Dear Goanet
The two bills
introduced recently in Parliament will, when they become law, give the
Government additional powers to probe terrorism and prosecute suspects. The
question for citizens from minority communities, however, is not so much the
robustness of the laws as the earnestness of the authorities to employ them
non-exclusively. For, it is not that there were no laws in force when Sikhs,
Muslims, and, more recently, Christians were the targets of organized
terrorism, but that there was a lack of zeal on the part of police and
government to apply them. As a result, they were beaten, raped and burnt alive
– sometimes by the police and prominent leaders - in an orgy of terror that
ended only when the energy of the attackers was spent.
What hope then
do we, of the minorities, have that the imminent laws will be used in our
defence? Our founding fathers too made laws and wrote the constitution. We
believed in them and felt secure. No longer. Events in Delhi
in 1984, Mumbai in ’92-93, Gujarat in 2002 and Malegaon , Orissa and Karnataka
this year make
us wonder what the future has in store for us. Expats, like me, who nurture
the dream of returning to our motherland,
have to think again. We are faced with the irony that we are more protected and
wanted in strange lands than in our own.
Yours truly
David Albuquerque
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