Update

The flagging off of the first train on the Khokhrapar-Munnabao line in almost six decades in February this year, will mark a major step forward in the normalisation of relations between India and Pakistan.


Rail links between India and Pakistan in the Sindh-Rajasthan sector are due to be resumed soon. The railway line between Munnabao in Rajasthan with Khokhrapar in Sindh was laid down by the British in the late 19th century, linking Jodhpur with Mirpur Khas across the Thar desert. Following the Partition of India in 1947, this line was disrupted and all traffic across this stretch of the border was stopped.


For the last several years, demands have been made for the resumption of the link, but these have been stalemated by bureaucratic inertia and official indifference, being hostage to strained relations between India and Pakistan. The flagging off of the first train on the Khokhrapar-Munnabao line in almost six decades on the first of February, this year will mark a major step forward in the normalisation of relations between the two countries.


Last month I was in Sindh, and the resumption of the Rajasthan-Sindh rail link was a major issue in the local press and in conversations I had with numerous people. Most Muhajirs, migrants from different parts of India and now mainly living in urban centres in Sindh, are enthusiastic about the development. ‘It is a great blessing for the large numbers of Muhajirs who still have relatives in India and who have to travel literally thousands of miles to Islamabad and then to Lahore and Wagah to get to Amritsar and from there to different parts of India to meet their families. Not only does the journey take several days, it is also prohibitively expensive for ordinary people, who have to face the added expense of staying in Islamabad for several days waiting for an Indian visa’, says Hussain Abdi, a shop-keeper in Larkana, half of whose family lives barely a hundred miles across the border in Rajasthan’s Barmer district.


For Pakistan’s almost two million Hindu minority, most of whom live in Sindh, the announcement of the rail link has been greeted with enthusiasm. Like the Muhajirs, many Hindu families in Sindh have relatives across the border in India. ‘I have not seen my family in Rajasthan since 1947 because I cannot afford the cost of travelling all the way to Lahore to get to India’, says Shiv Kumar, an elderly Hindu shopkeeper from Hyderabad, who hopes to be able to travel to India this year. ‘For the Hindus of Sindh, the train link will also help promote cultural and religious contacts, and will enable us to travel to Hindu pilgrimage centres in India, which we have only heard of but have never seen’, says Rama, a Bhil who works as a daily wage agricultural labourer in a village near Moenjodaro.

Police say that they are often acting under intense pressure to produce results, especially in high-profile cases like the bomb blasts.


In many cases, the Mumbai police claims of cracking a terrorist link turn out to be red herrings when the identities of those arrested raised more questions than answers.


Ishrat Jahan, a 17-year-old girl from Mumbai was shot and killed in Ahmedabad in June 2004 on charges of trying to assassinate Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi.


The incident led to anger and emotions in the Muslim-dominated suburb of Mumbra outside the house of Ishrat Jahan. Her death also triggered protests that began in Mumbai and snowballed across the country.


“My daughter was innocent. She was framed from the beginning,” said Shamima Shaikh, Ishrat’s mother. And since the dead tell no tales, her innocence or guilt remained a mystery. But for every Ishrat, there are others charged with terror links who not just lived, but were acquitted by the court.


The classic example was the Ghatkopar bomb blast of 2002 in which 29 people were arrested. All the arrested men were Muslims, including a forensic expert, an engineer and several software professionals. They were all booked under POTA.


The police said that they all had either Lashkar or SIMI connections, and were trying to avenge the killing of Muslims in Gujarat. Over the next three years, all the accused were acquitted by the court. In fact, police had found nothing even against Saquib Nachan, who in their diaries, is a SIMI terrorist for years and was trying to help the LeT.


“If the accused in the Ghatkopar case have been released, then the conspiracy theory of the State, on the basis of which all the four accused were arrested, has been proved wrong,” said Mubin Solkar, Defence lawyer. And then there was the humiliating retreat in the Mohammad Afroze case. On December 3, 2001, Mohammed Afroze was arrested from a hotel in Navi Mumbai.


Police said that he was a member of the Al-Qaeda and was part of a conspiracy to blow up the Parliament House in New Delhi, the House of Commons in London and Rialto Towers Sydney, besides the September 11, WTC attacks.


He was the first person to be booked under POTA in the city on March 1, 2002. Afroze was in custody for over 90 days. And then was released on bail as the police had not even found enough evidence to file a charge-sheet under POTA.


“What happened to me should not happen with any ordinary citizen. That is why I have decided to contest elections,” said Mohammad Afroze.


Police say that they are often acting under intense pressure to produce results, especially in big, high-profile cases like the bomb blasts that often leads to hasty arrests and patchy evidence.

The arrest of Imam Maulana Yahya Khan has damaged the spirit of mutual faith among different communities in Mumbai.


A delegation of Muslim scholars and prominent persons from the community called on the police Commissioner of Mumbai to discuss the issue of the arrest of Imam Maulana Yahya Khan for his alleged links with the J&K terrorists.


At a press conference, the Muslim and secular NGOs conveyed their concern over media reports. While the NGOs are struggling to ensure sustenance of communal harmony in Mumbai and at all other places, instances such as arrest of Imam Maulana Yahya Khan has damaged the spirit of mutual faith that exists among different communities.


It was argued that whenever a person is arrested for his alleged involvement in a serious crime, he need not be identified and projected as a person representing any religious community. The wide publicity of the arrest and his relation with the Haj House has only created undesirable sense of fear and hatred towards the Muslim community as a whole.


On any occasion, when a priest from any faith is required to be interrogated in relation to any crime, the sensitivity and delicacy of the situation requires a very proclaimed approach. In this case it is projected as if the Haj House is a den of criminals.


The police had no intention to malign the Haj House by arresting its Imam Maulana Yahya Khan for his alleged links with the J&K terrorists, stated Mumbai Police Commissioner, A N Roy. Roy said attempts were being made to create confusion in the society about the role of the Mumbai Police on the issue of the Maulana’s arrest. However, there was enough evidence against the Imam which led to his arrest, Roy told the Mumbai Press, while commenting on reports about disapproval expressed by a section of Muslims over the arrest of Khan who leads the prayers at Haj House, and also on the decision of Mumbai Police to expose his identity by parading him in front of the media.


Speaking to the Press in Mumbai to announce the annual crime figures, Roy said it was a mere coincidence that a person whom the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) was tracking for suspected terrorist activities was associated with the Haj House.


He said police took a conscious decision not to keep the priest under cover while being taken to court since the Maulana was a known person and there was no need to identify him through witnesses. “Had the police kept him under cover it (police) still would have faced flak for treating the priest as an ordinary criminal,” Roy said.