Sushil Kumar Shinde gets it right on substance

There is room to question the timing of home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde’s letter to chief ministers on wrongful arrest of Muslim youth on terror charges. In the run-up to the polls, every political party will do its bit to manage perceptions.


So, Shinde’s letter could easily be seen as seeking to assuage a concern expressed by minority groups and individuals. That said, it would be wrong to rubbish this concern as a fake or manufactured one.

The messenger’s timing might be suspect but the message is not. The problem is real. Even courts in the country have said so. And it is imperative to address it.

It is on that front that the government can be taken to task. The number of cases where it was reported with much fanfare and finality that minority groups were responsible for terror acts, only for it to be found that right-wing Hindutva terror groups were responsible, is enough for the government to have acted.

Does the central government need to wait on states to compensate and rehabilitate even the few Muslim youngsters falsely implicated for terror acts and later released by courts? Courts in the country have said that nothing is more grave, serious and illegal than law enforcement agencies indulging in fake encounters and framing innocents in terror cases.

What about acting against officers of such agencies in cases where courts have found that the accused had been framed? Any instance of wrongful arrest is grave.

But when nabbing young Muslim men who come in handy when under pressure to arrest perpetrators after a terror act becomes a pattern consistent enough to undermine the idea of a secular republic, the Shinde kind of warning is, indeed, imperative.

The idea of India is under attack from its ideological opponents. Incompetent policemen should not swell their ranks. Period.