Spoken out biases can be countered

Let it be said right away and without shuffling feet and beating round the bush: The prime suspect behind 13/7’s Mumbai blasts is a Muslim group. The BJP or the Shiv Sena need not feel triumphant over this.

This presumption means nothing. It is just a hypothesis to get going. It is not a conclusion. This need not, and should not, send a negative message to the Muslims in general. The Congress leaders need not bend over backwards to say that not all Muslims are terrorists. Everyone with a modicum of common sense knows that. The secularists need not fret and fume.

But this line of investigation is not simple or straight. The Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Indian Mujahideen (IM) are the usual suspects, they need to be put under the scanner, and clues need to be traced as to what they have been up to in the days and weeks leading to 13/7.

Their members and their sympathisers, their sleeping cells, their propaganda fronts have to be probed. If the meticulous and scrupulous investigation leads to a dead-end with regard to this particular terrorist attack, then other leads have to be explored.

The cautionary note is required because the LeT and the IM were involved in terrorist attacks in the past, but they may not be the ones behind the latest blasts. It is also necessary that individuals with links to these two groups, but who have no connection with the present blasts, should not be used as replacement for the actual culprits.

This insistence on legality might seem irritating to those who feel enraged by the recurring terrorist attacks in the city and they would be justified in feeling so.

But investigating agencies and the courts cannot afford to give in to that sentiment. It will not be right — legally and morally — to punish someone who is not actually involved in a particular crime. That he may have been connected to such incidents in the past is not sufficient reason to punish him unless he is involved this time too.

A colleague, who covers investigation agencies, said that agencies have a bias against the Muslim community and they follow their hunch while investigating terrorist cases. He added that while all Muslims are not terrorists, all terrorists turn out to be Muslims. In response, I said that all terrorists may be Muslims, but the investigating agencies were getting the wrong Muslims and not the real culprits, which only weakens their case.

Moreover, in the Mecca Masjid blast case, the police arrested Muslim youths, imprisoned and tortured them, but in the end, they were found innocent. My colleague agreed that indeed was the case.

There has also been talk of Hindu terrorism, but this sounds unconvincing. Hindu terrorism is weak because the individuals involved in the fanatical acts based on ideological hatred are a cowardly lot and lack the dedication the jihadis seem to display; not because they do not want to harm the Muslims, whom they deem their enemies.

These are the biases people entertain all round and in all communities. It is better that these biases are aired rather than hidden because then they can be negotiated and they can be countered.

It would be ideal if people from different communities shared a sense of universal brotherhood as preached by their religions but they do not. It is true that in moments of sorrow, hatred melts away and in daily interaction, general bonhomie prevails and barriers are lowered. But the biases linger in the air. It is in this atmosphere that investigating agencies carry out their work. To get the criminals, it is necessary to rein in the prejudices, especially the extreme ones.