Harassing Gurumurthy for taking up Hindu cause

February 27, 05
By Premendra Agrawal

The Vishnu Kanchi police station has filed a case against noted columnist S. Guru-murthy on charge of attempting to deviate the investigation by the Special Investigation Team into the Shankararaman murder case by giving wrong information. Pseudo-secularists see every thing with a pseudo-secular angle. Gurumurthy though a veteran social activist the media is hesitating to react on his arrest. On January 14, his article titled: ‘Will the ‘secular’ media heed Justice Reddy’s warning?” was published in: www.newindpress.com; Anonymous writes, “But it kept out of print an earlier and profound judgment of the Andhra Pradesh High Court on the very Shankaracharya issue. Since the High Court had indicted the ‘secular’ media, the judgment was effectively censored by the media, understandably.”

A petition came up before Justice Narasimha Reddy of Andhra Pradesh High Court and he said, the “only provocation for the petitioner appears to be the recent unfortunate happenings in relation to a seer’’ of Kanchi mutt. The judge described the mutt as “an ancient, prestigious, glorious and reputed institution with almost 2,500 years’ history.” He said that the petitioner was ‘swayed’ by the media and “did not want to lag behind in the unprecedented process of denigration of the religious institution.’’ That is, the denigrating petition was provoked by the media.

The judge further said that it is “sad and sorrowful that an institution of such glory that withstood foreign invasions and social revolutions’’ over the past 2500 years “is virtually targeted and persecuted in an organised manner in an independent country”.

Who are all involved in the process of denigration? Justice Reddy answersed, “Not only individuals, but also a section of the institutions, such as the State and the press, appear to be determined to belittle and besmirch the Peetham.’’ Justice Reddy also said, “The role of courts, though indirect, is by no means insignificant.’’

He noted that “the proponents of human rights, fair play and dignity of the individuals and institutions have maintained a stoic silence.’’ He went on to say that “a powerful section is celebrating it or watching it with indifference.’’ Justice Reddy said this ‘perfidy’ against the mutt had ‘shocked’ the country and beyond.

Media have been quoting (Geelani’s lawyer) Nandita Haksar, who has said that the attack on Geelani was made by the Delhi police, which is absolutely baseless and a figment of imagination. For the media ‘Geelani’ is Saheb Geelani. Protest is going on in favour of him. After reading media reports, nobody can say Geelani is an accused in Parliament attack case. Media showed Geelani, Ishrat, etc. as innocent but what about Kanchi mutt and its seers?

Media carry reports on both sides of an incident generally, but they give more coverage to those personalities who are against Hindus and are one sided on Hindu heads and organisations. News channels sounded version of TN government's counsel Tulsi without mentioning seer’s verdict. They showed seer as culprit. But for them terrorists, separatists, insurgents such as college girl Ishrat Jehan, killed in Ahmedabad Police encounter, are patriot and innocent! So many human right activists come forward as rainy tortoise and media garland them. One activist in NDTV programme of Sirdesai declared attempts to kill Modi could not be called terrorist act. Where were these activists when in the mid-night on Diwali the seer was arrested. Jaya even said who is NHRC; I never bother for that.

The ‘disturbing’ past record of the investigating officer includes campaigning for an AIADMK candidates. Premkumar was suspended by the Chief Election Commissioner for campaigning for an AIADMK candidate during the 2004 Lok Sabha polls. But he was reinstated as an SP, Cuddalore, after the polls. It is obvious that here is a man who can go to any extent to please a political party. Even now he is embroiled in many cases.

Premkumar said that during the interrogation, Gurumurthy could not substantiate his argument put forth in his article. However, he forwarded a notice to the SIT stating that interrogating him was a wrong committed by the investigation team as he had freedom to express his views, Premkumar added.

While Premkumar had alleged that Nallakaman was stalling the trial, Justice Karpagavinayagam held that the cases had indeed been stalled by Premkumar and the other accused policemen and that the officer had shown disrespect to the Supreme Court and the High Court. The judge noted that the Madurai court had issued as many as 13 non-bailable warrants against Premkumar between September 1995 and March 2000, but none of them was executed.