|
|
Change Your Life! |
Fundamentalist politician’s fanatical cartoon |
|
News
|
|
|
July 26, 2000
BOMBAY (AP) - A judge dismissed charges of incitement against a powerful Hindu supremacist politician Tuesday. His supporters, who had threatened to bloody the streets, instead tossed fireworks in celebration. Judge B.P. Kamde said the case against Bal Thackeray had been filed too late, seven years after the alleged crime had been committed, and the city of Bombay had been paying the cost in tension and fear. "I pass the following order, that the offense cannot be taken cognizance of as it is time-barred," announced Kamde. "Therefore the accused is released and the case is closed." On his way to court, Thackeray, had said there would be trouble if he were jailed. Thackeray holds no official position, but he is a powerful regional leader. His party is the main opposition party in Maharashtra state and a partner in Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's national governing coalition in New Delhi. Thackeray, 71, was a cartoonist before he entered politics fulltime. His party Internet web site said his cartoons had been published in the New York Times and the Asahi newspaper in Japan. Thackeray's Shiv Sena party workers had threatened to organize a general strike and "spill blood on the streets" if their leader were arrested. Party members and their allies rioted in the Maharashtra state assembly after news of Thackeray's arrest. They damaged the speaker's table, broke chairs, uprooted microphones and tossed papers on the floor, Press Trust of India reported. Shiv Sena members also forced abrupt adjournment of the national Parliament by marching to the front of the lower house and shouting demands for dismissal of the state government in Maharashtra state, which brought the charges against Thackeray. Thackeray was accused of ordering his supporters through articles in his party newspaper, Samna, or Confront, to attack Muslims to avenge the killings of Hindus in 1993. More than 2,000 people were killed in nationwide violence in 1992-93, more than one-third in Bombay alone, after the ancient Babri mosque was razed by Hindu fundamentalists in Ayodhya in northern India in December 1992. Hindus said the mosque had been built hundreds of years ago on a sacred Hindu site, the traditional birthplace of one of Hinduism's chief deities, Ram. The two charges Thackeray faced - of promoting enmity between groups on grounds of religion, race or place of birth - carried a possible penalty of up to three years in prison or an unspecified fine. "There is a limit permissible for the prosecution," Judge Kamde said. "I am also considering what the Bombay public is facing, at whose instance and at what cost." More than 60,000 police and paramilitary troops had been placed on alert in Bombay and throughout Maharashtra state. Thackeray's supporters jostled police, knocking their hats and helmets askew, when he was escorted from his home in the morning. Police beat back the supporters when they tried to stop the arrest proceedings at the mayor's house in the Darda district of the capital, a Shiv Sena stronghold. The supporters erupted in screams and shouts of jubilation around the courthouse after the case was dismissed. After Thackeray left, his supporters set off fireworks. At a news conference later, Thackeray said the state official who ordered police to charge him should resign and "there will be stepped up action to get this government dismissed." Prosecutor P. R. Vakil said he would study the judge's written ruling before making a decision on whether the state would appeal. Thackeray's attorney, Adhik Shirodkar, said, "This is a legal and moral victory. An appeal will be a suicidal path." Earlier a force of 500 police had surrounded Thackeray at his northwest Bombay residence as hundreds of his Shiv Sena party supporters cried and shouted, "Long live Thackeray!" "The only way to end the impasse is by going to court," Thackeray told reporters before getting into his car, which became part of a police caravan to the Metropolitan Magistrate's Court in central Bombay. Shopkeepers around the courthouse pulled metal shutters down to protect their windows. Schools let children go home, and blue uniformed Rapid Reaction Force commandoes barricaded the small lane that leads to the courthouse and stood guard with semiautomatic machine-guns. Telephone lines were jammed in the area, a stronghold of Thackeray's party, to keep people from spreading rumors and causing panic, authorities said. The state government, run by Sonia Gandhi's Congress and a breakaway faction of her party, had been pursuing Thackeray's prosecution since they came to power last October. The Indian prime minister shuffled his Cabinet during the weekend because of disputes among his ministers about how to react to Thackeray's case. |