31081962 Written Statement of Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah submitted in the Sessions Court, Jammu on 31 August 1962.
Written Statement of Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah submitted in the Sessions Court, Jammu on 31 August 1962.
Mr. Judge,
We are charged with conspiracy to overthrow the lawful government of the Jammu and Kashmir State, a conspiracy alleged to have begun in 1953 and to have continued until 1958. This raises the issue of where the lawful government was to be found. In 1953 I was the Prime Minister of the State. I had the unanimous support of the Legislative Assembly. On the night of the 8/9th of August, I was summarily dismissed by the Sadr-i-Riyasat. I was then imprisoned without charge or trial under the Public Security Act/the Preventive Detention Act. This dismissal was wholly unconstitutional and, as I shall submit, unlawful. It follows that the so-called government which was hereinafter installed was improperly appointed and had no lawful authority. On this ground alone the Prosecution must fail.
Even though I have regarded the government as being without lawful authority, I have never sought its destruction by resorting to violence. Indeed throughout my political career which extends back for more than 30 years I have been a believer of non-violence-a principle which I learnt from Gandhiji. I have lived up to it throughout all phases of the political struggle. I am alleged to have entered into this conspiracy as early as 1953. If the evidence for the Prosecution is to be believed they were fully informed of the progress of the conspiracy in 1955. Yet I was unconditionally released on the 8th of January, 1958, and it was not until the 23rd October, 1958, that I was charged with these offences.
Except for a brief period of less than nearly 4 months, I was in detention throughout the period of the alleged cons piracy, heavily guarded by the Army and the Armed Constabulary of Government of India and thus completely under the lock and key of the Prosecutors. This very fact alone negates any possibility of conspiring or executing the conspiracy as alleged.
At the very initial stage I told the committing Magistrate, and later the Hon'ble High Court, that the issues involved in this case are so vital and grave and the personalities interested are of such high status and position that a tribunal highly independent with unquestionable integrity who can withstand political and other pressures, alone can inspire confidence which is the bed-rock of a civilised judiciary. Unfortunately my protestations did not avail anything. Minds seemed too much conditioned by formal technicalities of procedure to yield to actual considerations for doing real justice.
Four and a half years experience has convinced me in my apprehensions expressed then. From the complaint itself stem out the vital issues on which the fate and destiny of a people hang. It is a tragedy that the thoughtless Prosecutors and a mass of suborned witnesses have recklessly been allowed to play with that destiny. Throughout the enquiry it was manifest that the Presiding officer hardly ever exercised his independent judgment and judicial discretion which could inspire even a semblance of confidence in the mind of the accused. Should patience and time permit, bare perusal of his voluminous committal order will bear me out. The world will observe the circumstances in which this trial is being held. As long ago was 1955 the Indian Parliament passed the Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Act whereby for the first time accused persons were given the right to testify in their own defence. A similar Act was passed for the Jammu and Kashmir State in 1956 subject to the provision that it should only come into force from the day appointed by the Government. That day has never dawned. It follows that my friends and I, charged as we are with crimes of the utmost gravity, are to be denied the right to give evidence which would be accorded to us in India, in all parts of the Commonwealth and other civilised countries. We have no doubt that the reason why the Statute has never been brought into force is that authorities behind the Prosecution do not wish us to give our own account of the events of the last nine years as witnesses or allow speedy trial enjoined by the new Act.
It is just over nine years since I was first arbitrarily imprisoned. It is very nearly four years since I was first charged with these offences. This inordinate delay is not confined to the present case. Seven of my co-accused were charged with murder in the Hazratbal Case. They were committed for trial in October, 1958. The trial has not yet commenced. It follows that they must go through the present proceedings with capital charge still hanging over their heads. Another of my co-accused was charged in 1957 with under the Enemy Agents Ordinance. The trial of this case by a special court began on the 5th a capital offence in October, 1957. This trial has not yet been concluded. These delays are without precedent and the only explanation is that the prosecuting authorities are determined for political reasons to keep the accused involved in criminal proceedings for the maximum possible time.
At every stage the government of the State has harassed the Defence and those who were seeking to assist the accused. Two of the counsel for the Defence were detained for periods of about a year under the Preventive Detention Act. Miss Mridula Sarabhai who sought to assist the Defence here was detained and later externed from the State in February, 1961, and forbidden to re-enter. What happened to Shri Balraj Puri merely for greeting me in court on the court record. The treatment meted out to him was not denied when questions were asked in the Indian Parliament. Very many of our friends and those who believe in political freedom have been detained for various periods under the Preventive Detention Act.
My personal and private documents fell into the hands of the coup-stagers of 9th August, 1953, and whatever was left was seized by the Police from my residence on the 29th of April, 1958. Most of these documents have not been produced in this case by the Prosecution nor have they been handed in. back to me, the obvious motive being to thwart my defence.
A very heavy burden is being cast on those members of the bar who have so far appeared for me and my co-accused. At the inception of the inquiry, I, therefore, made strenuous efforts to get the services of other suitable counsel in this case. The Prosecution got a hint from my correspondence which passed through censor that I was about to engage the services of Shri Nageshwar Prasad of Patna. They immediately got in contact with him, offered him fabulous fees and other amenities and engaged him as Chief Prosecution Counsel. This robbed me of a defence counsel of my choice from within the country. It may not be out of place to mention here that the Prosecution had already deprived us of the service of many prominent lawyers of Jammu and Srinagar Bar by engaging them in advance in various cases (including the instant one) instituted against me and my colleagues.
Shri Porus Mehta, an eminent Advocate from Bombay and Sardar Amar Singh Ambalvi, Advocate from Punjab, who appeared on behalf of my colleagues in other cases were not spared the harassment of being constantly shadowed by the Intelligence people during their visits to Kashmir.
The general environment in and around this Court premises is so infested by the Police and Intelligence Officers that free judicial atmosphere has well-high been destroyed. Amongst the Prosecutors and their Assistants there are those who have conducted investigations which is the other term for third-degree methods in Kashmir-or have made interrogation of witnesses or taken a leading part in tutoring them. Their continued presence in and around the court room is a standing terror for any Prosecution witness who under the influence of such an atmosphere can hardly be a free agent even while in the witness box.
The court below refused to summon witnesses who were and are essential to the proper conduct of the defence.
Pursuant to the coup of 9th August, 1953, I and my government were overthrown by sheer use of forces, completely subverting the Constitution whose sanctity everybody concerned had solemnly affirmed to respect. A new Government was brought into office. This "government" therefore, is not a technical complaint as understood in common parlance in criminal administration. It is personally "aggrieved" and a hostile party in these proceedings-avowedly inimical to the accused.
In a democratic set up, the only hope of a citizen to escape the tyranny of the executive is an independent judiciary. Where processes of law are employed by the executive for power politics, the very basis of democracy is completely undermined.
Under ordinary circumstances an accused would always welcome to have an opportunity of defending himself in order to prove his innocence. The present case and the circumstances which led to its institution are, however, very peculiar. The prosecution has launched this case against me, I believe, not that they really feel that I am guilty of the offences mentioned in the complaint, but to serve entirely a different purpose. This is apparent from the fact that the prosecutors shifted their ground from time to time, vis-a-vis the accusations levelled against me. In 1953, they started with the allegation that I had entered into a conspiracy with the United States of America, in order to establish an independent State of Kashmir and make it a war base for the U.S.A. A virulent propaganda was set afoot here and abroad to that end, but the story was too grotesque to carry conviction. Moreover, they had second thoughts about it. Therefore, suddenly the "conspiracy" was switched over and Pakistan made the substitute for the U.S.A. The bitterness of the Partition had not yet died down. Hence the Prosecutors thought it convenient and helpful for their purpose to tag me with Pakistan and thus obliterate my past services and unblemished record in the freedom movement.
I am now accused of having conspired with Pakistan to overthrow the so-called Kashmir government by the use of force in order to facilitate the State's wrongful annexation by that country. In these circumstances the evidence so laboriously assembled over the last nine years, particularly where it is the evidence of approvers, accomplices and spies, should be probed with utmost care.
The prosecution has produced C.I.D. reports of some of my speeches and also copies of some letters to my friends from jail. I have admitted the authorship of these letters and have also not denied having delivered the speeches. For lack of proficiency in Urdu and complete ignorance of Arabic and Persian, the reporter has very often missed the content and purport of my speeches.
As regards the letters exhibited in the case, they were sent out from the jail duly censored by the concerned and competent authorities. The inferences drawn by the Prosecution. from the text of these speeches and letters are wholly unwarranted and untenable. They militate with the whole spirit of the subject matter. It only needs an impartial mind, free from prejudice and possessed with adequate knowledge of Islamic history, the Quran and the Hadith to interpret them correctly. My misfortune is that neither the Magistrate nor the reporter and the translator who both figured as important witnesses against me could justifiably lay any claim to the knowledge of these subjects. On the contrary, their examination revealed their stark ignorance. It was a case of blind leading the blind.
A few days back I was pained to listen to the arguments of the learned Chief Counsel for the Prosecution, Shri G.S. Pathak, when he moved for amendment of charges against me and others. He sought to add a new charge of waging war to the charge already framed and in support quoted cases launched during the British regime against some of the outstanding Indian patriots and freedom fighters like Vir Savarkar, MN. Roy and others who had suffered long periods in jail to throw off the British yoke and free the motherland.
I had hoped that we had succeeded in terminating the British colonial rule with all its legacies but I am afraid Shri Pathak's reliance with gusto solely on the bad traditions of that rule puts one in doubt if the freedom has really been gained.
For the last 15 years the Indo-Pakistan dispute over the accession of J&K State has led the two neighbours to take divergent paths, dividing them into hostile camps. The dispute first resulted in a shooting war which has now subsided to the worst type of cold war. Campaign of hate, bitterness and sinful vilification is at its height of which the main victim, unfortunately, is common man. The present case is being used by our prosecutors as a lever to aggravate the process of this cold war. The very contents of the complaint, evidence of the tutored witnesses and the arguments advanced by the Prosecution, all lead to that single purpose. A vested interest has been created which adds fuel to this cold war. They seem to be convinced that they can make hay only so long as the two peoples of India and Pakistan stand at loggerheads. It is, however, my firm conviction that the continuance of this campaign of hate and bitterness will not only harm both India and Pakistan, but may exterminate our State in the process.
In this cold war and inflamed tensions, it is most regret table that the right of self-determination of 5 million people of J&K State is made the first casualty. The onslaught is vehemently carried on all fronts so as to divert the attention of the world from the basic issue confronting the people of the State and side-track into other channels.
Ever since the Kashmir freedom movement was launched in 1931 the people of the State have gone through blood and tears in order to achieve their basic right to shape their own destiny freely and without any coercion. This right had been usurped from them and they were enslaved for centuries suffering all sorts of indignities, that has always been the lot of an enslaved nation. Many of their spasmodic efforts to liberate themselves from the shackless of bondage and slavery had been ruthlessly suppressed in the past by the powers that be. In 1931 destiny left it to me to spearhead the movement for their emancipation and I have accordingly dedicated my life to that cause.
This is a political trial. I and my friends have been detained over many years and we are here today because of the principle for which we have stood-namely, the right of the people in Jammu & Kashmir State to be masters of their own destiny. It has been conveyed to me several times that not only could I go free immediately but I could also resume the Premiership of the State if I was prepared to accept the present status of Jammu & Kashmir State. This I have refused to do. That is why my friends and I stand in the dock today.
I, of course, plead not guilty to these false and fantastic charges. But in this case-not the first time in history-it is the accusers who are on trial. They have denied the Kashmiri people the right to determine their own future. They have maintained and still maintain a reign of terror. They have misused their powers in order to suppress and persecute their political opponents. Now they are seeking by manifestly perjured evidence to pervert the ends of justice. It is they who should be in the dock today. I await not only your verdict. but the verdict of history.
Thank you.
Sd/
Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah
Jammu,
Dated 31st August 1962.
WRITTEN ARGUMENTS