Records gutted in J&K Civil Secretariat fire

                  Fire tenders trying to douse the flames in the annexe of the Civil Secretariat in Srinagar on Thursday. 

The fire that broke out on Thursday morning has been brought under control at the Civil Secretariat, the seat of the Government of Jammu and Kashmir, even as the official records of six government departments and service books of over 300 employees gutted and a two-storey building perished in the blaze.

“The two-storey wooden structure gutted completely but the fire has been brought under control. We are investigating the cause of the fire”, Senior Superintendent of Police Syed Ashiq Hussain Bukhari told The Hindu. He said that the Police were also looking into allegations that the Fire Services authorities reached “too late” though their headquarters and the State’s biggest fire control facility is at a stone’s throw from the Secretariat complex.

Slogans against Fire Services

Informed sources disclosed to The Hindu that the fire started around 9.00 a.m. but the first fire tender reached the spot at 9.30 a.m. The Fire Services authorities put over a dozen of their vehicles on the job and succeeded in controlling the blaze at 11.00 a.m. when the building had perished completely alongwith massive official records. One Insas (India Small Arms System) rifle of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) also gutted in the fire.

The two-storey building, made of wood and brick masonry, is situated on the CRPF-guarded Civil Secretariat premises but about 50 metres away from the six-storey concrete complex housing the offices of Chief Minister and all other Ministers. Chief Secretary and most of the senior bureaucrats have also their offices in the main complex.

Most of the Ministers were scheduled to attend a Fatiha ceremony at the tomb of Chief Minister’s grandmother at Hazratbal when the fire broke out minutes before the Secretariat opens as a routine at 9.30 a.m. However, hundreds of the government officials, including senior bureaucrats, were about to enter when flames engulfed the whole building.

Even as Director General of Fire and Emergency Services Ghulam Ahmad Bhat maintained that there was “no late or laxity” from his department, residents of the adjoining Suthra Shahi neighbourhood, as well as the Secretariat employees, complained that the fire tenders reached “too late” on the spot. “It took them half-an-hour to start the firefighting operation. They acted swiftly only when we raised slogans against them, fearing spreading of the flames to our houses behind”, Ghulam Rasool of Suthra Shahi asserted.

Ghulam Hassan, working in the Department of Higher Education, as well as several leaders of the Secretariat employees’ union, complained that there was “too much late and laxity” from the Fire Services authorities. “Even the fire tender that remains stationed at Secretariat permanently could have controlled the fire in the beginning. What’s the point in calling 20 fire tenders from entire city and other districts?” they questioned.

  Firemen fiight the blaze in the annexe of the Civil Secretariat, the seat of Jammu and Kashmir government, in Srinagar   on Thursday

Records gutted

Special Secretary Cooperative Mohammad Akbar Ganai admitted that there was “delayed response” from the fire authorities. He said that official records and service books of over 300 officials perished in the blaze. Offices of the Director General of Accounts and Treasuries, Cooperative, Higher Education, Revenue, Vice Chairman of Gujjar and Bakerwal Advisory Board and a dispensary had been operating from the devastated building. Sources said that all four of the CRPF guardrooms in the building also perished, though the arms and ammunition, excluding a rifle, were saved.

Mr. Bhat told mediapersons that the cause of fire was being ascertained. Police officials believed short circuit could be the reason but said that sabotage could be ruled out only after an investigation. They said that Estates Department had been planning to shift the offices from the wooden building since long but the action had been delayed for unknown reasons.

Omar tweets

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who was preparing to leave for Hazratbal to offer Fatiha on the death anniversary of his grandmother, flashed on Twitter from his Gupkar Road house: “We've had a fire in the annexe of the Sectt housing the offices of technical education, higher education, forest, accounts and treasuries. The cause of the fire & the extent of the damage, particularly of records stored in these offices will take some time to assess”.

7 years after blasts, prosecution case falls apart:

13 arrested by ATS still languishing in jail; RTI replies pick holes in investigation

Parag Sawant, 34, now recognises his family members. His eyes glitter when his young daughter Prachiti comes near his bed, says his mother Madhuri. For the last seven years, this victim of serial blasts on Mumbai’s suburban trains on July 11, 2006, is lying on a bed in the Hinduja Hospital here. His amazing recovery from coma in 2008 had left doctors astounded. But five years later, his recovery slowed down after a series of convulsions. His family remains optimistic. It wants to see him back, walking happily on his feet with his daughter.

For the past seven years, 13 Muslim men, alleged activists of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), arrested by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) for the blasts, are languishing in jail. Ironically, the pieces of evidence wove together by the ATS against the 13 have started falling apart in court proceedings. The Mumbai Crime Branch police have arrested five other men, allegedly belonging to Indian Mujahideen (IM), claiming that they were responsible for the July 11 blasts.

But the call data records (CDR) of these accused have successfully challenged the evidence produced against them by the ATS. Their families hope that once the innocence of the accused is proved, all 13 can walk free.

Seven blasts in the evening rush hour in first-class compartments of local trains killed 187 people and injured over 800 others. For seven years now, the case has seen various turnarounds, revelations and exposed the shoddy probe.

The ATS, then headed by K.P. Raghuvanshi, swung into action and arrested 13 men by October 2006. The charge sheet was filed on November 29, 2006, despite the written submissions by the accused to the court claiming that confessions were taken under severe custodial torture and the ATS was falsely implicating them. Even as the trial began in 2007, the accused moved the Supreme Court and got a stay on the process.

The entire investigation of the ATS was challenged by the arrest of Sadiq Shaikh and four other men, allegedly belonging to the IM, in 2008, by the Crime Branch police. In the subsequent probe, it was revealed that these men were responsible for all major blasts in the country after 2005, including the July 11 train blasts. But the ATS, gave Shaikh clean bill in the train blasts case. It came despite Shaikh’s confession in October 2008 that he, along with other IM members, carried out the train blasts.

The ATS investigation got further exposed after the CDRs were presented to the court. Ehtesham Siddiqui, Asif Bashir Khan and Mohammad Faisal have been charged by the ATS with planting bombs on trains. However, the CDRs of their phones have clearly shown that all the three were not even near the blast sites on that day.

Ironically, the ATS had earlier used the CDRs to establish the link between the accused and the Lashkar-e-Taiba and to seek their police custody. When the ATS was asked to produce the CDRs by the accused, it informed the special Mcoca court that the CDRs have been destroyed. The accused moved the Bombay High Court in 2012 and the CDRs were made available in public domain only after the court’s strictures.

The accused have also made use of the Right to Information Act to blow holes in the ATS theory. Since 2007, Siddiqui has filed 1,024 RTI applications. While deposing as a defence witness, he has produced 62 RTI replies in the special court. For example, prosecution witness Vishal Parmar claimed that he had seen Siddiqui and another person at the Churchgate station at 5.15 p.m. boarding the Virar local. Parmar had stated that he had gone to meet one compounder Baban Rankhambe at the ENT Hospital, Churchgate. The RTI reply indicates that no person with that name works in the ENT hospital. Also, through RTI, Siddiqui found out that the train had come to the platform around 5.07 p.m. and not 5.15 p.m. as claimed by Parmar.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) charge sheet in the 2006 Malegaon bomb blast case also exposed the ATS probe. The NIA, while not even mentioning nine Muslim men arrested by the ATS in the Malegaon case, framed charges against right-wing Hindu elements. All nine men have now applied for discharge application from the Malegaon case, based on the NIA charge sheet. However, the probe in the Malegaon blasts has relation with July 11 blasts in Mumbai. As per the ATS case, two accused, Shaikh Mohammad Ali and Asif Khan, were common in both cases and had provided explosives. After the NIA charge sheet, the ATS claim has come under yet another trouble.

Senior journalist Ashish Khetan has moved a public interest litigation petition in the Bombay High Court, requesting an independent commission of inquiry into the conduct of investigating officers. “Apart from innocents being acquitted from the case, it is also essential that the victims of the blasts get justice. The investigations in this case show the pile of lies by the investigating officers. It needs to be probed,” Mr. Khetan told The Hindu.

Seven years after the blasts, the investigating agencies have not been able to submit a single solid proof against the 13 accused. Justice to the victims of this blast yet seems a distant reality.

Parag’s daughter wonders why her father can’t accompany her while going out of hospital and her mother finds it difficult to answer her questions. Ehetsham’s father from Jaunpur in U.P. rarely visits him. He is uncertain, whether he can ever accompany his father back home.