by Sree Iyer
CHAPTER 30.
Hot on the Trail
In the years of the Freedom Party’s rule, any talk of Love Jihad would be brushed aside as fabrication by Hindutva groups. The entire state machinery was deployed to downplay such incidents and squarely blame overzealous Hindu organisations to malign the Muslim community. After the Supreme Court had upheld Nafisa Bi’s conversion and marriage, the ‘secular’ lobby both in Kerala and the rest of the country had trotted about, displaying vindication of their position. However, with the recent twist in the case and the formation of a new government at the centre, they were on the defensive.
Besides, a new front had opened against them. A senior official of the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) wrote to the union government, alleging that Christian girls in Kerala had become soft targets for recruiters of Islamist terror. The functionary, himself a Christian, claimed that innocent Christian girls were being trapped through Love Jihad. He warned of an outbreak of communal disharmony if remedial steps were not taken immediately. He also called for a through probe by the National Investigation Agency that is mandated to investigate terror-related activities.
His remarks came after two shocking incidents that were widely reported in the media. In the first, the family of a Christian girl alleged that she had been sedated and raped by the accused, who had also filmed the act. She was then blackmailed into conversion to Islam. The family said that the girl had earlier been asked to convert but when she refused, she was abducted and raped. The second incident, the NCM official said, related to a Christian girl being kidnapped from Delhi and sent to a West Asian country to ‘serve’ the jihadists.
The NCM’s missive to the centre took the Muslim radical lobby by surprise. Through the years, it had managed the minority commission effectively, ensuring that the spotlight stayed on the Hindu community and its supposed misdeeds. This served the radical groups’ agenda of discrediting Hindu organisations such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the BNS, which were at the forefront of speaking out against Love Jihad. The NCM member’s revelation had suddenly pitted the Christian community too against the Islamists.
The NSA had taken note of the issue after the letter was sent to him by the Home Ministry. He got in touch with the National Investigation Agency and suggested that the NIA take over all related cases, including Nafisa Bi’s. There were wider ramifications and it would be appropriate if the NIA, rather than the CBI, dealt with them. Amarnath also pointed out that the issue was not about inter-religious marriage but of global terrorism. He said that if the NIA could unravel the conspiracy, it would go a long way to dispel the impression created by vested groups that the People’s Voice government was targeting the minorities.
Javed wiped the sweat off his face with the back of his hand as he read about these new developments. He was already struggling with the SRL issue where work was rapidly slipping behind schedule thanks to the power outages. He had a tough time trying to offer credible explanations to his superiors in Pakistan. For the first time in his life, he was staring at two potential failures, and there was no telling how it would impact his career. His life, indeed. He knew well that once the NIA got cracking, it would uncover the Love Jihad conspiracy, perhaps sooner than later.
Meanwhile, the Kerala High Court began hearing on Nafisa Bi’s case on the appointed day. There had been no fresh developments — neither had the accused been nabbed nor had Nafisa’s medical examination been done. The judge was understandably furious. He threatened to initiate contempt of court proceedings against the state’s Chief Secretary, and forthwith ordered the local administration to ensure that Nafisa was brought to her parents’ home safely and both Sadiq and Iqbal were arrested and tried. Signaling an end to the day’s proceeding, the court fixed a date — two months from then — for further hearing.
Haji Pir Mohammad met the Chief Minister and openly threatened him with appealing to the Muslim community to not vote for the ruling party in the upcoming state assembly elections if the police were to act against Sadiq and Iqbal. The Chief Minister tried explaining to him that the government could not ignore the court’s directive, but the cleric refused to budge. Finally, it was decided that the accused would be arrested, and when their application for bail came up, the state administration would not oppose it. That is how they were free on bail within a fortnight of being incarcerated.
Meanwhile, the NIA had begun to make progress on the Love Jihad issue, including the Christian girls’ cases raised by the NCM. Unfettered by political pressure, they went straight for the jugular. The NIA Director constituted four special teams and reached out to the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) for inputs on at least half a dozen Indians who had gone abroad and joined the IS jihadists. One of the teams interviewed Nafisa and recorded her statement, and then interrogated Iqbal and Sadiq. They raided Iqbal’s home and seized his laptop as well as a bunch of provocative religious literature. Before the local police could act, the two were arrested by the NIA and brought to Delhi, where they were subjected to intense interrogation.
It took a few days for them to crack under the pressure, but when they did, they proved to be a mine of information. Iqbal confessed to having been in touch with radical outfits in West Asia through his local handler, Haji Pir Mohammad. He had pulled Sadiq into the game plan. He said that luring Smitha Gopalan and her conversion and marriage was the Haji’s idea. Iqbal informed that Pir Mohammad took orders from someone ‘above,’ but he was not aware of who that was.
The NIA team of officials returned to Malappuram and accosted the Haji. They faced some trouble getting into his house because the cleric’s supporters, who had gathered outside in large numbers, had blocked the way. The local police stood aside, refusing to assist the NIA officials stating that it would lead to a law and order problem for which the police would be held responsible. Meanwhile, Pir Mohammad slipped away through the back door. It took a great deal of effort to hunt him down. It took them a week and he was found hiding in a nearby jungle. The team brought him to Delhi for interrogation, with the two other accused already in their custody.
Meanwhile, a battery of lawyers appeared out of nowhere to take up Pir Mohammad’s case. Some of them were from the ousted Freedom Party. When the issue of his custody came up before a local court, his lawyers accused the agency of deliberately seeking to malign a respected cleric who had no previous record of unlawful conduct. They said that the NIA was acting at the behest of its political masters to ruin the reputation of an entire community.
The NIA presented the confessional statements of both Iqbal and Sadiq to the trial judge and sought to keep them in custody for another fortnight. The court gave the agency seven days. At the jail, Pir Mohammad was subjected to serious interrogation. He had never faced such intense stress before and immediately cracked. He confessed that he had been in touch with Javed Bhatti, who was the India handler. It was indeed his idea to lure Smitha Gopalan into conversion and marriage and to send her abroad to ‘help’ Allah’s army fighting for an Islamic order. The statement was duly recorded as per law.
A major welcome change that had come about with the arrival of the new government was better coordination among the various probe agencies. When the IB learned of the new developments, it immediately contacted the NIA and briefed them about its ongoing investigation on Javed. The next task was to net in the ISI agent. Now, the Intelligence Bureau had to take a decision on raiding the SRL premises. With the evidence mounting, Mike felt that any further delay could help Javed escape. It was possible that he may have been warned already. The order was given.
Late in the night, a team of crack agents descended on SRL labs and took everybody in custody. But Javed had flown the coop. He was alerted by an acolyte of Pir Mohammad. The scientist Rehman Khan spilled the beans on how Javed forced him to make half a dozen canisters of Ricin, which could be activated using a cell phone. The canisters were modified portable fire extinguishers that did not look too different from the ones commonly found in the mar
ket. The only saving grace was that the Ricin had not been tested for effectiveness yet. When pressed, Rehman admitted that it was 90% pure, based on the GCM readings and could be potentially harmful if released in a closed environment like an air-conditioned room or a Metro compartment.
Javed had a head start of about six hours. Karan figured that one of his targets could be the new Metro rail extension in Kochi that the Prime Minister was going to inaugurate on Saturday that week. If Ricin was going to be released in a Metro train coach, Karan figured that three canisters would be used for maximum effect. One at each end and another in the middle. Just to be safe, all three would be rigged to the same cell phone. Without letting on, he needed confirmation from Rehman that this indeed was the plan.
Rehman was despondent, finding himself in a country without proper papers, on a fool’s errand, and caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He had no idea what happened of his mother and sister and if in fact they were still alive. Karan sat him down and told him that he could inquire about his family, but he needed Rehman’s help to know where Javed intended to use the Ricin. Rehman said that he had overheard Javed tell his boss that they would target the Metro rail extension in Kochi. In fact, Rehman added, it was planned in a way that one cell phone could simultaneously set off the three canisters. One more set was prepared as backup.
Karan promised to get him news about his family. He had one more question, though. Was there a way to thwart the detonation? Let’s say if on the inauguration day, all cell signals were to be jammed, would the canisters still detonate? Rehman tailed off, saying that that would indeed stop the canisters from detonating.
But Javed had a Plan B for just this eventuality.
Javed was making good headway. Instead of taking the shorter route via Coimbatore, he decided to go to Trichy and onwards to Nagapattinam on the coast, where he had a pre-arranged pickup point. He hitched a ride on a lorry till Trichy and then took a state transport bus from there to Nagapattinam. By the time Karan figured out what Javed was up to, he was already holed up in a safe house in Nagapattinam.
Karan knew Javed was resourceful. He was banking on the fact that carrying six canisters would slow Javed down. Surely someone must have spotted him on the road to Pachamalai. The roadside tea shop owner proved helpful. He had seen a tall, fair man flagging a lorry going towards Trichy and getting into it. He had not seen the number on the license plates but said that the lorry was painted light blue.
Karan intimated the police about the ISI operative. A police artist was hastily summoned to Pachamalai to draw a sketch of Javed, which was faxed to all police stations in the districts of Trichy, Nagapattinam, Madurai, Tirunelveli and Toothukkudi.
Karan was simultaneously trying to figure where Javed was headed. It was a two-hour super-fast drive from Pachamalai to Trichy. Every so often, Karan would stop to check if a light blue-coloured lorry had passed by. But the trail went cold when he reached Trichy. It was as if Javed had melted into nothingness.
But when he least expected it, he got lucky. A police jeep in Nagapattinam had stopped by a tea shop on the way and when the officer showed the sketch around, the shop owner recognised Javed. “Hard to miss,” he said. It was rare to find fair skinned people here, what with the sun beating down mercilessly almost through the year. Karan was notified immediately, and he knew that Javed was somewhere near the coast, perhaps waiting for a lift by the sea.
By now Karan had developed a sixth sense about Javed. At every turn, he was doing the unexpected. Nagapattinam had a fair amount of Muslim population, many of whom spoke Urdu. It would not be easy to smoke Javed out. But since he knew that Javed would be heading for Kochi, Karan decided to fly out from Trichy to Kochi and wait for him there. Just to be sure, he requested the coast guard to keep close watch on all outbound fishing vessels, especially those that headed towards Sri Lanka from Nagapattinam.
CHAPTER 31.
Punishment, at last
Pir Mohammad was lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail after the NIA had taken him into custody from the court. During the interrogation, he had already confessed to having been in contact with Javed and explained his role in Love Jihad not just in Kerala but also the neighbouring state of Karnataka. The NIA soon had a list of clerics based in the two states that were involved in targeting young Hindu and Christian women for Love Jihad.
Armed with this information, the NIA told the court at the next hearing that they needed to retain Pir Mohammad because they wanted to verify the material he had provided them. They were concerned that the cleric might interfere with the investigations and influence witnesses if he were released on bail. The agency also feared that Pir Mohammad would escape. The Haji’s lawyers vehemently opposed the appeal, claiming that the NIA had secured all the information they needed from him and that the demand for further custody was unjustified. They also tried to impress upon the judge that Indian laws worked on the premise that bail was the rule while custody was an exception. After all, their client was a respected member of society and did not even entertain the possibility of running away and living like a fugitive.
The trial court judge made it known that an accused could not be kept behind bars for long, more so since even a chargesheet had not been filed, let alone charges being framed. But given the sensitivity of the case, the court agreed to a further four days of custody and made it clear that no more extensions would be allowed unless the NIA came up with serious evidence against him. Pir Mohammad was marched back to prison.
Meanwhile, Nafisa’s case was proceeding at a slow pace. While she was back at her parents’ home, she waited for the High Court judge to decide on the validity of her marriage and conversion in the light of the fresh evidence that had been presented to the court. But nothing stopped her from deciding on her next course of action — reconverting to Hinduism. At an elaborate ceremony conducted in a nearby temple, Nafisa Bi gave up Islam and returned home as Smitha Gopalan.
The incident sparked outrage among the minority community, particularly the followers of Haji Pir Mohammad. They alleged that the Hindu organisations had forced her into the act. Since the court proceedings were still ongoing, status quo could not be changed. One of Pir Mohammad’s students even went to the High Court but received a stinging rebuke. The court questioned his locus standi. Besides, it stated sternly that nothing in the ongoing proceedings had prevented Nafisa from a religious reconversion.
NIA teams visited Karnataka and opened inquiries with the clerics that Pir Mohammad had named in his statement. They were shocked to discover a well-oiled network that had been working to promote Love Jihad. Even more shocking was that state authorities, like in Kerala, had turned a blind eye to everything that was going on. The NIA officials worked 24X7, and by the time the court convened to hear the Kerala clerics’ case once again, they had gathered enough material to arrest four Muslim religious leaders in connection with Love Jihad. The NIA did not press for further custody of Pir Mohammad, confident that they could get him at will. Moreover, it was time to start investigating the elaborate network and to build a solid initial case against the Karnataka clerics. It also started work on the cases of the Christian women quoted by the senior member of the National Commission.
It was a tricky jigsaw and it would take the NIA many months — almost a year — to uncover the conspiracy. Along the way, there were times when it felt like the case was cracked. But the more they looked, the more dirt they uncovered. The good part was that several players who would have otherwise got away, were nabbed. Besides Kerala and Karnataka, Love Jihad operations were found in Telangana and Tamil Nadu as well. When the NIA began to question suspects in Telangana, a prominent Muslim leader who enjoyed political support in the capital city of Hyderabad, took to the streets in protest, along with hundreds of his lumpen followers.
He was the chief of a party which not just sounded brazenly communal but was actually so in reality. The supremo’s brother had once dared the government at a public gathering, to move aside the polic
e for just 15 minutes, which was time enough to teach the Hindus a lesson. The party chief found everything wrong with the Hindu way of life and everything justified with Islam. He was also pulled up in the past for objectionable remarks on dividing the Indian Armed Forces along religious lines as well.
But he considered himself secular and also projected a matching image. Electorally though, his success was limited to the old city of Hyderabad, largely populated by the Muslim community. His party had picked up a couple of assembly seats in Maharashtra, but that was more due to the lack of understanding among nationalist parties rather than any real breakthrough for him. Interestingly, his party had been repeatedly rejected even in Muslim-dominated constituencies of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
His party was always on the lookout for issues that could further their communal agenda. The NIA’s crackdown on clerics In Telangana had provided them just that excuse. They said that the new Right-wing government at the centre had unleashed terror among the country’s minorities and fabricated stories about a non-existent Love Jihad. They blamed the government for using agencies such as the NIA and the Intelligence Bureau to arm-twist its opponents. His accusation was promptly seized upon by the opposition parties, and both the Home Minister and the Finance Minister from the Dhillon government, who had allowed the proliferation of Islamist extremism during their term, condemned the agencies’ efforts.
The Hyderabadi Muslim party’s leader was largely helpless before the NIA’s persistent drive to flush out the Love Jihad clerics along with their victims and accomplices. As a desperate measure, he announced that his party would bear the legal expenses of all those who were being ‘wrongly’ arrested and ‘framed.’ This was not out of any particular love for the clerics but to keep up his image with the community. It was no coincidence that one of the senior most religious leaders nabbed (a Maulana), had been a regular at the Muslim party’s public rallies, exhorting the people to vote for the party, else it would be deemed as an act of betrayal of the Muslim faith.