People's Democracy

Two journalists are languishing in jail today --- Iftikhar Gilani in Tihar Jail of Delhi for over six months and Kumar Badal of Tehelka news portal in Ghaziabad, for a little more than half that period. The article spotlights the twists and turns of la affaire Iftikhar Gilani.

 Six Months And No Bail! 

Who Is Afraid Of Journalist Gilani?

S K Pande

IS there a long term plan on part of the government to keep journalist Iftikhar Gilani in jail indefinitely? The situation is indeed getting more curious with each passing day, with no bail in sight, even as government notes indicate no case, with interludes of new cases.

It is indeed a sordid tale of a senior Delhi journalist, Iftikhar Gilani, kept in custody for over 180 days, for having in his computer such documents as are in public domain. Even the military intelligence agency had admitted this fact in writing. Furthermore, it seems a concerted attempt is being made even to deny him bail through resort to forgery, and some officials seem to be more loyal than the king to keep the journalist in Tihar Jail.

Consider the report submitted by the military intelligence to police on June 14, giving its opinion on both the documents submitted to it by the police on June 10 and 12 respectively for expert opinion. The report stresses that “the information contained in the document is prejudicial to the security of the country and has serious ramifications on our operation plans in J&K.” It is perhaps because of this opinion that Delhi’s chief metropolitan magistrate rejected the bail application of Iftikhar Gilani.

On the journalists’ appeal against the chief metropolitan magistrates order the, sessions judge ordered on November 16 that the police should secure within 15 days a fresh expert opinion of the military to establish whether the information contained in the document was secret or not. But the police resorted to dillydallying tactic thereafter, pleading that it was taking time to obtain the fresh opinion from the military.

And finally came the fresh opinion. On December 12, the military intelligence filed a report to the Delhi commissioner of police, retracting its earlier rendered opinion of June 14. It stated that “while rendering our previous opinion vide our note under reference, we were not in possession of the second set of documents forwarded vide Special Cell, Delhi Police letter No 1321/Inspr Admn/OC dated 12 June 2002 and hence, it led to erroneous over estimates of the sensitivity of the documents. It rendered by us earlier may kindly be reappraised as given above.”

But, behold, it now seems that the opinion dated December 12 was totally unpalatable to the police as its fabricated case of violation of the Official Secrets Act would fall flat, since the opinion clearly states that “the information contained in the document is easily available” and “the document carries no security classified information and the information seems to have been gathered from open sources.”  The opinion also stated that the information has been culled out from “a published booklet entitled ‘A Review of Indian Repression in Kashmir’ brought out as Islamabad papers by Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad.”

Instead of submitting to the court this December 12 military opinion which would have resulted in an honourable discharge of journalist Iftikhar Gilani, languishing in Tihar Jails for more than six months, the police rushed to the court of chief metropolitan magistrate on December 12 itself with the old report. It filed a false and fabricated report of an undersecretary in the ministry of home affairs under Shri L K Advani, the deputy prime minister. The undersecretary, B R Dhiman, had claimed to have reproduced in report the fresh opinion sought from the Directorate of Military Intelligence.

It was pleaded by defence counsel V K Ohri before Hon’ble CMM, Smt. Sangita Dhingras Sehgal, that the court can verify from all past opinions rendered in the case of the Official Secrets Act that the police submitted the military opinion in original and that Dhiman is no authority or expert to render the opinion as done in the instant case.

The honourable CMM was shocked to find that Dhiman’s report filed by the police before the court was doubtful and perhaps fabricated and it was not a fresh report from the Directorate of Military Intelligence as claimed. To prevent derailment of justice, the defence counsel filed before the court the actual report of military intelligence which had been suppressed by the police to obstruct the process of law and justice. The CMM has, accordingly, ordered Dhiman as well as the joint police commissioner and the director-general of military intelligence to appear before her in person on December 23 to ascertain whether the false report was intentionally filed by Dhiman to mislead the court and deny justice to Iftikhar Gilani as pleaded by his counsel.

This is, however, not the only fraud perpetuated by the government to frame Iftikhar Gilani. He has been also charge-sheeted for:

* Collecting data on the human rights violation in Jammu and Kashmir, though the documents recovered by the police from his computer show the human rights violation by the Pakistani armed forces also and that too in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

* Enjoying hospitality of the Pakistan government in an Agra hotel during the visit of General Pervez Musharraf, though the police interrogation report of the hotel manager clearly establishes that the payment for his stay in the hotel was made by another journalist and not by the Pakistan government or its high commission.

* Hand in the gunning down of Hurriyat Conference leader Lone on the basis of an e-mal found on his computer, though the suppressed fact is that the e-mail had been received by him from his editor Nusrat Javeed “to follow the thought and mobility of Lone Sahib and Yasin Malik very closely” in the context of the Americans trying to push their own solution of the Kashmir problem.  Even such professional messages were used to frame him.

Some pornographic video cassettes recovered from another house in his locality were also planted on him to hold him in custody under Sector 292 IPC even if the official secrets act violation falls through in the court.

Since the fraud now stands exposed, with the military intelligence report clearly establishing that journalist Iftikhar Gilani seems to have no security classified information in his possession to warrant his arrest under the Official Secrets Act, he should be discharged with full honours without any loss of time and compensated for the torture and character-assassination that he had to undergo besides the miseries visited to his young wife and children aged 3 and 5 years.

Anyone from his relations and friends, even contacting his wife to render help, has been subjected to a lot of harassment by the authorities, including warning and phone-tapping, so as to ostracise her and his family from the society. Even journalists following the case have informed the Delhi Union of Journalists that their phones are being bugged. Iftikhar Gilani has started virtually breaking down as he appears in court.

The question that journalists of the capital keep asking is whether it is a crime to be a Muslim or a Kashmiri Muslim to be harassed in this manner? Whether it is a crime to be an honest and upright journalist who refuses to toe the government line? And what happens when the government itself resorts to frauds and forgeries to keep the citizens in chains? About the main charge, this is what the Press Council of India had to say: “However, the Council was of unanimous view that any information which is publicly displayed on the internet cannot be treated as confidential and the reproduction or possession of such matter may not attract provisions of the Official Secrets Act.” There is even a strong feeling that the police is trying to obstruct any relief to Gilani. Or is it his cardinal sin that he married the daughter of a Hurriyat leader, Gilani, and settled in Delhi to practise journalism, his avocation as the bureau chief of Kashmir Times?