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The Weekly NeWsmagaziNe `35 march 11, 2013

ExclusivEAravind Adiga

on s.l. Bhyrappa

TEchiEs

logging in To lifE

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Volume LIII, No. 9

In this issue...

OutlOOk 11 March 2013 1

What they said to usPrasada kariyawasam, sri Lankan envoy in delhi

“The Sri Lankan situation is not a matter for the United Nations Human Rights Council to discuss.”

56

P.Chidambaram’spragmaticeighthunionbudgetwillbeacrucialstepinhispoliticalcareer:manyseeitasaspringboardforthefinanceminister’sambitiontooccupythetopjob.Whatarethefactorsworkingfororagainstthe68-year-oldChettiartobearivalcontendertoNarendraModi.

Plus,investmentadvicefromOutlookMoney

Also,columnsbyNarendarPani,P.v.Rajagopal,Mohitsatyanand,gautamChikermane

PrimeMinistry?COver StOry

C u r r e n t a f fa i r S

12 New Theatre of WarJharkhand overtakes Chhattisgarh in terms of Maoist activity, a crisis that’s heightened by multiple groups in the state

20 opiNioN V.R. Krishna iyer

22 KeRala elephants on Rampage

24 phoNe TappiNg Macabre labyrinth

26 dd NeWs on a Revamp

30 bihaR Rice age

32 hydeRabad blasTs Where does the scent lead?

36 ColuMN parakala prabhakar

i n t e r n at i O n a l

62 Crimson Tidean impending uNhCR vote and the rising tide of protests against alleged unpunished war crimes in sri lanka

f e at u r e S

70 Totally out of iT has the techie finally learnt to think outside the box? Not across the motherboard, no, but there’s a helpdesk-worth of reformed geeks.

68 ColuMN Vijay Nambisan

76 aWaRds dime a dozen

80 opiNioN aravind adiga on writer s.l. bhyrappa

regularS 02 leTTeRs 08 polsCape 82 booKs 84 fiNe liViNg 86 gliTTeRaTi 88 diaRy

Cover design: deepak sharma, photograph: Tribhuvan Tiwari

11 March 2013 OutlOOk8

Notes

My English may not be all that good but what I note down in my secret diary can be understood by anyone. After all, I am only an ex-cop for whom words meant less than

action. Sometimes there are exceptions though. Even British PM David Cameron, with his ‘apology but not an apology’ over the Jal-lianwala Bagh massacre, confused both the British and the Indians. I only confused the bjp, rss and sections of the Indian media with my ‘apology’ over the saffron varieties of terror. Look, there are quite a few other kinds of terror too, like filmi terror, supernatural terror, inflation terror, Mamata terror, but I will not bring them up.

It seems any stick is enough to beat Shinde. bjp leader Venkaiah Naidu demanded I go to hell, but would I get permission for a visit from Narendra Modi? After all, it is his domain and I don’t think he needs a home minister like me. Everyone talks of intelligence failure, but no one seems to want my intelligence reports. Mamata uses them to light her fire, Jaya feeds her pet goat with them and I can’t tell you in public how my reports are used in Modi’s Gujarat. How can we stop terror attacks if the states do not want to be intelligent?

In fact, I am getting a bit tired of it all. Whatever I touch turns to dust. In the power ministry, I had more power cuts than any additional powers. Yes, I do want to be the external affairs minister. I would love to present my credentials to the British Queen or President Obama and not bother with suicide bombers or Indian Mujahideen. All I’ll have to do to impress the Queen or Obama will be to present them with a piece of a hangman’s rope (they’ll catch on pretty quick). Talking about hangings (and the Jail Manual), if I had informed Afzal Guru’s wife about his hanging via e-mail or a telephone call and not speed post, then these very same TV anchors would have grilled me on why I wasted govern-ment money when the rules clearly mentioned speed post.

But there are compensations. A fan wrote to me saying I was India’s new Iron Man (though Coir Man would have been more appropriate). Meanwhile, I am also being labelled a Gandhi loyalist. What is wrong with that, the Gandhis are nice people, much better than the rss which runs the bjp while calling itself a ‘cultural body’. Some culture, some body! I have come up the hard way and if the high and the mighty make fun of my police background, it only reflects their own empty-headedness. One piece of advice I got is I should speak more carefully on sensitive issues. But that advice goes for the entire nation, especially those TV anchors! 4

The SecreT Diary of

V. GanGadharThe Mumbai-based satirist is the creator of ‘Trishanku’

E-mail your secret diarist: vgangadhar70@gmail.com

Sushilkumar Shinde

by Sorit

crossiNgs

mirror image

formed The upa govt sets up a 30-member jpc to probe vvip chopper deal scam; the bjp is none too impressed, demands identity of kickbacks “family” in Italian investigation report.

ruled? To break Nepal’s political impasse, Maoists, others moot an interim govt headed by chief justice K.r. regmi till fresh polls. The judge is willing, but a horrified Bar cites separation of powers.

drugged Manipur defence pro Col Ajay Choudhury, six others arrested with `24 cr worth of Myanmar-bound contraband drugs. Probe leads to son of Kuki Congress mla T.N. Haokip, Seikholen.

blocked The West Bengal censor board denies clearance to film Kangal Malsat, starring tmc rebel Kabir Suman; says it shows Mamata swearing-in, Singur fiasco and late Russian dictator Stalin in a bad light.

existed An int’l team of researchers finds evidence of lost microcontinent, Mauritia, dating back to 850-mn years plus, beneath the western Indian Ocean near Mauritius.

12

kashmirjailbreak

11 march 2013 OUTlOOk

as if the January 7 massacre of 10 crpf and one Jharkhand Jaguar jawan was expressly meant to underscore the government’s admission of the sharp ascendancy in the trajectory of Maoist violence in the mineral-rich state.

The clouds of war—civil war to be precise—indeed hang low over Jhar–khand. One needn’t venture deep into the countryside; the siege within is evi-dent virtually at the doorsteps of urban zones like Ranchi, Dhanbad, Jam sh ed-pur, Daltonganj, Chaibasa, Gomoh and Giridih. On a road journey through these areas, Outlook witnessed surreal scenes straight out of a war movie: searchlights revolving menacingly atop fortified crpf camps; monstrously ugly mine-protected vehicles or mpvs, desig-ned to coolly withstand a 21-kilo (tnt) blast; sniffer dogs straining at the leash; helicopters ready for takeoff at the bark of a command, and boots pounding the ground like there’s no tomorrow.

Indeed, Jharkhand witnessed more killings by Maoists last year than even Chhattisgarh, whose forested Bastar region is regarded as the epicentre of left-wing extremism in India. Out of 409 Maoist killings in 2012 (296 civilian and 113 security personnel), Jharkhand accounted for as many as 160; ahead of Chhatti sgarh (107), Orissa (45), Bihar (43), Maharashtra (41) and And hra Pra-desh (13) by a huge margin.

The unacceptably high death toll in Jharkhand’s killing fields last year was capped, as 2013 dawned, by the Katiya bloodbath—unlikely to be forgotten in a hurry after Maoists confessed to pla-nting explosives in the belly of a slain jawan to maximise casualties. And on its heels came a landmine blast in Bokaro’s Jhumra Hills, which left a dozen crpf jawans severely wounded during combing operations. All this is igniting fears in the security establish-ment that Jharkhand, along with

Bihar’s contiguous Gaya and Aur ang-abad districts, will upstage the iconic Abujmarh as the bloodiest and biggest theatre of red revolt against New Delhi.

But why is left-wing extremism in full bloom in this tribal state? Telesphore Toppo, the 73-year-old Archbishop of Ranchi and obviously a man of peace, has a blunt explanation: “Jharkhand was created to protect the interests of tribals. But political parties from the word go started exploiting the very tribals whose cause they were sup-posed to espouse. When Maoists first sneaked into Jharkhand, conditions were ideal for sowing the seeds of re-bellion. The seeds they scattered flowered in no time because the ground was fertile. Even today there is no jus-tice in Jharkhand although the state’s coffers are overflowing. And there can’t be peace without justice. Tribal men go to Punjab or Haryana in droves

The War’s Old-New TheatreJharkhand overtakes Chhattisgarh as Maoists ratchet up their strikes here

jharkhandmaOisT insUrgency

by S.N.M. Abdi in Jharkhand

NO sooner had the Union home ministry identified Jharkhand as the state worst affected by left-wing extremism in 2012 than Maoists gunned down 11 policemen in the Katiya forest of Latehar district. It was almost

West Bengal

Bihar

Orissa

Ranchi

JhArkhANd

13OUTlOOk 11 march 2013

to toil in brick kilns, while the women slog as domestic help in Delhi. Those who are left behind join the Maoists.”

According to Fr Toppo, the tribals—comprising 28 per cent of Jharkhand’s population—are easy pickings for Mao-ist recruiters not only because of their poverty and backwardness but also due to the excesses committed by security forces. He recalled the killing of a tribal girl by crpf during Operation Green Hunt in 2010. The victim’s legs and hands were tied to a bamboo pole as though she was not a human being but an animal that had been hunted down. Such barbarism and savagery fuel tribal rage, intensifying the armed conflict between the Maoists and the state.

“Out of 24 districts,” says Jharkhand director-general of police Gouri

Shankar Rath, “21 are Maoist-affected today; earlier Maoists were active only in 18 districts.” He is packing his bags for a retired life, but could well be re-employed because he is perceived as a battle-hardened warrior against left-wing extremism. “I have been bat-tling Maoists for 12 years,” he goes on to say. “Forty per cent of my police force is deployed against them. But Maoism hasn’t lost its appeal; in fact, it’s growing dangerously. Now, statisti-cally, we are the worst-affected state.” This is a pity, because, “barring Mao-ism, on other fronts—caste, communal, agrarian and educational—we are more peaceful than other states.”

LEAFING through a classified report, Rath reels off the names of

Maoist groups—besides the mainline Communist Party of India (Maoist)—that are on the rampage across Jharkhand: the Peo-ple’s Liberation Front of India (plfi), Jharkhand Jan Mukti Parishad ( jjmp), Tritya Sammelan Prastuti Committee (tspc), Shashtra People’s Morcha (spm), Sangharsh Jan Mukti Morcha (sjmm) and Jharkhand Prastuti Com-mittee ( jpc). “In 2011, the Com munist Party of India (Maoist) was responsible for 59 per cent of the violence. Last year, it dipped to 44 per cent. But splinter groups, particularly plfi and tspc, went into overdrive in 2012, making Jharkhand the worst-affected state in the whole country.”

Rath is not finished yet. “It’s our mis-fortune,” he says, “that we’re surrounded by Maoist-affected states—Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, and bey-ond, Andhra—giving Maoists strategic depth. Another major handicap is our dense forests. Of course, Maoism is no ordinary law and order problem. It’s tied to governance and development—or rather the lack of it! We are saddled with widespread displacement due to mining activities and industrialisation, creating favourable conditions for left-wing extremism to flourish. And to top it all, Jharkhand is politically so unsta-

A State of Unrest● Of 409 Maoist killings in 2012 (296 civilians, 113 securitymen), Jharkhand accounted for 160

● This was way above 107 in Chhattisgarh, 45 in Orissa, 43 in Bihar, 41 in Maharashtra or 13 in AP

● Not just mainline CPI (Maoist) but splinter groups are in overdrive

● Proximity to other Maoist-affected states, tribal exploitation, political instability make the state fertile ground for Maoist recruit-ment and activity.

Belly bomb The CrPF jawan in whose stomach explosives were planted

Photographs: RAJESH KUMAR

11 March 2013 OUTLOOK32

hyderabadbLasTs prObe

Molten wax from candles lit for vigils covers the iron railings. For many in this city, there’s a sense of deja vu. Days they had hoped they had left behind have come back to revisit them.

Mohammed Rayeesuddin, 32, who’s been living with a constant terror tag hanging around his neck, is a perfect example. Arrested after the Mecca Masjid blasts in May ’07 and acquitted two years later, he was picked up again for questioning after the twin blasts in Dilsukhnagar on February 21. “I was given a good conduct certificate and compensation by the government. But we are now forced to undergo the trauma again,” he says. Rayeesuddin, who runs an electrical shop, was picked up on February 24 morning and taken to the Osmania University station and int­errogated till 6 pm. “The same questions again. Do you know who cau sed the blasts? Who are you talking to these days? Are you up to any mischief?”

Not just those summarily put under the scanner, even the investigating agencies find themselves beating around on a path they have trodden earlier and with no definite leads. As several agencies—the nia, cid, octopus, Counter Intelli ge nce, Task Force, local police, ats, Kar nataka and Maharashtra police—join the hunt for terror clues, so far only a sketchy picture has emerged. Offi cials say visible clues like the ied composition, its placement, the timing between the two explosions, the possi­ble use of a cycle—point to a modus operandi similar to Indian Mujahideen­executed attacks. The latest att acks are also similar to the twin blasts at Lumbini Park and Gokul Chat Bhan dar in the city in 2007 as well as last year’s Pune blasts. The 7 pm timing too is the same. But these may just be straws in the wind the authorities are clutching at.

“There are no leads. What’s being

dished out is just already known facts about IM and the Bhatkal brothers,” says retired ips officer and spg founder S. Subra m anian. Handed over the Hyd­erabad case almost immediately, the National Investigation Age ncy (nia) is banking on the interrogation of all e ged IM operatives already behind bars to throw up leads. It’s also sought the custody of IM operatives Syed Maqbool and Imran Khan, arrested in connec­tion with the 2012 Pune blasts.

Maqbool had reportedly told the Delhi police in October ’12 that the IM had conducted a recce of Dilsu khnagar and Begum Bazaar areas. The Pune blast sus pects are IM leaders and brothers Riyaz and Yasin Bhatkal, and Waqas, Tabrez and Raju bhaiyya alias Akhtar. Several youths in Hyderabad have been picked up for questioning but so far no arrests have been made nor have the police been able to establish any local links. Grainy cctv footage revealing two possible suspects, one on cycle and ano­ther on foot, has been sent to Mumbai.

Struggling to cope with the several terror cases on its table (and with the skeletal staff on hand), the nia has its task cut out. “When investigators want to hit back, they hit back hard with solid investigations. But nia needs to build on its strengths of terror investi­gations,” says ex­IB head Ajit Doval. Not particularly easy when one isn’t even sure which side the latest attacks were perpetrated by. “Frankly speak­ing, the modus operandi of Islamist fundamentalists and right­wing Hind­u tva extremists has blurred. It could

have been done by anyone,” says an intelligence official. State investigating officers are still betting on IM as the prime suspect, but admit it could have been any other outfit—LeT, HuJI, JeM, or homegrown outfits like Dar s gah Jehad­o­Shahadat or even Deendar Anju man. “Terror groups work with each other and operate just as our intel agencies do,” adds an officer wearily.

Meanwhile, for Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde, these are the sec­ond serial blasts on his watch. Talking just hours after it, Shinde was defensive in his reactions. “After two executions (Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru), some reactions had to come. We were expect­ing it. We were sending general alerts throughout the country.” The first war­ning, on Febr u ary 16, raised the prospect of terror strikes as retaliation against the hanging of Guru. The second, issued

by Madhavi Tata in Hyderabad and Toral Varia Deshpande in New Delhi

IT’S been over a week since the latest terror wave lashed Hyderabad but scores of people still keep amassing at the barricaded blast site in Dilsukhnagar near Konark theatre.

Most take pictures on their mobiles, while many amateur investigators among them strain their necks to spot clues.

Several intel agencies h ave converged on Hyderabad but, for now, it’s just raising old yarns

“Frankly speaking, Islamist fundamentalists or Hindutva right-wingers, the modus operandis have blurred.”

Has Anyone Seen the Timer?

OutlOOk 11 March 2013 33

on February 18, noted that terrorists were likely to hit areas where reconnai­ssance or strikes had earlier taken place. The third, on February 19, listed possible targets (Dilsukhnagar was not on it) where arrested terrorists had conduc­ted reconnaissance. The alerts had no information on possible perpetrators. Doval counters Shinde’s stand saying, “In the world of intelligence­gathering, inputs or alerts are valuable only if they lead to an action or prevention. If the government failed to act despite claim­ing to have had the knowledge, then Shinde needs to be held accountable.”

Dilsukhnagar, located on the Vijaya­wada highway, is a commercial and educational hub, a “mini­Andhra” if you will. Real estate developers from coastal Andhra districts have invested in the area, turning it into a bustling trading hub. Educational institutes, IT training

centres and coaching institutes are abundant here. As are small­time cloth merchants, fruit and flower vendors and rythu (farmers’) bazaars.

One bomb went off near the bus stop between Konark and Venkatadri thea­tres, close to a famous Sai Baba temple. February 21 was a Thursday, an espe­cially busy day. In fact, Hyderabad police commissioner Anurag Sharma was at the temple and had left at 6.30 pm, just 30 minutes before the blasts occurred. While Sharma claims it was a personal visit, the rumour­mongering hasn’t stopped. Did he receive a spec ific alert, was he there checking sec urity arrangements? Did the security for Sharma force the terrorists to move the bomb from the temple to the bus stop?

The speculation comes in a city whose citizens have grown to suspect those from the old city. So much so even

someone like Subramanian says there ought to be an “exclusive special intelli­gence branch” for the old city and another one for the new city. Former vigilance D­G C. Anjaneya Reddy says the anonymity of the old city has led Hyderabad to become a shelter for ter­ror. “Illegal migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan, PoK, they come and blend in. They come without papers and stay on.” These “illegal aliens”, as Reddy terms them, become easy recruits for terror­ists who exploit their poverty and residential status. “Some people in the old city may have sheltered terrorists in their houses without even knowing they are doing so,” says M.V. Krishna Rao, former ssb chief who also served as Hyderabad police commissioner.

Apart from their non­controversial profiles, movements from one city to another or one state to another renders

Several intel agencies h ave converged on Hyderabad but, for now, it’s just raising old yarns

NIA officials at the site; injured woman being taken to hospital; Rayeesuddin and others who were again arrested

Has Anyone Seen the Timer?AP

PTI