In striking a balance between civil liberties and national security, the authorities have a daunting task. The Indian experience clearly suggests that it is extremely difficult to get a terrorist convicted through the ordinary process of law. Whether in Punjab during the Khalistan troubles or Jammu & Kashmir today, legal niceties have routinely been discarded because fear overwhelms witnesses, lawyers and judges. This is equally true of the war against Maoist terror in Andhra Pradesh. And even when there is due process, as with the conviction of Afzal Guru for the attack on Parliament, there are enough terrorist-friendly activists to claim that the evidence was fabricated and the verdict flawed.
The conflict between robust anti-terrorism and cynical politics is at the heart of arrest of DG Vanzara and two other IPS officers on charges of killing Sohrabuddin Sheikh, a known extortionist and gun-runner, and his partner in a "false encounter". The English-language media, especially that section which blends visceral hatred of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi with a perverted sympathy for Islamist causes, has gone apoplectic. With indignation running riot, there are wild suggestions that Gujarat has made it its business to target "innocent" Muslims (like Ishrat Jehan whose death was commemorated by the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba website) in false encounters. A reputed newspaper with Communist sympathies has, in defiance of all journalistic norms, even published a forged docu
