Interview With Hemant Karkare

Interview With Hemant Karkare

By Rana Ayyub

29 November, 2008
Tehelka

ATS chief Hemant Karkare told RANA AYYUB, shortly before his death in the Mumbai terror attacks, that more army officers will not be arrested

The 2008 Malegaon blasts investigations have, for the first time, linked the right wing organisations to terrorist acts in the country. ATS Joint commissioner Hemant Karkare was spearheading the investigation. In an interview with TEHELKA, he had clarified the ATS stand on the conflicting reports that have been trickling out regarding the investigations.

Reports suggest that VHP strongman Pravin Togadia funded Abhinav Bharat, the organisation which is allegedly involved in the Malegaon blasts? Has this been confirmed?

There was a reference to his name during the investigation, but that has nothing to do with the Malegaon blasts investigations of 2008. At this point of time, we are only looking into the 2008 blasts.

Will Pravin Togadia be questioned, since his name has also cropped up in the narco tests done on the accused in the Nanded blasts of 2006?

No, as of now there is no evidence against him. As I said earlier, we are looking at only the Malegaon blasts, so there is no question of interrogating Pravin Togadia.

Reports suggest the involvement of high-profile seers in the Malegaon blasts. Has the ATS got proof of this?

We are not looking at seers or saints in relation to the Malegaon blasts. We are not looking at people from a particular community when we question them. We are just detaining people on the basis of evidence. As for Dayanand Pandey, he has proclaimed himself to be a seer. There are a lot of people going around claiming to be saints.

Was Swami Aseemanand from Dangs involved in other blasts, including the one at Ajmer, as reports suggest?

A reference has been made to his name during the investigations, we cannot divulge much at this stage. These people might not have been seers. Aseemanand could also have taken the garb of a seer.

While presenting its case, the ATS said that there was a possibility of those arrested in the Malegaon blasts case also being involved in the blasts that took place in the Marathwada region in 2006. Is there evidence to prove this? Has the ATS been able to link those arrested to other blasts?

There are agencies that have been looking at the various links, namely the CBI, which has been looking at the Malegaon blasts of 2006. The link we found is that of Rakesh Dhawre. He is a Pune-based counterfeit arms dealer who was involved in the training that took place for the blasts of 2006. He is the common link between the 2006 blasts including the ones in Purna and Parbhani, and the 2008 Malegaon blasts. Investigating agencies are working on it.

There are reports that police officials from other states have been coming to interrogate those arrested by the ATS. Is that true?

Yes, police officials from other states have been coming but that’s something which is protocol in such cases. They wanted to know of the modus operandi so that they could figure out if there are similarities to other blasts, in Andhra Pradesh and Chandigarh. What they found out is something only they will be able to tell you.

The ATS made a flip-flop on the links of those arrested with the Samjhauta blasts, which raised questions when it found no mention in the remand copy.

A lot has been made of the Samjhauta Express statement that was made by the public prosecutor in the case. There was a statement made by the witness that Purohit helped in the procurement of RDX. That was a part of the case diary. It cannot be taken as gospel truth. What was wrong was the mention of the same to the media, although we had said that there is no such evidence of the same.

The BJP has targeted the ATS for its investigations. Has there been any political pressure?

We are here to do our job as an investigating agency and bring out the truth. Having said that, it’s baseless to say that we are working under political pressure. There is absolutely no pressure on me or my officials. We are doing our best to bring the truth out.

Abhinav Bharat has come out as having played a key role. Is the ATS planning to question Himani Savarkar, its founder member?

We look at individuals and not organisations when we carry out our investigations. We are not looking at Abhinav Bharat, we are looking at the individuals involved. We have not questioned Himani Savarkar so far, and as yet, there is no evidence against her.

There are reports that an ATS team has left for Delhi. Is it true?

No, it’s absolutely untrue.

There were also reports that the army was not cooperating with the ATS with regards to information on Col Purohit and his leave records?

I would like to clear this. The army has given cooperation to the ATS right from day one on every aspect of the interrogation. There have been reports that the army has not been cooperating with the ATS and that’s absolutely untrue. The army gave us his leave records and other documents, which we needed.

Is the ATS looking at arresting more army officials?

No, we are not looking at arresting or detaining any more army officials in the case.

Most of the accused have alleged that they have been subjected to physical and mental torture.

We are doing our duty as investigating agencies. Such allegations come during the course of investigations. But they are untrue. We cannot do anything about such allegations

Can Purohit and Dayanand Pandey be called the key conspirators in the Malegaon blasts? Is this evident from the narco tests of the accused?

We are yet to get the narco reports. There is evidence against Purohit, but we can’t reveal anything at this stage

As the findings of narco tests are not admissible in court, does the ATS have substantial proof to nail the accused in the case?

The ATS has been carrying out investigations. We have enough evidence against the people we have arrested and we will present it in court.

There has been a report that Purohit and Dayanand Pandey had conspired to kill RSS veterans like Mohan Bhagwat and Indreesh. What do you have to say on this? Have those arrested confessed to the same? The name of Delhi-based doctor RP Singh too has cropped up during the course of investigations. Does the ATS have evidence suggesting his involvement?

The name of RP Singh came up during the investigation of Dayanand Pandey. I can’t reveal much about it at this stage. As for the assassination of RSS leaders, some references had emerged but they can’t be linked to any organisation.

Are more arrests likely to be made by the ATS in the Malegaon blasts? Do you also see the involvement of Hindu organisations like the Bajrang Dal, RSS, and Sanatan Sanstha in various terror acts in the country?

The ATS had filed a chargesheet against the Sanatan Sanstha in a different case, but there is no proof to link organisations as yet with the blasts. We are just looking at individuals.

Does the arrest of seers and armymen in terror acts suggest a trend?

Col Purohit was just an aberration. Just because one man has been arrested it does not mean that the entire army is tainted. Tomorrow, you cannot blame the entire police force just because one officer is arrested.

Have some other names cropped up during the investigations of the accused?Has the name of Nitin Joshi, one of the key members of the Abhinav Bharat, cropped up?

At the moment we are looking for Shyam Apte and Ramji, who have been named in the investigations. They played an important role and are absconding.

rana@tehelka.com

From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 48, Dated Dec 06, 2008

Tehelka.com is a part of Anant Media Pvt. Ltd. © 2000 - 2008 All rights reserved

Lessons Of Mumbai Terror

Lessons Of Mumbai Terror Attack

By Dr.V.N.Sharma

29 November, 2008
Countercurrents.org

As per the news being circulated the Mumbai Terror Attack problem is over with a few dozens dead and over 350 injured. We must congratulate our NSG, Marine Commandos, Army personnel who all had to operate in the danger zone around the Action areas for over 65 hours with a few of them losing their lives in action. We salute all of them who took part in the operation and flushed out the terrorists dead or alive. We also salute those of the finest IPS Officers of ATS and Police men who lost their lives in the starting phase of the battle between the law and order keeping forces and the Terrorists.

What are the lessons of the event?

That, the country was one, is one and will remain one against all such external or internal attacks, disturbances and disorders being created by vested interest groups outside the country and also inside it.

That, Maratha warriors like Bal Thakrey and his Shiv Sainiks and Raj Thakrey and his MNS Sainiks were seen nowhere in action of saving their very own Marathi Manush Mumbai. A shameful act on part of these Maratha warriors. Mumbaikars and the Marathis must have now more faith in the United India with brotherhood between the people of different linguistic, cultural and religious background and not in so called sainiks and their leaders.

That , major part of Police administration in Mumbai, except for ATS, seemed to be paralysed and fainted. This was the same force which flashed their bravery in killing Raj, a Bihari boy from a short distance a month ago.

That, neither CM Deshmukh nor his loud mouth Home Minister RR Patil who was shouting from the top of his voice about a month ago that guns will be met with guns (against the same Bihari boy Raj ) was not visible this time with his boys and the guns when the terrorist guns were spitting fire. There were many other brave Marathas like Praful Patel who matched his frequency with Raj Thakrey and challenged just a month ago whoever challenged the Marathas and their ego which in his opinion was not the rights or property of Northies, Hindi speaking population and last but not the least Biharis and Jharkhandis. All this Maratha talk was a shameful act then and now. Otherwise they should have been in the forefront of the Save Mumbai campaign from Terrorists. Is it possible that the Terrorists fixed the exact dates for action after making sure that Mumbai in particular had become weak due to the recent MNS action against the Biharis and Northies in Mumbai and Maharashtra? This may be a major probable cause.

This also has a lesson for us and our rulers in Delhi as to why we have a non-political PM and a weak Home Minister who seemed to be totally unaware of his job, that is, the situation prevailing in the country. They are certainly not pro-active. They are reactive. Therefore, we, over 100 crore people are not safe in these hands. It is not to say that BJP or their NDA will do anything better.

What we, the citizens of this country need to do is to reject all such defective people whose total perspective is to look at the Unity and existence of this country through the eyes of BSE and NSE indices, or divide the populace for votes on linguistic , caste and communal lines and are not interested in a sensible governance and development of a United and strong India.

Mossad-CIA Connection

Mossad-CIA Connection To
Mumbai Terror Attacks?

By Yoginder Sikand

29 November, 2008
Countercurrents.org

“O ye who believe! stand out firmly for God, as witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to piety: and fear God. For God is well-acquainted with all that ye do.”

(The Quran, Surah Al-Maida: 8)

Numerous theories are doing the rounds about the dastardly terrorist assault on Mumbai. The dominant view, based on what is being suggested by the media, is that this is the handiwork of the dreaded Pakistan-based self-styled Islamist and terrorist outfit Lashkar-e Tayyeba, which, ever since it was ostensibly proscribed by the Government of Pakistan some years ago, has adopted the name of Jamaat ud-Dawah. This might well be the case, for the Lashkar has been responsible for numerous such terrorist attacks in recent years, particularly in Kashmir.

The Lashkar is the military wing of the Markaz Dawat wal Irshad, an outfit floated by a section of the Pakistani Ahl-e Hadith, a group with close affiliations to the Saudi Wahhabis. It has its headquarters at the town of Muridke in the Gujranwala district in Pakistani Punjab. The Markaz was established in 1986 by two Pakistani university professors, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and Zafar Iqbal. They were assisted by Abdullah Azam, a close aide of Osama bin Laden, who was then associated with the International Islamic University in Islamabad. Funds for setting up the organization are said to have come from Pakistan’s dreaded official secret services agency, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). From its inception, it is thus clear, the Lashkar had the support of the Pakistani establishment.

The Lashkar started out as a paramilitary organisation to train warriors to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Soon it spawned dozens of camps across Pakistan and Afghanistan for this purpose. Militants produced at these centres have played a major role in armed struggles, first in Afghanistan, and then in Bosnia, Chechenya, Kosovo, the southern Philippines and Kashmir.

Like other radical Islamist groups, the Lashkar sees Islam as an all-embracing system. It regards Islam as governing all aspects of personal as well as collective life, in the form of the shariah. For the establishing of an Islamic system, it insists, an ‘Islamic state’ is necessary, which will impose the shariah as the law of the land. If, the official website of the Lashkar announces, such a state were to be set up and all Muslims were to live strictly according to 'the laws that Allah has laid down', then, it is believed, ‘they would be able to control the whole world and exercise their supremacy’. And for this, as well as to respond to the oppression that it claims that Muslims in large parts of the world are suffering, it insists that all Muslims must take to armed jihad. Armed jihad must continue, its website announces, ‘until Islam, as a way of life, dominates the whole world and until Allah's law is enforced everywhere in the world’.

The subject of armed jihad runs right through the writings and pronouncements of the Lashkar and is, in fact, the most prominent theme in its discourse. Indeed, its understanding of Islam may be seen as determined almost wholly by this preoccupation, so much so that its reading of Islam seems to be a product of its own political project, thus effectively ending up equating Islam with terror. Being born as a result of war in Afghanistan, war has become the very raison d'être of the Lashkar, and its subsequent development has been almost entirely determined by this concern. The contours of its ideological framework are constructed in such a way that the theme of armed jihad appears as the central element of its project. In the writings and speeches of Lashkar spokesmen jihad appears as violent conflict (qital) waged against 'unbelievers' who are said to be responsible for the oppression of the Muslims. Indeed, the Lashkar projects it as the one of the most central tenets of Islam, although it has traditionally not been included as one of the 'five pillars’ of the faith. Thus, its website claims that ‘There is so much emphasis on this subject that some commentators and scholars of the Quran have remarked that the topic of the Quran is jihad’. Further, a Lashkar statement declares, ‘There is consensus of opinion among researchers of the Qur'an that no other action has been explained in such great detail as jihad’.

In Lashkar discourse, jihad against non-Muslims is projected as a religious duty binding on all Muslims today. Thus the Lashkar’s website claims that a Muslim who has ‘never intended to fight against the disbelievers […] is not without traces of hypocrisy’. Muslims who have the capacity to participate or assist in the jihad but do not do so are said to ‘be living a sinful life’. Not surprisingly, therefore, the Lashkar denounces all Muslims who do not agree with its pernicious and grossly distorted version of Islam and its hideous misinterpretation of jihad—Sufis, Shias, Barelvis and so on—as being ‘deviants’ or outside the pale of Islam or even in league with ‘anti-Islamic forces’. The Lashkar promises its activists that they would receive great rewards, both in this world and in the Hereafter, if they were to actively struggle in the path of jihad. Not only would they be guaranteed a place in Heaven, but they would also 'be honoured in this world', for jihad, it claims, is also ‘the way that solves financial and political problems’.

Astoundingly bizarre though it is, the Markaz sees itself as engaged in a global jihad against the forces of ‘disbelief’, stopping at nothing short of aiming at the conquest of the entire world. As Nazir Ahmed, in-charge of the public relations department of the Lashkar, once declared, through the so-called jihad that the Lashkar has launched, ‘Islam will be dominant all over the world’. This global war is seen as a solution to all the ills and oppression afflicting all Muslims, and it is claimed that 'if we want to live with honour and dignity, then we have to return back to jihad’. Through jihad, the Lashkar website says, ‘Islam will be supreme throughout the world’.

In Lashkar discourse, its self-styled jihad against India is regarded as nothing less than a war between two different and mutually opposed ideologies: Islam, on the one hand, and Hinduism, on the other. It tars all Hindus with the same brush, as supposed ‘enemies of Islam’. Thus, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Lashkar chief, declares: ‘In fact, the Hindu is a mean enemy and the proper way to deal with him is the one adopted by our forefathers, who crushed them by force. We need to do the same’.

India is a major target for the Lashkar's terrorists. According to Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, ‘The jihad is not about Kashmir only. It encompasses all of India'. Thus, the Lashkar sees its self-styled jihad as going far beyond the borders of Kashmir and spreading through all of India. Its final goal, it says, is to extend Muslim control over what is seen as having once been Muslim land, and, hence, to be brought back under Muslim domination, creating what the Lashkar terms as 'the Greater Pakistan by dint of jihad’. Thus, at a mammoth congregation of Lashkar supporters in November 1999, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed thundered, ‘Today I announce the break-up of India, Inshallah. We will not rest until the whole of India is dissolved into Pakistan’.

The Lashkar, so say media reports, has been trying to drum up support among India’s Muslims, and it may well be that it has managed to find a few recruits to its cause among them. If this is the case, it has probably been prompted by the fact of mounting murderous Hindutva-inspired anti-Muslim pogroms across the country, often abetted by agencies of the state, which has taken a toll of several thousand innocent lives. The fact that no semblance of justice has been delivered in these cases and that the state has not taken any measure to reign in Hindutva terrorism adds further to the deep-seated despondency and despair among many Indian Muslims. This might well be used by self-styled Islamist terror groups, such as the Lashkar, to promote their own agenda. Obviously, therefore, in order to counter the grave threat posed by terror groups such as the Lashkar, the Indian state needs to tackle the menace of Hindutva terror as well, which has now assumed the form of full-blown fascism. Both forms of terrorism feed on each other, and one cannot be tackled without taking on the other as well.

Mercifully, and despite the denial of justice to them, the vast majority of the Indian Muslims have refused to fall into the Lashkar’s trap. The flurry of anti-terrorism conferences that have recently been organised by important Indian Islamic groups is evidence of the fact that they regard the Lashkar’s perverse understanding of Islam as being wholly anti-Islamic and as a perversion of their faith. These voices urgently need to be promoted, for they might well be the most effective antidote to Lashkar propaganda. Numerous Indian Islamic scholars I know and have spoken to insist that the Lashkar’s denunciation of all non-Muslims as ‘enemies of Islam’, its fomenting of hatred towards Hindus and India and its understanding of jihad are a complete misrepresentation of Islamic teachings. They bitterly critique its call for a universal Caliphate as foolish wishful thinking. And they are unanimous that, far from serving the cause of the faith they claim to espouse, groups like the Lashkar have done the most heinous damage to the name of Islam, and are to blame, to a very large extent, for mounting Islamophobia globally.

At the same time as fingers of suspicion are being pointed at the Lashkar for being behind the recent Mumbai blasts, other questions are being raised in some circles. The significant fact that Hemant Karkare, the brave ATS chief who was killed in the terrorist assault, had been investigating the role of Hindutva terrorist groups in blasts in Malegoan and elsewhere and had received threats for this has not gone un-noticed. Nor has the related fact that the assault on Mumbai happened soon after disturbing revelations began pouring in of the role of Hindutva activists in terror attacks in different parts of India. That the attack on Mumbai has led to the issue of Hindutva-inspired terrorism now being totally sidelined is also significant.

And then there is a possible Israeli angle that some are raising. Thus, the widely-read Mumbai-based tabloid Mid-Day, in an article about a building where numerous militants were holed up titled ‘Mumbai Attack: Was Nariman House the Terror Hub?’, states:

“The role that Nariman House is coming to play in this entire attack drama is puzzling. Last night, residents ordered close to 100 kilograms of meat and other food, enough to feed an army or a bunch of people for twenty days. Shortly thereafter, the ten odd militants moved in, obviously, indicating that the food and meat was ordered, keeping their visit in mind, another cop added.

“One of the militants called up a television news channel and voiced his demands today, but, interestingly, when he was asked where are they all holed him, he said at the Israeli owned Nariman House and they are six of them here", one of the investigating cops said. Since morning, there has been exchange of gun fire has been going on and the militants seem well equipped to counter the cops fire. To top it, they have food and shelter. One wonders [if] they have the support of the residents, a local Ramrao Shanker said.”

A Mossad/Israeli hand in the affair might seem far-fetched to some, but not so to others, who point to the role of Israeli agents in destabilizing a large number of countries as well as possibly operating within some radical Islamist movements, such as a group in Yemen styling itself ‘Islamic Jihad’, said to be responsible for the bombing of the American Embassy in Sanaa, and which is said to have close links with the Israeli intelligence. Some have raised the question if the Mossad or even the CIA might not be directly or otherwise instigating some disillusioned Muslim youth in India, Pakistan or elsewhere to take to terror by playing on Muslim grievances, operating through existing Islamist groups or spawning new ones for this purpose.

If this charge is true—although this remains to be conclusively established—the aim might be to further radicalize Muslims so as to provide further pretext for American and Israeli assaults on Islam and Muslim countries. The fact that the CIA had for years been in very close contact with the Pakistani ISI and radical Islamist groups in Pakistan is also being raised in this connection. The possible role of such foreign agencies of being behind some terror attacks that India has witnessed in recent years to further fan anti-Muslim hatred and also to weaken India is also being speculated on in some circles.

Whether all this is indeed true needs to be properly investigated. But the fact remains that it appears to be entirely in the interest of the Israeli establishment and powerful forces in America to create instability in India, fan Hindu-Muslim strife, even to the point of driving India and Pakistan to war with each other, and thereby drag India further into the deadly embrace of Zionists and American imperialists.

In other words, irrespective of who is behind the deadly attacks on Mumbai, it appears to suit the political interests and agendas of multiple and equally pernicious political forces—Islamist and Hindu radicals, fired by a hate-driven Manichaean vision of the world, but also global imperialist powers that seem to be using the attacks as a means to push India even deeper into their suicidal axis.

Who Benefits From Mumbai

Who Benefits From Mumbai
Terror Attacks?

By Binu Mathew

29 November, 2008
Countercurrents.org

Mumbai terrorist stand off is almost over. More than 200 civilians and about 20 police and army officials lost their lives. Taj Mahal palace, a symbol of India's business and commercial well being bears a ghostly look. The terror stricken populace slowly limp back to life. Will Mumbai be the same again? Will India be the same again?

There are talk in the media that the Mumbai terror attack is India's 9/11. The similiarities may be far fatched, but there are so many things that bears stark resemblances to each other. Both attacks are carried out apparently by muslim terrorist organisations. Both New York and Mumbai are commercial and business centers of the respective nations. Although the magnitude of the attacks may look dissimilar, the sheer psychological impact on the populace of both the nation and the world in general is comparable in dimension. 9/11 was an earth shattering event that unleashed a chain of reactions that changed the world irremediably, both inside the USA and around the world. And what about India's 9/11? It's very possible that the chain of reactions that followed the US 9/11 are likely to follow here as well. The leader of the opposition and a prime ministerial candidate of the Hindu right wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has called for stringent anti terror laws. A patriot act may not be far behind.

That gives us a clue to who is going to benefit from these terror attacks. The BJP has been calling for new anti-terror laws ever since the Congress led UPA government repealed the much reviled Prevention of Terrorist Atrocities Act(POTA). The UPA repealed the law as there were many complaints, especially from minority communities that it has been used selectively to frame innocents from a particular community. In the aftermath of Mumbai terror attacks, a new terror law is imminent.

One other tragedy of the terrorist attack is that the chief of Anti
Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Mumbai, Hemant Karkare, lost his life to terrorist's bullets. He was a brave and upright official who was probing the link between Hindu fascist organisations and terror blasts in several parts of India. The ATS under Karkare had arrested a Hindu Sanyasin and an army Lt. Colonel. Several other retired army personnel and retired Intelligence Bureau officials were also named in the affair. Indian news papers had carried pictures of the Sanyasin sitting with the president of the BJP and the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Prithvi Raj Chauhan. Then came the startling revelation that the International General Secretary of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), had donated money to Abhinav Bharat the organisation that master minded the September 29 Malegaon blast. The investigation was reaching such a stage that more top functionaries of Sangh Parivar (a general denomination for the various Hindu supremascist organisations) were likely to be named. Now, that Karkare is gone, and the nations attention is turned elsewhere, the enquiry may face a slow death.

Yesterday, a hindu colleague (who is a level headed moderate man himself) text messaged me saying, 'you people will make us terrorists'. He was suggesting that Muslims and Christians (the minorities in India) will make the majority Hindus terrorists! This is another fall out of India's 9/11. To put it simply, the position of minorities in India, especially Muslims has become more precarious. India will be communally more divided. It will only strengthen the Hindutva forces and their political wing, BJP. India is going to polls next year. These blasts are going to weaken the ruling Congress and strengthen the BJP.

And then the big international picture. The 'War on Terror' has come to India! Even though Indian Muslims had been demonised by the Hindutva forces in India, it had only a local impact. They were not part of the bigger war on Muslims perpetrated by the Israel- Neocon promoted George W. Bush regime. Diplomatically also,India kept a safe distance from the US war on terror fearing the backlash of the strong domestic muslim population. Now with the Mumbai terror attacks they have come under the radar of the 'War on Terror.' Now that the Obama regime is intending to spread this war into Pakistan and expand its operation in Afghanistan, India could be a willing strategic partner in the region.

And now to the question that is on everybody's mind. Who did this dastardly act? Although, this is not the topic of this article and also it is for the investigation agencies to decide, and as I dont want to engage in wild guesses I can suggest only this much, those forces who destroyed the twin towers in New York might be behind the Mumbai terror attacks too. Whoever benefitted from 9/11 will benefit from the Mumbai terror attack internationally and the Hindutva forces will benefit from it locally.

And the final question, Whither India?

And I fear how long can I write articles such as this.

BOMB FOR BOMB

Bomb Versus Bomb

Teesta Setalvad

WITH the much debated investigation trends in the recent Malegaon and Modasa blasts of 2008, that reveal the conspiracy by extremist outfits who claim to represent and fight for the Hindu cause to manufacture and place bombs, a trend that was apparent after the first Nanded blasts of early 2006 can be concealed from public visibility no longer.

Ironically, the investigations into the first Nanded blasts conducted by ATS Maharashtra were tracked by us zealously but it found reluctant takers --- not just among the political class but the omnipresent Indian media. In June 2006, we had interviewed the then ATS chief of the state who admitted to the fact that now the authorities had to deal with the Hindu bomb as much as the Muslim bomb.

Three months ago, we exclusively analysed the three different chargesheets filed in the case (two by the ATS and one by the CBI); the sinister role of the central investigation agency, CBI, in ignoring major conclusions found by the ATS investigation and in actually exonerating the accused not only became clear. The media too ignored this exposure until the recent Malegaon revelations.

The politicisation of our investigation agencies, our law and order agencies has been the subject of much national debate and lofty sermonising. But, strangely, such opinions are absent in the current coverage of the Malegaon and Modasa blasts. The logical comparison to the Malegaon incidents and the investigated conclusions of the ATS in the Nanded 2006 blast need to be re-visited.

Investigations have so far revealed dangerous trends. Through the present rigorous efforts of the Maharashtra ATS, we are informed of the influence of a Sadhvi, with connections to the ABVP (student wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party) and the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh). There is also evidence of a thickly veiled but clear operational nexus between all these organisations, financial and ideological support for their actions, a cheeky brazenness that comes with the knowledge that impunity from prosecution and sentence is their birthright and more.

Two most dangerous trends, revealed by the Nanded investigations and reconfirmed now with the Malegaon probe, are regarding the involvement of both serving and retired officers of Indian intelligence and the army in training outfits that are ideologically opposed to the Indian constitution, in the making of bombs, in generating terror and in spreading bitter communal poison.

In law, these acts amount to sedition and war against the Indian state. If it is proven that this war is being waged from the inside, from a section, however small, of our army, and this fact has escaped the attention of the top echelons of the armed forces so far, it is logical to assume and conclude that the infiltration into our forces runs close and deep. Just as an ideologically fanatic ISI of Pakistan will have to shoulder more than a fair share of the responsibility, and blame for the disintegration of that country into violence and chaos, the trends that both Nanded and Malegaon reveal have the potential, if allowed to pass casually and unchecked, of driving India to serious disintegration, if not destruction. For years now, many of us have spoken of how perpetrated communal violence and festering wounds caused by absence of reparation and justice are eating into the body politic of the nation. The political class, the media and the judiciary are together responsible for the total impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators of mass violence. As communal violence pinnacles into a more sinister form, bomb versus bomb, let it not be said that even the Indian army and intelligence had a role to play in the disintegration.

Malegaon investigations reveal yet another rather frightening trend. The leakage and consequent availability of highly controlled and dangerous substances like the RDX into the market place for easy use by any outfits that wish to make a career out of bomb making.

RDX is available only with the Indian army. There have been reported cases of RDX leakages in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Haryana which have been treated casually by the state police. Gelatine sticks and ammonium nitrate, volatile substances used in the making of bombs in many instances, are carefully controlled in law, and leakages from either the industrial or retail users should be very easy to trace. The fact that this has not been done, be it related to the blasts on the Samjhauta Express, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Thane or Panvel, establishes the laxity in our probing agencies but worse, a cynically low premium on life itself by a political class, across party hues that has grown to using communalism of all shades to further electoral gains.

Neither the availability of RDX nor poverty or unemployment by itself could, should and would generate bomb makers among our midst. The mix is just not potent enough. But spice this reality with the ever present, never debated and increasingly vicious use of hate speech as a weapon of communal cleavage that helps turn a mind towards violence against the hate object, and you have a heady potion. Investigations into Nanded reveal not just that anti-Muslim poison was the stuff that indoctrination was made off, but that both Praveen Togadia and Giriraj Kishore had been the indoctrinators.

Similarly, the Sadhvi Pragnya, arrested for her role in the Malegaon blasts, was well known and popularly used on the campaign trail. She was popular for her poisonous use of words.

Though hate speech is not simply a crime under Indian criminal law but also an ingredient to define a terror act, and terrorism under the Unlawful Practices (Prevention) Act, the authorities rarely give the sanction to prosecute these offenders. This is yet another example of the non-existence of the rule of law.

There is an urgent need for the appointment of a three-member tribunal consisting of sitting judges of the apex court to permanently and consistently monitor all terror investigations. This is imperative.

Such a judicial scrutiny, with a strictly time-bound mandate and accountability, could go a long way in arresting the tendency in all blast investigations that allow the guilty to go scot free.

The world's largest democracy is a nation of mixed people, different languages and religions and is also, some would argue, defined and torn apart by caste. The political manipulation of religion for political ends has cost us dear since the mid-'eighties.

The battle against the menace of bomb terror, the Hindu bomb v/s the Muslim bomb challenges each one of us, especially our leaders and our institutions of governance.

The challenge is to be able to rise above the politics of them and us. Justice must be seen to be done regardless of who the criminal mastermind is and what position he or she occupies.

(Teesta Setalvad is co-editor, Communalism Combat, and secretary, Citizens for Justice and peace

Dharam आदमी Ka

No religion teaches Hatred

Insaniyat

insaniyat

क्या हो गया

Taj Hotel

Terrorist

Terrorists at station

Taj Under Attack

तेररोरिस्त Attack

ndia's Leaders Need To Look

India's Leaders Need To Look
Closer To Home

By Tariq Ali

28 November, 2008
Counterpunch


The terrorist assault on Mumbai’s five-star hotels was well planned, but did not require a great deal of logistic intelligence: all the targets were soft. The aim was to create mayhem by shining the spotlight on India and its problems and in that the terrorists were successful. The identity of the black-hooded group remains a mystery.

The Deccan Mujahedeen, which claimed the outrage in an e-mail press release, is certainly a new name probably chosen for this single act. But speculation is rife. A senior Indian naval officer has claimed that the attackers (who arrived in a ship, the M V Alpha) were linked to Somali pirates, implying that this was a revenge attack for the Indian Navy’s successful if bloody action against pirates in the Arabian Gulf that led to heavy casualties some weeks ago.

The Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, has insisted that the terrorists were based outside the country. The Indian media has echoed this line of argument with Pakistan (via the Lashkar-e-Taiba) and al-Qaeda listed as the usual suspects.

But this is a meditated edifice of official India’s political imagination. Its function is to deny that the terrorists could be a homegrown variety, a product of the radicalization of young Indian Muslims who have finally given up on the indigenous political system. To accept this view would imply that the country’s political physicians need to heal themselves.

Al Qaeda, as the CIA recently made clear, is a group on the decline. It has never come close to repeating anything vaguely resembling the hits of 9/11.

Its principal leader Osama bin Laden may well be dead (he certainly did not make his trademark video intervention in this year’s Presidential election in the United States) and his deputy has fallen back on threats and bravado.

What of Pakistan? The country’s military is heavily involved in actions on its Northwest frontier where the spillage from the Afghan war has destabilized the region. The politicians currently in power are making repeated overtures to India. The Lashkar-e-Taiba, not usually shy of claiming its hits, has strongly denied any involvement with the Mumbai attacks.

Why should it be such a surprise if the perpetrators are themselves Indian Muslims? Its hardly a secret that there has been much anger within the poorest sections of the Muslim community against the systematic discrimination and acts of violence carried out against them of which the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in shining Gujarat was only the most blatant and the most investigated episode, supported by the Chief Minister of the State and the local state apparatuses.

Add to this the continuing sore of Kashmir which has for decades been treated as a colony by Indian troops with random arrests, torture and rape of Kashmiris an everyday occurrence. Conditions have been much worse than in Tibet, but have aroused little sympathy in the West where the defense of human rights is heavily instrumentalised.

Indian intelligence outfits are well aware of all this and they should not encourage the fantasies of their political leaders. Its best to come out and accept that there are severe problems inside the country. A billion Indians: 80 percent Hindus and 14 percent Muslims. A very large minority that cannot be ethnically cleansed without provoking a wider conflict.

None of this justifies terrorism, but it should, at the very least, force India’s rulers to direct their gaze on their own country and the conditions that prevail. Economic disparities are profound. The absurd notion that the trickle-down effects of global capitalism would solve most problems can now be seen for what it always was: a fig leaf to conceal new modes of exploitation.

Tariq Ali’s latest book, ‘The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power’ is published by Scribner.

Bombs And Bullets Cannot

Bombs And Bullets Cannot
Destroy India - As Long As
Its Gates Remain Open

By Shashi Tharoor

28 November, 2008
The Guardian


There is a savage irony to the fact that the unfolding horror in Mumbai began with terrorists docking near the Gateway of India. The magnificent arch, built in 1911 to welcome the King-Emperor, has ever since stood as a symbol of the openness of the city. Crowds flock around it, made up of foreign tourists and local yokels; touts hawk their wares; boats bob in the waters, offering cruises out to the open sea. The teeming throngs around it daily reflect India's diversity, with Parsi gentlemen out for their evening constitutionals, Muslim women in burkas taking the sea air, Goan Catholic waiters enjoying a break from their duties at the stately Taj Mahal hotel, Hindus from every corner of the country chatting in a multitude of tongues. Today, ringed by police barricades, the Gateway of India - and gateway to India's soul - is barred, mute testimony to the latest assault on the country's pluralist democracy.

The terrorists knew exactly what they were doing. Theirs was an attack on India's financial nerve-centre and commercial capital, a city emblematic of the country's energetic thrust into the 21st century. They struck at symbols of the prosperity that was making the Indian model so attractive to the globalising world - luxury hotels, a swish cafe, an apartment house favoured by foreigners. The terrorists also sought to polarise Indian society by claiming to be acting to redress the grievances of India's Muslims. And by singling out Britons, Americans and Israelis, they demonstrated that their brand of Islamist fanaticism is anchored less in the absolutism of pure faith than in the geopolitics of hate.

Today, the platitudes flow like blood. Terrorism is unacceptable; the terrorists are cowards; the world stands united in unreserved condemnation of this latest atrocity. Commentators in America trip over themselves to pronounce this night and day of carnage India's 9/11. But India has endured many attempted 9/11s, notably a ferocious assault on its national parliament in December 2001 that nearly led to all-out war against the assailants' presumed sponsors, Pakistan. This year alone, terrorist bombs have taken lives in Jaipur, in Ahmedabad, in Delhi, and several different places on one searing day in Assam. Jaipur is the lodestar of Indian tourism to Rajasthan; Ahmedabad is the primary city of Gujarat, the state that is a poster child for India's development; Delhi is the political capital and window to the world; Assam was logistically convenient for terrorists from across a porous border. Mumbai combined all the four elements of its precursors: a grand slam.

Indians have learned to endure the unspeakable horrors of terrorist violence ever since malign men in Pakistan concluded it was cheaper and more effective to bleed India to death than to attempt to defeat it in conventional war. Attack after attack has been proven to have been financed, equipped and guided from across the border, the most recent being the suicide-bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, an action publicly traced by American intelligence to Islamabad's dreaded military special-ops agency, the ISI.

The risible attempt to claim the Mumbai killings in the name of the "Deccan Mujahideen" merely confirms that wherever the killers are from, it is not the Deccan. The Deccan lies inland from Mumbai; one does not need to sail the waters of the Arabian Sea to get to the city from there. In its meticulous planning and military precision, the assault on Mumbai bore no trace of what its promoters tried to suggest it was - a spontaneous eruption by angry young Indian Muslims. This horror was not homegrown.

The Islamist extremism nurtured by a succession of military rulers of Pakistan has now come to haunt its well-intentioned but lamentably weak civilian government. The militancy once sponsored by its predecessors now threatens to abort Pakistan's sputtering democracy and seeks to engulf India in its flames. There has never been a stronger case for firm and united action by the governments of both India and Pakistan to cauterise the cancer in their midst.

India is a land of great resilience that has learned, over arduous millenniums, to cope with tragedy. Bombs and bullets alone cannot destroy it, because Indians will pick their way through the rubble and carry on as they have done throughout history. But what can destroy India is a change in the spirit of its people, away from the pluralism and coexistence that has been our greatest strength. The prime minister's call for calm and restraint in the face of murderous rampage is vital. If these tragic events lead to the demonisation of the Muslims of India, the terrorists will have won. For India to be India, its gateway - to the multiple Indias within, and the heaving seas without - must always remain open.

• Shashi Tharoor is a former UN under-secretary general
and author of The Elephant, the Tiger & the Cell Phone shashitharoor.com

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008

Terrorist Atrocity In Mumbai

Terrorist Atrocity In Mumbai

By Keith Jones

28 November, 2008
WSWS.org

Mumbai, India’s most populous city and commercial center, has been the scene of a terrorist atrocity that has left at least 127 dead and more than 300 wounded.

Beginning late on the evening of Wednesday, November 26, seven or more sites in southern Mumbai came under attack from gunmen wielding automatic and semi-automatic weapons and grenades. Several bombs are also reported to have exploded.

The targeted sites included one of India’s busiest commuter railway stations, a hospital, a Jewish center, a café popular with tourists, and two luxury hotels.

The synchronized attacks are said to have been perpetrated by a group of 20 or more young, South Asian-looking men. They were clearly aimed at inducing panic and inflicting the maximum civilian casualties.

Indian army commandos were soon mobilized to suppress the attack and free dozens, if not hundreds of people, who had been taken hostage or had hidden from the gunmen at the Chabad Lubavitch Centre as well as the Taj Mahal and Oberoi-Trident hotels.

A tense stand-off, punctuated by gunfire and explosions, continued through the day Thursday at the two hotels, both of which came to be partially engulfed in fire. Only late in the evening Thursday did Indian authorities announce that they had secured the Taj Mahal. Military operations were said to be continuing at the Oberoi and at the Jewish Center.

There have been press reports, based on eyewitness accounts, that the terrorists deliberately targeted foreigners and specifically sought out US and British citizens at the targeted hotels.

However, the vast majority of the reported fatalities were Indian civilians, although this could conceivably change after the two hotels have been secured and thoroughly searched

One report listed the dead as six foreigners, the head of the Maharastra State Anti-Terrorism Squad, 14 other police and home guard personnel, and 104 Indian civilians, including dozens of railway commuters and several hotel employees. Seven foreigners and 26 police personnel were among the more than 325 injured.

Mumbai is India’s most cosmopolitan city, although in recent months it has been shaken by a reactionary, frequently violent agitation mounted by a split-off from the Hindu communalist and Maharastran-chauvinist Shiv Sena against workers from north India.

The Deccan Mujahedeen, a previously unknown group, is reported to have claimed responsibility for the attack. The Western media has been full of speculation that al-Qaeda, whose roots lie in Saudi Arabia and the Arab Middle East, instigated the Mumbai atrocity.

The BBC has reported eyewitnesses as saying the gunmen spoke Hindi, India’s principal national language, while Indian Army Major General R.K. Hooda has claimed that the attackers spoke Punjabi in intercepted conversations. One of India’s official languages, Punjabi is also the mother-tongue of the majority of Pakistanis.

In a nationally-televised address Thursday, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stated that “the group which carried out these attacks” was “based outside the country.”

In an apparent ratcheting up of Indian pressure on its arch-rival Pakistan, Singh threatened undisclosed reprisals against India’s neighbours if they fail to satisfy New Delhi’s demand to do more to suppress anti-Indian terrorist groups. “We will take up strongly with our neighbours,” said Singh, “that the use of their territory for launching attacks on us will not be tolerated, and that there would be a cost if suitable measures are not taken by them.”

Later Thursday it was reported Indian naval personnel had searched a Pakistani ship docked in Mumbai harbour and the Indian navy had apprehended two Pakistani merchant vessels off India’s west coast. Indian authorities have said that the attackers arrived in Mumbai by boat.

New Delhi has repeatedly blamed Pakistan for terrorist attacks, including a bomb-blast last summer at the Indian embassy in Kabul.

In 2001-02, the two countries almost went to war for the fourth time after India alleged Pakistan was responsible for a terrorist attack on India’s parliament and mobilized a million troops, for the better part of a year, along the Pakistani border.

The two countries have been pursuing a peace dialogue since January 2004. But New Delhi, conscious of India’s growing economic power and buoyed by a burgeoning strategic partnership with the US that has included the signing of a nuclear cooperation treaty and Washington’s strong support for India playing a major role in Afghanistan, has ceded no ground whatsoever to Islamabad on the vital issue of Kashmir.

Pakistan was quick to forcefully condemn the November 26-27 terrorist attack and express its support for the Indian government. From New Delhi, where he was participating in the latest round of peace talks, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi warned against a rush to judgment. “Our experience in the past tells us that we should not jump to conclusions,” Qureshi told Dawn television.

In a show of “national unity,” Manmohan Singh has offered to tour Mumbai with L.K. Advani, the prime ministerial candidate of the official opposition Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP.

This will bring no comfort to the Muslims of Mumbai or India’s Muslim minority as a whole. Advani is a rank Hindu communalist, and the principal leader of an agitation to build a Hindu temple on the site of a famous mosque in Ayodhya that climaxed in 1992-93 in the worst communal rioting in India since the 1947 partition of the subcontinent. Advani is also a close associate of the BJP Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, who incited in 2002 a pogrom against the state’s Muslims, with a series of statements that implied Muslims were collectively responsible for a train fire, whose origins remain in dispute, that killed several score Hindu supremacist activists.

Whoever were the authors of this week’s terrorist attack in Mumbai, it was a vile act that will only serve reaction in India and internationally.

The White House will invoke the Mumbai events to justify the “war on terror”—the predatory policy the Bush administration has pursued around the world, but which found its supreme expression in the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The incoming Democratic administration of Barack Obama shares the same basic imperialist goals as its predecessor and has given every indication that it will employ much of the same rhetoric, first and foremost the claim that the US is locked in an open-ended war on terror. A spokesman for president-elect Obama, Brooke Anderson, said the “co-ordinated attacks on innocent civilians” in Mumbai “demonstrate the grave and urgent threat of terrorism”; then added, “the United States must continue to strengthen our partnerships with India and nations around the world to root out and destroy terrorist networks.”

Obama has been advocating a major intensification of the US-NATO war in Afghanistan, including extending it into the border regions of neighboring Pakistan, in the name of destroying al-Qaeda and the terrorist threat to America.

Manmohan Singh in his address to the nation Thursday promised to strengthen India’s anti-terrorist laws, i.e. give security forces greater powers, a longstanding demand of the BJP and the political right. India’s police and security forces have an atrocious human rights record, including frequently resorting to dragnets, torture, and summary executions

The past two days’ events in Mumbai are a godsend to the Hindu supremacist right.

The BJP and it allies have been rocked by the recent exposure of a Hindu supremacist terror network, with connections to the Indian military. Police say this network was responsible for twin bombings on September 29 that killed 6 people and is suspected of carrying out other bombings, including possibly the 2006 attack on a train bound for Pakistan that killed 68 people, most of them Pakistanis. Several of the chief suspects have longstanding and close ties to the BJP and other prominent Hindu nationalist organizations. (See: “India: Hindu supremacist terror network had ties to military”)

So fearful are the BJP and its allies of the political fallout from the exposure of the Hindu terror conspiracy that they have been mounting a hysterical campaign against the special anti-terrorist police, whose activities they have hitherto praised to the sky, accusing them of mounting a vendetta against Hindus.

Unquestionably the BJP will seize on the Mumbai atrocity and its horrific toll in human life to try to suppress public discussion of, and derail the investigation, into the Hindu terrorist network.

Exposure of the network was threatening to disrupt the BJP’s plans to place at the center of its campaign in the coming election the charge that the Congress Party, the dominant partner in India’s United Progressive Alliance coalition, is “soft” on terrorism. The BJP has long tied this fatuous claim to communal incitement—to claims that the Congress won’t take the stern measures needed to defeat “Islamic terrorism” because it is intent on “coddling Muslims.”

Speaking Thursday, BJP leader Advani called for “patriotic unity” and “communal harmony,” but then in the next breath served notice that the BJP sees the Mumbai atrocity as grist for its electioneering. Said Advani, “In the context of what has happened last night in Mumbai, there is no doubt that both the UPA Government at the Centre and the Congress-NCP coalition Government in Maharashtra have a lot to answer for.”

In declaring this week’s attack to be a “continuation of 13 March 1993,” Advani may, however, have said more than he wished. On March 13, 1993, a Muslim-led criminal gang carried out a series of bombings in Mumbai. The bombings were in retaliation for pogrom-style riots that had killed hundred of Muslims in Mumbai two months before as part of the communal bloodletting triggered by Advani’s campaign to build a Hindu temple on the ashes of the Babri Masjid mosque in Ayodhya.

The rise of Islamacist terrorism in India is not principally due to forces outside the country. It is a consequence of the Indian elite’s increasingly pronounced promotion of Hindu communalism, as exemplified by the rise of the Hindu supremacist BJP over the past quarter-century. Even a recent Indian government inquiry was forced to conclude that India’s 140 million Muslims face systematic discrimination and police harassment and are at, or near the bottom, as measured by key socio-economic indicators, of India’s overwhelmingly poor and grossly unequal society.