Expert: Shemej - 11/30/2009

Question
QUESTION: In India sometimes people (perhaps famous or known) are abducted.
However, no ransom or other demand is made. Why, then, is the abduction made?

ANSWER: Hi
Thanks for the answer.

I think you have not given any supporting facts, which would give help us to understand the context of your question.

Frankly, I dont think people abduct important people just as a hobby, From where did you get this news?

As far as I can understand, many of the abductions are done with the intention of getting ransom. Normally the criminals targets people who are wealthy and more importantly people who have a lot of illegal money. And the law enforcement agencies in India (starting from local police, high level police officers, judges and top people in govt) many (definitely not all) are corrupt and inefficient. Hence, most VIPs try to avoid contacting police and arrange ransom money secretly. As both abductors and the victims know there is the involvement of large amount of illegal money, and due to various other reasons, the fact that the ransom is paid is often not revealed to the public. As pointed out earlier, people know that police can not give protection for their life and property for a long time and naturally they have fear for life also. This is also one reason that they deny about the payment of ransom. At least some of these victims or their relatives are also involved in some illegal activities (some times I can read that business partners abducting the child of other partner etc).

In many part of India, there is no mechanism to enforce law. This is more true about remotely located feudal areas, where literally landlords, their mafia or other organized mafia rule the society. There are thousands of villages in India, where the police never enters. States like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhyapradesh, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand etc are examples. There were even exaggerated stories appearing in the media which suggests that many part of these states, main business is abductions for ransom. There is large scale poverty in the rural areas, and for many people, logically there is no way to survive in these areas. Hence there is an abundant number of youth ready to do anything for a living and big mafia gangs attract these young people and the mafia business flourishes.

Other reason is political. In states like Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur etc, the state is fighting a war with political outfits with mass support (I am not looking into the righteousness of their ideology). Here both so-called "terrorist groups" (extremists are the right word I guess) and state sponsored private mafia gangs and also the police (also military) abduct large number of people. In such instances, (on most cases) ransom is not the demand but there could be political demands.

Other type of political abduction is where the so called Naxalites or other left-wing extremists are active. I thnk you can also include some of the separatist groups in this category. And in these areas, state sponsored abductions are also common. A good example of such state sponsored  agency is Salwa Judum. This notorious criminal gang is paid and protected by Indian state for killing and raping innocent people. Though the govt claims it is self-resistance group by villagers against extremists, media has highlighted the innumerable cases of criminal activities conducted by them. As a result the so called extremists' strength went up 22 times more according to a recent admission of India Govt. In this category, the extremists some times abduct top Corporate heads (say for example a Tea Plantation top bureaucrat). Normally many corporate pay a huge amount of monthly fees to these so called extremists so that they can conduct their private business smoothly. This monthly fees is a main source of income for many extremist outfits. A good example of that Ratan Tata group funding ULFA secretly, which was exposed by Indian miltary. Later the corporate media, TATA company and Indian ruling parties together done a massive cover-up exercise. You cant even read a single news about this incident in the main-stream Internet media. That is the influence of TATA Group. Naxalites (Maoists - the left extremist group) collects huge amount of money by this means. Some times if some dispute takes place in the name of this monthly fees, they reportedly abduct corporate managers.

Another large scale abduction is by police, and secret agencies in the name of anti-Naxal drive or anti-fundamentalists drive. Many innocent youth belonging to prominent minority community and many innocent people who allegedly were sympathetic to extremist/separatist groups are abducted by police and shot to death in fake-encounters. In a recent controversy, some top police officers from Gujarat abducted an innocent girl (along with suspected fundamentalists) and killed her in a fake-encounter. Some years back a prominent Maoist intellectual Saket Ram was murdered in a fake encounter. Under the chief ministership of late RajaShekhar Reddy, the fake encounters became a daily activity in Andhra Pradesh.  According to an amnesty international report, the number of "Missing" people in Jammu and Kashmir is above 80,000. Earlier similar cases were reported in Punjab in the height of Khalistan movement. Extremists abduct suspected police informers and kill them. Some times, they abduct top bureaucrats to demand the release of their comrades who are either in Jail of in Police custody. Recently such cases were reported in West Bengal and earlier the terrorist group hijacked a Aero -flight with with a political demand. In all these cases, the question of ransom is not very relevant.


Another notorious case was the abduction of a notable south Indian film star and a political leader by a dacoit with the name Veerappan. Huge amount of ransom was said to be given to release the film star. However nothing was revealed to the media.

The large scale abductions taking place in urban areas like Mumbai and Bangalore are slightly different. Powerful underworld gang influence and control film, politics, real estate business. They abduct people for ransom and some times they accept money and work for rich people and abduct or kill others.

Another case is reported recently in West Bengal where a notorious chief minister try to please Private corporate and in turn these corporate spend money to build brand name for this official communist leader (He openly rejected communism long back, but still has the backing of communist workers in this country.) In a desperate move to protect the interests of Private business and to protect the political power, there were clashes between this chief minister's followers and rival groups. Many innocent people were abducted and killed. And the so called Maoists are also involved in such heinous crimes.

These are some of the examples I can give you. However, if you give more specific examples, I can probably try to find out more details and give you.

I dont know if this answer is satisfactory to you. I have not attempted to give any supporting news report, as I dont know if you are interested to know these details. However you can easily search online and find relevant news items supporting my statements above.

If you need any further input, please let me know.

regards
Shemej

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks for the amazingly extensive reply. However, ransom and other demands were expressly excluded by the questioner (a serious radio Q+A programme). He has now clarified that  this kind of abduction is done for the purpose of making the abductor's existence known, or, better, to declare his/her presence. It is for this reason that the victim (abducted person)is someone well known. The question now is WHY DOES HE WANT TO MAKE HIS EXISTENCE/PRESENCE KNOWN?? The questioner says it is not for money, but it is something very interesting.I will appreciate it if you try  again. Of course, my rating will reflect your fantastic effort!


Answer
HI thanks once again for your query.

Kindly see that I am modifying the previous answer. And let me say the following here:

Let us understand that if any social phenomenon is taking place in large scale, then there should be a logical explanation for that. Let us understand that for any business, there is a motive and there is a benefit. If people take high risk for any activity then there should be greater benefits. Abduction could be an illegal act. However, even an illegal act, which has high risk can NOT happen in large scale, if there is no rewards/ benefits/ fruits accomplished at the end. Let us understand that acts like abductions are organized crimes. And there could be exceptions for every rule and there could be some individuals who are just “publicity-crazy” and do such organized crime. However, there is no logical explanation why and how a "crazy" person can motivate his subordinates/colleagues to participate in a risky criminal act. For almost all actions which take place in this Capitalist world, there should be a material motivation. In a feudal society, inspired by other motives people may get into such organized acts. Say for example, a religious person can be motivated to participate in a communal riot for one time or for a few occasions. However, it is impossible to motivate people to participate in an organized criminal act for more than once without giving him a material incentive. I fail to understand how can any one participate in a criminal act without expecting any money or other benefit just because his friend/colleague/master has craze for publicity?

If a particular media is claiming that large scale abductions take place in India just for getting publicity, then either they have to explain the motivation behind such acts or the media itself should have other motivations. If a particular media house create sensation in the name of "abduction for publicity" that may give them the required number of viewers /readership and they can get advertisement revenue. If I have to come with the argument that there are large scale abductions in India with the sole intention of “gaining publicity”, then I should have a motive behind that. As I dont get any benefit for propagating this theory, hence, I dont attempt that here. The media house you referred may be attempting to prove that point for reasons best known to them.

This doesnt mean, there can not be exceptions. However, exceptions are exceptions and they can not be generalized.

However, a particular mafia group, a terrorist group or even police intelligence wing can conduct abductions for publicity, as they will get long term results for their acts. If a new mafia group want to announce their presence by a series of abductions they conduct, all wealthy people would come to know about such acts and that would help mafia groups to collect the ransom for many years in the future without much difficulty. However, the material motive is evident here. They are not just for "publicity" (The "publicity" in turn help them to get money)

A terrorist group can get followers; they can give signals to local police about their "powers"

According to some reports, the intelligence wing of police conducted large scale abductions, murder and rapes of innocent people and they propagated that such acts were done by certain terrorist groups. Such acts were meant to tarnish the image of such "terrorist" groups in the eye of general public and to isolate them from the public.

Well, as I said earlier, unless and until I know more facts about the so called "abductions for publicity" phenomenon, I dont want to attempt an explanation about that phenomenon. I would like to believe such large scale abductions “meant only for the sake of publicity” is not taking place in India. There could be some isolated cases here and there. I may be wrong. I admit my reading knowledge is limited and I have not much knowledge about criminal incidents taking place in many parts of India.

However, I would like to rely on my common-sense rather than the media hype. I am sorry. At the same time, I respect your view and I agree that there could be such incidents taking place some where. I sorry, I couldn’t gather more information about such acts, and I guess, I couldn’t give you useful information to your query.

I guess, you will be able to get more inputs from other sources also. Wish you good luck. And thanks for asking this rather “strange” and interesting question.
regards
Shemej