⦠Employees of the college turn out to be working at the residences of the various directors â some in Mumbai. A guest house is built, and comes to be used, not by academicians visiting the college, but by members of the family⦠Money collected from the students goes to the soon-to-be-declared bankrupt sugar mill⦠Money is taken from the teachers' salaries as compulsory deposits in that family-controlled 'cooperative' bank; these deposits are used to enroll 'shareholders' in the bank â who in turn help the family win the 'elections' of the cooperative bank⦠A pattern through and through.
Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, who has been so exercised about enforcing morality on the media, is unmoved. 'A visibly upset Dasmunsi hit out at the NDA for trying to malign Patil's image,' The Indian Express reports. 'In the process, he drew a parallel between Patil's case and "many political leaders" whose brothers, sisters and relatives were loan defaulters and also "electronic media industry" which has been slapped with plenty of notices.'
Surely, the answer is to bring them to book too. Surely, the answer is to do what so many of us have been demanding for so long â namely, to publish the names of all bank-defaulters. Not to pick one of them at random and make her or him President of India!Â
In any case, even Munsi, in spite of his fertile imagination, will not claim that murder has brushed the hem of the 'electronic media industry' as closely as it has in this instance.
<b>Names and dates</b>
But first a few names and dates.
Vishram G. Patil: Professor of English at a college in Jalagaon affiliated to the North Maharashtra University. A Congressman for thirty years. Elected President of the District Congress Committee not once but thrice. Murdered on 21 September, 2005.
Rajani Patil: his wife. Professor of Marathi at the same college.
G.N. Patil: brother of the UPA nominee for the Presidentship of India. Rival and adversary of Vishram Patil. Defeated by Vishram Patil in his effort to become President of the District Congress Committee.
Ulhas Patil: former member of Parliament. Close associate of G.N. Patil. Rival and adversary of Vishram Patil. Runs a number of NGOs.
Raju Mali and Raju Sonawane: two arrested for murdering Vishram Patil. Raju Mali tells Aaj Tak correspondent that they are just being made sacrificial goats. The real perpetrators of the murder are at large. Who are they, he is asked. "The persons who are being named by Rajani Patil," he says. He suddenly dies in police custody â three days after, at long last, the CBI team visits Jalagaon on its first visit.
Leeladhar Narkhede and Damodar Lokhande: two who are named as having financed the murder of Vishram Patil. Phone records show several calls between them and G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil on the day before the murder, on the day of the murder and on the day after. The two are picked up. But four months later, they are let off. The FIR about them is withdrawn.
A few dates: 21 September, 2005: Vishram Patil murdered. Great commotion in Jalagaon. People openly say that he has been killed as the result of a supari having been given to murder him. By the fourth day, Police say they have completed '90 per cent' of the investigation, and will soon get the killers and those behind them. Police arrest the two who confess to the actual murder.
October 2006: Aaj Tak puts out a detailed story by Manish Awasthi cataloguing the murder. In it, Aaj Tak takes viewers through the records of the mobile telephone company that establish that numerous calls were made between the two reported financiers of the murder and the brother of Pratibha Patil, G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil â the calls were made on the day before the murder, on the day of the murder and on the day after the murder. The channel shows the exact times and duration of the calls from the records of the mobile phone company. Awasthi's story contains a devastating interview of Raju Mali from within the jail. In September 2005, they had gone on an indefinite fast inside the jail. Raju Mali says in the interview that they had stopped taking food to protest against the Police for not arresting, for not even questioning the real culprits, 'the persons named by Rajani Patil'. 'We have simply been made sacrificial goats in the case while the real culprits are untouched.'
4 April, 2007: a year and a half after the murder, and after vicissitudes that we shall soon encounter, the CBI team comes to Jalagaon for its first visit.
7 April, 2007: the CBI team interrogates Rajani Patil, the widow of the murdered DCC President. But something else happens in the jail not far away: Raju Mali dies in Police custody.
<b>Events</b>
The brother of Pratibha Patil, G.N. Patil -- who, as we have seen, has been a close collaborator in her endeavours to empower women and bring succour to rural youth â is a frustrated rival of Vishram Patil. The latter has defeated him to the Presidentship of the District Congress Committee.
Congress workers collect funds â ostensibly to provide relief to tsunami victims. These are never deposited in the Chief Minister's Relief Fund.
Congress workers again collect funds â this time to felicitate Pratibha Patil upon her appointment as Governor of Rajasthan. No one hears what happens to these funds either.
Several office-bearers of the District Congress Committee send a memorandum to Prabha Rau, head of the Maharashtra Congress, asking her to institute an inquiry into the missing funds. They receive no reply.
15 August, 2005: nine office-bearers of the DCC issue a press release saying that G.N. Patil, the brother of Pratibha Patil, has not submitted accounts of funds that were collected by Congress workers for felicitating Pratibha Patil.
Vishram Patil commences an inquiry within the Congress into the misappropriation of the funds. He also commences an inquiry into financial dealings of Ulhas Patil and his NGOs. He brings the matter to the attention of the high-command of the Congress.
He receives three anonymous letters. Written in hand, they state that a supari has been given out to kill him, that he should be careful. He persists with the inquiry.
He is killed. Local dailies are full of the murder. They surmise that it is the result of political rivalries in the District Congress Committee.
Because of the enormous commotion among the local people, the Police act. Within a few days, they nab the killers.
They make swift progress in the investigation. They tell Rajani Patil, the widow, that 90 per cent of the investigation is over, that they will soon get the ones who instigated the murder also.
Suddenly, the investigation goes off the rails. The police now put out a story that the murder actually took place because of a dispute over money that Raju Mali had borrowed from Vishram Patil. Rajani Patil strongly refutes the insinuation. Local papers puncture holes in this new concoction of the Police. As suddenly as the concoction had been put out, the investigation is taken out of the hands of the local police entirely, and turned over to the CID of the state Government.
26 September, 2005: alarmed at the way the investigation is being derailed, the widow, Rajani Patil writes to Sonia Gandhi. She says, 'The brain behind the crime is pressurizing the investigation process.'
27 September, 2005: a local paper, Deshdoot, reports that at a press conference, Rajiv Patil, the parabhari adhyaksha of the Congress, has said that Raju Mali, the killer, is an agent of G.N. Patil, the brother of Pratibha Patil, Governor of Rajasthan. Another report in the paper says that everyone in Jalagaon is talking about the contract killing, about how much was paid for it, and by whomâ¦
The same day, 27 September, 2005, thirteen office-bearers of the District Congress Committee write to the local Superintendent of Police. They name G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil as being the persons behind the murder and express grave concern that the investigation is being dragged down to a crawl.
28 September, 2005: Local papers like Deshdoot and Deshunnati carry a tell-tale photograph. It is the day the election of the District Congress Committee President takes place. A group is standing around the victor, Vishram Patil. In the picture, mysteriously, is Raju Mali â the very man who is to kill Vishram Patil soon. He was not and is not a member of the Congress, the papers say. Who let him into the party office? With whose blessing was he roaming inside the office? With who is he linked? They have no doubt about the answerâ¦Â Â
On 28 September, 2005, Manik Rao Gavit, the Minister of State in the Home Ministry at the Centre, writes to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. He writes that he has received a letter from the Working President of the Jalagaon District Congress Committee, Rajiv Patil, in which the latter has named G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil as the conspirators behind the murder. Gavit says that there is haa-haakaar in the local Congress, hence he is sending Rajiv Patil's letter. He urges the Chief Minister to have the matter investigated in this direction and to do everything necessary to get at the real culprits and have them punished. Â
The local papers are full of the inaction that has overtaken the investigation. The real culprits are at large, they say. The names of G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil are splashed across the headlines of stories connected with the murder. Rajani Patil, the widow, writes to the local Police chief: 'This murder has been committed out of political enmity. I therefore urge you to investigate the case from this angle and arrest the persons concerned. I strongly believe that, under somebody's pressure, there is an attempt to misdirect the Police investigation by fabricating cock-and-bull stories.'
5 October, 2005: Rajiv Patil, the parabhari-adhyaksha of the Congress , writes to the Chief Minister, to the Director General of Police, and to the head of the Pune Branch of the CID. He records his concern that the investigation is going nowhere. He urges that some of the officers who were handling the initial investigation and who know the facts should be involved in the inquiry. He gives the names of the concerned officers. He receives no reply.
15 October, 2005: Rajiv Patil writes to the authorities again pointing to the connection between the killers and G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil. He says that the killers who have been nabbed were never Congress activists, that they were brought to the Congress office by G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil only at the time of the DCC election.
1 December, 2005: two months have gone by since the murder, the investigation has been steered into the wrong direction all too-patently. Rajani Patil, the widow, writes to R.R. Patil, the Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister of the state. She expresses her anguish at what has been done to the investigation. It is going nowhere, she says. The police had assured us that 90 per cent of the investigation is over and that they will soon get to the real conspirators. But as 'the real conspirators have high-level connections, when only 10 per cent of the investigation was left, the case was taken out of their hands and given to the state CID.'
8 December, 2005: Rajani Patil again writes to the Chief Minister and Home Minister of the state. She strongly repudiates the police insinuation that there was some financial dispute between her husband and the killers. My husband was killed because of the supari given by the political rivals of my husband, she writes. You can find out who gave the supari by asking the two who are in custody, she tells them. There is no response.
Rajani Patil travels to Delhi. She meets Sonia Gandhi personally in January 2006. She narrates the sequence of the case. She also meets other Congress bigwigs â Ahmed Patel, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Margaret Alva and others.
They move not a finger. Instead, the FIR against the two who are said to have financed the murder is dropped. Having first snatched the investigation away from the local police and transferred it to the state CID, the Government now decides that the investigation is best done by the CBI!
Three months pass â ostensibly waiting for the CBI to respond. Eventually, the CBI informs the state Government that it is overwhelmed with work, that as the case has no 'inter-state or international ramifications', it is not a fit case for the agency.
Everyone sees through the attempt to kill the inquiry and thus protect the real conspirators. The intrepid widow files a petition in the Aurangabad Bench of the High Court. On 23 February, 2007, by a detailed order the Court dismisses the CBI's objections about there being no 'inter-state or international ramifications'. We are aware of this as well as of the work which the agency is already handling, the Court records. That is why only in exceptional cases does the Court direct it to take the case in hand. This is a case of that kind. 'We have scrutinized the record with the help of counsel of both sides,' the Court records in its order. 'We have considered the chequered history of the present case, the developments which have taken place after filing of the chargesheet, issues involved, and the reference to alleged conspiracy by influential political leaders of the region. Having regard to the importance of the issues involved and the alleged complicity of the influential political leadersâ¦, in our considered opinion, this is a fit case where the investigation should be conducted by the CBI.'Â
Of course, by knocking the investigation around â from the local police to the state CID to the CBI, only to have the CBI turn down the case â the powers-that-be have already achieved one objective: by now, more than a year and a half has passed since the murder was committed.
5 March, 2007: disheartened and broken, Rajani Patil again writes to Sonia Gandhi. As you also lost your husband, you are the one person who will understand my wound, she writes. She recalls the anonymous letters that her husband had received warning him to desist from the inquiry, warning that 'a supari to murder my husband had been given by Dr. Ulhas Patil and Dr. G.N. Patil, the brother of Smt. Pratibha Patil, Governor of Rajasthan. On the morning of 21.9.2005, my husband was brutally murderedâ¦' 'I fear that my whole family is likely to get liquidated by these brutal murderers if they continue to get politically patronized by the party,' she concludes.
She receives no reply.
Recounting all this in the memorandum she submits to the President later on, and driven to despondence by the fact that no one has paid the slightest heed to her tears and pleas, she adds, 'I feel anguished that they are indeed getting politically patronized by the party.'Â
The CBI team comes at last to Jalagaon on 4 April, 2007. It interrogates the widow on 7 April. On the same day, the killer, Raju Mali dies in police custodyâ¦
Throughout this period, the widow, Rajani Patil, is pleading before the state and Congress authorities. Not just she, but functionaries of the local Congress themselves, in particular Shridhar Bapu Chaudhury, the party's General Secretary keep dispatching letters and memoranda pointing to G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil. All these letters as well as those of Rajiv Patil, the prabhari adhyaksha of the Congress in Jalagaon, are on letterheads of the Congress.Â
<b>The response</b>
'It is all a BJP ploy. It shows their desperation at not being able to find a candidate of the stature of Pratibha Patil,' proclaim the Congress spokesmen. But the record consists of letters, memoranda, press conferences, writ petitions of Congressmen.
But I am on another point: assume that everything is a conspiracy of the BJP. What about the facts? What about the facts, for instance, set out by Aaj Tak?
'But why now? The timing of these allegations itself shows that they have been manufactured only to tarnish the image of Pratibha Patil as she is standing for the Presidentship of the country. After all, why are they bringing up these things now?' This is their other, wholly predictable defence. Â
It so happens that all the events, documents, proceedings in court, communications, etc., pertain to the period before Pratibha Patil was plucked from nowhere to be the Presidential candidate. And they are being recounted today precisely because Pratibha Patil has been nominated to become the President of the country. Till the other day, these were frauds of some district politicians. The murder was of concern primarily to the Jalagaon people. Precisely because Pratibha Patil is likely to become the President, each facet -- the financial frauds, the murder, the deliberate derailment of the investigation -- becomes a matter of urgent national concern. If the frauds and murder are not exhumed today, why, that would be a real conspiracyâ¦
<b>The politics</b>
Could it be that the Congress high-ups, in particular Sonia Gandhi, did not know about these associations of Pratibha Patil? I was at first inclined to think so. After all, Pratibha Patil's name had been picked out of a hat at the last minute. There might have been no time for a background check.
But on going through these letters after letters, these memoranda after memoranda â one and all of them written and sent by Congressmen, one and all of them sent to Congressmen; after reading Rajani Patil's account of her meeting with Sonia Gandhi and other Congress leaders in Delhi; after going through the proceedings in courts; after seeing the screaming headlines of the local papers, I just can not believe that neither Sonia Gandhi nor her immediate colleagues remembered nothing of the case. After all, the head of their own party in the district, the very man who had been thrice elected to the post, had been killed. After all, all concerned in the party unit had been pointing to an ex-MP of the Congress and the brother of the Governor of Rajasthan⦠how could everyone have forgotten? Murders of district Congress chiefs are still not that common.
So, the only inference is that they knew of the antecedents of Pratibha Patil and for the very antecedents selected her.
And that stands to reason. A person who is weak and dutifully submissive is already Prime Minister. But he has one defect â being financially honest, he is not vulnerable. There is always the danger, inconceivable though it seems at present, that at some point, he may throw up his hands...
So, what is needed is not just a weak person. What is needed is a person who is weak and vulnerableâ¦
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A murder they don't care about
<i>Arun Shourie</i>
The 'cooperative' bank for empowering women liquidated under orders of the Reserve Bank⦠The sugar mill bankrupt, having swallowed over Rs. 20 crore of unpaid loans⦠We see the very same pattern in the other endeavours of our next President. Her bio-data speaks of the Shram Sadhana Trust that she has set up. It runs an engineering college â for rural youth, as the bio-data says.
What do documents show? A Medical Aid Account is set up for students. Naturally, money from it goes to doctors â and, lo and behold, her brother, Dr. GN Patil's name stands out by a mile⦠Employees of the college turn out to be working at the residences of the various directors â some in Mumbai. A guest house is built, and comes to be used, not by academicians visiting the college, but by members of the family⦠Money collected from the students goes to the soon-to-be-declared bankrupt sugar mill⦠Money is taken from the teachers' salaries as compulsory deposits in that family-controlled 'cooperative' bank; these deposits are used to enroll 'shareholders' in the bank â who in turn help the family win the 'elections' of the cooperative bank⦠A pattern through and through.
Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, who has been so exercised about enforcing morality on the media, is unmoved. 'A visibly upset Dasmunsi hit out at the NDA for trying to malign Patil's image,' The Indian Express reports. 'In the process, he drew a parallel between Patil's case and "many political leaders" whose brothers, sisters and relatives were loan defaulters and also "electronic media industry" which has been slapped with plenty of notices.'
Surely, the answer is to bring them to book too. Surely, the answer is to do what so many of us have been demanding for so long â namely, to publish the names of all bank-defaulters. Not to pick one of them at random and make her or him President of India!Â
In any case, even Munsi, in spite of his fertile imagination, will not claim that murder has brushed the hem of the 'electronic media industry' as closely as it has in this instance.
<b>Names and dates</b>
But first a few names and dates.
Vishram G. Patil: Professor of English at a college in Jalagaon affiliated to the North Maharashtra University. A Congressman for thirty years. Elected President of the District Congress Committee not once but thrice. Murdered on 21 September, 2005.
Rajani Patil: his wife. Professor of Marathi at the same college.
G.N. Patil: brother of the UPA nominee for the Presidentship of India. Rival and adversary of Vishram Patil. Defeated by Vishram Patil in his effort to become President of the District Congress Committee.
Ulhas Patil: former member of Parliament. Close associate of G.N. Patil. Rival and adversary of Vishram Patil. Runs a number of NGOs.
Raju Mali and Raju Sonawane: two arrested for murdering Vishram Patil. Raju Mali tells Aaj Tak correspondent that they are just being made sacrificial goats. The real perpetrators of the murder are at large. Who are they, he is asked. "The persons who are being named by Rajani Patil," he says. He suddenly dies in police custody â three days after, at long last, the CBI team visits Jalagaon on its first visit.
Leeladhar Narkhede and Damodar Lokhande: two who are named as having financed the murder of Vishram Patil. Phone records show several calls between them and G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil on the day before the murder, on the day of the murder and on the day after. The two are picked up. But four months later, they are let off. The FIR about them is withdrawn.
A few dates: 21 September, 2005: Vishram Patil murdered. Great commotion in Jalagaon. People openly say that he has been killed as the result of a supari having been given to murder him. By the fourth day, Police say they have completed '90 per cent' of the investigation, and will soon get the killers and those behind them. Police arrest the two who confess to the actual murder.
October 2006: Aaj Tak puts out a detailed story by Manish Awasthi cataloguing the murder. In it, Aaj Tak takes viewers through the records of the mobile telephone company that establish that numerous calls were made between the two reported financiers of the murder and the brother of Pratibha Patil, G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil â the calls were made on the day before the murder, on the day of the murder and on the day after the murder. The channel shows the exact times and duration of the calls from the records of the mobile phone company. Awasthi's story contains a devastating interview of Raju Mali from within the jail. In September 2005, they had gone on an indefinite fast inside the jail. Raju Mali says in the interview that they had stopped taking food to protest against the Police for not arresting, for not even questioning the real culprits, 'the persons named by Rajani Patil'. 'We have simply been made sacrificial goats in the case while the real culprits are untouched.'
4 April, 2007: a year and a half after the murder, and after vicissitudes that we shall soon encounter, the CBI team comes to Jalagaon for its first visit.
7 April, 2007: the CBI team interrogates Rajani Patil, the widow of the murdered DCC President. But something else happens in the jail not far away: Raju Mali dies in Police custody.
<b>Events</b>
The brother of Pratibha Patil, G.N. Patil -- who, as we have seen, has been a close collaborator in her endeavours to empower women and bring succour to rural youth â is a frustrated rival of Vishram Patil. The latter has defeated him to the Presidentship of the District Congress Committee.
Congress workers collect funds â ostensibly to provide relief to tsunami victims. These are never deposited in the Chief Minister's Relief Fund.
Congress workers again collect funds â this time to felicitate Pratibha Patil upon her appointment as Governor of Rajasthan. No one hears what happens to these funds either.
Several office-bearers of the District Congress Committee send a memorandum to Prabha Rau, head of the Maharashtra Congress, asking her to institute an inquiry into the missing funds. They receive no reply.
15 August, 2005: nine office-bearers of the DCC issue a press release saying that G.N. Patil, the brother of Pratibha Patil, has not submitted accounts of funds that were collected by Congress workers for felicitating Pratibha Patil.
Vishram Patil commences an inquiry within the Congress into the misappropriation of the funds. He also commences an inquiry into financial dealings of Ulhas Patil and his NGOs. He brings the matter to the attention of the high-command of the Congress.
He receives three anonymous letters. Written in hand, they state that a supari has been given out to kill him, that he should be careful. He persists with the inquiry.
He is killed. Local dailies are full of the murder. They surmise that it is the result of political rivalries in the District Congress Committee.
Because of the enormous commotion among the local people, the Police act. Within a few days, they nab the killers.
They make swift progress in the investigation. They tell Rajani Patil, the widow, that 90 per cent of the investigation is over, that they will soon get the ones who instigated the murder also.
Suddenly, the investigation goes off the rails. The police now put out a story that the murder actually took place because of a dispute over money that Raju Mali had borrowed from Vishram Patil. Rajani Patil strongly refutes the insinuation. Local papers puncture holes in this new concoction of the Police. As suddenly as the concoction had been put out, the investigation is taken out of the hands of the local police entirely, and turned over to the CID of the state Government.
26 September, 2005: alarmed at the way the investigation is being derailed, the widow, Rajani Patil writes to Sonia Gandhi. She says, 'The brain behind the crime is pressurizing the investigation process.'
27 September, 2005: a local paper, Deshdoot, reports that at a press conference, Rajiv Patil, the parabhari adhyaksha of the Congress, has said that Raju Mali, the killer, is an agent of G.N. Patil, the brother of Pratibha Patil, Governor of Rajasthan. Another report in the paper says that everyone in Jalagaon is talking about the contract killing, about how much was paid for it, and by whomâ¦
The same day, 27 September, 2005, thirteen office-bearers of the District Congress Committee write to the local Superintendent of Police. They name G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil as being the persons behind the murder and express grave concern that the investigation is being dragged down to a crawl.
28 September, 2005: Local papers like Deshdoot and Deshunnati carry a tell-tale photograph. It is the day the election of the District Congress Committee President takes place. A group is standing around the victor, Vishram Patil. In the picture, mysteriously, is Raju Mali â the very man who is to kill Vishram Patil soon. He was not and is not a member of the Congress, the papers say. Who let him into the party office? With whose blessing was he roaming inside the office? With who is he linked? They have no doubt about the answerâ¦Â Â
On 28 September, 2005, Manik Rao Gavit, the Minister of State in the Home Ministry at the Centre, writes to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. He writes that he has received a letter from the Working President of the Jalagaon District Congress Committee, Rajiv Patil, in which the latter has named G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil as the conspirators behind the murder. Gavit says that there is haa-haakaar in the local Congress, hence he is sending Rajiv Patil's letter. He urges the Chief Minister to have the matter investigated in this direction and to do everything necessary to get at the real culprits and have them punished. Â
The local papers are full of the inaction that has overtaken the investigation. The real culprits are at large, they say. The names of G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil are splashed across the headlines of stories connected with the murder. Rajani Patil, the widow, writes to the local Police chief: 'This murder has been committed out of political enmity. I therefore urge you to investigate the case from this angle and arrest the persons concerned. I strongly believe that, under somebody's pressure, there is an attempt to misdirect the Police investigation by fabricating cock-and-bull stories.'
5 October, 2005: Rajiv Patil, the parabhari-adhyaksha of the Congress , writes to the Chief Minister, to the Director General of Police, and to the head of the Pune Branch of the CID. He records his concern that the investigation is going nowhere. He urges that some of the officers who were handling the initial investigation and who know the facts should be involved in the inquiry. He gives the names of the concerned officers. He receives no reply.
15 October, 2005: Rajiv Patil writes to the authorities again pointing to the connection between the killers and G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil. He says that the killers who have been nabbed were never Congress activists, that they were brought to the Congress office by G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil only at the time of the DCC election.
1 December, 2005: two months have gone by since the murder, the investigation has been steered into the wrong direction all too-patently. Rajani Patil, the widow, writes to R.R. Patil, the Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister of the state. She expresses her anguish at what has been done to the investigation. It is going nowhere, she says. The police had assured us that 90 per cent of the investigation is over and that they will soon get to the real conspirators. But as 'the real conspirators have high-level connections, when only 10 per cent of the investigation was left, the case was taken out of their hands and given to the state CID.'
8 December, 2005: Rajani Patil again writes to the Chief Minister and Home Minister of the state. She strongly repudiates the police insinuation that there was some financial dispute between her husband and the killers. My husband was killed because of the supari given by the political rivals of my husband, she writes. You can find out who gave the supari by asking the two who are in custody, she tells them. There is no response.
Rajani Patil travels to Delhi. She meets Sonia Gandhi personally in January 2006. She narrates the sequence of the case. She also meets other Congress bigwigs â Ahmed Patel, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Margaret Alva and others.
They move not a finger. Instead, the FIR against the two who are said to have financed the murder is dropped. Having first snatched the investigation away from the local police and transferred it to the state CID, the Government now decides that the investigation is best done by the CBI!
Three months pass â ostensibly waiting for the CBI to respond. Eventually, the CBI informs the state Government that it is overwhelmed with work, that as the case has no 'inter-state or international ramifications', it is not a fit case for the agency.
Everyone sees through the attempt to kill the inquiry and thus protect the real conspirators. The intrepid widow files a petition in the Aurangabad Bench of the High Court. On 23 February, 2007, by a detailed order the Court dismisses the CBI's objections about there being no 'inter-state or international ramifications'. We are aware of this as well as of the work which the agency is already handling, the Court records. That is why only in exceptional cases does the Court direct it to take the case in hand. This is a case of that kind. 'We have scrutinized the record with the help of counsel of both sides,' the Court records in its order. 'We have considered the chequered history of the present case, the developments which have taken place after filing of the chargesheet, issues involved, and the reference to alleged conspiracy by influential political leaders of the region. Having regard to the importance of the issues involved and the alleged complicity of the influential political leadersâ¦, in our considered opinion, this is a fit case where the investigation should be conducted by the CBI.'Â
Of course, by knocking the investigation around â from the local police to the state CID to the CBI, only to have the CBI turn down the case â the powers-that-be have already achieved one objective: by now, more than a year and a half has passed since the murder was committed.
5 March, 2007: disheartened and broken, Rajani Patil again writes to Sonia Gandhi. As you also lost your husband, you are the one person who will understand my wound, she writes. She recalls the anonymous letters that her husband had received warning him to desist from the inquiry, warning that 'a supari to murder my husband had been given by Dr. Ulhas Patil and Dr. G.N. Patil, the brother of Smt. Pratibha Patil, Governor of Rajasthan. On the morning of 21.9.2005, my husband was brutally murderedâ¦' 'I fear that my whole family is likely to get liquidated by these brutal murderers if they continue to get politically patronized by the party,' she concludes.
She receives no reply.
Recounting all this in the memorandum she submits to the President later on, and driven to despondence by the fact that no one has paid the slightest heed to her tears and pleas, she adds, 'I feel anguished that they are indeed getting politically patronized by the party.'Â
The CBI team comes at last to Jalagaon on 4 April, 2007. It interrogates the widow on 7 April. On the same day, the killer, Raju Mali dies in police custodyâ¦
Throughout this period, the widow, Rajani Patil, is pleading before the state and Congress authorities. Not just she, but functionaries of the local Congress themselves, in particular Shridhar Bapu Chaudhury, the party's General Secretary keep dispatching letters and memoranda pointing to G.N. Patil and Ulhas Patil. All these letters as well as those of Rajiv Patil, the prabhari adhyaksha of the Congress in Jalagaon, are on letterheads of the Congress.Â
<b>The response</b>
'It is all a BJP ploy. It shows their desperation at not being able to find a candidate of the stature of Pratibha Patil,' proclaim the Congress spokesmen. But the record consists of letters, memoranda, press conferences, writ petitions of Congressmen.
But I am on another point: assume that everything is a conspiracy of the BJP. What about the facts? What about the facts, for instance, set out by Aaj Tak?
'But why now? The timing of these allegations itself shows that they have been manufactured only to tarnish the image of Pratibha Patil as she is standing for the Presidentship of the country. After all, why are they bringing up these things now?' This is their other, wholly predictable defence. Â
It so happens that all the events, documents, proceedings in court, communications, etc., pertain to the period before Pratibha Patil was plucked from nowhere to be the Presidential candidate. And they are being recounted today precisely because Pratibha Patil has been nominated to become the President of the country. Till the other day, these were frauds of some district politicians. The murder was of concern primarily to the Jalagaon people. Precisely because Pratibha Patil is likely to become the President, each facet -- the financial frauds, the murder, the deliberate derailment of the investigation -- becomes a matter of urgent national concern. If the frauds and murder are not exhumed today, why, that would be a real conspiracyâ¦
<b>The politics</b>
Could it be that the Congress high-ups, in particular Sonia Gandhi, did not know about these associations of Pratibha Patil? I was at first inclined to think so. After all, Pratibha Patil's name had been picked out of a hat at the last minute. There might have been no time for a background check.
But on going through these letters after letters, these memoranda after memoranda â one and all of them written and sent by Congressmen, one and all of them sent to Congressmen; after reading Rajani Patil's account of her meeting with Sonia Gandhi and other Congress leaders in Delhi; after going through the proceedings in courts; after seeing the screaming headlines of the local papers, I just can not believe that neither Sonia Gandhi nor her immediate colleagues remembered nothing of the case. After all, the head of their own party in the district, the very man who had been thrice elected to the post, had been killed. After all, all concerned in the party unit had been pointing to an ex-MP of the Congress and the brother of the Governor of Rajasthan⦠how could everyone have forgotten? Murders of district Congress chiefs are still not that common.
So, the only inference is that they knew of the antecedents of Pratibha Patil and for the very antecedents selected her.
And that stands to reason. A person who is weak and dutifully submissive is already Prime Minister. But he has one defect â being financially honest, he is not vulnerable. There is always the danger, inconceivable though it seems at present, that at some point, he may throw up his hands...
So, what is needed is not just a weak person. What is needed is a person who is weak and vulnerableâ¦
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