Shuddhabrata Sengupta on Thu, 13 Dec 2001 21:39:43 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> Attack on the Indian Parliament |
Report on the Attack on the Parliament Building in New Delhi, India Apologies for cross posting to those on the Reader-List ______________________________________________ Many people on this list might have heard by now that the Parliament Building in New Delhi has been attacked. News reports from the television here say that five people wearing military uniforms entered the Parliament House complex and opened indiscriminate fire.Are Four security guards, and four of the assialants are reported dead, one of the assailants is missing and there are also reports of injuries to one of the journalists present on the scene. The interior minister L.K. Advani has described the incident as a "fedayeen" or suicide attack by terrorists. There are no reports of anyone having claimed responsibility for the incident as of now. Incidentally the Parliament which is in session, is due to discuss the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) which has been tabled by the government in the wake of the events of September 11 and their aftermath. POTO which civil liberties groups here have described as one of the most draconian pieces of legislation ever drafted has met with stiff resistance even from parties in opposition (the Congress, among them) - which have themselves during their tenure in power ruled with the help of very draconian previous legislations - such as the TADA or Terrorist and Disturbed Areas Act . POTO is viewed as being even more of an attack on civil liberties than TADA. POTO bans a number of organisations that it declares to be terrorist. These are mainly separatist militant groups in Kashmir and in the North Eastern States of India, Islamist student groups and more recently two Maoist groups - The Peoples War Group and the Maoist Communist Centre. What is particularly salient as a feature of POTO is that anyone can be detained in preventive custody on the suspicion of belonging to such groups, or of their "front organisations" or of aiding and abetting the aims of these groups of their members. Suspects can be held in custody without trial for a period of 30 days in police remand and upti six moinths in judicial custody , without being charged. Confessions made beofre police officers during this period of detention are admissable as evidence,. Leaving ample scope for the use of torture (especially of non invasive forms of torture) to extract confessions or information. The mere withholding of information to the law enforcement agencies is deemed an offence, although the provision that journalists have to disclose their sources is being amended under political pressure from the opposition. However, a suspect is required to furnish information, including biological samples, (blood, urine, etc. samples) and refusal to do so, or obstruction in the process of obtaining samples is deemed as being prejudical to the trial prospects of the suspect. Further, POTO also makes provision for a wide variety of instruments by which surveillance, of all communications (telephonic, electronic, internet, postal) is made possible. A police officer of a certain rank may under POTO intercept communications in order to furnish grounds for the interecption of communication. All these, and other provisions have made POTO extremely unpalatable, and difficult to defend, even for politicals otherwise accustomed to defending repressive measures as being necessary in the interests of national security in India However, in the wake of today's attack on Parliament, it is unlikely that POTO will not go through. The opposition will find it difficult to sustain their protests against the attack on civil liberties that POTO represents. The attack on Parliament itself is too "spectacular" to ignore. In other words, we might as well realise that in all likelihood that the ordinance, will become an act. The attacks on the world trade centre came at the right time, to allow for a massive deployment of military force, and the deployment of a new regime of security apparatuses all over the world. Similarly, the attack on the Indian Parliament may be seen, in the long run as being perfect in terms of timing. Now POTO will become POTA, the ordincance will be an act, and massive state repression will be given democratic sanction. One might say that the designs of the state and what we are accustomed to hear being described as acts of terrorism are well suited to each others purposes. # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net