People's Democracy

‘Journalist Gilani Was Arrested On Cooked-Up Charge’

IT has recently come to the light that even the Directorate General of Military Intelligence has found no evidence to prosecute the senior journalist Syed Iftikhar Gilani, who was arrested some time ago for possessing a set of documents. These documents were alleged to be of security value, but are in reality available with several persons.

This was what a statement issued by Mohd Yousuf Tarigami on December 14 said. Through the statement, Tarigami, who is a CPI(M) Central Committee member and leader of the People’s Democratic Forum (PDF) group in Jammu & Kashmir assembly as well, has also demanded Gilani’s immediate release.

Tarigami’s statement is based on a confidential letter written by the Directorate General of Military Intelligence to Delhi’s police commissioner R S Gupta on December 12. In this letter, the directorate has expressed its opinion in clear terms “on the status of the documents recovered from Mr Syed Iftikhar Gilani as regards their security value.” According to the directorate’s letter to the Delhi police commissioner:

“On further examination, it is found that the information contained in the documents is easily available, like in a published booklet entitled ‘A Review of Indian Repression in Kashmir’ brought out as Islamabad Papers by Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. The published data have indicated locations, strength of army formations, etc.”

“It is thus obvious that this document carries no security classified information and the information seems to have been gathered from open sources” (emphasis added).

Moreover, the directorate’s confidential letter also clarified how the military intelligence had earlier arrived at “erroneous overestimates of the sensitivity of the documents” recovered from Syed Gilani. The reason, it said, was that it was “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.”  Having thus admitted its own mistake, the directorate is, logically, of the view that the said “documents are of negligible security value.”

The Directorate General of Military Intelligence has also forwarded a copy of its December 12, 2002 letter to Neeraj Kumar, joint commissioner of police in the Special Cell (Intelligence) of Delhi Police.

The letter thus clearly raises a big question mark over the authenticity and validity of the case the Delhi Police has launched against Syed Gilani. Thus it logically casts doubts on the very credibility and integrity of Delhi Police by making it plain that Gilani was implicated in a false case, without any rhyme or reason. Tarigami’s statement, therefore, said it was “high time that the Delhi Police recognise its mistake in case of Gilani’s arrest and take corrective steps to facilitate his release.”

Tarigami’s statement also recalls that he had, soon after Syed Gilani’s arrest, written a letter to the union home minister, saying that the arrest appeared to be without any foundation. “Unfortunately, the home ministry has not replied to my letter to date,” the CPI(M) leader regretted. (INN)