End The Double Standard

Excerpted From An Article By Irfan Engineer In Secular Perspective
"In Coimbatore as well as in Mumbai, the police and
the politicians showed extraordinary zeal in bringing the guilty of the
bombings to justice and utterly failed and neglected their constitutional
duty to bringing the guilty of communal riots to justice. This establishes a
sort of pattern. The right wing Hindu organizations could target minorities
with impunity and some of the communalized police officers could also join
the right wing Hindu organizations without fearing any reprisals or action
against them. If some hot headed Muslim youth or victims of communal riots
wrongly decided to "avenge" the riots by violent means like bombings,
targeting innocent persons of Hindu community, they would be quickly brought
to justice and the police would act overzealously in marshalling all the
evidence to convict those guilty of the violent and criminal acts undertaken
by some members of minority community.

The only way to break this spiral of violence is for the state to intervene
in enforce law without impartially and take action mandated by law against
the guilty of bombings as well as communal violence or any hate crime
committed by member any community, sect or group or professing any identity".

--
Irfan Engineer
Director, Institute of Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution,
603, Silver Star, Next to Omkar Building, Near Railway Bridge, Prbhat
Colony, Santacruz (E), Mumbai, India. PIN: 400055.
Tel: (Off) +91-22-26149668;
(Res)+91-22-26630086
(Cell) +91-9869462833
(fax) +91-11-6100712
e-mail: irfan...@hotmail.com