Counting Muslim votes in Modi’s Gujarat

HIMAL/JANUARY 2008

ANALYSIS

Counting Muslim votes in Modi’s Gujarat

Gujarat’s Muslim communities tried to send a strong message to the incumbent administration by organising against Narendra Modi. He swept the state, but will he temper his style? Unlikely.

By V K Shashikumar

Narendra Modi’s triumphant return to power in Gujarat, by a huge margin, is as much a victory of Moditva – the brand of rightwing exclusionary politics espoused by Modi over and above Hindutva – as it is an endorsement of the chief minister himself. With the Bharatiya Janata Party’s tally, at 117 out of 182 seats, being just short of the 127 it won in 2002, the Modi phenomenon surpassed even the upper ceiling of exit polls. This win was partly the result of a well-orchestrated media campaign, funded in large part by Gujaratis abroad, through well-timed newspaper advertisements bearing reminders of the Godhra train-burning. There was also a widespread distribution of masks bearing smiling Modi faces.
Yet Modi masks do not the complete picture make. For those who care to notice, Modi lost out in central Gujarat, one of the areas most severely affected by the 2002 anti-Muslim carnage. As results rolled in, it was clear that in central Gujarat alone, the BJP was down 19 seats from 2002, though he later made up for that deficit elsewhere. Here at least, the law of diminishing returns seemed to have worked, after the emotional appeal to communalism went beyond certain limits. These limits evidently included Modi’s last-minute implication that the Muslims of Gujarat could well meet the same fate as Sohrabuddin Sheikh, the small-time criminal killed in 2005 in a fake encounter. But part of the reason that the chief minister gave up his ‘development plank’ and swung back to his time-tested communal rhetoric was because, in the run-up to the elections, the satta, or illegal betting market, had showed an edge for the Congress party.
Despite the whipping up of communal colour in the last few days of campaigning, the state’s Muslim community, which had been backed into a corner in previous assembly polls, had presented a modicum of opposition to the saffron sweep. And yet, the Modi juggernaut was so overwhelming, Gujarat-wide, that Muslim and other activists who campaigned against Modi can for now do nothing more than recall how they tried to stem the Modi tide from tearing through the state for the third time.
In Godhra, the epicentre of the 2002 carnage, Mohammed Hussain Kalota’s family turned out in full strength to cast their votes on 16 December. For the Kalotas, the act of voting was an act of defiance against what they perceived as injustice perpetrated on them by the country’s law-enforcement agencies. Kalota, the former president of the Godhra Municipality, had been at home when the S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express went up in flames on 28 February 2002. Although the truth of the train-burning has yet to be ascertained, the police foisted a case on Kalota, accusing him of being part of the conspiracy. Kalota, like many others accused in the case, is currently in jail, but the court case against him is at a standstill. Despite the fact that the chargesheets filed by the police do not have any conclusive evidence, bail has been denied to all.
Kalota’s family got up early to participate in the December elections. For them, the day held more significance than the mere assertion of their democratic right to vote. This was a day when they wanted their individual votes to count, a day when they wanted to ensure that their home state passed the litmus test of inclusiveness. For the Kalotas, this was a day that they hoped would prove that Gujarat does not stand only for Hindus and their development, but rather could be a state where Hindus could live with Muslims and other minorities without fear, a state where access to development and progress would be equitable across all communities. Modi’s victory does seem to have dashed that hope for now, given the fact that the chief minister has not shown remorse for the 2002 incidents, nor has he reconstructed himself.
deshgujarat.com
A plea for moderationA short distance away from the Kalota home, in another locality of Godhra, Ahmed Kalota was busy passing out instructions to groups of errand boys. At each of the seven booths that he was monitoring, there were 30 members of the local Muslim community, each carrying lists of the Muslim electorate eligible to vote. More than just monitoring, the idea behind the exercise was to ensure that the community leaders played an important role in convincing the voters to step out and cast their votes. “Fifteen days prior to the polling date, we visited each and every house in all the seven polling booth areas that have been allotted to me, to ensure everyone from the community votes,” says Kalota. “On the polling day, those who were reluctant to step out, we went to their house and convinced them to queue. And the result is showing, because the polling in all the seven booths that I managed was 73 percent.”
The areas in Gujarat with significant Muslim populations went to the polls on 16 December. Days before the polling date, local-level Muslim leaders, backed by the Congress party, met in each constituency and finalised a plan to ensure a healthy turnout during the polling day. “Generally, the very act of casting one’s vote is a celebratory exercise,” says Kalota. “But in these elections, we were voting to protect our freedom. It was as if we were preparing for a sombre ritual to assert our identity, to assure ourselves that we are equal citizens of a democratic and secular country.”
For the Muslim minority in Gujarat, this election was about attempting to protect a multitude of freedoms – from fear of discrimination, from rabid communal hatred and propaganda, from fear of riots and of denial of justice.
Local-level planning by Gujarat’s Muslim communities over the past year went almost completely unreported in the Indian media. Even the Gujarati press has not been able to capture the rigorous groundwork that was undertaken by local anti-BJP political activists and community leaders, with an eye to both the Muslim and Hindu communities. Even given the final results, as announced on 23 December, many say that this work has paid certain dividends. “By coming out in large numbers and ensuring that our vote counts, we have succeeded in sending out a message to Modi,” explains Kalota. “We want to tell Modi: Please become moderate.” Despite Modi’s win, many Muslim community leaders are convinced that the chief minister cannot continue to play the communal card. This was certainly true in Godhra, where Congress candidate C K Raulji was announced the winner.
Few are under any illusions as to what the election results mean, however. “This is not a defeat of the Congress party, but a victory for communalism,” says Saiyyed Ummarji, the son of a Godhra cleric who is currently a prime accused in the train-burning case. “Modi successfully polarised the electorate in Gujarat, even in areas where there was discontent against him. That is why discontent against Modi could not be crystalised into votes for Congress. Where Congress went wrong was that it went soft on Modi, and failed to take him on headlong.”
The outcome notwithstanding, Kalota emphasises that the Muslim community in Gujarat is for looking forward, not backward. “Like the Hindus, we also want peace,” he says. “Like the Hindus, we also want development. Like the Hindus, we also want to leave the traumatic events of the Godhra train fire and the communal riots that followed behind us. And Modi knows that whenever he talks of Godhra, others will talk about the riots, and there will be tension whenever that happens. So … we are certain we will see a new, moderate Modi as the chief minister.”
For the sake of Gujarat’s minorities, many are now certainly hoping that Kalota is right in his prognostication. On the other hand, Chief Minister Modi might well take his victory as a green light to a forward march to the Centre, and the elevation of Moditva to the national stage. In that case, Muslims not just in Gujarat, but throughout India, will need to beware.

Simulated Encounters, Real Murder

HIMAL/July 2007


http://www.himalmag.com/2007/july/fake_encounter.htm

Simulated encounters, real murder

The recent spate of reports on fabricated ‘encounter killings’ by the paramilitary and police in India points to a systemic rot. Fortunately, a tenuous check on this impunity is coming from within the ranks themselves.

By : V K Shashikumar


Reports of the cold-blooded killing of civilians by security forces in Jammu & Kashmir, the Northeast and Chhattisgarh, in the name of combat operations against insurgents or Maoist guerrillas, grabbed headlines in India during the first half of this year. Despite the public hubbub, the top brass in the Indian Army, police and paramilitary forces have kept quiet about the allegations, and seem to be in favour of standing behind their men whatever their crimes may be.

In January this year, the infamous Ganderbal killings, in which the murder of three civilians was covered up and attributed to an ‘encounter’, came to light after a probe by a special investigations team (SIT) headed by the deputy inspector-general (DIG) of the J & K police. The victims were villagers ‘disappeared’ from south Kashmir: carpenter Abdul Rehman Padroo and street vendors Nazir Ahmad Deka and Ghulam Nabi Wani.

The investigations in Ganderbal uncovered yet another case of police complicity – in the killing of Maulvi Shaukat Ahmad Kataria of Banihal in Doda District, who ‘disappeared’ last October from the local mosque where he was the imam. A SIT found that the photograph of a “slain Pakistani militant’’ – identified by the Ganderbal police as Abu Hafiz, of Karachi – was actually a picture of the missing imam. In line with the prevalent police practice, weapons had been placed on the body to implicate the deceased. In this instance, the weapons were found to have come from a cache of arms seized from militants in genuine operations, which the police had kept out of the records with the intention of using them to provide clinching ‘evidence’ in simulated encounters.

Bringing the guilty to book in the Kashmir encounters case has been particularly difficult due to the conflicting interests of the security agencies involved. In early May, the army filed an application in a lower court in Srinagar, challenging the SIT’s chargesheet – which names, in addition to five policemen, five personnel of the paramilitary Rashtriya Rifles, including a colonel and a major, implicated in the killing of Maulvi Shaukat. The army claimed that the J & K police should have sought permission from the Home Ministry before filing the chargesheet, because security forces deployed in J & K were protected under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, the AFSPA. The J & K police, however, maintained that the army personnel were not “acting in the line of duty”, and therefore should not enjoy impunity under the AFSPA.

In April, the public uproar regarding the Ganderbal killings led the J & K government to set up a commission of inquiry, which is expected to submit a report by the end of July. The attention being given to these fake encounters has also enabled whistleblowers from within the ranks of the security forces themselves to gather the courage to reopen older cases of disappeared persons. What is revealed is a sordid saga of murder and high-level cover-ups.

BSF cover-up
A case in point is linked to the incident that occurred on the night of 7 September 2003, in the J & K district of Pulwama. That evening, a Border Security Force (BSF) commander with the 42nd Battalion, Narender Singh Dangawas, claimed to have killed Ismail Bhai, supposedly a Jaish-e-Mohammad militant from Karachi, during a counter-insurgency operation. But Ghulam Nabi, the stationhouse officer at the Rajpura police station, where the body was brought for identification, told this writer that the body had never been positively identified. The implication was that the report was falsified.

Despite the dubious nature of the Pulwama operation, Dangawas was recommended for a President’s Police Medal. Before he could be awarded, though, an insider blew the whistle. Constable Subhash Rathod testified against his commanding officer, telling BSF authorities that an officer of the intelligence wing of the BSF had handed over an innocent Kashmiri to Dangawas, who later killed him and faked the encounter. Yet, Dangawas continues to be shielded by the BSF: all of the five inquiries that the BSF has conducted of the matter over the past four years have exonerated the commander.

The J & K police remain suspicious, and an investigation into Dangawas’s actions remains open. But investigations have stalled, supposedly because no one has come forward to identify the victim’s body. Evidence unearthed by this writer, however, suggests an elaborate cover-up. For instance, while Dangawas claimed that 66 of his soldiers had taken part in the encounter, 47 of them have subsequently testified for an internal, confidential BSF enquiry that they had not in fact been involved. Similarly, the situation report prepared by Dangawas claims that Constable Bashir Ahmed fired 68 rounds during the encounter, but Bashir himself says that he was nowhere near the scene.

A BSF informant who wishes to remain anonymous clandestinely recorded phone conversations with 16 BSF personnel supposedly associated with the fake encounter of December 2005. The recordings were made between December 2005 and February 2006, with the aim of bypassing the formal process by which internal reports continue to remain confidential. They were subsequently submitted to the Delhi High Court in 2006 as evidence that the BSF was indeed covering up a fake encounter. Below are some excerpts from the tapes.

Paresh Sahu, Constable, 42nd Battalion, BSF
Sahu: I have made it absolutely clear in all enquiries that I was not part of the operation.
Informant: When the encounter was on, what were you doing?
Sahu: I was on patrol duty.

Shashi Jogi, Constable, 42nd Battalion, BSF
Informant: That means Narender Singh Dangawas fraudulently included your name in the list of those who were part of the operation.

Jogi: Yes, that’s what he did. So when I was called in for the deposition, I told the senior BSF officers conducting the enquiry that I was just not part of the operation, and so I could not have been part of the team that carried out the fake encounter.

A BSF deputy inspector general, K C Padhi, conducted the first inquiry on the alleged encounter in 2004. In phone conversations recorded by the BSF informant, Padhi admitted that Dangawas played foul.

Informant: But sir, you are aware that many names have been fraudulently added to the roster of those who took part in the operation?
Padhi: I have mentioned it [in my report].

Yet Padhi later cleared Dangawas of all charges. This procedure was repeated with Deputy Inspector General V R Bahl, who sat on yet another inquiry commission. Bahl confirmed to the informant that the evidence against Dangawas was damning, but he nevertheless gave him a clean chit.

There is hardly any tangible evidence to back up Dangawas’s version of events. For instance, all Indian security units engaged in counter-insurgency operations make it a point to keep photographs of their operations, but in the case of the Pulwama encounter, Dangawas claimed that all photos had gone missing. His colleagues, however, are more forthcoming. “Commandant Dangawas deleted all the photos from the hard disk of the computers in our unit,” alleges Vinay Gehlote, an inspector with the 42nd Battalion, in a taped conversation with the BSF informant.

The process of cover-up, however, required extensive in-house collusion. In Dangawas’s first report to his superiors, he claimed to have killed a Bangladeshi Jaish-e-Mohammed militant. But in a subsequent FIR report, the man’s nationality had changed and he was said to be with the Pakistani Jaish-e-Mohammed. Then, in 2004, BSF chief J B Negi, replying to an internal enquiry letter, wrote an order giving permission for a Summary Court of Inquiry against Dangawas. In this order, Negi described the victim as a “Bangladeshi terrorist”.

Either way, according to official records, a Pakistani Jaish-e-Mohammed militant named Ismail Bhai is now buried adjacent to the Kellar police station in Pulwama District. But is he really a Pakistani, or even a militant? The Delhi High Court is now hearing Constable Subhash Rathod’s petition, but Dangawas remains a free man, shielded by the BSF on the basis of a diluted chargesheet. The General Security Force Court that dismissed the charges against Dangawas this past February had only heard evidence against the defendant for the following three charges: first, for an act prejudicial to good order and discipline, in which he was accused of confiscating a civilian’s car; second, for ill-treating a subordinate; and third, for committing a civil offence by wrongful confinement and harassment of civilians.

Triple murder in Gujarat
The situation surrounding Dangawas and the Pulwama encounter would have passed undetected if it had not been for the anguished conscience of a member of the BSF’s 42nd Battalion. Subhash Rathod’s courage in pursuing a court case against his superior seems nothing short of extraordinary, but the collapse of institutional mechanisms of accountability – whereby illegal acts are covered up with impunity – merits closer examination. With five internal BSF inquiries having exonerated Dangawas despite the fact that his superiors knew the encounter in question was dubious, it is clear that internal structures of accountability alone are not enough to ensure justice. This is a particularly crucial disconnect in situations in which human rights come a distant second to concerns of ‘national security’.

Even as the public was trying to come to terms with the unfolding situation in Kashmir this spring, events in Gujarat underlined the precarious position of whistleblowers in the system, further raising questions on their effectiveness in exposing internal rot – particularly when up against collusion at the highest levels. The case in question was the killing of a man named Sohrabuddin Sheikh.

Starting in late 2005, a man by the name of Rubabuddin Sheikh began appealing to the Gujarat authorities to initiate a CBI inquiry into the death of his brother, Sohrabuddin, and to produce his missing sister-in-law, Kauserbi. He finally approached the Supreme Court, which ordered that an investigation be conducted by the state’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID). The case was then handled by an agent named Geetha Johri. Her team’s first report, released in September 2006, presented evidence to attribute three separate murders to the Gujarat state police’s Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS). Johri had also stumbled upon an elaborate nexus of corruption that furthered a political-communal agenda. The investigation stunned India, particularly because it detailed how the police forces from three different states – Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh – had all colluded in the operation and cover-up. For her pains, however, Johri was removed from the investigation in early 2007. It was only after the Supreme Court intervened in March that the officer was reinstated and allowed to continue the investigation.

According to the ATS’s internal records, at about five in the morning of 26 November 2005, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, a team comprised of members of the squad and a few Rajasthani policemen saw the headlight of an approaching motorbike. As the bike came closer, the policemen claimed they recognised Sohrabuddin Sheikh, a gangster alleged to have links to Pakistani militant groups. They claim that they leapt to stop the bike, that the biker lost control and that he fired a gun as he fell. The policemen then returned fire, killing the suspect. The story as given was full of holes. To begin with, how could the policemen have recognised Sohrabuddin in the darkness of a November morning against the headlight of the oncoming motorcycle?

Geetha Johri’s investigation provides a picture of how the preparations for the ‘encounter’ had proceeded. The CID team traced Sohrabuddin, his wife and a third person to a bus traveling from Hyderabad to Sangli, in Maharashtra. At around one in the morning on 23 November, a team consisting of ATS personnel, assisted by the Andhra Pradesh police, halted the bus in Karnataka, and dragged the three people out of the vehicle.

It was more than a thousand kilometres away and three days later that Sohrabuddin was shot dead. But the police were not yet finished. On 27 November 2005, the day after Sohrabuddin was killed, his wife, Kauserbi, was brought to a bungalow in Koba, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. There, she is said to have become hysterical upon being told that her husband was dead. The ATS’s original plan had evidently not included Kauserbi’s murder, but when she vowed to expose her husband’s killing, she was poisoned by a police doctor. According to the CID report, her body was carried away in a police jeep and burned.

Even Kauserbi’s murder was not the end of the Sohrabuddin cover-up, however. Along with his team, then-ATS chief D G Vanzara (now a deputy inspector general) launched another operation, targeting Tulsiram Prajapati, an associate of Sohrabuddin. As one of the last people to see Sohrabuddin and Kauserbi alive on 24 November, Prajapati was a key witness in the fake-encounter case, and Vanzara did not want him spilling the beans. So, Prajapati was arrested in November 2005 for the 2004 murder of gangster Hamid Lala, a rival of Sohrabuddin’s. Fearing for his life, Prajapati wrote to the local court in Udaipur, warning that “the police say they will kill me and spread the story that I escaped from police custody.” A year later, in December 2006, his fears turned out to be well-founded. According to the FIR registered in Ahmedabad, Prajapati purportedly escaped from police custody on 27 December. A day later, Vanzara’s team was said to have located him at Ambaji, on the Rajasthan-Gujarat border, and shot him dead. Just 10 days earlier, the Gujarat CID had listed Prajapati as a witness in the Sohrabuddin case.

The marble dole
Why did this triple murder take place? Who was Sohrabuddin, and who wanted him dead? To uncover the story, this writer tracked the last decade of Sohrabuddin’s life from Rajasthan to Madhya Pradesh. Thirty-three years old when he was killed, Sohrabuddin began his working life as a truck driver. He gradually took to crime, and eventually became the main accused in a high-level arms-transport case in 1995. Sohrabuddin’s mentor at the time was Abid Khan, better known as Chhota Dawood, the local front man for Bombay’s notorious underworld don, Dawood Ibrahim, who is purported to have links to Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence. It was this connection that, a decade later, allowed Indian police to label Sohrabuddin a ‘terrorist’.

Sohrabuddin rose quickly in the underworld, his criminal activities eventually spanning four states. According to the Rajasthan police, Sohrabuddin began extorting traders in Rajasthan’s lucrative marble industry, which had an annual turnover of INR 50 billion. The marble traders eventually approached M N Dinesh, the Udaipur police superintendent, who it is presumed contacted then-ATS chief Vanzara. The last straw came in 2005, when Sohrabuddin is said to have made an extortion demand to Rajasthan’s biggest marble trader (who, with the CID investigation ongoing, needs to remain anonymous). According to the Gujarat CID, Vanzara’s phone records showed that, immediately before and after Sohrabuddin’s death, he had been in regular contact with this trader’s family.

Questions regarding Sohrabuddin’s killing cropped up almost immediately after the alleged encounter. Although any incident including an encounter is supposed to be investigated by the local police station, in Sohrabuddin’s case Vanzara’s team acted as defendant, judge and jury by investigating its own encounter. Vanzara and two other officers of the Indian Police Service have since been suspended and arrested for murder, and several additional policemen face prosecution in the Sohrabuddin case, but the question of impunity remains.

Hit-men in khaki
The term encounter killing has now become synonymous with murder, often involving high-profile cops who are generally assured of future impunity. Veteran police officers blame the rise in encounter killings on a failing justice system. They suggest that policemen frustrated with the slow pace of adjudication and acquittals, evidently due to lack of sufficient evidence, take the law into their own hands. Yet despite the increase in simulated encounters, there are no organised, updated or accurate statistics on encounter or extrajudicial killings, and those involved are forced to rely on their own experience. “The criminal-justice system has to come back on the rails,” says Julio Ribeiro, a well-regarded former police commissioner of Bombay. “Twenty-five years ago, this number of encounters was not taking place. It is coming up now more and more. You must understand why the judicial system has become so weak: it is because of corruption. Corruption is the main cause of all this.”

In the case of Gujarat, at least, this corruption goes all the way to the pinnacles of the police and political establishments. Three years ago, the Gujarat police evolved a plan of action for a state that had, in their assessment, “become a haven for terrorists”. Top police sources who served in the state at the time of the Godhra incident and the riots that followed confirm that there was a clear political directive to eliminate some Muslim criminals, in order to send a message to any who may be planning attacks in retaliation for the 2002 communal riots.

The connection between organised crime and the hit-men in khaki has subsequently come to wield a vice-like grip over many police forces, particularly in Gujarat. “I was asked by high-level bureaucrats to plan the elimination of people,” recalled R B Sreekumar, former Additional Director General of Police in Gujarat. “I said it is illegal.” At the moment, the justice system of India is heavily dependent on the consciences of people such as Sreekumar, as well as those who led to the breakthroughs in the cases of the Kashmir and Gujarat fake encounters. The health of the system overall, however, is far too important to continue placing it in the hands of a few high-minded individuals.

The recent exposés of extrajudicial killings in India, coupled with the inability of the country’s criminal-justice system to address a spate of fake encounters, have brought the spotlight squarely onto India’s archaic Police Act of 1861. One solution could be found in a legislative proposal currently being vetted by the Ministry of Home Affairs for a Model Police Act (Himal December 2006, “Reforming Indian policing”). The Supreme Court in September 2006 directed the state and Centre to implement the Act, which aims to ensure transparency in police functioning – including through the creation of state security councils, which would take on the responsibility from the state governments for overseeing the police forces. Several states have refused to accept the new legislation, however. The Gujarat government, for one, has publicly stated that it does not want to let go of control over the state police.

The question therefore remains: Is there enough political will to put in place the reforms directed by the Supreme Court? Former police commissioner Ribeiro says that regardless of the current political climate, the necessary momentum will eventually build up. He notes, “It is not the job of the police to kill people. It is not the job of the police to be judge and executioner.”

Tsunami: After the Deluge

AFTER THE DELUGE

Tehelka
January 22, 2005

Despite losing everything to the sea, fishermen in Tamil Nadu are once again ready to conquer the new fears of the sea

VK Shashikumar

The sea is safe. Whatever you are, whatever you have, the sea has given you. The sea is your saviour, chants Kavitha, a child counsellor from Siddha Samadhi Yoga.

This is how the day begins for some orphans of Nagapattinam. They sit cross-legged, eyes mockingly shut, pretending to meditate in an orphanage in Sikkal. A girl in faded yellow shorts and a bright top, anxious to know what’s happening around her, can’t stop playing hooky.

This is 10-year-old Jessinda. When the tsunami roared into Vedenayakkan Street she was playing hopscotch outside a neighbour’s house. She heard people screaming that everyone should move to the terrace. She did not have time to run to higher ground, so she latched onto a chair. She was buffeted around the room by the waves, but she did not let go of the chair. Her last memories are those of her mother’s panic-stricken wails. Jessinda lost her father, mother and two brothers.

Jessinda knows that her family has been washed away, but she still does not comprehend that her family will not come back. She consolidates and fuses familiar memories with new realities. Perhaps, it’s her way of dealing with her sense of loss.



It’s Not the End: for some orphans of Nagapattinam, life goes on PHOTO BY VK SHASHIKUMAR
“I am waiting for my school to reopen. Will the aunty (warden) allow me to go to school?” asks the fifth grader. We ask her why she is keen on school? “I want to be a collector,” Jessinda says.

But David has no such ambitions. He wants to go to school so that he can play cricket, something he was at when the tsunami disrupted the game. The Nambiar Nagar children had gathered on the beach for the final match of their local league — Centre Street vs North Street. David was striding down towards the wicket when he heard a loud sound.

Everyone turned towards the sea and in a split second began running. “I noticed a lamp post and I just climbed up,” says David, unaware of what happened to his team.

More than two weeks after the tragedy, no one is sure how many children are dead and how many are missing. “We will only know when schools reopen,” says Sushma Iyengar of the Kutch Mahila Vikas Mandal, who set up the NGO coordination centre at the Nagapattinam Collectorate.

Each child, who is either orphaned or has lost a parent in the disaster will be given Rs 5 lakh which will be put in a fixed deposit that can only be withdrawn when the child turns 18. “There is a danger of child trafficking. A disaster invites sharks of all kinds. Indonesia and Sri Lanka has banned adoption and the unicef has begun work to register orphans in these countries,” says Iyengar.

A day after Christmas,
coastal communities here faced new realities — an altered geography, a
hostile sea and total loss of their unique art of living built over centuries


“The focus should be on community-based adoption, where a close relative becomes the guardian of an orphan. But many NGOs and individuals have come forward to either adopt children or set up orphanages. Some of them might be eyeing the Rs 5 lakh fixed deposit in the name of a child,” says Mari Marcel Thekaekara of Accord.


As a result, the Central government has announced that special care will be taken to ensure that orphans are taken care of by state-run agencies. The government has also quietly put in place a policy that has ensured that there will be no emergency sidestepping of adoption laws.

But the government must also take responsibility of counselling traumatised children. Take for instance, 10-year-old Navabharat, preparing to attend school when we stopped by at his home in Pudupettai, a small fishing hamlet on the Nagapattinam coast.

“Schools are reopening today,” he said. It didn’t matter that schools across Tamil Nadu’s coast are yet to open. In his own self-assuring manner, he wanted to tell himself that things are as they were before. He had quietly begun marking an imaginary calendar a day after his family found themselves in a terrifying water world. The days he missed school, the moments away from friends “Water came up to my neck within seconds. Our house had become part of the sea,” he recalled.

He knows, of course, that his world has been ripped apart. His parents and grandparents still live in fear, reluctant to sleep at night. Everybody huddles up on the terrace at night, with their meagre blankets under the dew-laden sky.

A day after Christmas, coastal communities here were faced with staggering new realities — an altered geography, an unfriendly sea and the complete loss of their unique art of living built over centuries. The Army engineers say that the beach has moved in by 500 metres along the Nagapattinam coast.

But for Lokanathan, the village headman, the immediate goal is to regain his family’s way of life. He senses that his house is now closer to the waterline. “People are scared that it will happen again. But we have to carry on living,” Lokanathan said.


Pick and Move: armymen clear a boat that was blocking a road in Akkaraipettai PHOTO BY VK SHASHIKUMAR
Lokanathan was away on a pilgrimage to Sabarimala when the tsunami came in. When he reached Pudupettai the next day, he saw boats lying on the village road, in paddy fields, in the backyards of houses. He told us that of the 1,450 people in his village, 33 died.

Many survivors owe it to 42-year-old Selvam. But this veteran fisherman, who has been caught in cyclonic storms, was busy repairing his fishing net. He encourages others to join him. Soon it becomes a collective endeavour. “We must prepare ourselves to face the sea again,” he tells others.

Like others Selvam, too, was caught unaware. Struggling against the wave, he latched on to a vallam (catamaran). He first rescued Sasikala, 20, who was feeding her six-month-old child when the 33-foot wall of water slammed into her hut.

“The waves snatched my baby away from me. I was tossing around in the raging sea,” she said. Her husband, Mahesh, 24, who was cleaning his fishing net outside, did not have the time to warn her. “Who would have thought that the sea could kill us in our homes?” he asks.

But Selvam has no such qualms. “I am not afraid of the sea. We have to overcome the fear of the sea. If we don’t fish, how will we live? What will we do?”
Fishermen in Tharangambadi have announced that they will resume fishing on January 15, traditionally the beginning of the fishing season a day after the Pongal festival. The Tharangambadi boatyard was hit and the tsunami flung the boats a kilometre inland.

“It will take six months for fishing operations to become normal. First, we want temporary shelters where our families can stay till the government helps us rebuild our houses. Now we will build houses in safe locations at least a kilometre from the sea. We need gas and stoves so that our womenfolk can start cooking at home instead of eating in community kitchens. We want boats and nets and other fishing equipment to enable us to regain our livelihood,” says Selvam.

In Nagapattinam, Vivekanandan, president, South India Federation of Fishermen Societies, told Tehelka that a window of opportunity had opened up for the government to implement the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms. “The CRZ makes it mandatory for habitations to be 500 metres away from the shoreline. The fishermen were against CRZ, but now they are not keen to live close to the coastline,” he says.

The reason why fishermen want to relocate to safe habitats a kilometre away lies in the macabre remains of the sea’s fury in Keechankuppam village along the Nagapattinam harbour. Trawlers were piled up one against the other, their masts flying the Indian flag bunched in some sort of morbid solidarity.

The engineers and jawans of the Madras Sappers have been busy clearing debris, repairing outboard motors, building a causeway and constructing bridges. But more than anything else their presence in the worst disaster-hit areas is helping to restore confidence and settle frayed nerves.

‘I am not afraid of the sea. We have to overcome the fear of the sea. If we don’t fish, how will we live?’

At the last count, the Madras Sappers had repaired 10 small fishing boats with outboard motors and made them seaworthy. It is an insignificant number when compared to the thousands of boats awaiting repair or replacement. “It’s the message that is more important than the work we are doing. We told the fishermen community that they must go back to the sea and they have understood,” says Brigadier Jose Manavalan.

But it’s the fishermen from Akkaraipettai, the worst-hit village in Tamil Nadu, who are sending out a message to the rest of the country. The village was flattened by the tsunami and accounted for the largest number of casualties in Nagapattinam. Its name no longer carries a symbolic resonance for the fishermen — Akkarai refers to shore and pettai is a habitat — a habitat close to the shore.

The tsunami did make Akkaraipettai’s identity irrelevant, but it could not break the spirit of the people who lived here. Within eight days, this village put out three boats. Some fishermen went out for a joyride, braving the rough seas, their infectious self-belief conquering their new fears of the sea.

Beware of the Dragon

Beware of the dragon

Tehelka
December 18, 2004

Are the Chinese spying on India’s Tri-Service Command that is coming up in the Andaman and Nicobar islands?
VK Shashikumar
New Delhi


The Indian intelligence agencies have woken up to the increasing threat of Chinese espionage in Andaman and Nicobar. For the first time in a decade, a “fishing vessel” registered in Taipei as Yu Man Shing 20 with a mixed crew of Taiwanese and Chinese citizens infiltrated into Indian waters near Andaman. It was detected by the Coast Guard on October 28. While the Chinese embassy officials in New Delhi have declined to comment, Taiwan’s representative office has denied their citizens were involved in a spying mission.

Police in Andamans say that “it is difficult to say whether these fishermen were on a spying mission”. The deputy superintendent of police, Daya Shankar, said, “We have been getting reports of increasing foreign fishing activities in our exclusive economic zone. Their intention is to plunder our valuable maritime wealth. We recently seized two foreign trawlers and we have completed our investigation and the matter is now in the court.”

According to intelligence reports, more than 40 Chinese fishermen with suspicious identification papers have been arrested in the last couple of months. These fishermen have claimed that they had unknowingly entered India’s territory. The Chinese embassy has refused to meet its citizens and arrange the needed legal help.

The increasing presence of Chinese fishermen in Indian waters is a worrying sign because it is quite easy to carry surveillance equipment on fishing trawlers. With India’s Far Eastern Naval Command coming up in one of the islands near Andaman it is likely that the Chinese naval intelligence would attempt to mount magnetic resonance survey of the seabed in the region. Such a survey would indicate how friendly the sea waters are to submarines, the chemical composition of the seabed and other such strategic data.

According to Shankar, there were navigation instruments on Yu Man Shing. “These boats are long distance fishing trawlers and it’s natural for them to have navigation equipment. We have seized whatever equipment was on board and the naval authorities have made an inventory and handed it over to the court,” he said.

The Taipei authorities in New Delhi deny their citizens’ involvement in spying. “Do you think Taiwanese fishermen will spy on fishing vessels,” asks Simon Hsieh, spokesperson of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO). There is no official confirmation of how many days the fishing boat had stayed in Indian waters before being detected by the Coast Guard. The boat had 10 crew members — three Taiwanese and seven Chinese. Interestingly, though the boat was registered in Taiwan, it had more Chinese on board than Taiwanese.

In fact, the Taiwanese officials, who rushed to Port Blair on receiving information about the arrests, exposed the Chinese who were posing as Taiwanese. Given the hostile relations between Taipei and China, it is surprising how a Taiwanese boat had Chinese citizens on board. “The Chinese may have been smuggled out of mainland China,” Hsieh said. “The Chinese have a naval facility in Coco Islands and they may be more interested in spying than us. Our citizens were just ordinary fishermen,” he added.

WHY IS ANDAMAN KEY TO THE NAVY?
• China has claimed ownership of the whole of South China Sea. The western entry to South China Sea is from Nicobar
• It has increased naval presence in Myanmar’s waters
• India’s south-eastern trade routes border Myanmar’s territorial waters
• Andaman and Nicobar islands are closer to Myanmar shores than to mainland India
• A heightened naval presence will help India monitor shipping activity between the Far East and South Asia
• Pakistan has been smuggling guns to Bangladesh and Myanmar to arm Northeast militants through this route
The Taiwanese authorities have arranged lawyers to represent their citizens. “We respect the Indian judicial system and are awaiting the local court’s order. At the moment all the three Taiwanese citizens are out on bail and are staying in a hotel in Port Blair. Their families have also reached Port Blair and are with them. One of the officials from our office is also there to help them with legal formalities,” Hsieh said. The Taiwanese have paid Rs 50,000 bail surety for each of the three Taiwanese citizens. The chief representative of Taipei, Andrew Kao, has also intervened to secure his countrymen’s release.

However, the Chinese embassy has refused to claim their citizens. “There is nothing to be informed and nothing to be reported. This incident happened during the end of October and none of our citizens were involved. They are from Taiwan and not mainland China. The issue has been resolved,” Yang Shiying, first secretary (press), Chinese embassy, told Tehelka.

The Coco Islands of Myanmar that house a large Chinese naval facility is just 100 km from the northernmost point of the Land Fall Island, a part of the Andaman and Nicobar islands. In fact, the Myanmar mainland is barely 300 km from Andaman. The Coco Channel that separates the Land Fall Island from the Coco Islands has seen a rise in Chinese naval presence over the last few years.

China has claimed ownership of the whole of South China Sea. The eastern entry to South China Sea is from the Strait of Malacca and in the west, it is from Nicobar. The Chinese control the eastern islands along the Myanmar coast from Saint Mathew’s Island off Thailand, through Mergui, Coco Islands, Hyungi, Bassien right up to Ramree Islands. Clearly, the Chinese threat to Indian maritime interests is real and immediate.

The seizure of a Taiwanese vessel with Chinese crew on board from Indian waters has got the intelligence agencies worried
It was only after the discovery of Chinese naval facilities on the Myanmar coast in the 1990s that the Chinese threat was recognised. In fact, India is setting up the Tri-Service Command in Andaman. India already has some navy and air force facilities in the region.

The Andaman and Nicobar islands are strategic for India because these islands are closer to Myanmar than to mainland India. Moreover, India’s maritime south-eastern trade routes border Myanmar’s territorial waters, which have heavy Chinese naval presence. The linear geographical spread of these islands naturally creates a series of choke points. Therefore, a strong deployment of the navy would enable India to monitor shipping activity on the western entry to Singapore and track any activity between the Far East and Myanmar. The navy would also be able to track movement between Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

The Chinese have been exploiting the maritime resources of this region by taking advantage of Indian Navy’s absence. In fact, Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence has mastered the art of smuggling guns to Bangladesh and Myanmar to arm Northeast militant groups. Under these circumstances if Chinese “fishermen” transgress into Indian waters, 2,000 miles from the East China Sea and South China Sea, it cannot be merely seen as an act of “illegal fishing”.

The Sunderbans: KILLER ASSAULT

The Sunderbans: KILLER ASSAULT

Tehelka
October 23, 2004

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main7.asp?filename=Ne102304KILLER_ASSAULT.asp&id=1

Over 10,000 Sunderbans fishermen were evicted from Jambudwip Island by the West Bengal government. Why is the CPM annoying its own people to accommodate Sahara India’s tourism project? A report by VK Shashikumar. Photographs by Rana Chakravarty


The fishermen of Jambudwip Island in the sylvan Sunderbans have braved nature’s fury for decades but now their traditional behundi jal nets are caught in an epic battle with the corporate world. The 10,000-strong transient fishing community, hailing from the Jalia Kaibartha community of Chittagong Hills, migrated to the Indian side of the Sunderbans after Partition. For the last 50 years, these fishermen bring their catch from the high seas between October and February to Jambudwip Island in mechanised boats. The 1,950-hectare island lies eight km south west of Fraserganj.

The fishermen travel 30-40 km from Jambudwip to their fishing ground and bring home the catch. The island has a creek, which in high tide, has 10 feet of water, enough for the boats to enter the island’s natural harbour twice a day.

Apart from providing easy access to the boats, the creek is a vital shelter for fishermen caught in cyclones. Along the creek, a non-forest area spread over 100 hectares serves as the fish drying beds. As soon as the tide starts ebbing within half-an-hour of filling the creek, the catch is quickly unloaded here to dry. Then a group of transient fish workers dry and process the fish in a unique manner. (See ‘Officials don’t see fishermen here’)

Along with the receding tide, around 4,000 fishermen return to sea. In the drying beds, the fish workers dry the fish and process it as fishmeal and poultry feed. They live in temporary bamboo and reed shelters on the island.

On the other hand is leading corporate group Sahara India Pariwar which has entered into a joint venture with the Government of West Bengal to develop the Sunderbans. It defines the project thus:

“Sahara India Pariwar in a joint venture with the government of West Bengal is firm on developing the Sunderbans region into an ecologically, socially and economically sustainable destination through implementation of the Sunderbans (tourism) project, which is part of the Integrated Sahara Tourism Circuit in India.”

At first sight, everything looks hunky-dory. Sahara officials say that all land-based and floating facilities will be built in thickly populated areas. These facilities will be outside the Sunderbans Biosphere Reserve (sbr) Zone. According to a Sahara document on the tourism project, “the visitation to the restricted zone of SBR will be limited to day-time only and will be on prior permission and guided by personnel of the forest department…Further all locations and facilities are being developed in strict adherence to forest/wildlife conservation norms, coastal regulation zone norms and environmental pollution control norms.”


HOME AGAIN: on their return to Jambudwip after two years, fishermen offer their prayers
But the two storylines converge at Haribhanga Dwip (island). Though Sahara wants to develop this island as a “beach festival” resort, its partner, the government of West Bengal, would like to relocate fishermen from Jambudwip to this sandy island. More than 10,000 fishermen were evicted in 2002. But Haribhanga could not have been an alternative site because it’s not suitable. Two years later, the government wants to restore the fishing rights of the transient fishermen of Jambudwip. But it can’t because the entire controversy has landed up in the Supreme Court and, therefore, is sub-judice.

The grand tourism plan aims to bring well-heeled tourists from Kolkata to the Sunderbans in catamarans. There are three packages on offer: Pilgrimage, beach tourism and wild life tours and treks. The idea is to “enable tourists to experience the ambience of Sunderbans,” says Romi Dutta, head of Sahara’s Sunderbans Project. Another part of the plan is to “buy a ship and park it in a sheltered area of a small channel,” he added.

According to Dutta, the Rs 900-crore Sunderbans Project will spend two percent of the total project cost on socio-economic development of the region. “We will teach the fishermen canal fishery and methods to make proper nets,” he said.

“We are dealing with people and nature and so it’s sensitive. We want to teach people how to protect the environment,” said Dutta.

But why would Sahara want to teach these traditional and transient fishermen the fine art of fishing? The transient fishermen have an innate sense of prey-predator relationship. They have an intricate understanding of the tides and know how to track a shoal of fish. They know how to make nets that are biodegradable. They fish in the most ecologically sustainable manner without damaging the seabed or the marine ecology. At their transient fishing camps, they build a seasonal praying area—a reed temple dedicated to Ganga Ma and a dargah for Pir Badar, their patron saint.

What else will Sahara teach them?

The transient fishermen of Jambudwip believe that their eviction is deeply linked to Sahara’s proposed project. Fisheries Minister Kiranmoy Nanda affirms that he has received many representations from various fishermen’s associations that make this allegation.
Like the tide, the two storylines—of Sahara and the fishermen—have ebbed and eddied.

May 3, 2002: The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) wrote to all states and union territories to evict all forest encroachments that have taken place after 1980. The evictions were to be completed by September 30, 2002. This directive was issued in pursuance of Supreme Court’s order in 1996 in TN Godavarman Thirumalpad Vs Union of India. This order read with its directive of November 23, 2001 essentially means that any diversion of forestland for non-forest use is strictly prohibited unless approved by the MoEF. The Court also constituted a Central Empowered Committee (cec) to hear the grievances of those affected.

July-August 2002: The West Bengal Forest Department orders that the transient fishermen can’t use Jambudwip. Police swoop down on the fishermen and burn their boats, fishing gear and temporary shelters. Concrete pillars are put up at the mouth of the creek. This was a severe violation of the traditional fishing rights because the creek is the lifeblood of the behundi jal fishermen.

October 30, 2002: A memorandum of understanding between Sahara India Pariwar and WB government signed for a tourism project in the Sunderbans.


November 12, 2002: Hundreds of transient fishermen caught in a cyclone are denied entry to Jambudwip by armed forest guards and police personnel. Twelve fishermen died as two boats sank.

November 2002: Fishermen, galvanised by the National Fish Worker’s Forum, launch a protest on the sea. Thousands of fishermen in their boats congregate at the mouth of the creek. The Fisheries Ministry concedes that these fishermen have been using Jambudwip for more than 50 years and the seasonal use to the island cannot be construed as encroachment after 1980. In effect, the Fisheries Ministry of the WB government itself signals that the eviction of the fishermen from Jambudwip is illegal. A clear and deep rift emerges within the Government of West Bengal. Chief Secretary Ashok Gupta writes to the cec with a plea that it accept the wb government’s proposal to allow the fishermen to resume fish drying activities as an interim measure.

The West Bengal Forest Department takes a diametrically opposite stance: “Jambudwip Island including waterways is a reserved forest notified on May 29, 1943. Since there were no inhabitants, there are no recorded rights.” The Forest Department’s claim is untrue because the officials in the department did not bother to crosscheck the fact that the department had issued seasonal fishing permits for the last three decades. Moreover, fish-drying activities are permitted under the 1991 Coastal Regulation Zone Notification issued under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. The environment laws, including the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, also permit them the right of passage and recognises customary rights of the fishermen.

December 3, 2002: A cec team headed by P.V. Jayakrishnan, Mahendra Vyas, Siddharth Chowdhury (the last mentioned is an advocate and represented Harish Salve who is the Supreme Court’s amicus curiae for all forest related cases) visits Jambudwip. It concludes that the fish-drying activities of the transient fishermen in Jambudwip is a seasonal “occupation” of the island. Therefore, these activities are prohibited under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. It directed the WB government to crack down on any “encroachment.”

The cec’s report was intriguing because it admits that the fishermen have been using Jambudwip since 1960s for fish drying activities. “The use of the island gradually increased from a small number of fishermen in the ’60s to presently about 4,000 as per some estimates and 10,000 according to the representatives of the fishermen,” the report states. Technically, therefore, this activity does not fall under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. According to the cec, satellite imagery of the island from 1981 to 1991 shows deforestation and destruction of mangroves. The Forest Department, whose primary responsibility is to protect the forest, claims that the island is remote and difficult to reach. Besides, of the sanctioned strength of 57 forest guards nearly 55 percent posts are vacant, which has hampered protection of the reserved forest from encroachment.

So the easy way out was to blame the depletion of forests on the fishermen, who in fact are its saviours.

Satellite images of Jambudwip from 1981 to 2001 from the National Remote Sensing Agency (nrsa) have been furnished by the Forest Department as irrefutable proof of mangrove destruction to the Central Empowered Committee (cec). It is said that these images show dense mangrove cover except in areas that were allegedly cleared by the fishermen.

But the National Fish Workers’ Forum (nff) wants these images “to be independently and scientifically verified to be accepted as irrefutable proof of encroachment and deforestation, given that satellite imageries capable of showing deforestation to the extent of 200 hectares are possible only with liss III maps, which the nrsa has been producing only from 1998”. It should be recalled here that the fish workers use about 100 hectares out of the total area of 1,950 hectares.

It is also important to note that the fishermen are aware of the symbiotic relationship between the mangroves and fish catch.

The cec also suggests the implementation of the Forest Department’s recommendation that “Haribhanga Dwip (Lower Long Sand), a 500 hectare sandy outcrop, and Amravati char near Bakkhali be used for fish drying”.

But Haribhanga falls within the Marine Estuary Zone of the Sagar Marine Park (See Map). The island is part of the Sunderbans Biosphere Reserve. Here is an extract from the WB government’s Coastal Zone Management Plan drafted in 1996:

“These rich mangrove gene pools and their exported nutrient based offshore portage are fragile but highly productive ecosystems. They should be protected as a global resource from adverse impact such as excessive exploitation or degradation of marine resources, and pollution caused by indiscriminate discharge of dangerous chemicals and other industrial waste. This can be achieved through setting up of Protected Areas (pa) as Marine National Parks or Sanctuaries under the legal strength of Wildlife Protection Acts where monitoring the habitat also forms a part of the programme.”

The plan also specifies the exact nature of tourism in the Sunderbans. “Tourism will be organised in the proposed PA with an underlying intention for interpretation of marine ecosystem in this non-coralline marine PA.” One of the important steps that the government intended to take way back in 1996 when this plan was drafted was to declare “Lower Long Sand Island as a sanctuary to protect marine fauna”. In fact, no tourism activities like “beach festivals” as proposed by Sahara were envisaged because that would destroy the marine fauna. What was visualised was: “Lower Long Sand, Upper Long Sand, Lothian Island and Bhagabatpur crocodile farm will form tourist attractions.”

The island that cec suggested for relocating the seasonal activities of the transient fishermen is actually a sanctuary where only a limited number of day tourists would be given permits to visit. What has added to the murkiness of the cec directive is that wb government has agreed to Sahara’s tourism plans visualising Haribhanga or Lower Long Sand as a “beach festival” zone for affluent tourists.

Strangely, ngo representatives from World Wildlife Fund (India), Nature Environment and Wildlife Society and Project Lifeline met the cec in Kolkata and endorsed the use of Haribhanga as an alternative site for fish-drying activities. They knew very well that it is a reserved marine estuary zone, according to the Coastal Zone Management Plan of the Environment Department, where river dolphins are frequently spotted.

But the dolphins don’t seem to matter. Atanu Kumar Raha, Chief Conservator of Forests and director of the Sunderbans Biosphere Reserve says: “In July 2002, we cleared all the encroachments and told them to go to Haribhanga. It is outside the reserve forest and has long sandy beaches. It also has sweet water. It has some creeks where they can keep their trawlers and boats.”

But the cec report counters Raha’s claim on “sweet water” and says: “The Government of West Bengal should develop infrastructure facility such as construction of jetties and fresh water supply to promote Haribhanga Island as an alternative site to Jambudwip.”

Raha’s glib talk should be of serious concern to wildlife enthusiasts: “Lower Long Sand (Haribhanga Island) does not come within the biosphere reserve. There may be Irrawady River Dolphins in the vicinity, but there is other wildlife in the sea as well which is out of the Sunderbans Biosphere Reserve’s purview.”
But what queered the pitch was the cec’s formulation that Jambudwip is “the unofficial gateway to India”. According to the cec, the fishermen must obtain permission from the Union Ministries of Home and External Affairs for their activities.

Here’s the cec’s formulation:

“Being remotely located and not far from the Bangladesh border, the area is prone to incursions by aliens, illegal migrants from Bangladesh, smuggling of drugs and arms and other contraband items, reports of illegal fishing by trawlers from countries such as Thailand and other countries through what is aptly described as “Unofficial Gateway to India”. The problem is compounded by remoteness of the island where District Administration and the Forest Department due to resource constraints and shortage of staff have not been able to check of people’s movement in this area.”

Look at the map of the Sunderbans Delta once again. The land border is more porous and Jambudwip is 96 km from Bangladesh. One wonders how the island suddenly gets to be the unofficial gateway to India?

Jambudwip, with its mangrove cover and creek, is well suited to the needs of fishermen.

The mangrove cover is essential for refuge against cyclones. It needs to be stressed that the fishing season, from October to February, coincides with the period of maximum cyclones. It needs to be stressed that Haribhanga has no mangrove cover or, for that matter, any tree cover. It is mainly sand as its name suggests. It is, for that reason, highly exposed and vulnerable to cyclonic activity— the cyclone that hit Haribhanga in November 1973 killed all the 500-odd people present. Equally, important, navigability around the island is poor. There is no creek that can be used to land the catch. It is evident that it is completely unsuitable as an alternative location for fishermen.

It takes two years for the state government to admit that “the main reason for not choosing Haribhanga or other islands for fishermen is the lack of navigability and shelter for fishermen in those islands. In cyclonic storms, fishermen have no natural shelter facility in islands other than Jambudwip”. This admission comes in the form of an affidavit submitted by the wb government in the Supreme Court on March 8, 2004.

April 2003: The nff filed an interlocutory application in the SC challenging the cec’s report. The Court asked the wb government and the Government of India to file their responses to the nff application. The wb government responded in the most interesting manner possible. The Forest Department and the Fisheries Ministry filed affidavits that in effect challenged each other’s position. The Forest Department supported the cec order to evict fishermen and the Fisheries Ministry stated “it is the constitutional obligation of the State to protect the traditional transient fish drying rights of these fishermen”. Later the wb government recalled both affidavits and filed a revised one in support of the nff application.

August 25, 2003: Meanwhile, the Court issued a directive that “no trawler or mechanised boat shall enter the water adjoining Jambudwip Island until further orders”.
At this point in time another player entered this drama—the Home Department of the wb government. It issued a note that “in view of the aforesaid order of the Supreme Court there is no scope for fishing at all in the Jambudwip area…no trawler or mechanised boat shall enter the waters adjoining Jambudwip Island”. This order enraged Fisheries Minister Kiranmoy Nanda. He wrote a stinging note to the CM that the Home Department is “defective”.

He said: “In fact, in the order of the Supreme Court, operation of mechanised boats/trawlers has been banned until further order, but there is no restriction for traditional fishing by country boat or fish drying. Therefore, there cannot be any ban on fishing.”

October 15, 2003: Finally, with the approval of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, the government issued an order banning all fishing activities in the sea contiguous to Jambudwip. The next day, the police again cracked down on fishermen who had reached Jambudwip in their country boats to set up dry fish servicing operations. For the first time in more than five decades, the community of transient fishermen lost an entire season.

“There was an interim order of the Supreme Court that trawlers will not be allowed. But our fishermen went in country boats. Yet, the police destroyed everything. Even utensils were thrown into the sea. And temporary dwellings and boats were burnt. But the court had not banned fish drying activities,” said Nirmalendu Das, a veteran campaigner for fish workers’ rights in Kakdwip.

The fishermen claim that the Court’s order did not take into account the fact that mechanised boats are used only for transporting the catch to Jambudwip.

The behundi jal fishing is not trawling. Mechanised boats without winches and other fishing equipment are merely anchored in the high seas. Fish caught in the behundi jal is then hauled manually and then transported to Jambudwip Island. Coincidentally, Sahara’s tourism season overlaps the fishing season. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Sahara officials like Rahul Verma, who are liaising with the government of West Bengal, claim that “at the moment we have no such plans (to enter the fishing sector), but it is a possibility at a later stage”. Is the government privatising traditional fishing in Sunderbans?

According to Romi Dutta, “the plan involves setting up a Marine Interpretation Centre and a Mangrove Interpretation Centre that will help fishermen with modern methods of fishing. It can also be a tourist attraction.” Dutta says that the project will also try to improve and modernise the Bhagabatpur crocodile centre and bring it to international standards.

November 28, 2003: Sahara India Tourism Development Corporation Limited (sitdcl) was formed through a memorandum of agreement. This is the joint venture of Sahara and wb government.

January 28, 2004: Sahara claims that a public hearing was held at Ramganga for getting ‘No Objection’ from locals.
March 2004: Sahara receives a ‘No Objection Certificate-Consent to Establish’ (noc-cte) received from West Bengal State Pollution Control Board.
July 30, 2004: According to an internal Sahara note, it received the environmental clearance from the Department of Environment, WB government. The company claims “this clearance came only after stringent evaluation of the Comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment by an eia (environment impact assessment) Appraisal Committee”.

September 14, 2004: In an affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court, the MoEF has demanded from the wb government “to clarify the point that what alternate sites were used and whether they are available for fish drying activities”.

For the last two years, the behundi jal fishermen have been unable to fish because of the ban. Therefore, even fish drying activities have come to a complete halt. The government has claimed these activities are going on in alternative sites. But where are these sites?

Fishermen’s eviction will finish Jambudwip forests’

The forests of Jambudwip remain intact despite illegal felling of trees because of the vigil mounted by the fishermen, says West Bengal Fisheries Minister Kiranmoy Nanda in an interview to VK Shashikumar.

West Bengal’s fishing community is one of the Left Front’s core support bases in the state and the community feels let down by your government…
In this state the entire inland water body has been entrusted to the fishermen community. While inland fishing is under our jurisdiction, marine fishing does not fall within the territory of the state. The control of any fishing activity beyond 12 nautical miles from the territory of the state is vested with the Government of India.

But there are specific issues with regard to the alienation of fishing rights from the fishermen’s community…
Our policy is that fishing rights should be vested with the fishermen. All the states’ rivers and water bodies have been entrusted with the fishing community. Even though the Centre handles marine fishing rights, the fact is that more than 2 lakh people in the state are working in the marine fishing sector.

If the rights of the fishermen are a top priority for the state government why were fishermen debarred from using Jambudwip for fish-drying?
I have been the fisheries minister since 1982 and I know for sure that the fishermen have traditional rights to use a part of the non-forest land in Jambudwip for a variety of activities related to fishing. They have been using this island seasonally for the last 51 years. All of a sudden this dispute arose. I don’t know the reason behind it.

There seems to be some discord within the state government because the chief conservator of forests, who is also director, Sunderbans Biosphere Reserve, claims that the fishermen have been cutting down trees in the island…
The fishermen operate in a well-defined area of 100 hectares because the area they have chosen is outside the reserve forest. Not a single tree has ever grown in this patch of land on Jambudwip. Let me be categorical in stating that the forests of Jambudwip remain protected despite illegal felling of trees because of the vigil mounted by the transient fishermen community. It is because of them that whatever forest remains on the island is intact. Let me also make it clear that no other forest in Sunderbans could be saved from the poachers who have been destroying the forests and, thereby, the ecology of this great biosphere reserve. But in Jambudwip, out of the 1,950 hectares, 1,800 hectares are still forests.

So the credit for saving the forest cover in Jambudwip goes to the transient fishermen community…
Certainly. No other forest in Sunderbans has been saved like that of Jambudwip and the credit goes to the fishermen community. They are the main protectors of Jambudwip and the reason is simple. This island plays the role of a lifesaver during depressions in the Bay of Bengal. The transient fishermen do not return to the mainland even once during the fishing season from October to February. They are out on the high seas during the entire season, catching fish and transporting it to Jambudwip for drying and processing. In the eventuality of a cyclone, they head straight for Jambudwip and the forest cover in the island protects them. Jambudwip is their lifesaver and how can anybody say that they are cutting down its forests? Anthropologists have documented their ways of life and one important ritual they follow is the worship of trees. They pray before setting out to fish. The fishermen worship the trees of Jambudwip like God.

And yet they are blamed for illegal felling of trees?
Sometimes bands of poachers illegally cut trees. There have been instances when the fishermen community caught and handed over poachers to forest guards. There are not enough personnel to monitor illegal felling of trees in Sunderbans, including the island of Jambudwip. As a result, the fishermen are blamed. We must not forget that they are the main protectors of the forests.

But the fishermen have been evicted from Jambudwip…
Their eviction means that the character of the island’s forests will be finished very soon like other islands. For this reason, the state government has decided to give 100 hectares of land to the fishermen and restore their fishing rights. The government has recommended it and the proposal has been sent to the forest department, which will in turn send a formal proposal to the Government of India. At the same time, the chief secretary has submitted an affidavit in favour of the fishermen to the Supreme Court. We are awaiting the court’s decision.

Meanwhile, 10,000 fishermen and their families are struggling to eke out a living…
Yes, Jambudwip’s seasonal use generated employment for more than 10,000 fishermen, which is their only livelihood. I think nowhere in India have poor people been evicted from one place in accordance with the directions of the Central Empowered Committee attached to the Union ministry of environment and forests.

Is the state government willing to relocate the fish-drying activities in Jambudwip to the inaccessible sandy island called Haribhanga?
We don’t want to shift the fishermen to Haribhanga. But their right to fish in the high seas and their traditional use of Jambudwip for fish processing activities depend on the final verdict of the Supreme Court.

Is the Sahara tourism project in any way connected with the troubles of the fishermen?
I can’t talk about the Sahara project. But according to media reports, it seems the project has been dropped. But what I can tell you clearly is that nobody consulted my department when the Sahara tourism project report was made.

So Sahara officials did not contact you despite the fact that fisheries constitute the primary livelihood of the people living in Sunderbans?
Nobody contacted or consulted my department or me. I would also like to tell you that I have been visited by delegations from many fishermen’s associations. They have all submitted memorandums against the Sahara project. But since I have not seen the detailed project report, I am not in a position to evaluate whether the Sahara tourism project will adversely affect the poor fishing community. So I shall refrain from making comments on the issue.

So what’s your final take on the Jambudwip controversy?
Fishing rights are the birthright of the fishermen community and one should not interfere with well-defined traditional fishing rights. For more than half a century, the transient fishermen of Jambudwip have fished in the high seas and dried the catch on the island. They have established their rights for livelihood by consistently engaging in a well-defined fishing activity. This activity has been studied and documented by the Anthropological Survey of India. Therefore, their rights should not be encroached. They should not be driven out. If that happens it will be an act of injustice. It will indeed be a gross violation of human rights.

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK
In the eye of a cyclone
VK Shashikumar

The flickering lantern lit up parts of Shishu Ranjan Das’s face. The faint flame spread to frame a group of fishermen, sitting around him. He sat cross-legged and remarkably still, occasionally taking a deep bidi puff, as he narrated a tragic story.

“It was a normal day right in the middle of the fishing season. November 12, 2002. There was no warning. air weather reports had predicted a clear day. Suddenly, the weather turned rough.

We knew that we had been caught unawares by a cyclone.”

“Some boats headed to Jambudwip to escape the cylcone. When we neared the creek, we were turned away by armed policemen and forest guards. They just pointed their guns at us. The government had erected pillars on the creek and iron chains were drawn from one pillar to another.”

Lakhikanta Das, ‘master’ of one of the boats that drowned, recounted his harrowing story. “The storm was raging and the sea was a monster. Two boats went down that day and twelve of our people died.”

I was baffled. Why weren’t the fishermen allowed to enter Jambudwip? Had the West Bengal government offered any explanations to the families? Why had Jambudwip become out of bounds? “Ask him,” Shishu Ranjan, who also heads the Jambudwip Dryfish Fishermen Association, said as he pointed at the man sitting next to him.
Sukh Lal, another veteran association member, took over the narration. “We have been traditionally using the Jambudwip Island for fish drying. In fact, we recall the elderly men in our community talking about Dr. Bikash Raychaudhuri (a well-known anthropologist) who stayed at Jambudwip during the 1967-68 fishing season and recorded their unique fishing and fish drying methods. There are two components of this transient fishing community—those who spend the entire six months on the high seas and others who stay here to dry fish.”

“But suddenly in 2002, government officials told us that we can no longer use the island. For two years, we have been suffering.” Those who used to eat twice a day now eat just once. Schoolchildren have dropped out and are now working. Even girls in the community have found their marriage prospects diminishing.

At the sub-divisional magistrate’s office in Kakdwip I witnessed an angry demonstration led by Sankari Mistry. “Fishermen are now working as head load workers, their wives as household help in the city. How will we live without Jambudwip?” asked Mistry.

I did not know what to tell her, so I headed to the SDM’s office. There I met Nirmalendu Das, a retired schoolteacher and a veteran activist. He was submitting a memorandum to sdm Santanu Saha: “We are here as representatives of Jambudwip’s transient fishermen and our representation to you is ‘please allow us dry fish at Jambudwip’. We want the Chief Minister to hear our voice through you.” Saha said that he was bound by the government’s orders and he would try his best.

“We are fighting a losing battle,” Sukh Lal said angrily. “The cpi (m) cadre and local leaders told us so,” added Shishu Ranjan Das. “They cpi (m)…the party men told us that Sahara is coming to Sunderbans with a big tourism project and that’s why Jambudwip has been closed for dry fish activities,” Das continued. Suddenly the eviction, protests, uncaring bureaucracy, everything took a different perspective. I rushed back to Saha and asked him, “What is the Sahara tourism project all about?”

“Sunderbans has a rich tourism potential. The sky is the limit. But the economy will get a boost and in the long term it will be for the betterment of the people living in this region,” he said, adding, “They (Sahara) have acquired around 800 acres over three regions of Sunderbans.” Later I crosschecked this information with the land acquisition department. I met Baidyanath Mandal, additional district magistrate, South 24 Parganas. “No, the land acquisition process is not complete. The notification has not yet been issued and in any case land acquisition takes one year.” But other sources said Sahara has been granted environmental clearance and permissions for land acquisition.

I was told that Sahara plans to organise a boat cruise for high-spending tourists from Kolkata to the Sunderbans through the Ganga river channel. “The cruise would go past dense reserve forest like the Lothian Island,” said Saha. This 38 sq km-island is covered by thick mangroves and is home to estuarine crocodiles. Olive Ridley turtles, spotted deer, wild boar and rhesus macaque are some of the other species here.

Strangely, there is consternation in the wb government’s Fisheries Department. A representative of the National Fish Workers Forum assures me that the “the anxiety is not driven by the proposed Sahara golf course in Lothian island, but the timing of the tourist season”. The best time to visit the Sunderbans reserve is September to March, which overlaps with the fishing season. But there are other coincidences as well. Sahara’s boats cruises are close to Jambudwip. “It only takes 35 minutes on modern boats to reach Jambudwip from Frasergunj (see map). The island is close to the Sahara project and the navigation route that will connect the various islands,” revealed sources in the Forest Department. In fact, someone pulled out a diagrammatic representation of the Sahara Project from the detailed project report (dpr) and gave it to me for substantiation (see diagram).

But there is another direct connection of the eviction of 10,000 fishermen from Jambudwip to the Sahara tourism project—Lower Long Sand or Haribhanga. This sand flat invariably finds itself in the eye of cyclonic storms.

Lakhikanta Das, who lost two of his crew, is upset. He says: “We want the government to line us up and order a firing squad to execute us. But please don’t ask us to give up our lives to cyclones. We can’t risk taking it to Haribhanga to dry it. We will all die.” On November 10, 1973 a cyclonic storm had washed away an entire community of fisherfolk; 500 perished that day.

I decided that I had to visit Jambudwip and Haribhanga to complete the loop in this tale of misery and violation of human rights.

But this was easier said than done. As no fishermen had been to Jambudwip for over two years, the navigators had no clue whether the navigation channels were the same as they were earlier. Unless one is sure of the channel, a boat could be run aground by the heavy currents in the bay.

After a lot of coaxing, I hired a boat and we set off to Jambudwip at a steady 10 km per hour. On board were Shishu Ranjan Das, Sukh Lal and many other fishermen. Suddenly, there were shouts as Jambudwip came into view.

A small speck of green loomed in the distance. The excitement faded as they saw the bald patches. “The government told us that one of the reasons for our eviction is that we have indulged in illegal felling. We told them that their allegation is untrue. We actually protect the forest. We haven’t been to this island for two years and look how it has been stripped of trees,” says Shishu Ranjan.

We clamber into a smaller boat with an outboard motor. As the “phut phutti” beaches on the clayey soil of the island, the fishermen jump out and start praying. “Before the fishing season starts, we offer a puja at Jambudwip. Even that right has been snatched from us. This is the first time we have dared to come here. If we are caught, we will all be jailed,” explained Babul Das, a fisherman.

I saw the creek barred with concrete pillars. There was just one family, which had been there for the last 70 days. It was the temple pujari who had sneaked in to offer prayers on behalf of the fishermen.

It was time to move on to Haribhanga. The lovely sandy island is the perfect getaway for those who can afford it. I could see why Sahara wanted to stage beach festivals here. “We will create a festive atmosphere here,” confirmed Rahul Verma, senior project manager, Sahara India Tourism Development Corporation Limited.

Youth from the fishing community come to this island to make the transition from boys to men. As I walked around the tiny island, I came across Tapas Sinha from Midnapore district. “I have come here to become a man because staying in this island means that one must be ready to face death at all times,” he said. He had come with two months’ stock of water and provisions.

As we headed back, the enormity of the subterfuge came crashing down on me. For years, the fishermen brought their catch for processing. Suddenly, the government barred access to the island and relocated them to Haribhanga—an island completely unsuitable.

But the government gave Sahara the green signal to use the island as a day tourism beach resort. This made the relocation plan redundant in the long run. So why did the government relocate them to Haribhanga?

The net result: 10,000 fishermen out of work, their families hungry and poor.

India: West’s Dustbin

India: West’s Dustbin

Tehelka/September 18, 2004

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main6.asp?filename=ts091804india_west.asp

European countries are shipping tonnes of hazardous garbage to India in the guise of paper waste. VK Shashikumar reports

European countries are exporting ‘garbage’ to India in the guise of paper waste. This was discovered in December 2003 when an official of the Netherlands Inspectorate for the Environment based in Rotterdam, Louis van der Ploeg, contacted the Ministry of Environment and Forests (moef) and filed a sensitive piece of information. He informed the moef that he had intercepted approximately 40 containers of what appeared to be garbage en route to India from Ireland.
The dumping ground: household waste from Ireland found in a container at a Mumbai port Tehelka possesses documents revealing that the invoices with the containers indicated the materials were “paper waste” but the Dutch Inspectorate discovered that the commodity was not paper waste but smelly garbage: paper/cardboard, pet bottles, plastics, beer cans, food cans, milk cartons (tetrapack), textile and food rests. It smelt like household waste and also had black flies.
The garbage packed in 40 containers was destined for the Nhava Sheva Port, Mumbai. It was exported by Barna Waste Recycling, a waste disposal firm in Ireland. The final destination in the consignments is Well Pack Papers & Containers Limited, Block Number 2023, Kalol-Vamaj Road, Gandhi- nagar, Gujarat.
Paper waste is imported into India on a fairly large scale. In Gujarat, there are at least 40 units in the Vapi industrial estate alone processing waste paper for manufacture into cartons and corrugated sheets, 95 percent of these units imported their raw material (waste paper) from the developed countries. The import of paper waste into India is not banned under any law as yet.
However, the Basel Convention covers such wastes under the category ‘household wastes and other wastes’. In the late 1980s, a tightening of environmental regulations in industrialised countries led to a rise in the cost of hazardous waste disposal. Searching for cheaper ways to get rid of the wastes, ‘toxic traders’ began shipping hazardous waste to developing countries and to Eastern Europe. When this activity was revealed, international outrage led to the drafting and adoption of the Basel Convention.
Six countries of the European Union (eu) have set up a project called the Seaport Project for the express purpose of implementing the provisions of the Basel Convention on Transboundary Movement of Hazardous and Other Wastes and parallel eu legislation. One outpost of this project is the Netherlands Inspectorate for the Environment, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
The moef, promptly responded to the Dutch communication and informed the Inspectorate that it had not approved the import of garbage from any country. It indicated the containers should be sent back to the country of origin.
The Inspectorate acted on these instructions and the 40 containers were sent back to Ireland. On their return, Barna Waste filed an application with moef, seeking approval for exporting the same waste to India. In the application, the Irish company enclosed a copy of a certificate of approval issued by the Kalol Municipality in Gujarat stating they had no objection to the import and that the importer had a facility to recycle the wastes.
According to the Dutch official, Ploeg, who tipped off the moef about the garbage export to India, the Netherlands Inspectorate had received from Barna Waste Recycling a notification in March 2004 with a letter of the Galway County Council Ireland that they have “no objection to the transport of household waste from Ireland to India.” Attached was a signed declaration with permission of Kalol Municipality’s Solid Waste Management Authority, Gujarat.
“The Dutch environmental authority forbid this transit shipment but this will not solve anything as the shipments may continue via other ports into Europe. We are very concerned about the fact that the household waste will be dumped in India,” wrote Ploeg to the moef.

THE TOXIC TRADERS List of importers involved in the import of garbage from European countries: Haria Exports Pvt. Ltd., 42 Deliwala Building, 3rd floor, 51 Dariyasthan Street, Vadgai, Mumbai One-Up International, 3 Kapurwala Building, Ground Floor, 218/220, Samuel Street, Vadgadi, Mumbai Nathani Paper Mills Ltd., B-201, Angelina Apartments, Sarojini Road, Vile Parle (W), Mumbai-400056 Daman Ganga Papers Ltd., Survey 1525 GIDC Ambheti, via Vapi-Koparli road, Gujarat-396191 M/s Gautam Enterprises, C7/57-59, Mrigasir Complex, Opposite Advance Complex NH#8, GIDC, Vapi-396195 M/s Shah Pulp and Paper Mills Ltd., Plot No. 97 Silvassa Road, GIDC, Vapi- 396195 Gujarat Radhe Global Trade Associates, 1/B Motinagar Society, Kalol, 382721 Gujarat Murli Agro Products Ltd., Jai Bhawani Society CA, 101, Nagpur Source: Report of Supreme Court Hazardous Wastes Monitoring Committee, June 6, 2004

Over in Ireland, Barna Waste, the facility that made the formal application to the moef, has an agreement (disclosed on their website) with the local municipal body it was servicing that it will process/recycle all the wastes it collects from the municipal area and whatever minimal cannot be recycled, will be sent to a secured landfill. In actual fact, the facility was busy exporting wastes to countries like India.
On January 13 this year, another 11 containers of household waste materials were discovered by customs officers and employees of the Inspectorate for Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment in Rotterdam. The consignment consisted of domestic waste materials originating from Ireland.
The Inspectorate found that the company, cvb Ecologistics bv, Netherlands, had brought the waste materials with the intention of shipping them to India. This consignment of waste materials was transported in violation of ‘Regulation 259/93’ of the European Regulation on the supervision and control of shipments of waste within, into and out of the European Community.
Three days later the Dutch Inspectorate requested the company to return the waste materials to Ireland. The company complied and returned 10 containers to Ireland but one container, gatu-8112325, by error was loaded onto the MS Safmarine Hymalaya and arrived at Nhava Sheva Port, Mumbai. The shipping company, Maersk Sealand, promised to return this container to Rotterdam.

Informed by the Dutch again, the Nhava Sheva Customs blocked the container, sent the papers through the routine adjudication process and fined the company Rs 10,000 for bringing the container to India. On instructions from the Supreme Court’s Monitoring Committee (scmc) Hazardous Wastes, the container’s re-transport to Rotterdam was held over for a few days so that pictures could be taken of the consignment.
The scmc on Hazardous Wastes is examining the implementation of directions issued by the Indian Supreme Court in connection with indigenously generated hazardous wastes and wastes covered by the Basel Convention. On June 4, 2004 the container was sealed and early next day was loaded on a ship back to Rotterdam. Given the large scale import of garbage as ‘paper waste’ the scmc members have conveyed to the customs officials the need to ensure that “henceforth every container of ‘paper waste’ imported is physically opened and inspected to ensure that it contained only paper and no other material.”
The moef is still engaged in finding out the extent of garbage dumping in India. It is apparent that Nhava Sheva is an entry point of garbage exported from European countries. The moef has been receiving applications from European countries seeking permission to export waste, which contains 97 percent paper.
For instance, in January 2004, m&b Haulage and Waste Paper Co. Ltd, Low Mills, Ravensthrope Dewsbury wf 13, 3 lx, filed an application with the moef seeking permission to export waste to India. That application, however, did not mention which company in India was importing the waste. According to the ministry’s own assessment the company must be seeking its permission because the uk authorities after discovering these illegal practices of sending garbage to India are cracking down on the waste management companies.
In fact, on February 20, 2003 the moef received a notification from Matt Williamson, Notification officer, Essex, Environmental Agency, Suffolk. The letter says that the officials had intercepted 19 containers carrying mixed waste on November 21, 2002 on its way to Rama Newsprint, Surat. The waste originated in England/Wales. The company exporting the waste was not named but the containers were not allowed to be shipped to India.
The moef, after receiving the letter, asked Gujarat Pollution Control Board (gpcb) to take action against Rama Newsprint. The company was issued a notice by gpcb after discovery of imported waste, which must have come earlier. The company was closed, but neither moef nor gpcb know what happened to the waste after its closure.

Paedophilia: Crackdown Begins In Goa; Sin in Paradise--II

ACTION AT LAST

Tehelka
August 21, 2004

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main5.asp?filename=Ne082104ACTION.asp


After the initial stonewalling, Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has woken up and announced a slew of measures to check paedophilia in the state. The police have launched a crackdown on pederasts. Known child abusers have gone into hiding. Local bodies, including the Church and colleges, are launching awareness campaigns to educate the local population about child abuse by foreigners. VK Shashikumar and Mayabhushan Nagvenkar report


TIME UP: Jorg Harry Ringelmann avoids reporters after being served deportation orders
The Tehelka exposé on tourism-related paedophilia caught Manohar Parrikar’s BJP-led government in Goa off-guard. Leading TV news channel Aaj Tak broadcast the exposé on August 5 and, around the same time, the full 40-minute film was screened for a select gathering of top Goan police officers. The next day the Tehelka investigative film, The Nexus of Silence, was screened for the public in Caritas Holiday Home, Panjim. It was also telecast on a local cable channel. Finally, Parrikar had to bow to public pressure and announce a series of measures to check child sex tourism in Goa. The cm also said that he would release the Ric Wood report on child sex tourism in Goa this week. This is the first substantive move on Parrikar’s part after his bizarre reaction at a press conference where he implied that the Tehelka sting was carried out at the behest of pederasts. “The Ric Wood report mentions that ‘such’ broadcasts by the news channels is just the kind of modus that have been used by paedophiles to popularise child sex tourism destinations,” Parrikar had claimed. “More paedophiles would now flock to Goa’s shores,” he added.

A day after the screening, Deputy Inspector General Narinder Singh Randhawa claimed that Jorg Harry Ringelmann, a suspected paedophile, had fled to Mumbai. Suddenly Ringelmann returned on Monday, claiming that he had gone on a tour to Mumbai and Pune. The moment he arrived he was escorted to the North Goa district police headquarters, where Additional Superintendent of Police AK Gawas served a deportation order on him. He was asked to report again the following day with his residential permit and a confirmed ticket to his native country, Germany.

Television channels caught Ringelmann hiding behind his file of documents. He had a tough time as he tried to avoid the local press that had gathered at the Porvorim police station. While the police authorities were not willing to speak officially on the issue, sources informed that Ringelmann would be deported, as he was an “undesirable element” with incomplete documentation to support his claims on both the girls he was living with.

Interestingly, Ringelmann’s lawyer, Vilas Thaly, is a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh member and the state’s former additional advocate general, with a penchant for controversies. Thaly told a private news channel that he would challenge the deportation order issued by the police. One of the points Ringelmann emphatically made during his meeting with sp Gawas was that his ‘wife’ Dimple was six months pregnant and that he planned to start a restaurant in Chopdem. Police sources claim that the deportation order is only a consequence of some malpractices committed by the German in his business and has nothing to do with paedophilia.

There is another question that needs an answer. What happens to his ‘adopted’ daughter Mallika? Speaking off-the-record to a reporter from Goa 365, a cable news bulletin, she expressed her desire to come out of Ringelmann’s clutches and requested the reporter to rescue her. She also said she was uncertain about her future. The local cable channel immediately made a representation to dig Randhawa. Its editor, Rajesh Singh, wrote a letter to the police, requesting them to look into the matter. The very fact that Ringelmann is being deported means he is not being charged here for paedophilia. This despite dig Randhawa’s admission that the police had received information in April 2003 that “one foreign national by name of Ringelmann ‘John’ Harry, German national, holder of passport No. 5041803573 is suspected to be involved in paedophile activities.” If the police can’t even get the name of a suspected paedophile right how can they be expected to enforce the law. Therefore, Ringelmann’s illegal adoption of Mallika and his paedophilic activities in India will go unrecorded. In fact, Mallika was picked up by the police late on Tuesday night and put in a government-run shelter home for children.

And what of Dimple? Will the fraudulent marriage documents enable her to travel abroad with Ringelmann? Or will she stay with her parents? Police authorities have refused to speak to Tehelka on record vis-a-vis the Ringelmann affair.

The D’Mellos — Lucy and James — who harboured French paedophile Bernard’s victim were the first to be picked up by the Crime Branch. Sanju was the victim of Dreyfus Bernard Jean Paul. After claiming initially that Bernard was in Rajasthan, the police have now concluded otherwise. “The French national had arrived in India in October 2003 and had stayed in a flat in Goa for a month and reportedly left Goa in December 2003. He was reportedly moving with a boy during his stay. Police, despite making efforts, could not locate the minor boy,” says dig Randhawa.

Despite police questioning, no arrests have been made yet in the D’Mellos case. The police have raised a wall of secrecy around the D’Mello family episode. There is no word as to whether efforts have been made to deny a visa for Bernard the next time he plans to travel to India. After being hauled up for questioning a couple of times, Lucy and D’Mello were let off. Tehelka reporters had tracked down the D’Mellos, who had for small amounts of money, harboured the French paedophile Bernard’s victim Sanju.

An hour after midnight last Sunday, the police raided the house of another suspected paedophile, Theodore Wilhem Anema, profiled in the Tehelka exposé. Theo claimed that he had already written to the Directorate of Women and Children Welfare officially informing them about the two children he was moving around with. The two children who were being fostered by Theo have been withdrawn from his custody and sheltered at Bal Niketan. Members of the Crime Branch questioned Theo, before he was allowed to go following his disclosure that his ‘adoption deed’ had been registered with the Directorate of Women and Children Welfare. Why hadn’t the directorate verified Theo’s antecedents? Why wasn’t the ‘adoption deed’ scrutinised when the law unambiguously states that for any adoption to be legal there must be a court order signed by the magistrate?

Theo had picked up two boys from the streets of Mumbai and had brought them to Goa. The boys had been kept at a residence in Sangolda. The Calangute police had conducted a ramshackle inquiry, which had proved that “Theo was taking fatherly care of the children”. The victims had been brought to the Calangute police station and interrogated. All these go against the very tenets of investigations into child sex crimes.

Another paedophile profiled by Tehelka, David Meredith Vagg, has shut out the world from his life for an entire week. He has not stepped out of his house and is not taking phone calls. This elderly British national and a long running paedophile suspect on the Crime Branch list is just hoping that the storm passes by. His Fiat Peugeot with a Maharashtra registration was parked outside in the compound. When a Tehelka reporter went to meet him, Vagg refused to open the door of his residence despite repeated requests. Vagg is clearly shown as a suspected paedophile in a Goa police document, which is in Tehelka’s possession.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Parrikar claimed that the exposé had been carried at the behest of a rival tourist destination, seeking to divert Goa’s tourist traffic towards its shores. He also argued that since Tehelka could list only a few tourism-related paedophilia cases in its five-month-long investigation, it was proved that the issue was not grave in the state.

After spinning face-saving tales, the chief minister cautiously began a process of backtracking on his off-the-cuff reactions. It remains to be seen whether he will actually release the full version of the Ric Wood report or make only certain portions of the report public. In 2001, Ric Wood, a former Scotland Yard police officer, had been commissioned by the British authorities to track down paedophiles in Goa. Within two weeks Wood had compiled a dossier on 37 international paedophiles operating in Goa, more than half of who were British. The report had been put on the backburner by the Parrikar regime, fearing that disclosure of its findings would have an adverse impact on the tourism revenue earned by Goa.

Among the first measures that the Parrikar government announced was a decision to ask the Central government to put in place a system whereby police authorities can track the arrival of a suspected paedophile in India. Earlier, in his immediate reaction to the exposé, he had admitted the government’s inability to keep a proper tab on foreigners entering the state from other states. He spoke about the need for an interlinking of passport checking systems at airports all over the country for easy verification of the antecedents of visiting foreigners.

TEHELKA IMPACT
Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar announces he will release Ric Wood report
Any child living with foreigners will be kept at Bal Niketan.
Government asks Department of Women and Child Development to compile a comprehensive list of orphanages and shelter homes in the state
Parrikar moots interlinked passport checking systems all over the country.
l He sets a deadline for setting up of children’s courts
Government orders deportation of Jorg Harry Ringelmann
Police rescue Ringelmann’s illegally adopted daughter Mallika and place her in a state-run shelter home
Authorities interrogate victim Sanju’s harbourers Lucy and James D’Mello
Statewide search for Sanju launched
Police question another paedophile Theo Anema
Two children fostered by Theo Anema taken to Bal Niketan



He also said that all children living with foreigners would be sheltered in Bal Niketan, a children’s home run by the state government. But the government has not announced a follow-up plan. Will these children be looked after by the state? Who will fund their education and livelihood expenses? So much for his gung ho statements earlier, claiming there was no evidence of organised and widespread paedophiles in the state.

Parrikar has also instructed the Directorate of Women and Child Welfare to compile a comprehensive list of orphanages and shelter homes, clearly implying that the department did not have such a list in its possession. The chief minister also announced Diwali as the deadline for setting up a children’s court to try crimes registered under the Goa Children’s Act, 2003.

Finally, the cm admitted that the police force in Goa needed to be sensitised to deal with child abuse. According to him, so far policemen have been insensitive in dealing with such crimes. He also said that local communities should be sensitive to paedophilia cases and report instances of child abuse to the police.

The chief minister’s admissions after an initial bout of stonewalling shows that Tehelka exposé has stirred the local administration to crack down on pederasts who have turned Goa into a haven for child sex tourism.

The Archdiocese of Goa has decided to screen the film in all its 156 parishes throughout the state, starting with coastal Goa first. Father Valeriano Vaz, director of Caritas, has chalked out a plan of action that involves energising the social action groups of each parish by first screening the film and then holding a discussion on the issue of tourism-related paedophilia. By the end of this year, the Tehelka film, The Nexus of Silence, will be screened in 50 parishes in coastal Goa and then will move on to the other parishes. With the main tourism season scheduled to start in Goa next month, this community initiative will mobilise the local people to help the local authorities to crack down on sex abuse of children by visiting foreigners.

Another instance of a community movement as a result of the Tehelka exposé is the screening of the film across colleges in Goa. A film club in Goa run by concerned citizens and teachers is organising it. The first screening of the film is on Thursday, August 12.

Voices
We plan to screen the documentary in all the 156 parishes in Goa and spread awareness about paedophilia. This film was an eye opener for me. The apathy of the society towards this issue is appalling. There is no judicial or political will to tackle this evil. If people wake up and take this issue seriously, even the government, however reluctant it may be, will have to rise to the ccasion.
Father Valerian Vaz
Director,
Caritas Goa


‘Disseminate information on paedophilia’

Roland Martins
The Tehelka expose has revealed a gaping hole in the way non-governmental organizations function in Goa. The ngos need to participate in various forums that the government provides, like village children’s committees, which is an integral part of the Goa Children’s Act (as required under Section 13, Sub section 8). There are around 190 village panchayats in Goa, and participation in these committees can be crucial.

Along Goa’s coastal belt, we have been asking for setting up of tourism and beach management committees. We also demand that citizens volunteers to be part of these committees and that they be trained on the various aspects of the problem. Like, the type of crimes committed on children, profiles of paedophiles and the various laws and treaties under which action can be taken locally, nationally and internationally.

There are various guilds involved in tourism trade, but there is no forum for them at the village level. Information on paedophilia needs to be disseminated at every possible level through such committees for effective action. Take, for example, the All Goa Shack Owners Association. Similar trade bodies can be used to channelise dissemination of information all the way down to the villages.

The tourism department, as well as the police, needs to be attuned to the needs of tackling such a crime. While setting up of a child protection unit is of acute importance for a proper concerted movement, the tourism department needs a senior nodal officer to tackle drug abuse and paedophilia. The manner in which former tourism director Suryanarayana was caught by Tehelka’s sting shows how the government merely talks about the problem but has no action plan to
trouble-shoot it.

At the community level, only few locals are aware of implications of trafficking. Ground level bureaucracy like the mamledar, magistrates etc need to be sensitized. Since eco tourism is being widely propagated as the next frontier for tourism, paedophiles will now find an easier way to move in, as eco tourism takes foreigner directly
into villages where the economic conditions of villagers is worse than their counterparts on the coast. The concept of an active village level committee will be very important as a counter measure. That’s where awareness must start from.

The author is the Co-ordinator, Goa Civic and Consumer Action Network


Bombay to Goa: the paedophile path

Mumbai is the paedophiles’ gateway to India, report VK Shashikumar, Mayabhushan Nagvenkar and Sanjukta Sharma


SIN SHOP: this is where the paedophiles meet their potential victims
Café Mondegar is choc-a-bloc with white tourists on any evening. It is the heart of Colaba Causeway, south Mumbai’s notorious hub of cheap beer, cheap hotel rooms and discreet drug peddlers. Every now and then, middle-aged, hippie-looking men drink at this pub, accompanied by young boys from the pavements of Colaba. Often, they are children of daily-wage labourers from Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Those who make it to the Mondegar tables with white men are the chosen ones — the boys who are lured by the gifts, the drinks. Middle-aged white paedophiles stalk Colaba streets. Or other numerous streets and suburbs of Mumbai where child sex tourists thrive with blissful anonymity before they move on to even safer destinations.

On December 16, 2000, Swiss nationals Wilheim Marty, 61, and Loshiar Marty, 58 were caught red-handed filming two girls inside a room in Hotel Resort at Madh Island. Hundreds of photographs of nude children were found on Marti’s laptop. A list of nearly 40 children the couple was planning to film was also found.

Police probe revealed Wilheim Marty worked as a general manager in a Swiss company. His wife was a trained nurse. The couple had a 35-year-old adopted daughter. The Martys had been visiting Mumbai for nearly 10 years. The police established contact with the Swiss police through Interpol and raided Marty’s properties, leading to further evidence of pornographic material and the arrest of Wilheim Marty’s nephew, who helped the couple sell the photographs on the Internet.

The modus operandi of the Marty couple was to pose as tourists and convince poor families that since Indian laws did not allow them to adopt, they would be happy to spend time with street children. The Forum Against Child Sexual (facse), a Mumbai-based ngo, got to know from a child that the Martys had taken two children to a hotel and alerted the police.

The police arrested the Martys under 11 sections of the Indian Penal Code and Section (4) (6) of the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act of 1986. The Mumbai sessions court judge, Justice MR Bhatkar, sentenced them to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment in March 2003.

But a month later, the Bombay High Court shortened the sentence of the couple to the period they had already served in jail — 39 months — and allowed them to go if they paid a compensation of Rs 1 lakh each to their six victims.

Children’s rights activists demanded the Supreme Court’s intervention. Chief Justice VN Khare of the Supreme Court stayed the release of the couple in April 2004, but granted them conditional bail with directions that the Martys’ passports be withheld.

The police and the government are clueless about the current whereabouts of the Martys. Their passports are with the court and their victims are probably back on the streets of Mumbai.

C Inamdar, Additional Commissioner of Police, who handled the case, saya, “During the period of a jail sentence, nobody can be granted bail. They are still in the Pune prison.” But, the office of Prabhat Ranjan, Inspector General, Prisons, Pune, confirms that they were out in May 2004. Says Preeti Chandar of facse, “If they can get out of jail despite such strong evidence against them, others can get away with worse.”

Back in Colaba, the spectre of Duncan Grant, a British paedophile, who lived here for 12 years, haunts the Anchorage Shelter Home.

A few crusty flights of stairs lead to the entrance of the Home, set up by Grant in 1995. The door opens to a large, sparse room with two beds, clothes and many pairs of shoes strewn on the floor. Two boys sit glued to an old TV. Clad in shorts and T-shirts, they have the typically scrubbed-clean look. Dhanraj, a 15-year-old inmate, speaks English with a cultivated British twang. He sports an expensive cell phone that constantly buzzes with calls and sms.
Eight years after the Home was set up, Grant was accused of abusing the boys living in his shelter. He is absconding. Allen Johan Water, a co-accused, was arrested in New York in November 2003, and is soon going to be extradited from the us. Dhanraj speaks of Grant with fondness. “Duncan doesn’t come here anymore. He hasn’t called for the last three years. The police think he’s a dirty man and don’t let him come to India. It’s a lie that he is a dirty man. Someone is taking revenge on him,” he says.

Grant was not in India when 15-year-old Kranti Lodha, a frequent visitor to the home, filed a complaint of sexual abuse against him. He has not returned to Mumbai thereafter. Grant is a well-connected man in Britain. He served the Royal Naval Reserve in the uk for 30 years before he came to India. Soon after the allegations were levelled, Diana Hawkins, organiser and fund-raiser at the uk office of the Anchorage Shelter was quoted as saying, “If innocent, well-meaning people like Grant are accused of such false crimes, people from Britain will stop doing charity work in India.” Some influential people in India, such as Adi Dubhash of Concern India Foundation, also defended Grant.

After the allegations came into light, ngos and activists followed up the case. A breakthrough came when journalist Mehr Pestonji got an account from Rasool, a boy at the Home, on tape in which he admitted having been abused by Grant and Water. The catalyst in the breakthrough was, surprisingly, Alan Denning, another British national and a suspected paedophile who had lived in Goa. Sources reveal that Denning was seen in Goa with Rasool and Zakir, both young boys. Zakir was also seen with another paedophile, Theodor Willem Anema.

Denning was close to Grant, but later exposed him with the help of Sridhar Naik, a close associate of Denning, who, according to police sources, posed as Zakir and Rasool’s guardian. When contacted in Mumbai, Naik said that he was no longer involved with the Home and that he knew nothing about the whereabouts of Den- ning or Grant.

Tehelka’s investigation reveals that Naik who passes off as a social worker is a procurer for paedophiles operating in Goa. Incidentally, Naik helped two suspected paedophiles Anema and Denning to get children from the Home. Naik just made an affidavit which simply stated, “I say that I am guardian of Master Jakir Hasan (Zakir is spelt as Jakir). I say that he was born on 13.12.1988 at Kolkata…I further declare that the said child is not aware of his parents at present
he has no parents as he was found to me in helpless condition seeking shelter.”

Then he proceeded to declare an undertaking in a stamped paper: “I say that I am the guardian of Master Jakir Hasan…As such I have sent him to Goa under further guardianship of Mr Theodoor Willem Anema…I say I am a social worker and devoted my entire life for nourishment and welfare of the orphan children who are parentless and seeking help for their maintenance and livelihood.”

Grant’s connection with Anema and Denning points to a network that facilitates child-sex tourism in India. Says Sangeeta Punekar, an ex-member of facse, “I have seen Grant for the last 12 years. He was always with street boys. He had given expensive gifts to the boys and sponsored many of them. Each child in Home is sponsored by a foreigner.”

Grant’s association with Goa was revealed by the testimony of an adolescent boy, Mangesh, during the trial of a German national Helmut Brinkmann in the court of assistant sessions judge in Panjim, Goa (State v/s Helmut Brinkmann, dated February 6, 1999).

Brinkmann, 57, was found living with minor boys, including Mangesh who was a shoe-polish boy near the Gateway of India. In his testimony, he said that a “guy named Duncan from London” offered Rs 40,000 to him in exchange of oral and anal sex near the Gateway of India. Later Duncan took Mangesh to the Home where he met Helmut.

Assistant Sessions Judge Nutan Sardessai found Brinkmann guilty of hiring a minor for illicit and immoral purposes and for committing unnatural sexual offences. He was awarded six-years’ imprisonment. However, on September 24, 2000, he was acquitted of the charges by Additional Sessions Judge D R Kenkre.

Judge Kenkre expressed doubts whether the sperm found was ‘human spermatozoa’. He concluded that the sperm found in Brinkmann’s anus was indeed his own. The same held true for the victim, he added. The judge then went on to say that the child was an accomplice in the commission of the crime and, therefore, his evidence could not stand without corroboration.

Mumbai’s anonymity facilitated John Ringelmann to traffic two girls—Dimple and Mallika—out of the city to Goa. Ringelmann claims to have legally married one of them and ‘adopted’ the other. Before settling in Goa, Ringelmann lived in Mumbai for three years with his ‘adopted’ daughter. “Mumbai is a very good city. Not like Goa which is very small and everybody is concerned about other peoples’ business. In Mumbai nobody asks you anything. The people respect privacy,” he says.
The address mentioned on the joint declaration of marriage of Ringelmann and Dimple (Sheru) is Ringelmann, Balaji Apartments, B/block, Plot no 201, Kopar Khairane, Navi Mumbai – 400705.

Khopar Khairane is a developed, densely populated suburb of Navi Mumbai. There is only one building with the name of Balaji Apartments there. And that too, not in the plot mentioned in the address. Jagannath Mhatre, the owner of Balaji Apartments says Ringelmann has never stayed in this building.

“We’ve never had any white man as our tenant. This building is just three years old,” Mhatre says. He added that this was the only building in the area with that name. Many tenants of Balaji Apartments also confirmed that Ringelmann never stayed in their building.

The fake address in Ringelmann’s document drives home the point very forcefully that foreigners easily get away with false documents in India.

See the evil: dealing with a disease

paedophilia is not a problem unique to goa. neither is it an exclusively male domain. There is an urgent need for a national plan to deal with the problem, say Dr Nishtha Desai and Fiona Dias-Saxena


Nishtha Desai
A tourist in Goa enjoys a sense of anonymity and freedom. A paedophile can come, hang around with children on the beach and not be questions. For him, the setting is just perfect.

At any given time, during the six-month tourist season (October to March), there could easily be around 100 paedophiles operating in the state. No, do not underestimate the figure, for a paedophile generally exploits more than one child, at times up to 20 children, during a stay of 15 days to five months.


Fiona Dias-Saxena
The Goan community tends to view the problem as one not affecting Goans – an outsider’s problem – ‘so why should we be concerned?’ They believe that only children of migrants are abused by paedophiles. It is true that a majority of the children paedophiles prey on come from Karnataka, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

But, it is a myth that Goan children are not sexually abused by paedophiles. In the case of Freddy Peats, Goa’s most notorious paedophile, all the children staying at Peats’ gurukul were Goans. In our day-to-day campaign work, we have come across some cases involving Goan children.

The stakes are high. So much so, that in some cases parents traffic their own children. For an entire year’s rent, paid in advance by a foreigner paedophile, the parents may allow their 13-year-old daughter to ‘go out’ with the family’s benefactor. But, there are also parents who have no idea about the involvement of their offspring with paedophiles.

There is a popular perception that paedophilia is exclusively a male domain. While few in number, there are female paedophiles as well. In one particular case, a European woman wanted to ‘adopt’ a 12-year-old boy and take him abroad. The woman’s feelings did not seem maternal. In fact, her behaviour towards other young boys also suggested that she was sexually interested in them.

It is difficult to convince policemen, officials or judges that these elderly, avuncular men/women take pleasure in sexually abusing young boys/girls. Often, our activists are accused of being ‘pervert’ for suggesting that a man/woman could want to have sex with a child.

Investigation techniques are often clumsy and the culprits are alerted long before any evidence is gathered. The investigation techniques need to be improved if paedophiles are to be successfully prosecuted. This, in part, explains why apart from Peats only one other paedophile — Eoghan McBride, an associate of Peats — has so far been convicted.

One judge, in his order, acquitted a paedophile on the ground that the spermatozoa found in the victim’s anus could be the victim’s own, and the spermatozoa in the suspected paedophile’s anus could be his own. A biological wonder indeed!

Another lacuna in the law is the application of Article 377 of the Indian Penal Code for paedophilia-related cases involving boys. This is a law which was originally intended to punish homosexuality and bestiality; both ‘unnatural offences’ under Indian law. When applied to paedophilia cases, this law treats the victim as an ‘accomplice’ in the crime. So, the boy child is not treated as a victim of rape, as is statutorily done in the case of a girl. There is no law protecting the boy child against paedophiles. It’s time the society stands up and protects its children.

Take, for instance, the case of a minor boy from Karnataka living with a greying Swiss national in Goa.

First, the child cannot speak English, French or German. He learns the language almost overnight and within months starts using an overtly sexualised language that an Indian child will not use.

Second, why is this child not attending school? Is the Swiss illegally detaining the child? Where are the court-ordained adoption papers?

Third, where did the Swiss bring this child from? Did he buy the child from his poor parents or guardians?

Do you need a stronger note of caution than this? Society at large should learn to discern such critical red flags, the tell-tale signs of tourism-related paedophilia.
We have dealt with many such cases. The questions still remain. The police cannot answer them. They are incapable. The courts cannot find answers in laws that it is supposed to interpret. The government will not answer because that’s pretty much the accepted code.

Let’s focus on some more pertinent questions.

Why would a child seek treatment for a vaginal infection or pelvic inflammatory disease? Why would children have a throat thrush, which is not indicative of cold? This happens when an adult forces a child to engage in oral sex. This is caused due to an infection by an outside body.

And what about the trauma? Depression, social isolation, lack of child-like spontaneity or a sudden maturity — these are after effects in children, who have been sexually abused by paedophiles.

Why should the onus of proving the innocence or guilt be dumped on the child? Why is the child questioned like a criminal? Asking inconsequential and humiliating questions like ‘what was the colour of your underwear?’ is insane.

How will the child know that he/she is secure? A systemic change is required, especially while tackling sexual crimes against children. More importantly the mindset has to change. Child sex abuse is a crime that is different from the crimes we know — murder, assault and so on.

Take, for example, oral sex with boys. This is a routine sexual abuse perpetrated by a paedophile. No medical evidence can conclusively say that a child has been forced to have oral sex, unless the offender has an infection, which could trigger a throat thrush or sores or ulcers in the child’s mouth. But they do not amount to conclusive evidence.

A paedophile is a chronic abuser who will go to lengths to ensure there are no external bruises. He will use gel. He will be gentle during sex. He will prefer oral sex and fondling. All these things leave very little scope for medical evidence.

That is why paedophiles are so obsessed with ‘grooming’. Oral hygiene is of singular importance for paedophiles because of their physical intimacy with children. The unfailing dental check-ups of their victims is one such example.

One more question. How can anyone prove destruction of an innocent mind through continuous exposure to pornography? The judiciary and the law enforcement agencies should consider circumstantial evidence if the child admits to sexual assault. Say, a foreigner and an unrelated minor are found in a hotel room — the former in his underpants and the latter in her lingerie — in the dead of the night, does she still have to go ahead and admit that he was sleeping with her?
To make matters more complicated, children are very good at masking their trauma. The more the child’s vulnerability, the stronger is the child’s defence mechanism while handling such trauma. But ‘blocking’, does not mean that there is no scar.

Our legislators, judges, police and bureaucrats need to know that sexual abuse never starts with the genitals. That is the climax. It comes slowly. All the while, the child is unsure about the reality. A child tries to reason: “My father was/is a poor man. He (paedophile) gave me what I do not have. And he treated me well.”
Initially, a paedophile makes contact with a child’s father, say a beggar. Then he supports the child’s siblings. He gives them a better place to stay and starts sending them money. He takes the child for holidays and starts travelling with her/him. By the time the abuse actually takes place, the child cannot believe what has been done to him. His world is shattered. In fact, he does not want to believe it. And, then he masks it.

Will someone believe him/her? Will somebody understand the child? Will the judge or the police understand the child?

According to the Goa Children’s Act, 2003, if an adult wants to stay with a child not related to him, he will have to seek the permission of the Director of Women and Child Development. If they do not inform the department, they can be fined up to Rs 1 lakh and imprisoned for a year. But, the Act is yet to be implemented, although it was passed a year ago.

There is a need for the state to identify paedophiles staying in the state for extended periods, as they are involved in the organised sexual abuse of children. They run beach shacks, travel agencies, ‘shelters’ for underprivileged children and various other establishments in Goa to facilitate their operations.

We believe that it is wrong to think of paedophilia as a problem unique to Goa. As the arrest of the Swiss paedophile couple in Mumbai has shown, the problem is not restricted to Goa. Paedophilia is a national problem and every tourist destination in India needs to put some checks on it. There is an urgent need for some kind of a national plan by the Centre to deal with the problem and to incorporate it in its tourism-related policies.

(The authors are Goa-based child rights activists)



Nothing wonderful about this club

Paedophiles have a global, secretive society. Mayabhushan Nagvenkar unravels the Wonderland Club that exchanges information on children and prowls the Net in search of children who can be sexually abused


NO CHILD PLAY: it took Interpol years to break the paedophilia ring
More than 2,000 hours of digitised footage of children being sexually abused 7,50,000 child porn images, each exceeding the other in absurd stages of vulgarity. Many pictures were that of Indian children. More than 1,200 abused children worldwide. This more or less sums up ‘The Wonderland Club’ (twc) – a reclusive, secret, global worldwide ring of paedophiles spread over 49 countries, which was busted by Interpol and other national police agencies. From the 180-member cartel of child sex perverts, 107 were arrested, 50 convicted. Eight of them committed suicide.

Several Indian Net-prowling paedophiles managed to evade arrest, merely because Interpol did not consider India a worthy partner for its Operation Cathedral — the name given for the crackdown on paedophilia — because “it lacked the technical capability to participate”.

Operation Cathedral started in California in April 1996 and ended in 2001. It turned out to be the largest operation in the history of international policing. Only 13 out of the 49 countries where the twc had spread its tentacles participated in Operation Cathedral.

The Indian paedophiles in question could surely heave a sigh of relief, as no visible efforts were made by national law enforcement agencies to nab them. They later transmitted their pornographic images to other members of the twc.

The busting of the twc was actually a climax of sorts. The seeds of this operation were sown in 1996, during an overnight party for toddlers in California.
A 10-year-old girl visiting a friend for a sleep-over party in California was sexually abused by her friend’s father Roland Riva. The act was recorded by a webcam which transmitted live video images of his sexual act to his friends in Finland, Australia and Canada and other American states. Riva and his transcontinental friends were part of an online paedophile ring called The Orchid Club.

Some months later, Riva was arrested on suspicion of molesting another child. His interrogation revealed his encounter with the 10-year-old child. When Riva’s computer was seized and searched, they found digital footage of several minors being sexually abused. After transmitting the perverse videos to his colleagues in the Orchid Club, Riva would then sell the explicit footage to clients in a particular internet chatroom.


Riva was sentenced with three other Orchid Club members. But the trail did not end there. American investigators found a link to three other persons in the uk while examining Riva’s computer, one of whom was Ian Baldock, a Sussex-based computer consultant.

Voices
People should know the extent of paedophilia in Goa. Most of the students in north Goan colleges come from the tourist belt. So students should be involved actively. They should know whom to contact and what to do if they identify a
paedophile. We plan to screen this film in various colleges and follow it up with discussions on child rights
Anita Haladi,
Lecturer, Bandekar College, Mapusa, Goa




Inspection of Baldock’s computer led to the discovery of the twc. With 180 members in 49 countries, this was a set-up much more widespread, organised and professional.

The twc had a set hierarchy. A chairman at the helm, secretary and management committee with fixed tenures, along with a set procedure for selection and vetting of its members.

The investigators soon realised that cracking this outfit was no child’s play.

Getting through to data, routinely accessed by the twc’s members was extremely exasperating. One had to work his way through more than five levels of security. The encryption codes used by the twc were extremely difficult to crack. They had been originally developed by the Russian intelligence agencies for their web-related operations.

Entry to this club was also far from easy. A prospective member had to submit 10,000 child porn images. To climb rungs in twc, one had to consistently find new children to abuse, as well as produce images showing abuse as proof.

After more than five months of investigations, Interpol along with the British National Crime Squad co-ordinated a synchronised swoop by police forces from 12 countries, including France, England, Australia, Germany, Sweden and us, on their targets.

The results were stunning.

In the uk, David Hines, whose profile name was ‘Mutt’s Nuts’ was found possessing a cache of 12,000 paedophile images. Gavin Seagers, 29, a Sea Cadets youth leader, whose identity in the twc was ‘Hopeful’ had 46,000 encrypted images stored on his computer system. Antoni Skinner, who called himself ‘Uhura’ or ‘Satan’, managed his encryptions so well that only about 400 images could be detected on his computer. Another member Ahmet Ali alias ‘Caesar’, a taxi driver by profession, was found possessing 13,000 images.

The raids in other countries also rolled out similar bizarre details. Investigators also learnt that Germans download more child pornography than any other country in the world, followed by Australians.

Scores of members of the twc, belonging to those 37 countries (including India) which were not part of Operation Cathedral, continue to prowl the Net, and perhaps have crafted yet another sordid wonderland.



Tehelka’s Charter of Demands

Paedophiles get away with their crimes as our laws lack enough teeth to prosecute them. We demand that:
The police arrest and prosecute all the offenders who have been exposed in Tehelka’s tapes.
The Union government direct the Goa government to release the Ric Wood Report.
The government direct the cbi to launch a massive manhunt to track down paedophiles operating in the country’s various tourism destinations
The Department of Women and Child Welfare come out with a comprehensive policy on child rights.
The Central government should ratify its adherence to the 1989 un Convention on the Rights of the Child international by legislating a national law on protection of child rights.
India should take urgent and immediate steps to sign the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.
A National Child Rights Commission should be set up that will act as a watchdog and regulatory authority to prevent sexual, labour and all other forms of exploitation of children.
The Right to Education be made a fundamental right so that children like Sanju can fulfil their dream to go to schools and not be vulnerable to sexual and labour exploitation.
The government debar all suspected paedophiles from entering the country.
The Central government, through the cbi, interact actively with Interpol and continuously track the movement of suspected paedophiles and take preventive action to ensure that they don’t enter India.
The Centre publicly promote a well-crafted anti-paedophilia policy in all tourist destinations in India and through its tourism offices abroad that is intended to send a strong warning that stringent action will be taken against paedophiles visiting India to sexually abuse children.
The full implementation of the Goa Children’s Act, 2003 and demand that Parliament also pass an omnibus Child Rights Act that essentially prevents and prohibits all forms of exploitation of children, including sale and trafficking and exploitation for pornographic purposes.
All states, especially those who attract sizeable foreign tourists, enact a child protection legislation on the lines of the Goa Children’s Act
Police forces in states that attract foreign tourists be trained and sensitised to deal with crimes against children.
The judiciary expand the interpretation of existing laws to ensure that the courts take into account incontrovertible circumstantial evidence to prosecute offenders involved in exploitation of children.
The judiciary and the law enforcement agencies punish those who enable foreign paedophiles from illegally adopting children through fraudulent means.
Legal and police action be taken against those who enabled the German paedophile, Jorg Harry Ringlemann, to procure illegal affidavits.
The judiciary apply the existing laws and issue directives to the state and Central governments to take immediate executive measures to protect child rights as an interim step till appropriate legislation is enacted.
The judiciary and police stop applying and interpreting Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code to book paedophiles and interrogate their victims in police stations. The judicial-police structure should stop equating paedophilia and sexual abuse of children to homosexuality.
The government order a cbi investigation to determine the manner in which foreigners are taking children out of the country.
The government ensure that unaccompanied and unrelated minors are not allowed to leave the country with foreigners.
The government should institute an inquiry to find out how passport offices are making passports for minors belonging to poor families and on what basis immigration officials at the airport allow the children to depart with the foreign sponsors.
The government find out why proper police verification measures are not applied at the time of making the passports for minors.