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The three blasts in Mumbai on 13th
July 2011 not only killed nearly 20 innocent people but shook the
city yet again. The previous attack on Mumbai 26/11 2008 was
horrific enough to have killed over 200 people. The tragedy was
followed by the great resilience of Mumbai citizens to
rehabilitate the victims to line up for blood donations and help
in many more ways, the efforts which make us salute Mumbai
citizens yet again.
The tragedy of blasts has activated investigations, the sharp
tongues and the writers to investigate and hypothesize the ‘who
done it’ of the blast. And as is their wont the politicians of
different hues also saw this as an occasion to put forward their
theories of causes of terror and the remedies. One stream
indicated that it is the act of Jihadi terrorists, Pakistan, ISI,
the usual suspects in any act of terror. Added with the analysis
that since India is not hard enough, the terror attacks are
continuing. While US after one attack adopted policies due to
which no more terror attacks take place there. The usual
suggestion of attacking Pakistan to avenge this act of terror,
this time did not surface so much as in 2008 when Baba Ramdev had
promised to fund the war against Pakistan to avenge the terror
attack. Most hilarious was the statement of Raj Thackeray, the one
asserting that Maharashtra is only for Marathi people, who went on
to say that the terror attacks are taking place as more and more
immigrants are coming to Maharashtra from other states! Digvijay
Singh, who has been consistently pointing out that the terror
attacks have been taking place due to the likes of Sadhvi Pragya
Singh Thakur and Swami Aseemanand also, cautioned that while
trying to look at Muslim culprits those associated with RSS
ideology should also be given a look at.
Meanwhile as the act of investigating terror is fairly difficult,
the investigating authorities do begin their work on some
suppositions and the easiest one to follow for them so far has
been to work on the lines that, ‘All Terrorists are Muslims’. In
accordance, the names of Indian Mujahedeen and SIMI are already in
the air, the theory of scooter being used for the blast is there
and one hopes this lead will be given due importance.
I
The immediate thought of Indian Mujahedeen, a supposed offshoot of
Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Al Qaeda type outfit is always amongst the most
initial ones’. This trend was present all through even when the
blasts were taking place in front of Mosques at the most crowded
times. The whole creation of AL Qaeda and the US media coining the
term Islamic terrorism has been a deliberate ploy on the part of
United State in pursuit of the control over oil resources. Al
Qaeda itself was in a way product of the US policies. The Russian
army’s occupation of Afghanistan on invitation from the local
Communist group came in handy for US to undertake its policy to
make its presence stronger in the oil zone. US has been working on
the theory that ‘Oil is too precious to be left to the Arabs and
others of the region’. While pursuing this policy US not only
planted Israel in the region, it made pacts with the tyrannical
local rulers like those of Saudi Arabia but also went in to
promote the radical Islamist groups. In the face of Russian Army’s
occupation of Afghanistan, it undertook this more actively. A
syllabus was designed to brain wash the Muslim you in Madrassas,
especially set up in Pakistan. In this syllabus the word Jihad was
presented as killing non Muslims. The meaning of word Jihad in
Koran is to strive to the utmost. In Koran this word appears 41
times and none of the times it is equivalent to war. Similarly the
word Kafir, for those who hide the truth was distorted and the
Muslim youth were indoctrinated to kill and maim the Russian army.
Osama was given the leadership of this group and was supplied with
8000 million dollars and 7000 tons of armaments, with the help of
which Al Qaeda joined anti Russian forces and succeeded in
defeating the Russian forces.
Later the offshoots of these groups extended their operations to
Kashmir, other parts of India, Mumbai in particular. Its major
area of operation remains Pakistan itself where it has been
wrecking havoc through different acts of terror, one of which was
the killing of Benazir Bhutto.
In Pakistan there are multiple forces. The terrorist groups are
close to Army and thereby to ISI. While the civilian government of
Pakistan is for control on these groups, the army is promoting
them. Every time India and Pakistan try to make initiative for
dialogue and peace in the region, these groups are activated to
see that the dialogue process is halted. One of the suspicions of
the blast can be on those groups who are against the India
Pakistan Peace. One recalls such an efforts was there before
November 26, 2008 attack. Even now the dialogue process is
beginning so those groups opposed to India-Pakistan friendship may
have undertaken this heinous act. It is a matter of relief that
Indian Government is committing itself to the peace with Pakistan,
despite the provocation and noise from the hawks like Advani and
Co.
II
There are many acts of terror which came to surface, especially
from 6th April 2006, when a blast killed two Bajrang Dal, an RSS
affiliate; workers while making bomb. During this period many such
bomb explosions took place in various places in Maharashtra, Jalna,
Parbhani, Aurangabad, Panvel etc. Most of these blasts took place
in front of the mosques at the time when people were leaving the
Masjid or other places of congregation. In this line the bomb
blasts of Mecca Masjid, Hyderabad, Malegaon, Ajmer and others were
very prominent. Despite solid evidence, the police departments
were pursuing the leads in a passive fashion, till Hemant Karkare
took over as the Chief of Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad. With
meticulous investigation he found the connection of motor cycle
used in Maelgaon blast to Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, This lead
unearthed the whole gang involved in these acts of terror, Swami
Dayanand Pandey, Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit, Retd. Major
Upadhyay, Swami Aseemanand and others. Meanwhile the murder of RSS
worker Sunil Joshi and the connections of RSS functionary, Indresh
Kumar spilled more beans for the investigation. The role of two
organizations, Abhinav Bharat and Sanatan Sanstha, both working
for the goal of Hindu Rashtra, also came to the surface and
National investigation Team is following the case at the moment.
The biggest back up information came from Swami Aseemanand of VHP,
a major associate of RSS. Swami Aseemanand in a confession in
front of the magistrate told the whole story behind these terror
blasts, leading P.Chidmabaram to use to word ‘Saffron terror’ for
the whole phenomenon.
The question marks raised by many people about Hemant Karkare’s
death angered those close to RSS ideology. Just to recall as
Karkare was investigating these acts of terror, Gujarat Chief
Minister Narendra Modi called him Deshdrohi (anti-National) and
Shiv Sena’s mouthpiece Saamna wrote that ‘we spit on his face’. No
wonder the same Hemant Karkare was killed on the attack on Mumbai
on 26/11 and various versions put forward by police raised the
questions about the death of the police officer. It is in this
context that the then minority affairs minister A.R. Antulay said
that there is terrorism plus something else in the Mumbai attack
of 26/11. Those close to the ideology of these terror groups
condemned Antulay to no end.
Related to this was the killing of two Muslim youth in Delhi,
Batla House. The death was in mysterious circumstances and it was
presented that these were two terrorists who have been killed in
the police encounter. The question marks on the authenticity of
police version have been put by civic human rights groups and
Congress Secretary Digvijay Singh. In the same context the city of
Azamgarh was projected to be the terror den and many innocent
Muslim youth had to leave their education half way for the fear of
being apprehended by police and so they returned to their homes.
Even one of the lines of investigation for police is the Azamgarh
connection.
Very interestingly when all these acts of terror were going on
many an innocent Muslim youth were put behind the bar, and their
careers were ruined and atmosphere of fear started prevailing in
Muslim localities.
III
Mumbai has been a victim of acts of terror from last several
years. To be more precise, the first major one occurred on March
12 1993, in which 13 blasts took place across the city killing 257
people. These were the blasts which took place in the aftermath of
Post Babri Demolition Mumbai carnage. Later Mumbai also witnessed
the acts of terror on December 2, 2002 when an explosion took
place in a bus in Ghatkopar suburb of Mumbai killing two people.
The backdrop to this was the massive anti Muslim pogrom in the
wake of Godhra train burning. Similar tragedy shook the city on
March 13, 2003, then July 29 2003, August 25, 2003 and the last
one on July 11, 2006 in the First class compartment of Western
Railway Local trains.
The one on November 26, 2008 was of a different nature. It was an
operation planned meticulously by a group of jeans tee shirt
wearing terrorists numbering nearly ten. It seems they high-jacked
a Gujarat registered fishing vessel on the high seas, sailed near
Sassoon docks and reached Gateway of India in dinghies. They were
carrying heavy backpacks; and divided themselves into 5 teams and
unleashed mayhem mainly at CST, G.T. Hospital, Metro Cinema, Hotel
Taj, Hotel Trident and Nariman House. The blasts took place at
these places and also at Colaba market, Cama Hospital, Nehru Road
(Vile Parle), NB Road (Malad) and at Free Press Road. The attack
literally took the breath of Mumbai away for a while, the scale
audacity, flamboyance and planning of this assault was astounding.
It seems a lot of preparation had gone in to plan this attack,
Mumbai attackers had clearly been trained well; the conspiracy had
been in the making for close to a year. This was the time when
India and Pakistan were trying to talk peace.
IV
After the current attack lot of ideas based on misconceptions are
floating around. One such goes as saying that since Indian has not
hanged Ajmal Kasab, these attacks are repeating. While saying
this, one forgets that there are two mechanisms of someone taking
to the path of terror. One is when a person or group feels that
gross injustice has been done to them and this injustice crosses
the threshold, the way it happened after the violence of Mumbai
92-93 or Gujarat carnage of 2002. Second is when due to political
and economic goals the groups are set up and youth are
brainwashed-indoctrinated to go on the path of terror for the sake
of God (Al Qaeda types) or religion (Sadhvi Pragya Thankur or
Aseemanand). In both the cases these indoctrinated person is
motivated by the goals which are beyond life and death, willing to
lay down their lives. So death or any other penalty is no
deterrent for them. The terror groups have the ideology which
exhorts the youth in the name of God or religion, mixed with great
amount of faith. So the point is how one can go to the root of the
issue rather than just punishing the culprits, which is easy
enough. In addition in case of Kasab, the legal process of
punishing him is on any way.
The argument that United States had saved itself by future terror
attacks due to its policies is appealing enough on first
impression. When we go deeper we realize many a things. Some of
these are contentious, the one like who did 9/11, there are enough
websites and books doubting the version popularized by US media.
Whatever is the truth of that, one thing is sure that US and prior
to that the colonial powers have been the major culprits of
violence in the World. In order to usurp the wealth of the World
they do undertake policies whereby the trouble spots are located
far away from their own lands. In case of promoting the groups
like Al Qaeda, it is clear that because of the proximity of South
Asia to the oil zone where US wanted to create its hegemony, spill
over of terror attacks in South Asia is easy enough. That’s how
the major victims of Al Qaeda type groups are not only India but
also Pakistan, where these terror groups are playing the role of
Frankensteins monster.
V
Terrorism is a phenomenon which is an anti thesis of peace and
amity. It has nothing to do with religion’s moral values. It
derives its cover from the religion’s identity. A distorted
version of terms from religion’s history is misused to
indoctrinate the youth. Similarly a sense of injustice is
instilled to incite the youth to take revenge by killing the
innocents. When Ajaml Kasab sprays the bullets, those killed in
the act are Hindus and Muslims both. When Swami Aseemanand talks
of ‘Bomb for Bomb’ or such groups spread hatred for the goal of
Hindu Rashtra, what is being talked is not the values of
Vasudhaiva Kutumbka (whole planet is my family) or Ahimsa
Parmodharam (Non-violence is the highest religion), what is being
aimed at is the nation based on religions identity, a concept
which people of India rejected lock stock and barrel during the
freedom Movement.
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