LUCKNOW: Political adversaries call it sheer nervousness. Bureaucrats justify it as the "right action at the right moment". But the state government surely seems to be suffering from a Varun Gandhi induced foot-in-the-mouth syndrome. And apparently that makes the UP government frequently change its stance on issues related to Varun and without any logical explanation.
Ok, these guys are in the news making business. These are the people that made the controversy as big as it became out of whole cloth. Now it is the state Government's fault?
To begin with was the slapping of National Security Act (NSA) on Varun Gandhi after his arrest on March 28 last. After some reliable tip-offs, the TOI contacted almost all the top officials of the state bureaucracy to confirm if there were possibilities of Varun Gandhi being slapped with NSA. Right from the principal secretary, home, Fateh Bahadur Singh to the director general of police (DGP), Vikram Singh and district magistrate (DM), Pilibhit denied all such reports as baseless till late night on March 28.
Whose retraction is it anyway? Can anyone unscramble this? So, did we have an NSA or not?
However, relying on the source, the TOI went ahead with the NSA story and published it in the edition dated March 29, 2009. But the authorities remained adamant on their stance for the better part of March 29, denying the TOI report. Even DM, Pilibhit, who has to issue orders of the NSA being slapped on anyone, refuted the TOI story till around 6 pm on March 29. At around 9 pm, Fateh Bahadur Singh and Vikram Singh held a joint press conference to announce that Varun has been booked under the NSA.
Okay, so we did have an NSA after all. Why waste bandwidth in two rambling paragaphs?
Then came the reports of Varun being shifted to another jail from Pilibhit on security reasons. The TOI contacted the home department and the state police chief headquarters to confirm if Varun was to be shifted from the jail. They denied all such reports till late on March 31. Around midnight the same day, Varun was shifted to Etah district jail.
Next was the hue and cry raised over a TOI report published on April 01, 2009 that Varun was facing threat to his life from the D-company sharpshooter Malbari who was arrested by the police in Mangalore on March 29. On April 01, the state government again convened a press conference specially to deny the threat reports and that Varun was shifted to Etah jail because of this threat.
Now we are getting someplace!
Only 24 hours later, (April 02, 2009) the local media carried reports and scanned copies of the letters between the Central intelligence agencies and the UP police that were related to a specific input that Varun was facing a threat from the underworld. The reports also carried a copy of the reply from the DGP office assuring the Central agencies that adequate measures have been taken to ensure Varun's safety.
When confronted with the letters, the state police were quickly explained that they had denied a threat to him from terror outfits and not the underworld. "The DGP categorically said that there was no threat to Varun from terror outfits," pointed out a senior IPS talking to TOI. He also explained how the state police chief safely wriggled out of the situation once he was specifically asked if Varun had any threat from the D-company. The DGP had claimed that "individual security was a sensitive issue and hence it could not be shared with the media," said the officer, defending the state police chief.
Now we are truly confused, where do we fit the transcript in the mix?
TOI has got transcripts of the calls recorded between March 15 and March 21 after Varun Gandhi's hate speeches delivered on March 7 and 8 made news. The duration of the calls made from Karachi to Rashid’s mobile were 1 minute 25 seconds, 23 seconds and 36 seconds.
Now, we get some more details on the arrest and detention of Rashid Malbari:
MANGALORE: Rashid Malbari, the hit man of D-company, once again finds himself in police custody. Malbari, who was in police custody for the last 72 hours from 11 am on March 3 was produced before the jurisdictional court here on Monday.
The Panambur police here sought Malbari's custody to interrogate him on his alleged involvement in Panambur double murder case in which he, with Mastan Chand Sheikh, eliminated his rivals in 1998. The judicial magistrate first class second court handed Malbari over to Panambur police for three days up to April 9. [Note: The March 3 has to be a typo, it must be April 3]
So, we are back to exactly where we started except the transcript doesn't fit anywhere in the picture. But TOI is in possession of the said transcript. Also, a man supposedly on the run from the Police who are looking for him for old murder cases is getting calls from his boss to bump off a junior political leader. Oh wait! The supari was switched to Muthalik!
There could be an easy explanation for all this. If there were no dead rats, the "fumbling" story would be utterly pointless since it makes The Times of India reporters look like bumbling idiots.
Actually it is not really a dead rat. It is the carcass of the secular state rotting.
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