Years ago, India’s premier investigating agency had earned the epithet, ‘caged parrot’, from the highest court of the land. The Central Bureau of Investigation, evidently, is not short of company inside this metaphorical enclosure. While acquitting 36 foreigners who had been accused of flouting Covid-19 protocols while ‘participating’ in a religious congregation organized by the Tablighi Jamaat in March, a metropolitan court in Delhi not only criticized the failure of the prosecution to prove that the accused were present at the said event but also — in a most damaging observation — acknowledged the possibility of the police picking up these individuals with the malicious intention of implicating them under the directions of the Union home ministry. The strings that make India’s investigation agencies dance seem to have bobbed up to the surface, yet again. Incidentally, in August, charges had been dropped against eight other accused after the court found ‘no prima facie evidence’ against them either: they are among those who had — courageously — agreed to stand trial in India after 900 other foreign delegates opted to plead guilty as part of a plea bargain.

These acquittals are important because they expose the hollowness of the campaign that had been directed against the Tablighi Jamaat and, by extension, India’s Muslims who, the propaganda alleged, were instrumental in the spread of the contagion in India. Perhaps the smear campaign had been necessitated to conceal the bungling of the authorities in the first place. The assembly had been allowed to take place even though there was evidence that the pandemic was surging around the world and in India. Some of the participants hailed from nations with rising Covid burdens but their screening was lax. The investigators seem to have taken their cue from their political masters, some of whom played a crucial role in fanning the communal fire, describing members of the Jamaat as ‘terrorists’ and ‘human bombs’. The consequences were ugly: the disparaging comments worsened the strain on India’s inclusive social fabric and magnified the sufferings of minorities. It was the judiciary, once again, that stepped up to contain the poisoning. The Bombay High Court expressed its displeasure against this selective targeting and asked for the damage to be repaired. The latest verdict would strengthen the case for an apology and accountability from the powers that be.