As the Jammu trio stunned the lawmakers in state legislature last week, everybody expected the house to take them and their facilitators to task. Instead, they ended as the focus of a rousing reception in Jammu, a few days later, SYED ASMA reports.
Manish Khajuria, Sunny Malhotra and Ambedkar Gupta, all residents of Jammu who created ruckus in the state’s highest parliamentary body have been set free, for now. After a court granted them bail, they were flown to Jammu where a grand reception awaited them. The trio had jumped out of the public gallery on Oct 8 in state legislature and shouted slogans against the government. They even tried to move toward the well of the house but were overpowered by the assembly marshals and locked up in a room in the state legislature on the orders of Speaker, Muhammad Akbar Lone who termed the breach as a ‘serious offence.’
On the same day, Lone promised strong action. But, as things stand now, nothing substantial has happened. Instead, the speaker, who had the powers to tackle the matter himself, handed the case to the J&K police for investigations. “As a supreme authority of the house, I have both the powers. I can either solve the case by myself or I can hand it over to the police. I chose the latter,” Lone told Kashmir Life. However, when asked to elaborate, he dropped the call.
Mohammed Ramzan, secretary, legislative assembly sought to justify Lone’s decision, “There were many things going on in the house. So Mr Lone may have thought of handing over the case to the state police,” he said. The case was handed over to the Shergadi police station. A case under FIR no. 82/2012 was registered against the trio and they were booked under section 452 and 252 RPC for their “criminal offences which are non-bailable.”
Their bail plea was objected by the public prosecutor, “The accused have been booked in a criminal case which is non-bailable and they cannot claim bail as a matter of right or course,” Afaq Ahmad, the chief prosecuting officer assisted by Iftikhar Ahmad, the prosecuting officer said in their objection. “The accused were required for the completion of the investigation as it was still in its inception stage. The statement of witnesses including members of the house and other senior dignitaries were yet to be recorded before the magistrate,” they had told the court.
The prosecutors pleaded before the court that the case may not be taken as a mere case of intrusion but as a threat to the highest parliament of the state with serious security concerns. “This is no less in gravity than the attack on the parliament of India in 2001. In case the accused persons are granted bail, others may take precedence and will make similar attempts to devalue the democratic institution,” they had said.
Given the mood of the lawmakers, there were expectations that the trio will be taken to task. Instead, the buck was passed from legislature to the state police who had no case. “What happened was a security lapse and the fortunate thing is that the boys belong to Jammu. Had they been from Kashmir, government would have quickly slapped PSA on them by terming them as anti-nationals”, PDP president, Mehbooba Mufti said. The party’s spokesperson, Nayeem Akhtar, said the opposition can’t always interfere as the speaker was the custodian of all the privileges of the house, “If he decided to hand it over to the court of law, let the law take its own course. I am of the opinion that strict action should be taken against these boys if they have broken rules, which presumably they have,” he told Kashmir Life.
Lawmakers who were sitting in the house say the act was a publicity stunt to introduce a new political party, Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Front (JKDF) floated by J R Sapolia who had facilitated the entry of these men into the house. “I was in the MLA hostel. Manish is personally known to me and approached me along with his friends asking that he wanted to witness the assembly proceedings. I arranged the passes and took them along in my official vehicle. But I was not aware about their intentions,” he says.
Many are upset over the punishment the trio received and see it as a regional and religious bias. Engineer Rashid, a vocal independent MLA condemning the government’s approach, said, “If these boys would have been Muslims and Kashmiris, they would have been taken to task. At least, they would have been slapped with PSA,” he said. Rashid warns that similar incidents might take place in future since the “needs and demands of frustrated unemployed youth are not met by the government.”
