It was on August 26, 2006, when Professor H.S. Sabharwal had a heart attack during the college elections at Madhav College Ujjain, and was rushed to the hospital, where he was declared dead. The Congress and Left propaganda teams swung into action and started a hue and cry blaming ABVP, BJP, and even the RSS for the Professor’s death. The propaganda worked when the electronic media all over the country showed a video clipping released by the Congress showing ABVP leaders in a heated argument with a professor, followed by the clipping of an unconscious professor Sabharwal being carried away to the hospital in a vehicle. TV newsrooms were suddenly full of leaders from Congress parties, and surprisingly, no ABVP leaders were invited to narrate their side of the story. The Congress, obsessed by its character of a single leadership and no organisation, blamed ABVP, the largest student organisation in the world to be ‘a part of the BJP’ and hence demanded the Chief Minister’s resignation. What went completely unheard was the version of those students who were being accused of the Professor’s murder. No media in the country cared to walk up to them and ask for their truth. A case of murder was filed against them and they were arrested overnight by a government that was accused of ‘protecting’ them. Their propaganda mission achieved, the Left and Congress sponsored NGOs took centre stage and started using the Sabharwal family, which was already in its worst emotional crisis, to achieve cheap political motives. Petitions were filed, press conferences were conducted, and a distorted and completely false version of the incident was fabricated and spread through a well organised network, all over the world. However, not one clipping showed the ABVP leaders even in conversation with the deceased Professor, forget about the murder with which they were charged. The fact that remains under the carpets even today is that the video clipping repeatedly shown only showed the ABVP leaders in argument with Professor Nath, and not Professor Sabharwal. Professor Nath, interstingly, later filed an FIR in the local police station complaint against the NSUI, the Congress student’s wing, and not ABVP.
The media trial had already begun, but the real trial in the court room could not begin because despite best of efforts by the state government for a speedy trial, the Sabharwal family was busy participating in dharnas with the Congress Party rather than following the legal procedures for justice. Petitions were filed in the Supreme court asking for a CBI probe, alleging the state government of favouring the ABVP leaders by Himanshu, the son of Professor Sabharwal. The court rejected the demand almost immediately. The next petition was for a trial outside Madhya Pradesh. Worried by the delay in justice, the counsels of the ABVP themselves requested the Supreme Court to conduct the trial in another state, and above all, the BJP government in MP requested the family to choose the government prosecutors they felt were best for the case. Months, and then years were spend in these exercises, with the Sabharwal family using every legal option to delay the beginning of the case, and hence a reinvestigation of the case was the next on their list of demands. Aware of the propaganda and accusations, the government ordered a reinvestigation of the case. The case, the accused, and the hearing were shifted to the Nagpur sessions court where a Congress led government is in power. Once the trial began, the fake mist of the propaganda started clearing up, and Himanshu Sabharwal and his relatives completely failed to provide evidence of their claims in the court. Even their statements given under oath in the court were proved to be false by the defence lawyers. Witness after witness denied the prosecution claims and refused to verify their version of incidents. Finally, despite every effort of tactical delay, absence from courts, public propaganda and massive misuse of money and media power, the Nagpur sessions court on July 13 2009, acquitted the ABVP leaders of all charges giving them a clean chit and freeing them of almost three years of detention and misery, of which they did not even deserve a day. In its order, the Nagpur court has stated that the prosecution ‘miserably failed’ to prove its charges against the accused, including the false statements given by Professor Sabharwal’s son Himanshu and his family in a court of law.
The case was over, but for the Congress, the Left, and their propaganda team, it was far from over. Instead of appealing in the High Court, they appealed in the ‘media court’. Newspapers carried headlines like “Professor denied justice”.
The worst part of the story is that nobody seems to show any attention for those acquitted, those who were mere students arguing for an election and ended up being labelled criminals by an opportunist political propaganda system of the Congress. No one cares to reach out to their families, who have seen their children suffer for three long years, and who have waited each day, patiently for their children to return home. If justice has been denied, it has been denied to those who were accused and who are now acquitted, but only after having lost three important years of their lives in jail. Social and political systems apart, even time may not be able to heal their wounds.
