SIMI was in touch with Kashmiri separatists
Rakesh K Singh | New Delhi (Pioneer, 25 August, 2008)
The head of the hardline faction of banned Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), Safdar Nagori, had extensive links with the Jammu and Kashmir separatists and had even received support from Pakistani embassy here. Nagori had attended a party in 2002 hosted by the then Pak Ambassador Riaz Khokhar for the Jammu and Kashmir separatists, according to his confessional statement before the Madhya Pradesh police.
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During the course of interrogation, Nagori admitted of his meetings with Kashmiri separatist and Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani in 1997. Nagori had also visited the Kashmir Awareness Bureau in 1996-1997 and met influential separatist leaders Maulvi Abbas Ansari, Mirwaiz Omar Farooq and Yasin Malik.
The interrogation report reveals that Nagori, along with Saif Nachan and Abdul Subhan alias Tauqeer, also attended the iftar party organised by Khokhar in the national Capital.
The MP police's "top-secret" interrogation report states that Nagori was instrumental in taking SIMI on the path of terror against the wishes of moderate members of the outfit, including Shahid Badr Falahi and Miswah-ul-Islam, who wanted to use the organisations for political goals. Other SIMI members -- like Shivli of Kerala, Hafiz of Karnataka and Aamil Parwez and Kamruddin of Uttar Pradesh -- were party to the decision to take the outfit on the path of spreading pan-India terror.
Nagori claimed they had decided to take revenge for the post-Godhra riots and teach a lesson to those who were behind the destruction of Babri Masjid. They had met on July 6 and 7 in Ujjain and decided to prepare the outfit for mounting pressure for action on the Srikrishna Commission Report, which had probed the Mumbai riots.
Nagori also told the MP police of his local support network and funding nodes in various cities, but denied direct links with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). However, he admitted that the SIMI received support from Pak-trained jehadi Nasir of Karnataka.
Nagori also sang about training camps organised by SIMI in Kerala and Madhya Pradesh where inputs about making bombs, courses on shooting and the art of self-defence were explained to the members. Top SIMI members Shivli, Mohammad Ali, Aamil Parwez and Asadullah had also attended these camps.
Nagori spent most of his time in strengthening the outfit in Madhya Pradesh after SIMI was banned. He has since developed an extensive network in Indore, Bhopal, Ujjain, Narsinghgarh and Jabalpur.
Nagori is a diploma holder in mechanical engineering and has a masters in journalism and mass communication from Vikram University, Ujjain. His association with SIMI began in 1986 while he was studying at Polytechnic College, Ujjain. He had edited the Islamic Movement monthly during his stay in Delhi in 1994. He was also instrumental in formulating a "vision document" of the outfit, titled Vision 2010.
Nagori is suspected to be behind the Ahmedabad serial blasts and is currently in the custody of the Gujarat police for interrogation. He was also interrogated by the Anti-Terrorist Squad of the Mumbai police earlier this month. The MP police had cracked Nagori's network in March this year.
Nagori brought to Ahmedabad
Ahmedabad: SIMI chief Safdar Nagori was on Sunday night brought to the city from a Madhya Pradesh jail by the Crime Branch team for interrogation in the July 26 serial bomb blasts case. "Nagori has been brought to city and will be produced before the court on Monday," Joint Commissioner of Police, Crime Branch, Ashish Bhatia said.
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Sunday, August 24, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
How Gujarat police cracked the islamist jihadi terror blasts case
How Modi's police cracked the blasts case
Sheela Bhatt in Gujarat | August 19, 2008 | 19:02 IST
Besides many other things, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is certainly a lucky politician. In just 22 days his police claims to have solved the conspiracy behind the serial bomb blasts in Ahmedabad of July 26 and the mystery behind the bombs that were planted all over Surat but did not explode.
How did the Gujarat police manage what the police in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Bengaluru could not do in the last two years?
rediff.com reconstructs the investigations that went into unravelling the conspiracy on the basis of information from multiple sources in Ahmedabad and New Delhi.
The early leads
On the evening of July 26, as the news of the bomb blasts trickled in from Isanpur, Narol circle to the Maninagar area of Ahmedabad, the last being Modi's constituency, the police and political establishment were stunned. After the communal riots of 2002 there had been expectations of some kind of violent "reaction", but 22 blasts in 18 spots in a highly communally surcharged city were stunning to say the least. Not only that, it was also loaded with a stern political message for the chief minister who has won the popular mandate twice on the plank of security.
Chief Minister Modi and Amit Shah, his minister of state for home, do not lack the motivation to pick up difficult political or administrative challenges, but the blasts at the civil hospital was too shocking even for the seasoned politicos. Their desperation in facing the situation was obvious. Modi has projected himself as a "different" leader because he provided safety to people in a country wracked by terrorism. But 18 blasts in 80 minutes seriously dented his image, and his only redemption lay in going about the investigation with professionalism.
His police's and his own credibility was so low in matters of criminal investigations after the Sohrabuddin encounter case and the communal riots cases of 2002 that they needed to put in extra effort. Also, whatever the spin-masters claim, it's clear that somewhere the police and the administration failed to prevent the blasts which were committed by "home-grown" elements.
Terror's new faces
There was failure on the part of the police machinery. When the investigations started, the first thing all the IPS officers did was to read Students Islamic Movement of India chief Safdar Nagori's statement given to the Madhya pradesh police when he was arrested in March, and that of his associate Ameel Pervez. Pervez had attended an arms training camp in Gujarat and he also gave the names of SIMI members like Sajid Mansuri, Yunus Mansuri, Zahid Sheikh, Imran Sheikh and Usman Agarbattiwala who had attended it. Neither the concerned states nor the IB had acted on it and taken preventive measures.
However, the lessons were late in coming but they were learnt quickly.
It is credit to Modi's determination and the Gujarat police's zeal, aided by the Intelligence Bureau's extraordinary efforts in giving relevant inputs to the state police, that this case could be cracked.
There was an element of urgency in the police investigations since the state government took it as a war that needed to be won. After the blasts, for the first few days the Gujarat government's approach was tinged with nervousness because they wanted to avoid communal tension at any cost.
The political leaders' anxiety only heightened on reading the e-mail sent by the terrorists just moments before the blasts. The e-mail "in the Name of Allah" from Indian Mujahideen had challenged Modi and his police in its opening sentence itself.
It said, 'Indian Mujahideen strike again! - Do whatever you can, within 5 minutes from now, feel the terror of Death!'
The clumsily worded e-mail was so blunt in its political message that Modi had no option but to pick up the gauntlet against terrorism. The e-mail became the motivating force for some senior police officers, too.
While provoking the Muslims of Gujarat it said, 'Target these evil politicians and leaders of BJP, RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal, who provoke the masses against you. Target and kill the wicked police force who were watching the "fun" of your bloodshed and who handed you to the rioting sinful culprits. Target their hired informers and spies even if they are the disloyal and betraying munafiqeen (hypocrites) of our Ummah. O Muslims of Gujarat!'
By midnight of July 26 the ruling political leadership sprang into action to make senior policemen understand that their investigations will get 100 per cent support, nothing less nothing more. They had at their disposal money, resources, manpower and even a chartered plane.
"As the news of the seventh blasts came in we knew that there more than 25 people were involved. And, we assessed that without the help of local Ahmedabadis the anti-national elements could not have planted bombs in such a perfect operation. We made these two assumptions and they proved right. We started looking within, without wasting any time," said a senior officer who was a member of the core team of investigators. The text of the IM's e-mail was sent to all officers including in Baroda, Bharuch and Surat where the investigations needed to be done on a war footing.
The e-mail was analysed thoroughly, and its careful reading helped narrow down the focus.
More than 11 teams were formed within the first few hours of the blasts. One team was asked to handle the investigations into the material used in the bombs. Another team was asked to investigate the use of bicycles. Another team was formed to thoroughly check all the phone calls made in Ahmedabad from certain areas just before and after the blasts. Another team was set up to reach out to all the police informers and gather their opinions on and information of the blasts. One team followed the cyber crime aspect of the case. The overall investigation of the case was assigned to the crime branch of Ahmedabad where more than 100 people started following whatever little leads that were available, from the midnight of July 26.
All of them were told that even if "communal riots (the possibility was always there) take place in Ahmedabad they should not divert their attention."�
"From July 26 to August 16 (when the breakthrough was announced) none of us went home to sleep. Every morning at 7 we would all go home and return after a shower and in fresh clothes. We would sleep on our chairs in the daytime. We haven't hit the bed yet," said Deputy Commissioner of Police Abhay Chudasama, who along with his boss Joint Commissioner of Police Ashish Bhatia and Rakesh Asthana, police commissioner of Baroda, played an important role in detecting the conspiracy behind the bomb blasts.
The Gujarat police claims that, probably for the first time, the central Intelligence Bureau and it have worked on the terrorism case as complementary teams and produced some excellent results. Between July 27 and August 16, on many days the political leadership was briefed in the Ahmedabad circuit house at 4 am. That was the kind of frenzy displayed by the Gujarat police and the political leaders to get to the bottom of the terror case.
Chudasama claims that for the first three days they had no clue of the culprits behind the blasts, but more and more assuredly all of them started believing that it seemed to be the work of the banned SIMI.
The Gujarat police's databank of SIMI members in Ahmedabad had some names including that of Zahid Sheikh. They picked him up and started interrogating him extensively.
"He is a fanatic. He is not a Gujarati, he is not an Indian. He claims he is merely a soldier of Islam. These accused don't belong to even their own families," said a source in the police.
"You will have to understand the identity of the perpetrators of the bomb blasts. Their "transnational" identity itself is an anti-national act," says one of the interrogators.
Hectic interrogation was going on at two places, one of them being the crime branch office in Haveli area of Ahmedabad.
Here, Joint Commissioner of Police Ashish Bhatia and his deputy Abhay Chudasama were working relentlessly to narrow down their search. In Baroda, under the supervision of Police Commissioner Rakesh Asthana, independent investigations were going on. Asthana is a level-headed officer with 10 years of experience in the Central Bureau of Investigation. He shares the credit for investigating the fodder scam which tainted Lalu Prasad Yadav.
As soon as the news came out that Baroda might have been used as a conduit by the conspirators, Asthana formed a special team of hardly four-five people. In Ahmedabad and Baroda the most important thing was to keep the investigations and its processes a secret. A news-hungry media was all the time "fooled" by leaking irrelevant stories and even sketches of the 'accused' were made only to "feed" the media.
It was of no use to the investigators whatsoever. In reality, they were going down a different path. Once the role of SIMI emerged, Asthana specially asked his department to get on board two Muslim police officers.
Since he is merely two months old in his current post, he got from the databank a file on SIMI activists living in Baroda. The blue file had a professionally prepared dossier on SIMI activists, and the opening page featured Usman Agarbattiwala complete with his photograph.
Asthana went through the accompanying details like Agarbattiwala's telephone numbers, his work, background and the names of all his relatives that were in the dossier.
Immediately, details of Agarbattiwala's telephone calls, both made and received, were procured. It took relentless work through day and night to make the chart of the most frequently made calls from his phone. They were then narrowed down and owners of those numbers were detected and, in turn, the printouts of those phone calls were procured. A professional hard work done with the help of computers in the police headquarters in Kothi area yielded fantastic results.
Asthana's team created a cluster of cell phone movement among select persons. These movements were finally narrowed down to Agarbattiwala, Kayamuddin Kapadia, Imran Sheikh and Iqbal Sheikh. In no time Agarbattiwala, Imran and Iqbal were picked up. Along with others Joint Commissioner of Police Pravin Kumar Sinha and inspector Karimbhai Polra played an important role in Asthana's team.
The first copy of the interrogation report was sent to the Ahmedabad team which was narrowing down on local SIMI activists including Zahid Sheikh. Agarbattiwala's cracking proved very crucial. Bhatia and Chudasama cracked Zahid Sheikh as much as they could. In Baroda, Iqbal was a new entrant to SIMI ranks but some of the detainees were tough nuts to crack who had undergone special training to withstand police methods. On the basis of the early lead provided by the interrogations in Baroda and Ahmedabad, teams of Gujarat police travelled to Kerala, Mumbai, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka to collect a variety of documentary evidence.
By August 8-9, Modi knew his state police was just days away from success that has eluded the police in other Indian states wracked by terrorism.
http://www.rediff.com//news/2008/aug/19spec.htm
Gujarat cops hope they have an airtight case
Sheela Bhatt in Gujarat | August 22, 2008 | 21:25 IST
Part I: How Modi's police cracked the blasts case
The Gujarat police has almost reconstructed how the blasts were planned and executed, though with a few missing links.
The assembling of the bombs meant for Surat was done at Imran Sheikh's home in Baroda, while for Ahmedabad the bombs were assembled in Yunus Mansoori's hose in Bapunagar area of Ahmedabad. The forensic test of these places is on and the police is hopeful that they will get the necessary evidences soon.
Imran Sheikh has been arrested. His statement gives a lot of information, like how many times the militant SIMI chief Safdar Nagori and Mufti Bashir visited Gujarat and stayed in his house and what all they did in Gujarat.
"So far, conclusive evidence has not been obtained but in any terrorism case the turning points in investigations always come only after the confessional statements of the accused," a senior officer said.
Terror's new faces
From the confessional statements by the accused, which are most likely to be retracted, the police has got the entire sequence of conspiracy. They have the names of shops and witnesses from where the bicycles to plant the bombs were bought, shops from where the chemicals, timers, wires and detonators were bought. The police has taken care to find some Muslim witnesses in the case as well.
There were three types of bombs: tiffin bombs, bombs in the shape of� a boat, and car bombs. All the bombs kept on bicycles were blasted at the same time while the car bombs were fitted with gas cylinders.
The confessional statements the Gujarat police got from the arrested accused are also totally matching in detail. They have also recovered a 7.6mm pistol, a laptop belonging Iqbal and a number of CDs. The computer of Usman Agarbattiwala had a rough draft of the e-mail which was sent to the media before the blasts. Agarbattiwala was a well-known in his community and his brother is a medical practitioner.
Also, if one believes the claims of the Gujarat police, the Students Islamic Movement of India has only become more powerful after its ban in 2001. That also means the Intelligence Bureau and state governments since the last three years have completely failed to know, assess and analyse the internal changes in a banned SIMI while innocent people were being killed mercilessly in bomb blasts.
The investigators say the terror operation in Ahmedabad was planned by Nagori, Mufti Abu Bashir from Uttar Pradesh, Kayamuddin Kapadia of Baroda, Taufique Bilal alias Abdul Subhan Qureshi of Mumbai -- who provided the technical knowhow to make the bombs and to hack computers -- and Sajid Mansuri of Surat, who was the coordinator.
The Ahmedabad and Baroda police have gone through the records of lakhs of mobile phones which were discontinued on or after the July 26 blasts. It turned out that the people who have been arrested had switched off their regular mobile phones after the blasts or had thrown away the SIM card. All the arrested accused are members of SIMI, and six of them were on the police list before 2001.
The Gujarat police's interrogation of Zahid Sheikh and Sajid Mansuri suggests that the absconding Taufique alias Abdus Subhan Qureshi possibly had a role in the Mumbai train blasts of July 11, 2006. In the first week of August, a team from the Gujarat police which included a Muslim officer went to Taufique's residence in Nayanagar area of Mira Road outside Mumbai. While serving seviyan, the traditional sweet dish, Taufique's wife gave enough hints to the police that her husband is unlikely to be caught. She almost threw a challenge to them.
Taufique was detained by the Mumbai police but was released after six days of interrogation because they could not find anything against him.
Zahid Sheikh was also interrogated but was released. Mufti Bashir was also once interrogated by the Hyderabad police but was released because they could not find any information about his involvement.
The arrests of the SIMI cadre were not easy. When the Baroda police went to the provision store run by Iqbal Sheikh in the city's Yakubpura area he himself told the police, "Iqbal is not in Baroda."
He tried to mislead the police but the latter didn't budge. Iqbal is a new entrant in SIMI and was not involved in the planning stage of the bomb blasts.
Kayamuddin Kapadia, a fundamentalist subscribing to the orthodox Ahle Hadees sect, is the constitutional head of SIMI in Gujarat. His whereabouts are not known but he is as important to this case as Mufti Abu Bashir.
Usman Agarbattiwala, who was arrested in Baroda, gave initial hints of the operation to the Gujarat police. A confidant of Kapadia, Usman was doing a diploma in human rights from Baroda University. The SIMI leadership wants its cadres to penetrate the legal field, media and human rights outfits all over India.
The SIMI training camp organised at Khumtir dargah in the hilly areas of Pawagadh was organised by Mufti Bashir and Kapadia.
The Gujarat police was so lethargic till the bomb blasts occurred that as soon as the blasts inquiry started, Sajid Mansuri who was absconding since the last six years, was picked up after a brilliant operation. Sajid has half a dozen pseudonyms including Saad, Sajjad, salim and Ghulam Mansoori. All these years he had been hiding in Surat, Baroda or Bharuch. He knows these three cities better than any policemen would know.
It is claimed that these accused told the police, "As Gujaratis we wanted to prove that we were capable of doing something in Gujarat also. We wanted to teach s lesson to Modi and his supporters. And, we wanted to send across a message by establishing our presence."
The Gujarat police and the state's political leadership are reluctant to admit it, but the blasts were a 'revenge' for the 2002 communal riots in the state. But the police claim the attacks were meant to assert SIMI's clout to the young Gujarati Muslims.
The investigation of the arrested SIMI cadres is not at all easy. They are parting with a little information and later claim that whatever they said are lies. They shift their stance many times a day and thoroughly confuse the police.
Baroda Police Commissioner Rakesh Asthana says, "These are committed people. Imran's old father was medically treated in the civil hospital recently. He stayed with him there. But, the same man was a part of conspiracy that planted a bomb in the civil hospital. They have no remorse. They dispute the idea of nationalism."
When Zahid Sheikh, a key man in Ahmedabad blasts who planted the bomb in the civil hospital was produced at the magistrate's court� on August 17 he proudly showed the victory sign to TV cameras. A police officer says, "Zahid and others think that, at last, now they are on the right track in life as guided by Islam."
Yunus Mansoori told the Gujarat police that when he asked Mufti Bashir why do you want to join them in the execution of the plan, Bashir reportedly replied, "Jannat sirf aap ko hi jana hai (only you want to go to heaven)?"
When Bashir was handed over to Himanshu Shukla of the Gujarat police, his first demand was for a green cloth cover on his face instead of the usual black one. He said green is the colour of Islam.
Zahid Sheikh, after his arrest, told the police, "We believe in a borderless world. Nationalism breaks the universe. Islam unites. You should convert to Islam."
Sajjad Mansuri had organised the infamous meeting of 124 SIMI workers in Surat's Rajshree hall in 2001 that had shocked everyone by its anti-India speeches by jihadis. After July 26 the Baroda police learnt that Mansuri was immensely fond of his children Mohmmad Zaid and Abu Zar, and simply followed the movement of these two children to nab him. Their names were found in a Baroda school but they had left after two years. Their school leaving certificate showed that they had shifted to Bharuch. The police kept watch outside the new school, spotted them, and found their home address through school records. And Mansoori was caught.
And he is proving to be a trove of information. He is a man of organisation, is quite cunning, very commonsensical but distrusts non-Muslims. He also hates Muslims who worship at dargahs.
Predictably, neither he nor his colleagues have any remorse of what they have done. Rather, one accused is so hardcore that when the police is giving him a tough time he starts reciting verses, or ayats, from the Quran.
Although the police officers are very careful in talking about the motives behind the bomb blasts, a source in the police says one accused told him, "We hate Narendra Modi." He gave details of his wish-list of how he would like to target Modi in Gandhinagar.
Yunus mansoori, Usman Agarbattiwala and Samshuddin Arif have previous records of arrest in a case connected to SIMI activity. Mansoori, who is more than six feet tall, told the police: "There will be peace in India if everyone converts to Islam."
When asked repeatedly why would these militants remain in Gujarat after the bomb blasts, the Gujarat police says, "None of them thought the police will ever catch them. Even if they are caught they thought it will be for political reasons. Blasts after blasts took place in India and nobody was arrested, so they became brazen."
He adds, "The media may like to write what they want on the entire issue of Indian terrorism. But for us the lesson is simple. A few people in India are interpreting the Quran wrongly and interpreting the concept of jihad crookedly. We have to be careful and alert against them."
http://www.rediff.com///news/2008/aug/22spec.htm
Gujarat cops' biggest problem: public scepticism
Sheela Bhatt in Gujarat | August 26, 2008 | 15:59 IST
After highlighting how the Gujarat police force cracked the Ahmedabad blasts conspiracy and how the they were going about building an airtight case against the terrorists, in this the final part of her 3-part series, Sheela Bhatt describes how the force is trying to overcome its biggest stumbling block: the disbelief over its claim of having cracked the case:
In cracking the Ahmedabad serial blasts case the Gujarat police may have opened a Pandora's box.
It claims to have not only got evidence against those who planned and executed the bomb blasts in Ahmedabad and Surat, but also that it has got definite insights into the conspiracy aspect of the blasts on Samjhauta Express and in Jaipur.
In fact, some unused explosive connected with the blasts on Samjhauta Express was recently recovered by Gujarat police.
In other words, what the Gujarat police is claiming is that the blasts in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and probably Samjhauta Express were conceived, planned and executed by the militant faction of the Students Islamic Movement of India formed after 2005. That also means the usual suspects -- like Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence, Lashkar-e-Tayiba or HUJI of Bangladesh -- can't be blamed for some of the recent blasts that have killed more than 200 innocent Indians.
So far, revelations by the accused suggest that the terror strikes in Bengaluru, Jaipur and Gujarat are made in India and by Indians.
A senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader in Gujarat, whose party is in power in the state, says, "We have not found any external links to SIMI in the execution of the blasts in Ahmedabad and Surat."
The Gujarat police zoomed in on SIMI only after they interrogated Zahid Sheikh of Ahmedabad (who allegedly planted the bomb in the city's civil hospital) and Usman Agarbattiwala of Baroda. Their interrogation, read along with SIMI chief Safdar Nagori and his associate Ameel pervez's statement, made them believe that SIMI, a fiercely political outfit, turned militant after it was banned in 2001.
"Possibly SIMI's role behind the bomb blasts was overlooked while giving attention to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba. The Indian establishment went into slumber after banning SIMI," says a senior police officer in Ahmedabad.
He says four days after the bomb blasts, when the Gujarat police narrowed down their focus to SIMI and picked up Zahid Sheikh from his home in Juhapura, a political leader questioned its judgement in a meeting. "He said SIMI may not have done 'direct action' like planning to kill so many people," the police officer said.
If Nagori's statement had been studied properly, may be the story would have been different.
"It's the height of inefficiency," fumed Ajit Doval, former chief of Intelligence Bureau. "Senior officers are so 'busy' normally that they read only the summary of such confessional statements. In Nagori's statement, the mention of Gujarat and Rajasthan must be in the third paragraph of page number 17," he added, sarcasm dripping from his voice.
"We never got a copy of Safdar Nagori's statement," counters Ashish Bhatia, Ahmedabad's joint commissioner of police who is heading the investigation into the Gujarat blasts. "We were unaware that he has mentioned any plans of subversive activities in Rajasthan and Gujarat. We knew generally about the threat perception, but nothing beyond that."
Naturally, given the credibility problem investigations into terrorism-related suffer from in India, and more so by the Gujarat police in the light of the Sohrabuddin case, the latter's current achievements is looked at either with suspicion or complete disbelief. Any kind of communal violence or terrorism is a delicate issue in India; a number of people -- from whichever community the perpetrators belong to -- inevitably slip into denial mode.
In this case, most experts deemed secular and Muslim leaders do not buy the Gujarat police's version of events. A Bengaluru-based expert on India's madrassas refused to respond to rediff.com because he said the police's findings are based on confessional statements of arrested people, and extracted under pressure.
Doval, however, disagrees. "In the absence of any other evidence I would think the Gujarat police investigation is credible," he says.
Bhatia was emphatic: "I can tell you that we have enough evidence in this case to plead for death sentence for the culprits. Our investigations will withstand trial in any court."
So, given these two opinions, should one believe the investigations of the Gujarat police?
Here are pointers to form one's judgement.
Special police teams from Rajasthan, Haryana, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru have already lined up in Ahmedabad to interrogate the arrested accused, especially Mufti Abu Bashir and Sajid Mansuri. What they do beyond this will indicate the authenticity of the Gujarat police's claims.
The Kerala government has confirmed that an arms training camp was organised by SIMI in December 2007 and even a First Information report was filed against it in the area, but investigations were abruptly discontinued.
The Gujarat police claims that it has details of the involvement of some 40 persons in the recent bomb blasts in India out of which they have arrested 10 who are directly involved in the serial blasts in Ahmedabad and in planting of bombs in Surat. They also claim that a separate press conference will be held to reveal how, when and by whom the bombs were planted in Surat.
Baroda police commissioner Rakesh Asthana says, "We have no doubt that the same group which planted bombs in Ahmedabad was behind the Surat bombs. The technique used in it didn't work but the bombs were not kept to just scare the people, they were meant to explode. We know where these bombs were assembled in Baroda."
It is noteworthy that before the Gujarat government responded politically to the sceptics, the Congress-led central government has already given its stamp of approval to the investigations by using it against SIMI in the ongoing hearings in Supreme Court over the organisation's ban.
The Gujarat police has admitted that Intelligence Bureau has lent enormous support to its investigators to unravel the conspiracy.
IB chief P C Haldar is a confidant of National Security Advisor M K Narayanan, and it's quite unlikely that his establishment will wholeheartedly support the Gujarat chief minister's cops or allow the him to reap any political benefit from the investigations.
It is well known in intelligence circles that Mufti Abu Bashir's arrest from Uttar Pradesh would have not been possible but for IB's speedy efforts. As Zahid Sheikh, Sajjad Mansoori and Agarbattiwala started singing in custody, it was IB which helped the investigations move in the right direction by instantly -- in some cases in just four hours -- providing dossiers of names that cropped up in the interrogations from their databank in Mumbai and Delhi.
Home Minister Shivraj Patil himself has congratulated Gujarat Minister of State Amit Shah for cracking the case.
But there were hiccups too. Around August 13-14, when the Mufti was traced to his village in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati asked her police officers if any case against him was pending in the state. Her idea, initially, was to keep him in the state government's custody. But somehow wisdom prevailed in Lucknow and she allowed the Mufti to be handed over to the Gujarat police.
At one point of time, the Gujarat police wanted to interrogate Mufti Bashir before his arrest, and efforts were made at the highest levels in Gujarat and in New Delhi to detain the Mufti, interrogate him and then seek his police custody. It is well known that accused don't reveal much after their formal arrest. This practice, despite being a violation of human rights is a common one in India, but was not allowed by Home Minister Shivraj Patil in this instance.
He categorically denied to the Gujarat government any access to Bashir without first arresting him.
Despite all this and the sceptics' vocal criticism, the political leadership and the police in Gujarat are confident that this case will be built as professionally as it can be.
Giving some details of the investigations, police officers told rediff.com that all the arrested terrorists are Deobandis, and some of them follow one of its conservative sects, the Ahle Hadis.
Most of the arrested accused are tough, well-trained in how to deal with police interrogation and have a fairly good knowledge of functioning of the media, judiciary and the police. All of them know they are safer if arrested, illegal detention is what scares both criminals and innocents.
While parting with inside information, a police officer who did not want to be named told rediff.com, "It's easier to withstand and tackle external aggression because it unites Indians. Internal subversion divides society."
"One should wait for more revelations from the police, but we are in precarious times," comments Bhanu Pratap Mehta of the Centre for Policy Research. "Why are so many people feeling alienated?"
India can no longer pass the buck. It is time to introspect why some of her own citizens are taking to terrorism against her.
http://www.rediff.com//news/2008/aug/26sheela.htm
Sheela Bhatt in Gujarat | August 19, 2008 | 19:02 IST
Besides many other things, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is certainly a lucky politician. In just 22 days his police claims to have solved the conspiracy behind the serial bomb blasts in Ahmedabad of July 26 and the mystery behind the bombs that were planted all over Surat but did not explode.
How did the Gujarat police manage what the police in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Bengaluru could not do in the last two years?
rediff.com reconstructs the investigations that went into unravelling the conspiracy on the basis of information from multiple sources in Ahmedabad and New Delhi.
The early leads
On the evening of July 26, as the news of the bomb blasts trickled in from Isanpur, Narol circle to the Maninagar area of Ahmedabad, the last being Modi's constituency, the police and political establishment were stunned. After the communal riots of 2002 there had been expectations of some kind of violent "reaction", but 22 blasts in 18 spots in a highly communally surcharged city were stunning to say the least. Not only that, it was also loaded with a stern political message for the chief minister who has won the popular mandate twice on the plank of security.
Chief Minister Modi and Amit Shah, his minister of state for home, do not lack the motivation to pick up difficult political or administrative challenges, but the blasts at the civil hospital was too shocking even for the seasoned politicos. Their desperation in facing the situation was obvious. Modi has projected himself as a "different" leader because he provided safety to people in a country wracked by terrorism. But 18 blasts in 80 minutes seriously dented his image, and his only redemption lay in going about the investigation with professionalism.
His police's and his own credibility was so low in matters of criminal investigations after the Sohrabuddin encounter case and the communal riots cases of 2002 that they needed to put in extra effort. Also, whatever the spin-masters claim, it's clear that somewhere the police and the administration failed to prevent the blasts which were committed by "home-grown" elements.
Terror's new faces
There was failure on the part of the police machinery. When the investigations started, the first thing all the IPS officers did was to read Students Islamic Movement of India chief Safdar Nagori's statement given to the Madhya pradesh police when he was arrested in March, and that of his associate Ameel Pervez. Pervez had attended an arms training camp in Gujarat and he also gave the names of SIMI members like Sajid Mansuri, Yunus Mansuri, Zahid Sheikh, Imran Sheikh and Usman Agarbattiwala who had attended it. Neither the concerned states nor the IB had acted on it and taken preventive measures.
However, the lessons were late in coming but they were learnt quickly.
It is credit to Modi's determination and the Gujarat police's zeal, aided by the Intelligence Bureau's extraordinary efforts in giving relevant inputs to the state police, that this case could be cracked.
There was an element of urgency in the police investigations since the state government took it as a war that needed to be won. After the blasts, for the first few days the Gujarat government's approach was tinged with nervousness because they wanted to avoid communal tension at any cost.
The political leaders' anxiety only heightened on reading the e-mail sent by the terrorists just moments before the blasts. The e-mail "in the Name of Allah" from Indian Mujahideen had challenged Modi and his police in its opening sentence itself.
It said, 'Indian Mujahideen strike again! - Do whatever you can, within 5 minutes from now, feel the terror of Death!'
The clumsily worded e-mail was so blunt in its political message that Modi had no option but to pick up the gauntlet against terrorism. The e-mail became the motivating force for some senior police officers, too.
While provoking the Muslims of Gujarat it said, 'Target these evil politicians and leaders of BJP, RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal, who provoke the masses against you. Target and kill the wicked police force who were watching the "fun" of your bloodshed and who handed you to the rioting sinful culprits. Target their hired informers and spies even if they are the disloyal and betraying munafiqeen (hypocrites) of our Ummah. O Muslims of Gujarat!'
By midnight of July 26 the ruling political leadership sprang into action to make senior policemen understand that their investigations will get 100 per cent support, nothing less nothing more. They had at their disposal money, resources, manpower and even a chartered plane.
"As the news of the seventh blasts came in we knew that there more than 25 people were involved. And, we assessed that without the help of local Ahmedabadis the anti-national elements could not have planted bombs in such a perfect operation. We made these two assumptions and they proved right. We started looking within, without wasting any time," said a senior officer who was a member of the core team of investigators. The text of the IM's e-mail was sent to all officers including in Baroda, Bharuch and Surat where the investigations needed to be done on a war footing.
The e-mail was analysed thoroughly, and its careful reading helped narrow down the focus.
More than 11 teams were formed within the first few hours of the blasts. One team was asked to handle the investigations into the material used in the bombs. Another team was asked to investigate the use of bicycles. Another team was formed to thoroughly check all the phone calls made in Ahmedabad from certain areas just before and after the blasts. Another team was set up to reach out to all the police informers and gather their opinions on and information of the blasts. One team followed the cyber crime aspect of the case. The overall investigation of the case was assigned to the crime branch of Ahmedabad where more than 100 people started following whatever little leads that were available, from the midnight of July 26.
All of them were told that even if "communal riots (the possibility was always there) take place in Ahmedabad they should not divert their attention."�
"From July 26 to August 16 (when the breakthrough was announced) none of us went home to sleep. Every morning at 7 we would all go home and return after a shower and in fresh clothes. We would sleep on our chairs in the daytime. We haven't hit the bed yet," said Deputy Commissioner of Police Abhay Chudasama, who along with his boss Joint Commissioner of Police Ashish Bhatia and Rakesh Asthana, police commissioner of Baroda, played an important role in detecting the conspiracy behind the bomb blasts.
The Gujarat police claims that, probably for the first time, the central Intelligence Bureau and it have worked on the terrorism case as complementary teams and produced some excellent results. Between July 27 and August 16, on many days the political leadership was briefed in the Ahmedabad circuit house at 4 am. That was the kind of frenzy displayed by the Gujarat police and the political leaders to get to the bottom of the terror case.
Chudasama claims that for the first three days they had no clue of the culprits behind the blasts, but more and more assuredly all of them started believing that it seemed to be the work of the banned SIMI.
The Gujarat police's databank of SIMI members in Ahmedabad had some names including that of Zahid Sheikh. They picked him up and started interrogating him extensively.
"He is a fanatic. He is not a Gujarati, he is not an Indian. He claims he is merely a soldier of Islam. These accused don't belong to even their own families," said a source in the police.
"You will have to understand the identity of the perpetrators of the bomb blasts. Their "transnational" identity itself is an anti-national act," says one of the interrogators.
Hectic interrogation was going on at two places, one of them being the crime branch office in Haveli area of Ahmedabad.
Here, Joint Commissioner of Police Ashish Bhatia and his deputy Abhay Chudasama were working relentlessly to narrow down their search. In Baroda, under the supervision of Police Commissioner Rakesh Asthana, independent investigations were going on. Asthana is a level-headed officer with 10 years of experience in the Central Bureau of Investigation. He shares the credit for investigating the fodder scam which tainted Lalu Prasad Yadav.
As soon as the news came out that Baroda might have been used as a conduit by the conspirators, Asthana formed a special team of hardly four-five people. In Ahmedabad and Baroda the most important thing was to keep the investigations and its processes a secret. A news-hungry media was all the time "fooled" by leaking irrelevant stories and even sketches of the 'accused' were made only to "feed" the media.
It was of no use to the investigators whatsoever. In reality, they were going down a different path. Once the role of SIMI emerged, Asthana specially asked his department to get on board two Muslim police officers.
Since he is merely two months old in his current post, he got from the databank a file on SIMI activists living in Baroda. The blue file had a professionally prepared dossier on SIMI activists, and the opening page featured Usman Agarbattiwala complete with his photograph.
Asthana went through the accompanying details like Agarbattiwala's telephone numbers, his work, background and the names of all his relatives that were in the dossier.
Immediately, details of Agarbattiwala's telephone calls, both made and received, were procured. It took relentless work through day and night to make the chart of the most frequently made calls from his phone. They were then narrowed down and owners of those numbers were detected and, in turn, the printouts of those phone calls were procured. A professional hard work done with the help of computers in the police headquarters in Kothi area yielded fantastic results.
Asthana's team created a cluster of cell phone movement among select persons. These movements were finally narrowed down to Agarbattiwala, Kayamuddin Kapadia, Imran Sheikh and Iqbal Sheikh. In no time Agarbattiwala, Imran and Iqbal were picked up. Along with others Joint Commissioner of Police Pravin Kumar Sinha and inspector Karimbhai Polra played an important role in Asthana's team.
The first copy of the interrogation report was sent to the Ahmedabad team which was narrowing down on local SIMI activists including Zahid Sheikh. Agarbattiwala's cracking proved very crucial. Bhatia and Chudasama cracked Zahid Sheikh as much as they could. In Baroda, Iqbal was a new entrant to SIMI ranks but some of the detainees were tough nuts to crack who had undergone special training to withstand police methods. On the basis of the early lead provided by the interrogations in Baroda and Ahmedabad, teams of Gujarat police travelled to Kerala, Mumbai, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka to collect a variety of documentary evidence.
By August 8-9, Modi knew his state police was just days away from success that has eluded the police in other Indian states wracked by terrorism.
http://www.rediff.com//news/2008/aug/19spec.htm
Gujarat cops hope they have an airtight case
Sheela Bhatt in Gujarat | August 22, 2008 | 21:25 IST
Part I: How Modi's police cracked the blasts case
The Gujarat police has almost reconstructed how the blasts were planned and executed, though with a few missing links.
The assembling of the bombs meant for Surat was done at Imran Sheikh's home in Baroda, while for Ahmedabad the bombs were assembled in Yunus Mansoori's hose in Bapunagar area of Ahmedabad. The forensic test of these places is on and the police is hopeful that they will get the necessary evidences soon.
Imran Sheikh has been arrested. His statement gives a lot of information, like how many times the militant SIMI chief Safdar Nagori and Mufti Bashir visited Gujarat and stayed in his house and what all they did in Gujarat.
"So far, conclusive evidence has not been obtained but in any terrorism case the turning points in investigations always come only after the confessional statements of the accused," a senior officer said.
Terror's new faces
From the confessional statements by the accused, which are most likely to be retracted, the police has got the entire sequence of conspiracy. They have the names of shops and witnesses from where the bicycles to plant the bombs were bought, shops from where the chemicals, timers, wires and detonators were bought. The police has taken care to find some Muslim witnesses in the case as well.
There were three types of bombs: tiffin bombs, bombs in the shape of� a boat, and car bombs. All the bombs kept on bicycles were blasted at the same time while the car bombs were fitted with gas cylinders.
The confessional statements the Gujarat police got from the arrested accused are also totally matching in detail. They have also recovered a 7.6mm pistol, a laptop belonging Iqbal and a number of CDs. The computer of Usman Agarbattiwala had a rough draft of the e-mail which was sent to the media before the blasts. Agarbattiwala was a well-known in his community and his brother is a medical practitioner.
Also, if one believes the claims of the Gujarat police, the Students Islamic Movement of India has only become more powerful after its ban in 2001. That also means the Intelligence Bureau and state governments since the last three years have completely failed to know, assess and analyse the internal changes in a banned SIMI while innocent people were being killed mercilessly in bomb blasts.
The investigators say the terror operation in Ahmedabad was planned by Nagori, Mufti Abu Bashir from Uttar Pradesh, Kayamuddin Kapadia of Baroda, Taufique Bilal alias Abdul Subhan Qureshi of Mumbai -- who provided the technical knowhow to make the bombs and to hack computers -- and Sajid Mansuri of Surat, who was the coordinator.
The Ahmedabad and Baroda police have gone through the records of lakhs of mobile phones which were discontinued on or after the July 26 blasts. It turned out that the people who have been arrested had switched off their regular mobile phones after the blasts or had thrown away the SIM card. All the arrested accused are members of SIMI, and six of them were on the police list before 2001.
The Gujarat police's interrogation of Zahid Sheikh and Sajid Mansuri suggests that the absconding Taufique alias Abdus Subhan Qureshi possibly had a role in the Mumbai train blasts of July 11, 2006. In the first week of August, a team from the Gujarat police which included a Muslim officer went to Taufique's residence in Nayanagar area of Mira Road outside Mumbai. While serving seviyan, the traditional sweet dish, Taufique's wife gave enough hints to the police that her husband is unlikely to be caught. She almost threw a challenge to them.
Taufique was detained by the Mumbai police but was released after six days of interrogation because they could not find anything against him.
Zahid Sheikh was also interrogated but was released. Mufti Bashir was also once interrogated by the Hyderabad police but was released because they could not find any information about his involvement.
The arrests of the SIMI cadre were not easy. When the Baroda police went to the provision store run by Iqbal Sheikh in the city's Yakubpura area he himself told the police, "Iqbal is not in Baroda."
He tried to mislead the police but the latter didn't budge. Iqbal is a new entrant in SIMI and was not involved in the planning stage of the bomb blasts.
Kayamuddin Kapadia, a fundamentalist subscribing to the orthodox Ahle Hadees sect, is the constitutional head of SIMI in Gujarat. His whereabouts are not known but he is as important to this case as Mufti Abu Bashir.
Usman Agarbattiwala, who was arrested in Baroda, gave initial hints of the operation to the Gujarat police. A confidant of Kapadia, Usman was doing a diploma in human rights from Baroda University. The SIMI leadership wants its cadres to penetrate the legal field, media and human rights outfits all over India.
The SIMI training camp organised at Khumtir dargah in the hilly areas of Pawagadh was organised by Mufti Bashir and Kapadia.
The Gujarat police was so lethargic till the bomb blasts occurred that as soon as the blasts inquiry started, Sajid Mansuri who was absconding since the last six years, was picked up after a brilliant operation. Sajid has half a dozen pseudonyms including Saad, Sajjad, salim and Ghulam Mansoori. All these years he had been hiding in Surat, Baroda or Bharuch. He knows these three cities better than any policemen would know.
It is claimed that these accused told the police, "As Gujaratis we wanted to prove that we were capable of doing something in Gujarat also. We wanted to teach s lesson to Modi and his supporters. And, we wanted to send across a message by establishing our presence."
The Gujarat police and the state's political leadership are reluctant to admit it, but the blasts were a 'revenge' for the 2002 communal riots in the state. But the police claim the attacks were meant to assert SIMI's clout to the young Gujarati Muslims.
The investigation of the arrested SIMI cadres is not at all easy. They are parting with a little information and later claim that whatever they said are lies. They shift their stance many times a day and thoroughly confuse the police.
Baroda Police Commissioner Rakesh Asthana says, "These are committed people. Imran's old father was medically treated in the civil hospital recently. He stayed with him there. But, the same man was a part of conspiracy that planted a bomb in the civil hospital. They have no remorse. They dispute the idea of nationalism."
When Zahid Sheikh, a key man in Ahmedabad blasts who planted the bomb in the civil hospital was produced at the magistrate's court� on August 17 he proudly showed the victory sign to TV cameras. A police officer says, "Zahid and others think that, at last, now they are on the right track in life as guided by Islam."
Yunus Mansoori told the Gujarat police that when he asked Mufti Bashir why do you want to join them in the execution of the plan, Bashir reportedly replied, "Jannat sirf aap ko hi jana hai (only you want to go to heaven)?"
When Bashir was handed over to Himanshu Shukla of the Gujarat police, his first demand was for a green cloth cover on his face instead of the usual black one. He said green is the colour of Islam.
Zahid Sheikh, after his arrest, told the police, "We believe in a borderless world. Nationalism breaks the universe. Islam unites. You should convert to Islam."
Sajjad Mansuri had organised the infamous meeting of 124 SIMI workers in Surat's Rajshree hall in 2001 that had shocked everyone by its anti-India speeches by jihadis. After July 26 the Baroda police learnt that Mansuri was immensely fond of his children Mohmmad Zaid and Abu Zar, and simply followed the movement of these two children to nab him. Their names were found in a Baroda school but they had left after two years. Their school leaving certificate showed that they had shifted to Bharuch. The police kept watch outside the new school, spotted them, and found their home address through school records. And Mansoori was caught.
And he is proving to be a trove of information. He is a man of organisation, is quite cunning, very commonsensical but distrusts non-Muslims. He also hates Muslims who worship at dargahs.
Predictably, neither he nor his colleagues have any remorse of what they have done. Rather, one accused is so hardcore that when the police is giving him a tough time he starts reciting verses, or ayats, from the Quran.
Although the police officers are very careful in talking about the motives behind the bomb blasts, a source in the police says one accused told him, "We hate Narendra Modi." He gave details of his wish-list of how he would like to target Modi in Gandhinagar.
Yunus mansoori, Usman Agarbattiwala and Samshuddin Arif have previous records of arrest in a case connected to SIMI activity. Mansoori, who is more than six feet tall, told the police: "There will be peace in India if everyone converts to Islam."
When asked repeatedly why would these militants remain in Gujarat after the bomb blasts, the Gujarat police says, "None of them thought the police will ever catch them. Even if they are caught they thought it will be for political reasons. Blasts after blasts took place in India and nobody was arrested, so they became brazen."
He adds, "The media may like to write what they want on the entire issue of Indian terrorism. But for us the lesson is simple. A few people in India are interpreting the Quran wrongly and interpreting the concept of jihad crookedly. We have to be careful and alert against them."
http://www.rediff.com///news/2008/aug/22spec.htm
Gujarat cops' biggest problem: public scepticism
Sheela Bhatt in Gujarat | August 26, 2008 | 15:59 IST
After highlighting how the Gujarat police force cracked the Ahmedabad blasts conspiracy and how the they were going about building an airtight case against the terrorists, in this the final part of her 3-part series, Sheela Bhatt describes how the force is trying to overcome its biggest stumbling block: the disbelief over its claim of having cracked the case:
In cracking the Ahmedabad serial blasts case the Gujarat police may have opened a Pandora's box.
It claims to have not only got evidence against those who planned and executed the bomb blasts in Ahmedabad and Surat, but also that it has got definite insights into the conspiracy aspect of the blasts on Samjhauta Express and in Jaipur.
In fact, some unused explosive connected with the blasts on Samjhauta Express was recently recovered by Gujarat police.
In other words, what the Gujarat police is claiming is that the blasts in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and probably Samjhauta Express were conceived, planned and executed by the militant faction of the Students Islamic Movement of India formed after 2005. That also means the usual suspects -- like Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence, Lashkar-e-Tayiba or HUJI of Bangladesh -- can't be blamed for some of the recent blasts that have killed more than 200 innocent Indians.
So far, revelations by the accused suggest that the terror strikes in Bengaluru, Jaipur and Gujarat are made in India and by Indians.
A senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader in Gujarat, whose party is in power in the state, says, "We have not found any external links to SIMI in the execution of the blasts in Ahmedabad and Surat."
The Gujarat police zoomed in on SIMI only after they interrogated Zahid Sheikh of Ahmedabad (who allegedly planted the bomb in the city's civil hospital) and Usman Agarbattiwala of Baroda. Their interrogation, read along with SIMI chief Safdar Nagori and his associate Ameel pervez's statement, made them believe that SIMI, a fiercely political outfit, turned militant after it was banned in 2001.
"Possibly SIMI's role behind the bomb blasts was overlooked while giving attention to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba. The Indian establishment went into slumber after banning SIMI," says a senior police officer in Ahmedabad.
He says four days after the bomb blasts, when the Gujarat police narrowed down their focus to SIMI and picked up Zahid Sheikh from his home in Juhapura, a political leader questioned its judgement in a meeting. "He said SIMI may not have done 'direct action' like planning to kill so many people," the police officer said.
If Nagori's statement had been studied properly, may be the story would have been different.
"It's the height of inefficiency," fumed Ajit Doval, former chief of Intelligence Bureau. "Senior officers are so 'busy' normally that they read only the summary of such confessional statements. In Nagori's statement, the mention of Gujarat and Rajasthan must be in the third paragraph of page number 17," he added, sarcasm dripping from his voice.
"We never got a copy of Safdar Nagori's statement," counters Ashish Bhatia, Ahmedabad's joint commissioner of police who is heading the investigation into the Gujarat blasts. "We were unaware that he has mentioned any plans of subversive activities in Rajasthan and Gujarat. We knew generally about the threat perception, but nothing beyond that."
Naturally, given the credibility problem investigations into terrorism-related suffer from in India, and more so by the Gujarat police in the light of the Sohrabuddin case, the latter's current achievements is looked at either with suspicion or complete disbelief. Any kind of communal violence or terrorism is a delicate issue in India; a number of people -- from whichever community the perpetrators belong to -- inevitably slip into denial mode.
In this case, most experts deemed secular and Muslim leaders do not buy the Gujarat police's version of events. A Bengaluru-based expert on India's madrassas refused to respond to rediff.com because he said the police's findings are based on confessional statements of arrested people, and extracted under pressure.
Doval, however, disagrees. "In the absence of any other evidence I would think the Gujarat police investigation is credible," he says.
Bhatia was emphatic: "I can tell you that we have enough evidence in this case to plead for death sentence for the culprits. Our investigations will withstand trial in any court."
So, given these two opinions, should one believe the investigations of the Gujarat police?
Here are pointers to form one's judgement.
Special police teams from Rajasthan, Haryana, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru have already lined up in Ahmedabad to interrogate the arrested accused, especially Mufti Abu Bashir and Sajid Mansuri. What they do beyond this will indicate the authenticity of the Gujarat police's claims.
The Kerala government has confirmed that an arms training camp was organised by SIMI in December 2007 and even a First Information report was filed against it in the area, but investigations were abruptly discontinued.
The Gujarat police claims that it has details of the involvement of some 40 persons in the recent bomb blasts in India out of which they have arrested 10 who are directly involved in the serial blasts in Ahmedabad and in planting of bombs in Surat. They also claim that a separate press conference will be held to reveal how, when and by whom the bombs were planted in Surat.
Baroda police commissioner Rakesh Asthana says, "We have no doubt that the same group which planted bombs in Ahmedabad was behind the Surat bombs. The technique used in it didn't work but the bombs were not kept to just scare the people, they were meant to explode. We know where these bombs were assembled in Baroda."
It is noteworthy that before the Gujarat government responded politically to the sceptics, the Congress-led central government has already given its stamp of approval to the investigations by using it against SIMI in the ongoing hearings in Supreme Court over the organisation's ban.
The Gujarat police has admitted that Intelligence Bureau has lent enormous support to its investigators to unravel the conspiracy.
IB chief P C Haldar is a confidant of National Security Advisor M K Narayanan, and it's quite unlikely that his establishment will wholeheartedly support the Gujarat chief minister's cops or allow the him to reap any political benefit from the investigations.
It is well known in intelligence circles that Mufti Abu Bashir's arrest from Uttar Pradesh would have not been possible but for IB's speedy efforts. As Zahid Sheikh, Sajjad Mansoori and Agarbattiwala started singing in custody, it was IB which helped the investigations move in the right direction by instantly -- in some cases in just four hours -- providing dossiers of names that cropped up in the interrogations from their databank in Mumbai and Delhi.
Home Minister Shivraj Patil himself has congratulated Gujarat Minister of State Amit Shah for cracking the case.
But there were hiccups too. Around August 13-14, when the Mufti was traced to his village in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati asked her police officers if any case against him was pending in the state. Her idea, initially, was to keep him in the state government's custody. But somehow wisdom prevailed in Lucknow and she allowed the Mufti to be handed over to the Gujarat police.
At one point of time, the Gujarat police wanted to interrogate Mufti Bashir before his arrest, and efforts were made at the highest levels in Gujarat and in New Delhi to detain the Mufti, interrogate him and then seek his police custody. It is well known that accused don't reveal much after their formal arrest. This practice, despite being a violation of human rights is a common one in India, but was not allowed by Home Minister Shivraj Patil in this instance.
He categorically denied to the Gujarat government any access to Bashir without first arresting him.
Despite all this and the sceptics' vocal criticism, the political leadership and the police in Gujarat are confident that this case will be built as professionally as it can be.
Giving some details of the investigations, police officers told rediff.com that all the arrested terrorists are Deobandis, and some of them follow one of its conservative sects, the Ahle Hadis.
Most of the arrested accused are tough, well-trained in how to deal with police interrogation and have a fairly good knowledge of functioning of the media, judiciary and the police. All of them know they are safer if arrested, illegal detention is what scares both criminals and innocents.
While parting with inside information, a police officer who did not want to be named told rediff.com, "It's easier to withstand and tackle external aggression because it unites Indians. Internal subversion divides society."
"One should wait for more revelations from the police, but we are in precarious times," comments Bhanu Pratap Mehta of the Centre for Policy Research. "Why are so many people feeling alienated?"
India can no longer pass the buck. It is time to introspect why some of her own citizens are taking to terrorism against her.
http://www.rediff.com//news/2008/aug/26sheela.htm
Hindusthan needs a Patriot Act
Hindusthan needs a Patriot Act. Counter Rangila Rani of 10 Janpath.
Hindusthan needs a Patriot Act on the lines of the USA Patriots Act to punish and send the secessionists, traitors to Tihar.
The official title of the USA PATRIOT Act is "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act of 2001."
This will help unearth the hawala transactions which enable corrupt politicians to amass wealth and cart it away to foreign bank accounts and try to buy up vote banks using such ill-gotten money. This is the bane of Hindusthan polity which has reduced most of the politicians to be chamcha-s of the empress in 10 Janpath.
Mechanisms for effective enforcement of the Act should be put in place, answerable only to the people of Hindusthan. One way is to create an institution with constitutional mandate to implement the Hindusthan Patriot Act and which will not be subject to the vagaries of the polity and interference by chamcha-s.
The bringing back of POTA should be subject to this condition that the types of provisions included in US Patriot Act should find a place in such a revised enactment.
Sonia Govt.’s reluctance to bring back POTA is clearly governed by their desire to cuddle secessionists and jihadi islamist terrorists, apart from seeking protection for their ill-gotten wealth. Appeasement policies have come home to haunt the chamcha-s who will soon have to find their passports and return to Luciana.
kalyan
Read the entire USA PATRIOT Act at http://www.scribd.com/doc/4954209/patriotsact
The purpose of the USA PATRIOT Act is to deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and other purposes, some of which include:
· To strengthen U.S. measures to prevent, detect and prosecute international money laundering and financing of terrorism;
· To subject to special scrutiny foreign jurisdictions, foreign financial institutions, and classes of international transactions or types of accounts that are susceptible to criminal abuse;
· To require all appropriate elements of the financial services industry to report potential money laundering;
· To strengthen measures to prevent use of the U.S. financial system for personal gain by corrupt foreign officials and facilitate repatriation of stolen assets to the citizens of countries to whom such assets belong.
Below is a brief, non-comprehensive overview of the sections of the USA PATRIOT Act that may affect financial institutions.
Section 311: Special Measures for Jurisdictions, Financial Institutions, or International Transactions of Primary Money Laundering Concern
This Section allows for identifying customers using correspondent accounts, including obtaining information comparable to information obtained on domestic customers and prohibiting or imposing conditions on the opening or maintaining in the U.S. of correspondent or payable-through accounts for a foreign banking institution.
Section 312: Special Due Diligence for Correspondent Accounts and Private Banking Accounts
This Section amends the Bank Secrecy Act by imposing due diligence & enhanced due diligence requirements on U.S. financial institutions that maintain correspondent accounts for foreign financial institutions or private banking accounts for non-U.S. persons.
Special Due Diligence Programs for Certain Foreign Accounts
Section 313: Prohibition on U.S. Correspondent Accounts with Foreign Shell Banks
To prevent foreign shell banks, which are generally not subject to regulation and considered to present an unreasonable risk of involvement in money laundering or terrorist financing, from having access to the U.S. financial system. Banks and broker-dealers are prohibited from having correspondent accounts for any foreign bank that does not have a physical presence in any country. Additionally, they are required to take reasonable steps to ensure their correspondent accounts are not used to indirectly provide correspondent services to such banks.
Section 314: Cooperative Efforts to Deter Money Laundering
Section 314 helps law enforcement identify, disrupt, and prevent terrorist acts and money laundering activities by encouraging further cooperation among law enforcement, regulators, and financial institutions to share information regarding those suspected of being involved in terrorism or money laundering.
Section 319(b): Bank Records Related to Anti-Money Laundering Programs
To facilitate the government's ability to seize illicit funds of individuals and entities located in foreign countries by authorizing the Attorney General or the Secretary of the Treasury to issue a summons or subpoena to any foreign bank that maintains a correspondent account in the U.S. for records related to such accounts, including records outside the U.S. relating to the deposit of funds into the foreign bank. This Section also requires U.S. banks to maintain records identifying an agent for service of legal process for its correspondent accounts.
Section 325: Concentration Accounts at Financial Institutions
Allows the Secretary of the Treasury to issue regulations governing maintenance of concentration accounts by financial institutions to ensure such accounts are not used to obscure the identity of the customer who is the direct or beneficial owner of the funds being moved through the account.
Section 326: Verification of Identification
Prescribes regulations establishing minimum standards for financial institutions and their customers regarding the identity of a customer that shall apply with the opening of an account at the financial institution.
Section 351: Amendments Relating to Reporting of Suspicious Activities
This Section expands immunity from liability for reporting suspicious activities and expands prohibition against notification to individuals of SAR filing. No officer or employee of federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial governments within the U.S., having knowledge that such report was made may disclose to any person involved in the transaction that it has been reported except as necessary to fulfill the official duties of such officer or employee.
Section 352: Anti-Money Laundering Programs
Requires financial institutions to establish anti-money laundering programs, which at a minimum must include: the development of internal policies, procedures and controls; designation of a compliance officer; an ongoing employee training program; and an independent audit function to test programs.
Section 356: Reporting of Suspicious Activities by Securities Brokers and Dealers; Investment Company Study
Required the Secretary to consult with the Securities Exchange Commission and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve to publish proposed regulations in the Federal Register before January 1, 2002, requiring brokers and dealers registered with the Securities Exchange Commission to submit suspicious activity reports under the Bank Secrecy Act.
Section 359: Reporting of Suspicious Activities by Underground Banking Systems
This amends the BSA definition of money transmitter to ensure that informal/underground banking systems are defined as financial institutions and are thus subject to the BSA.
Section 362: Establishment of Highly Secure Network
Requires FinCEN to establish a highly secure network to facilitate and improve communication between FinCEN and financial institutions to enable financial institutions to file BSA reports electronically and permit FinCEN to provide financial institutions with alerts.
Source: http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/patriot/index.html
Secession is not an option
The continuing unrest in the Kashmir valley has made a number of editorialists so desperate that they seem to have lost faith in the innate ability of the Indian State to offer a viable solution. Not unlike the surgical chopping off a human limb wasted by gangrene, these worthies have suggested that India should let go of Kashmir. The suggestion is preposterous, of course. For, nobody willingly parts with a limb which is crucial to one’s very survival. Like it or not, the Kashmir secession, voluntary or otherwise, would mark the beginning of the end of a secular Indian State. Not because the Hindu majority aspires to a theocratic State. No, because the failure in Kashmir would unleash its own dynamics which would dissipate the energies of the secular Republic to guard itself against retrograde forces. Of course, it is undeniable that over the last 60 years, the ruling class has made grievous mistakes in Kashmir. Nehru’s emotionalism contributed vastly to the mess that has been Kashmir all along. His blind faith in Shiekh Abdullah, because he was a close personal friend, soon turned into an implacable personal hostility, resulting in contrary policy responses. The nomination of Bakshi Ghulam Ahmed as the Sheikh’s successor became a metaphor for the carrot-and-stick policy successive Congress regimes at the Centre have followed in Kashmir.
Turning a blind eye to the gargantuan corruption of the `nominated’ rulers in Srinagar, while condoning a total lack of good governance, was the favoured policy tool of New Delhi. The central government betrayed a lack of faith in ordinary Kashmiris, glossing over the corruption and incompetence of the nominated Kashmiri leaders.
A measure of such a short-sighted policy was the willing subversion of a truly democratic process in J and K. The Centre feared that a genuinely representative government in Srinagar could up the ante and openly pass a resolution in the State Assembly calling for secession. The fear was misplaced.
The New Delhi-nominated Kashmiri rulers not only aggravated the feeling of alienation ordinary Kashmiris felt, but they drove the real leaders to openly raise the banner of revolt against an overbearing New Delhi. It wasn’t so much that the Kashmiris were rebelling against India as they were rebelling against Indian leaders who distrusted them so deeply that they denied them a representative government.
However if in Nepal yesterday’s Maoist revolutionaries can be suitably tamed for them to embrace the democratic path, there could be hope in Kashmir too. Remember in Kashmir there are no Prachanda-like revolutionaries, only disgruntled and opportunistic Kashmiri leaders. And to get their own back against an overbearing and unresponsive central government, which treats them with extreme suspicion, they play the Pakistani card against India. For, the so-called Kashmiri secessionists crying `azadi, azadi’ know full well that they will feel suffocated if Kashmir were to join Pakistan. Pakistan would not only fully assimilate Kashmir into itself but would also ensure that its `pure’ Kashmiri demographics is altered beyond recognition. India, despite pressures, has most conscientiously refrained from doing so, though in hindsight it could be considered a weakness of its initial Kashmir policy.
Instead, successive governments in New Delhi have pumped hundreds of billions of rupees into Kashmir in the hope of buying the goodwill of ordinary Kashmiris. The per capita income of Kashmiris is a multiple of the national average because of the misplaced generosity of successive governments in New Delhi. The Kashmiris have been pampered. Yet, they behave as if they have done India a great favour by staying with India. Secession not being an option, the only alternative, to begin with, maybe to treat Kashmir on an equal footing along with the rest of the States. Give them a representative local government within the four walls of the Indian Constitution. Yet, the full force of the Indian State ought to be brought to bear on them should they seek to breach the original compact with the Indian State.
Precisely because successive rulers in New Delhi have been assailed by doubts about the true value of accession of Kashmir to India, they have handled the Kashmir problem with kid-gloves.
Be correct but firm in dealing with Kashmir. More than sixty years after the accession, there is no scope for opening up that done deal again. But do not follow a duplicitous approach towards Kashmiris. Be up front. Let them know where they stand vis-a-vis the Indian scheme of things. And, having done that, come down heavily on any breach, minor or major. And, for god’s sake, stop throwing honest tax-payers’ rupees at them. A sure way to spoil a child is to give it candy every time it sprawls on the floor crying. Discipline yourselves to discipline the Kashmiris.
http://www.freepressjournal.in/
Muslim clerics defend blasts accused Bashar
Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow | August 21, 2008 | 22:56 IST
Prominent Islamic clerics led by the Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid, Maulana Ahmed Bukhari on Sunday came out in a big way to the defence of the recently arrested madrasa teacher Mufti Abu Bashar, in connection with last month's serial blasts in Ahmedabad.
Joined by Samajwadi Party member of Parliament, Abu Asim Azmi, Bukhari virtually sounded a bugle of revolt against what he termed as "the anti-Muslim" policies of the Indian investigating agencies.
Azmi hails from a village that adjoins Bashar's native village of Bina Para in Sarai Meer area of Azamgarh district .
Their call for a protest rally on the Lucknow-Azamgarh highway drew at least 5000-7000 people, who kept the road blocked for hours, while raising anti-police and anti-government slogans. The crowds cheered the speakers, who openly flayed the government and the police.
While both Azmi and Bukhari termed the police action as "biased", Bukhari went to the extent of issuing a warning, "If the government does not take early measures to bring an end to undue harassment of Muslims who were indiscriminately labeled as terrorists, this country is in for another partition, so let us be prepared for nation wide riots and violence."
Bukhari said, "all this talk about creation of Indian Mujahideen needs to be probed . I would not be surprised if such an organization has been floated by fundamentalist bodies like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or Vishwa Hindu Parishad with the sole intention of defaming Muslims."
Abu Asim Azmi said, "I am not giving any clean chit to anyone, but the manner adopted by the investigating agencies speaks of a blatant bias and a predetermined approach."
Azmi felt, "an appropriate way to deal with the situation would be to constitute a high level committee comprising secular minded judicial luminaries like Justice Sachar, Justice Krishna Iyer and Justice A A Ahmadi , it could even have representatives of Hindu organizations like RSS and VHP also. Let them question the arrested young Muslim boys and if the committee is convinced that they are actually involved in terrorism, let them be hanged."
However , in the same vein Azmi went on to add a word of caution, "but what the investigating agencies are doing today is grossly unfair ; they were all declared as terrorists well before any trial and this is what needs to be stopped.
http://www.rediff.com///news/2008/aug/21ahd1.htm
Recall Great Calcutta Killing
Prafull Goradia
Pioneer, Aug 15, 2008
For Jinnah, Direct Action Day on August 16, 1946, was the 'most historic act'
Not many people remember or know that on August 16, 1946, began the bloodiest and the biggest State-sponsored riot in the country's history. That was in Calcutta, capital city of undivided Bengal whose premier was Hussein Shahid Suhrawardy, the Muslim League leader; he later became Prime Minister of Pakistan.
The League, led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, planned to launch 'Direct Action' on August 16 to convince the British that Hindus and Muslims could not coexist in the same country and hence India must be partitioned. A 23-point tactical manifesto was distributed to League activists. Some of the points read as: "Destroy Hindus and drive all Hindus out of India. All transport should be used for battle against Hindus. Hindu women and girls should be raped, kidnapped and converted into Muslims from October 18, 1946. Hindu culture should be destroyed." The Calcutta District Muslim League published on August 13, 1946 an elucidation, clarifying that 'Direct Action Day' was to be conducted in the name of jihad a la the Battle of Badr.
On August 22, Bengal Governor Frederick Burrows wrote a report to Viceroy Lord Wavell on what came to be known as the 'Great Calcutta Killing'. "The trouble had already assumed the communal character which it was to retain throughout. At the time it was mainly in the northern half of the city. Later reports indicate that the Muslims were in an aggressive mood from early in the day and that their processions were well-armed with lathis, iron rods and missiles," he said about August 16.
To quote Burrows for August 17: "This tour that convinced me that the reports that I had received of the seriousness of the situation had erred on the side of underestimation. I observed very great damage to property and streets littered with corpses." The highlight of August 18 in the Governor's letter was: "I made another tour of inspection, this time with the Army Commander and the Chief Minister, covering large areas in the south and south-east of the city which I had not visited before. The Chief Minister showed an exasperating preoccupation with the sufferings undergone by members of his own community."
The slaughter over the first few days was so widespread that Burrows could not give any authoritative figures for casualties. Guided mainly by hospital figures, he guessed 2,000 dead at the very least. No one was available to clear the bodies until "the Army came to my rescue on the basis of Rs 5 a body to volunteers", the Governor wrote.
The Statesman, then a British owned daily, wrote on August 22: "The group of incompetents, or worse, who owing to their office necessarily bear primary responsibility for the criminal carnage in Calcutta, a catastrophe of scope unprecedented in India's history, have been insufficiently seen or heard in these grim days. We mean the Ministry."
In a leading comment, headlined "Calcutta's Ordeal", The Statesman said on August 20, "The origin of the appalling carnage and loss in the capital of a great Province, we believe the worst communal rioting in India's history, was a political demonstration by the Muslim League." What Jinnah said was the most authoritative declaration on the killing: "What we have done today is the most historic act in our history... This day we bid goodbye to constitutional methods."
Today, we are witnessing something similar in the Kashmir Valley where the PDP is inciting the people to take to bid goodbye to constitutional methods. Elsewhere, the 'Indian Mujahideen' has put out an e-mail, urging "Muslims to wage jihad against Hindus". The e-mail invokes Ghauri and Ghaznavi to charge Muslims. We could yet witness violence that may make the 'Great Calcutta Killing' look like a skirmish.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=OPED&file_name=opd3%2Etxt&counter_img=3
The Rangile Raje, the Prime Minister and the Home Minister.
Please read the following editorial entitled "Rangila Raj" in Indian Express dated 21.8.2008:
"This continent-sized country with a necessarily complicated history of nation-building is no stranger to difficult moments. One such moment is upon it now. Kashmir, says an increasingly vocal corner in the national debate — it’s of course great that a debate is happening — is posing difficult, perhaps unanswerable, political/ territorial questions because the impetus is all within. Really? Then how come just a few weeks before Kashmir was so off the news that peace, and therefore further dividends, had become boring stories? The principal reason that situation has transformed into the present crisis is that while Kashmir has been volatile before, the Centre has never been as weak as now. Not even when weak coalition governments ruled India. Just recall very recent history.First, a governor who was not even appointed by this government was allowed to handle Amarnath badly. Then, the implications of giving in to the Valley hardliners were not drawn.
Then the Jammu protest was not met by immediate state response in terms of not allowing highway blockades. Then a senior representative of this government offered the Valley’s agitating entrepreneurs not the promise that highways will be cleared but that paramilitary will buy their apples. An assurance that obviously signalled to the Valley hardliners that there’s a huge deficit of political/ tactical will at the Centre. No prizes for guessing who the senior representative was. The same gentleman runs the ministry that allowed all the other lapses. In Shivraj Patil’s heroic ineffectuality we have the symbol and part of the substance of this government’s terrifying inability, when occasions have demanded, to exhibit national will. Kashmir’s practiced agitpropists have sensed that at no time as now has the Centre been so sold on the idea that doing nothing in time and issuing vacuous statements at all times are good strategies.
Discussions on Kashmir always bring up history. Here’s a little bit of history to help contextualise the current state of state response: probably not since the early 18th-century ruler Muhammad Shah Rangila, who wrote the book on awesomely ineffective security governance, has India had administrators who have been so brilliantly incapable of discharging their basic remit. Needless to say 21st-century India can’t afford Rangilas in government. And all responses to the Kashmir crisis must start with this recognition. Also, let’s ask ourselves: is India to cut and run because of some weeks of violence when years of patient diplomacy, dogged army work and good politics had blunted the hard edges in Kashmir? The country has dealt with violence within before. It has dealt with groups calling loudly for a divorce with the Union. If we decide to take a particular course on Kashmir, what will we do when politicised violence erupts elsewhere? Drawing-room
solutions can look pretty and neat. Nation-building, sadly, isn’t always pretty and neat. It calls for clarity and determination. That’s what Delhi — and Srinagar — need."
Our Home Minister is, indeed, a Rangila Raja. He always expresses his helplessness when faced with a problem. He had expressed his inability to fence the borders with Bangladesh because of its geographical situation. The Prime Minister, who is a dummy and another Rangila Raja had done a blunder by making Shiv Raj Patil the Home Minister of India when the latter was not even an elected member of Lok Sabha. But Prime Minister himself is also not a member of Lok Sabha which is the representative body of the people. Or is it that fault lies with Sonia Gandhi who had selected both the Prime Minister and the Home Minister, both ineffective people. Whatever be the cause of selection of the Prime Minister and the Home Minister, although they are not drunkard like Mohammad Shah Rangila the ineffective Mughal Emperor, they are, indeed, both Rangila Rajas. We would be having the weakest Government till these two Rangila Rajas rule. Fortunately, the
elections are round the corner and we may get rid of these rulers in whose rule, people have become bold enough to suggest independence for J&K without thinking about the consequences of these suggestions.
Satbir Singh Bedi http://o3.indiatimes.com/ssbedi1945/
Don't Give In To Them
22 Aug 2008, 0010 hrs IST, K Subrahmanyam
A number of people have written on why India should consider allowing the Kashmiris to secede since the widespread demonstrations and disturbances taking place day after day would indicate that they don't want to be part of India. If this logic is to be accepted, Indian Parliament should be wound up since there are disruptions day after day holding up the proceedings of the two Houses. One writer has raised the issue whether the Kashmir problem involves the idea of India. It certainly does, just as the orderly conduct of Parliament also involves the idea of India. Both of them encompass the idea of an India as a pluralistic, secular, federal democracy aiming to achieve justice, equality and fraternity for all its citizens.
The efforts to achieve this aim may not be optimally effective as shown by inadequate governance, to put it
mildly. But the challenge facing India is whether we try to set right our governance and improve it or yield to the protesters. Disruption is being made part of India's political culture by most of our political parties. We must ponder over the consequences of yielding to the secessionists in Kashmir and the encouragement it would provide to other such movements elsewhere in the country.
Whether it is disruption in Parliament or on the streets of Kashmir, only a small group or minority resorts to it. The majority remains passive and silent. Those entrusted with the responsibility of enforcing order do not display adequate strength and courage to restore rule of law at the earliest but allow the situation to deteriorate. When Parliament is adjourned without transacting any business for the day or the use of excessive force becomes necessary to disperse unruly crowds in the streets resorting to violence, destruction of public property and casualties, those who engineer the disruptions know full well what the results will be. In fact, they desire those results. The silent majority and the governing authorities in both these cases do not have the moral fibre to assert their will and enforce the rule of law. This is the challenge before the Indian republic whether in Parliament or in Kashmir.
Kashmir has had two elections under international observation and they were considered to be free and fair though there were constituencies where the polling was so low as to indicate that the voters in those areas had boycotted the polls. But such places were few in number. Therefore, we cannot say that Kashmiris have not had an opportunity to elect their representatives or express their views democratically. Only those who advocate secession have not stood for election and demonstrated their strength through a democratic
process.
The basic issue is whether the Indian republic is in a position at this stage, 58 years after its constitution, to permit secession of a small portion of its population on the basis of religious identity. The agitation for secession in Kashmir is based on religion and religion alone. But if they were allowed to leave there would be consequences that have to be anticipated. During the partition of the subcontinent in 1947-48, such consequences were not foreseen and the result was a bloodbath resulting in the death of a million people and ethnic cleansing involving 15 million.
Secessionism on the basis of religion from a federal democratic republic, which has assured autonomy to Kashmir, is an irrational act. Such irrationality is unfortunately not the exclusive privilege of one faith only. We have seen the repercussions of events in the Kashmir valley, in Jammu and other places in India. There are forces in India which are likely to take advantage of such secession to unleash massive ethnic cleansing elsewhere in the country.
The values of the republic proclaimed in our Constitution are still to percolate down to the common man who is conditioned by his religious and caste prejudices. The republic envisioned in the Constitution will perhaps take another century to be realised. Allowing secessionism will be a defeat for secularism and that is not acceptable if the Indian republic is to be nurtured and brought to fruition. If a cost-benefit analysis were to be done of the consequences of yielding to Kashmiri secessionism, the likely costs would be much too heavy for the republic. There is the example of Tamil Nadu where the spirit of secession was intense in the decades after Indian independence. Now the former secessionists admit that being part of the Union has benefited the state immensely. There is no reason why Kashmir cannot be similarly brought around.
What Kashmir needs is good and firm governance. A lot more can be done with regard to crowd control without causing too many casualties. But the will to enforce respect for the law has been lacking just as it is in Parliament.
Demonstrations in the streets and consequent violence have become as routine as disruptions in Parliament and various state legislatures.
Not only Kashmir, but violent agitations elsewhere pose a challenge to the idea of India. The country has to seek a comprehensive strategy to deal with this challenge. Yielding to the Kashmiri secessionists is not a solution. It would be the end of the concept of India.
The writer is a Delhi-based strategic affairs analyst.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Dont_Give_In_To_Them/articleshow/3390921.cms
August 22, 2008 New York Times
Kashmir Rumbles, Rattling Old Rivals
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
SRINAGAR, Kashmir — Born and reared during the bloodiest years of insurgency and counterinsurgency, inheritors of rage, a new generation of young Kashmiris poured into the streets by the tens of thousands over the past several weeks, with stones in their fists and an old slogan on their lips: “Azadi,” or freedom, from India.
Their protests in Indian-controlled Kashmir were part of an unexpected outburst of discontent set off by a dispute over a 99-acre piece of land, which has for more than two months been stoked by both separatist leaders in Muslim-majority Kashmir and Hindu nationalists elsewhere in India.
Overnight, the unrest has threatened to breathe new life into the old and treacherous dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, which is claimed by both nations and lies at the heart of 60 years of bitterness between them, including two wars.
Disastrously for the Indian government, Kashmir has burst onto center stage at a time of growing turmoil in the region — with the resignation this week of Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, who had sought to temper his country’s backing for anti-Indian militancy here.
Even though the two countries have been engaged in four years of peace talks, India has grown nervous that the disarray in Pakistan has left it with no negotiating partner. From New Delhi’s perspective, that power vacuum has allowed anti-Indian elements in Pakistan’s intelligence services and the militant groups they employ to pursue their agenda with renewed vigor.
Relations between the countries have become newly embittered as Indian and Pakistani forces have engaged in skirmishes across the Line of Control that divides Kashmir between them for the first time in years.
Not least, India has blamed the Pakistani intelligence services for playing a hidden role in the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan last month, a charge that Pakistan vehemently denies.
The latest unrest here has only added to the difficulties of renewed dialogue.
How long this agitation will continue depends on both India’s capacity to assuage Kashmiri separatist leaders, and their ability in turn to control the sudden eruption of rage among the young.
The largest, most intense demonstration in years took place on Monday, as tens of thousands of Kashmiris, mostly men, streamed into an open area in the city center to demand independence from India. They came in motorcycle cavalcades, and on the backs of trucks and buses.
A few waved Pakistani flags. Some shouted praise for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the banned Pakistan-based militant organization that India blames for a series of terrorist attacks in recent years. “India, your death will come,” they chanted. “Lashkar will come. Lashkar will come.”
By Tuesday, traffic had returned to the city, as the separatists called for a three-day suspension of the strike. Shops and cafes reopened. The pro-Pakistan graffiti had been covered up, as though it were again an ordinary day.
Another mass gathering, however, is planned for Friday at the martyrs’ cemetery, where two generations of those killed in the conflict are buried, with all the potential to become yet another flash point of conflict.
Again and again, Kashmiris from across the political spectrum said these scenes reminded them of the peak of the anti-Indian rebellion in the early 1990s, except at that time, separatist guerrillas, aided by Pakistan, openly roamed the streets with guns.
Nineteen years after that rebellion kicked off, the current demonstrations have pierced what seemed, perhaps deceptively to the Indian government, like a return of the ordinary here.
Earlier this year, tourists were flocking to Dal Lake in Kashmir. Buses were running twice monthly so that Kashmiris could visit their relatives across the de facto border in the Pakistan-controlled region of Kashmir. A bookshop opened for the first time in nearly two decades.
“Before the storm, there is always a calm,” a Kashmiri woman, Assabah Khan, 34, declared. “The uprising we see now is the latent anger against the Indian state that has erupted again.”
Narendra Nath Vohra, the governor of the Indian-controlled Kashmir state, compared life in Srinagar today to darkness at noon.
In the last few weeks, tourists all but disappeared. Schools and offices closed. The main city hospital was filled with Kashmiris shot and wounded by Indian security forces.
Mehmeet Syed, who only a few months ago could sing her heart out on stage with her five-piece rock band, remained caged in her home, as her city erupted in a series of fiery protests and strikes. On the road leading to the Syed family home, children guarded a homemade roadblock the other day, clutching stones.
On Monday, on the edges of an open field where tens of thousands had gathered to vent their anger at Indian rule, Abdul Gani Mir, 62, marveled at a young man who had scaled a chinar tree to plant a green Islamic flag.
Mr. Mir said being here filled him with hope. “We succumbed, but I don’t think this generation will,” he said, and then he chuckled. “I wish I were young.”
His niece was among 20 unarmed Kashmiri protesters killed by Indian security forces last week, as they set off on a march to Muzaffarabad, in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
Sheik Yasir Rouf, 27, said he had never before taken part in a demonstration so large, so intense. He was a child in the early 1990s, when the anti-Indian rebellion was at its peak. “This feeling was always there,” he said. “We are fighting for our one right to be free.”
“Sooner or later, this had to be,” insisted his friend, Shahid Rasool, also 27.
Mr. Rouf said he had spent 15 days in jail during his senior year in high school, accused of harboring militants. Mr. Rasool was picked up by security forces and interrogated all night; he was 16 years old.
The trouble in the valley began two months ago, quite unexpectedly, over 99 acres of state government land that, for decades, had been used by Hindu pilgrims on the route to a Himalayan shrine called Amarnath.
In May, the authorities in Indian-controlled Kashmir authorized the panel that runs the pilgrimage site to put up “prefabricated structures” for pilgrims. The order enraged Muslims.
With state elections scheduled for this year, some politicians and separatist leaders pounced on the decision and declared it a bid to re-engineer the demography of Kashmir. Hard-line Islamists compared it to the Israeli occupation of Muslim holy lands.
The government soon rescinded the order, but nothing, as Governor Vohra pointed out, actually changed — Hindu pilgrims still used the land, and they still came this year in record numbers.
Nevertheless, the retraction of the original order enraged people in the Hindu-majority plains of Jammu, which is part of the same state. They, too, began agitating by the tens of thousands. And they, too, were goaded by politicians and hard-line leaders.
All told over the past two months, the protests here in the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley and counterprotests led by Hindu groups in the plains below, have left a death toll of nearly 40 in clashes with security forces.
The two sides remain at each other’s throats. Muslims in the valley allege that Indian troops have been quick to halt their protests, while letting Hindus in the plains carry on their agitation.
Hindu leaders in the plains were outraged that the government allowed anti-Indian separatists to march through the valley carrying Pakistani flags.
Many Indians regard the rebellious tableau in the valley as an unexpected affront. Kanwal Sibal, a retired diplomat, suggested in a livid column on Tuesday in Mail Today, an English-language newspaper, that unlike China with its Tibet policy, India has never sought to alter Kashmir’s Muslim-majority demography.
The latest fury, he suggested, “shows the failure, and perhaps the futility, of efforts to win the hearts and minds of the valley Kashmiris.”
Kashmiri public opinion is hardly uniformly anti-Indian, and the pro-Pakistan current is one among many. But distrust runs deep. Rumors travel and harden equally fast.
Muslims here complain that Indian security forces roam the streets, and they can recount at least one memory, usually more, of humiliation and fear.
“It is a volcano that has erupted,” Shad Salim Akhtar, 54, a doctor, said of the latest agitation.
That volcano kept Ms. Syed, the Kashmiri singer, at home. She had a video shoot scheduled for her new solo album; it has been postponed. Her father, Ahmad, a doctor was considering running in the elections this fall, but he is no longer sure.
Dr. Syed, 46, said he had just been getting used to the sense of the ordinary returning to his city. The guards at checkpoints were less aggressive than before. He did not worry much about his daughter’s concerts. “Three, four months ago, we thought, ‘It’s all over now, nothing to worry about,’ ” Dr. Syed said.
That is all over now, his daughter lamented. “Will that day come when we can move around freely?” she asked. “It is a dream.”
Amit Wanchoo, a Kashmiri Hindu and the leader of her band, Imersion, was also mostly staying home, leaving plenty of time to write new songs. One was dedicated to those killed last week.
“The sky is saying something, the air is saying something,” the lyrics went. “Where are my people, whom I met here?”
Yusuf Jameel contributed reporting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/world/asia/22kashmir.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Kashmiris too should not be hurting the nation s psyche
The government should not lose nerve and give concessions that have long- term implications
by kanwal Sibal (Mail today, 19 Aug. 2008)
HOW long will the country tolerate the offensive exhibition of separatism in Kashmir? How do the Kashmiris want the rest of us to react to the display of portraits of Jinnah and Pakistani flags? What should one feel when some demonstrators say defiantly that they are Pakistanis? What about these incessant calls for “ azadi”? Are we expected to excuse all this because the Kashmiri psyche has been hurt by us all these years and we are responsible for their sense of alienation because of our high- handed ways in Kashmir? Many of the presumptions we make about the Kashmiris and our own conduct in Kashmir are either mistaken or exaggerated. To what extent is the notion of Kashmiriyat shared in Jammu and Ladakh? Kashmiriyat should by definition mean an identity that transcends narrow religious affiliations; it should mean a sense of community felt by all. How have the Kashmiri Pandits fared in the valley even before the their exodus in 1990? Has Kashmiriyat protected their life and property? How much effort has been spontaneously by their Muslim brethren in Kashmir to welcome them back and to rehabilitate them in the Valley?
Kashmiriyat
From the time of independence Kashmiriyat was a political handle to keep separatist feelings in J& K alive.
It was an argument to seek exceptional treatment for J& K from which the power brokers in the state profited.
The Muslim domination of J& K was cloaked under the cover of Kashmiriyat.
This is not to say that before the “ arabised” Sunni Islam made inroads into the Valley, Kashmir did not practice a more tolerant, syncretic version of Islam. But the number of Hindus in the Valley was always too small to test the “ secular” fibre of Kashmiriyat. Islam has coloured Kashmiri politics from 1947 itself because of Pakistani claims to the state in the name of religion. That religious canker both internal and promoted by Pakistan continues to bedevil Kashmirs relations with the rest of India. The fact is that it has always been the Muslim sentiment in J& K that has needed to be placated.
Kashmiriyat gave an illusion of internal harmony and consensus in the state that did not actually exist.
The current crisis in J& K has been triggered by the shockingly communal position taken by the Valley Muslims on the transfer of 40 hectares of land to the Amarnath Shrine Board for setting up temporary structures for the convenience of the pilgrims.
To believe that the demography of Kashmir could be threatened by this decision is to abandon common sense. For the last 61 years the Indian authorities have not allowed the demography of J& K to be disturbed because of Article 370. We could have emulated the example of China in Tibet and encouraged outside migration into J& K in order to better control the ground situation. Even in POK, demographic protection to the local population has not been given.
But Indian democracy and respect for constitutional provisions have protected the core demographic interests of the Kashmiris over six decades. That local feelings could be aroused so intensely over such a nonissue shows and that mainstream parties should also want to make political capital out of this artificially induced uproar shows the failure, and perhaps the futility, of efforts to win the hearts and minds of the valley Kashmiris.
The reaction in Jammu to the cancellation of the decision to transfer the use of land by the government under pressure from the Valley Muslims has been exceptionally strong.
Neither terrorist attacks in Jammu nor the general feeling that Jammu gets unequal treatment at the hands of the government in Srinagar have provoked such intense public agitation as in this case. Perhaps this being a religious issue, the psyche of the people of Jammu has been more than ordinarily hurt, and all the pent up feelings of being discriminated against have erupted.
Victims
The impact of the Jammu agitation on road traffic to the Valley has, in turn, given further impetus to antinational activity in the Valley. Claiming that the Jammu agitators had blockaded the Valley, the secessionists with large public support are demanding that the road to Muzzafarabad in POK should be opened to traffic.
Rather than cooperating in resolving the issue at the root of the present turmoil, the Valley Muslims are trying to strike a blow at Indias sovereignty and affirm their pro- Pakistan attachments by seeking to move en masse to the LOC to force the opening of the road. The Pakistani card is being played against us, as usual. The declared aim is to mobilize the people to break the barrier between Kashmir and Pakistan, having perhaps the Berlin Wall in mind. Police firing on supposedly peaceful demonstrators would, they may be calculating, attract international attention to the Kashmir issue again, raise human rights concerns and embarrass India at a time when it would not want revival of international concerns about India- Pakistan tensions.
The Valley Muslims are presenting themselves as the victims of recent events when they are in fact the guilty party. Geelani openly espouses an Islamic platform to reject India; the Hurriyats separatist agenda, coordinated closely with Pakistan, projects self- determination. The Valley Muslims rise up against India periodically, irrespective of the concessions they get. India cannot agree to secession and so long as this remains on the agenda of political groups in the Valley, with Pakistans support, our Kashmir problem will not go away. No secular democracy can effectively deal with mosquebased politics. Street demonstrations can be suppressed but the voice of the mosques cannot be silenced without inviting charges of interference with the practice of religion.
Much is made of the argument that rigging of elections by the authorities has alienated the Kashmiri masses from us. Between alienation and secessionism there is a long road.
The Kashmiris have to look at the state of democracy in their benefacto— Pakistan. In next door Tibet, the language, culture, religion as well as the homogeneity of the local population are being undermined. The resources of Tibet are being exploited ruthlessly without regard to environmental damage.
Hazard
A more objective view should be taken by the Kashmiris of Indias respect for Kashmiri sensitivities, rather than claim immunity from state action within the law for antinational activities and recourse to terrorism.
The turmoil in the Valley is the consequence of pursuit of temporizing policies that have emboldened secessionist forces. The task of the government in dealing democratically with religious forces in a border state with strong anti- national leanings, that are networked, besides, with external state and non– state actors is no doubt exceedingly difficult.
Yet, without fully controlling the local situation, the decision to promote cross LOC ties, allow the Hurriyat leaders and Geelani to operate freely, to actively explore a solution to the Kashmir issue on the basis of making borders irrelevant and some joint management mechanisms, conveyed a readiness to make further concessions in search of durable peace in J& K. The demand to open the Srinagar Muzzafarabad road flows directly from earlier decisions. The government has, surprisingly, expressed its willingness to meet this demand in accordance with the 2005 agreement with Pakistan to permit border trade.
Here the question is not of controlled border trade but a political riposte to Jammus perceived blockade of the valley by the secessionists that signals that they can create an alternative economic lifeline through Pakistan in defiance of Indias sovereignty. Steps to calm a volatile situation are fine, but to lose nerve and make concessions with long term implications is another. Not only the Kashmiris, the rest of the nation has a psyche that should not be hurt.
The writer is a former Foreign Secretary( sibalkanwal@gmail.com)
http://www.mailtoday.in/2282008/showstory.aspx?queryed=9&querypage=10&boxid=3325231&parentid=2872&eddate=Aug%2019%202008%2012:00AM
Hindusthan needs a Patriot Act on the lines of the USA Patriots Act to punish and send the secessionists, traitors to Tihar.
The official title of the USA PATRIOT Act is "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act of 2001."
This will help unearth the hawala transactions which enable corrupt politicians to amass wealth and cart it away to foreign bank accounts and try to buy up vote banks using such ill-gotten money. This is the bane of Hindusthan polity which has reduced most of the politicians to be chamcha-s of the empress in 10 Janpath.
Mechanisms for effective enforcement of the Act should be put in place, answerable only to the people of Hindusthan. One way is to create an institution with constitutional mandate to implement the Hindusthan Patriot Act and which will not be subject to the vagaries of the polity and interference by chamcha-s.
The bringing back of POTA should be subject to this condition that the types of provisions included in US Patriot Act should find a place in such a revised enactment.
Sonia Govt.’s reluctance to bring back POTA is clearly governed by their desire to cuddle secessionists and jihadi islamist terrorists, apart from seeking protection for their ill-gotten wealth. Appeasement policies have come home to haunt the chamcha-s who will soon have to find their passports and return to Luciana.
kalyan
Read the entire USA PATRIOT Act at http://www.scribd.com/doc/4954209/patriotsact
The purpose of the USA PATRIOT Act is to deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and other purposes, some of which include:
· To strengthen U.S. measures to prevent, detect and prosecute international money laundering and financing of terrorism;
· To subject to special scrutiny foreign jurisdictions, foreign financial institutions, and classes of international transactions or types of accounts that are susceptible to criminal abuse;
· To require all appropriate elements of the financial services industry to report potential money laundering;
· To strengthen measures to prevent use of the U.S. financial system for personal gain by corrupt foreign officials and facilitate repatriation of stolen assets to the citizens of countries to whom such assets belong.
Below is a brief, non-comprehensive overview of the sections of the USA PATRIOT Act that may affect financial institutions.
Section 311: Special Measures for Jurisdictions, Financial Institutions, or International Transactions of Primary Money Laundering Concern
This Section allows for identifying customers using correspondent accounts, including obtaining information comparable to information obtained on domestic customers and prohibiting or imposing conditions on the opening or maintaining in the U.S. of correspondent or payable-through accounts for a foreign banking institution.
Section 312: Special Due Diligence for Correspondent Accounts and Private Banking Accounts
This Section amends the Bank Secrecy Act by imposing due diligence & enhanced due diligence requirements on U.S. financial institutions that maintain correspondent accounts for foreign financial institutions or private banking accounts for non-U.S. persons.
Special Due Diligence Programs for Certain Foreign Accounts
Section 313: Prohibition on U.S. Correspondent Accounts with Foreign Shell Banks
To prevent foreign shell banks, which are generally not subject to regulation and considered to present an unreasonable risk of involvement in money laundering or terrorist financing, from having access to the U.S. financial system. Banks and broker-dealers are prohibited from having correspondent accounts for any foreign bank that does not have a physical presence in any country. Additionally, they are required to take reasonable steps to ensure their correspondent accounts are not used to indirectly provide correspondent services to such banks.
Section 314: Cooperative Efforts to Deter Money Laundering
Section 314 helps law enforcement identify, disrupt, and prevent terrorist acts and money laundering activities by encouraging further cooperation among law enforcement, regulators, and financial institutions to share information regarding those suspected of being involved in terrorism or money laundering.
Section 319(b): Bank Records Related to Anti-Money Laundering Programs
To facilitate the government's ability to seize illicit funds of individuals and entities located in foreign countries by authorizing the Attorney General or the Secretary of the Treasury to issue a summons or subpoena to any foreign bank that maintains a correspondent account in the U.S. for records related to such accounts, including records outside the U.S. relating to the deposit of funds into the foreign bank. This Section also requires U.S. banks to maintain records identifying an agent for service of legal process for its correspondent accounts.
Section 325: Concentration Accounts at Financial Institutions
Allows the Secretary of the Treasury to issue regulations governing maintenance of concentration accounts by financial institutions to ensure such accounts are not used to obscure the identity of the customer who is the direct or beneficial owner of the funds being moved through the account.
Section 326: Verification of Identification
Prescribes regulations establishing minimum standards for financial institutions and their customers regarding the identity of a customer that shall apply with the opening of an account at the financial institution.
Section 351: Amendments Relating to Reporting of Suspicious Activities
This Section expands immunity from liability for reporting suspicious activities and expands prohibition against notification to individuals of SAR filing. No officer or employee of federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial governments within the U.S., having knowledge that such report was made may disclose to any person involved in the transaction that it has been reported except as necessary to fulfill the official duties of such officer or employee.
Section 352: Anti-Money Laundering Programs
Requires financial institutions to establish anti-money laundering programs, which at a minimum must include: the development of internal policies, procedures and controls; designation of a compliance officer; an ongoing employee training program; and an independent audit function to test programs.
Section 356: Reporting of Suspicious Activities by Securities Brokers and Dealers; Investment Company Study
Required the Secretary to consult with the Securities Exchange Commission and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve to publish proposed regulations in the Federal Register before January 1, 2002, requiring brokers and dealers registered with the Securities Exchange Commission to submit suspicious activity reports under the Bank Secrecy Act.
Section 359: Reporting of Suspicious Activities by Underground Banking Systems
This amends the BSA definition of money transmitter to ensure that informal/underground banking systems are defined as financial institutions and are thus subject to the BSA.
Section 362: Establishment of Highly Secure Network
Requires FinCEN to establish a highly secure network to facilitate and improve communication between FinCEN and financial institutions to enable financial institutions to file BSA reports electronically and permit FinCEN to provide financial institutions with alerts.
Source: http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/patriot/index.html
Secession is not an option
The continuing unrest in the Kashmir valley has made a number of editorialists so desperate that they seem to have lost faith in the innate ability of the Indian State to offer a viable solution. Not unlike the surgical chopping off a human limb wasted by gangrene, these worthies have suggested that India should let go of Kashmir. The suggestion is preposterous, of course. For, nobody willingly parts with a limb which is crucial to one’s very survival. Like it or not, the Kashmir secession, voluntary or otherwise, would mark the beginning of the end of a secular Indian State. Not because the Hindu majority aspires to a theocratic State. No, because the failure in Kashmir would unleash its own dynamics which would dissipate the energies of the secular Republic to guard itself against retrograde forces. Of course, it is undeniable that over the last 60 years, the ruling class has made grievous mistakes in Kashmir. Nehru’s emotionalism contributed vastly to the mess that has been Kashmir all along. His blind faith in Shiekh Abdullah, because he was a close personal friend, soon turned into an implacable personal hostility, resulting in contrary policy responses. The nomination of Bakshi Ghulam Ahmed as the Sheikh’s successor became a metaphor for the carrot-and-stick policy successive Congress regimes at the Centre have followed in Kashmir.
Turning a blind eye to the gargantuan corruption of the `nominated’ rulers in Srinagar, while condoning a total lack of good governance, was the favoured policy tool of New Delhi. The central government betrayed a lack of faith in ordinary Kashmiris, glossing over the corruption and incompetence of the nominated Kashmiri leaders.
A measure of such a short-sighted policy was the willing subversion of a truly democratic process in J and K. The Centre feared that a genuinely representative government in Srinagar could up the ante and openly pass a resolution in the State Assembly calling for secession. The fear was misplaced.
The New Delhi-nominated Kashmiri rulers not only aggravated the feeling of alienation ordinary Kashmiris felt, but they drove the real leaders to openly raise the banner of revolt against an overbearing New Delhi. It wasn’t so much that the Kashmiris were rebelling against India as they were rebelling against Indian leaders who distrusted them so deeply that they denied them a representative government.
However if in Nepal yesterday’s Maoist revolutionaries can be suitably tamed for them to embrace the democratic path, there could be hope in Kashmir too. Remember in Kashmir there are no Prachanda-like revolutionaries, only disgruntled and opportunistic Kashmiri leaders. And to get their own back against an overbearing and unresponsive central government, which treats them with extreme suspicion, they play the Pakistani card against India. For, the so-called Kashmiri secessionists crying `azadi, azadi’ know full well that they will feel suffocated if Kashmir were to join Pakistan. Pakistan would not only fully assimilate Kashmir into itself but would also ensure that its `pure’ Kashmiri demographics is altered beyond recognition. India, despite pressures, has most conscientiously refrained from doing so, though in hindsight it could be considered a weakness of its initial Kashmir policy.
Instead, successive governments in New Delhi have pumped hundreds of billions of rupees into Kashmir in the hope of buying the goodwill of ordinary Kashmiris. The per capita income of Kashmiris is a multiple of the national average because of the misplaced generosity of successive governments in New Delhi. The Kashmiris have been pampered. Yet, they behave as if they have done India a great favour by staying with India. Secession not being an option, the only alternative, to begin with, maybe to treat Kashmir on an equal footing along with the rest of the States. Give them a representative local government within the four walls of the Indian Constitution. Yet, the full force of the Indian State ought to be brought to bear on them should they seek to breach the original compact with the Indian State.
Precisely because successive rulers in New Delhi have been assailed by doubts about the true value of accession of Kashmir to India, they have handled the Kashmir problem with kid-gloves.
Be correct but firm in dealing with Kashmir. More than sixty years after the accession, there is no scope for opening up that done deal again. But do not follow a duplicitous approach towards Kashmiris. Be up front. Let them know where they stand vis-a-vis the Indian scheme of things. And, having done that, come down heavily on any breach, minor or major. And, for god’s sake, stop throwing honest tax-payers’ rupees at them. A sure way to spoil a child is to give it candy every time it sprawls on the floor crying. Discipline yourselves to discipline the Kashmiris.
http://www.freepressjournal.in/
Muslim clerics defend blasts accused Bashar
Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow | August 21, 2008 | 22:56 IST
Prominent Islamic clerics led by the Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid, Maulana Ahmed Bukhari on Sunday came out in a big way to the defence of the recently arrested madrasa teacher Mufti Abu Bashar, in connection with last month's serial blasts in Ahmedabad.
Joined by Samajwadi Party member of Parliament, Abu Asim Azmi, Bukhari virtually sounded a bugle of revolt against what he termed as "the anti-Muslim" policies of the Indian investigating agencies.
Azmi hails from a village that adjoins Bashar's native village of Bina Para in Sarai Meer area of Azamgarh district .
Their call for a protest rally on the Lucknow-Azamgarh highway drew at least 5000-7000 people, who kept the road blocked for hours, while raising anti-police and anti-government slogans. The crowds cheered the speakers, who openly flayed the government and the police.
While both Azmi and Bukhari termed the police action as "biased", Bukhari went to the extent of issuing a warning, "If the government does not take early measures to bring an end to undue harassment of Muslims who were indiscriminately labeled as terrorists, this country is in for another partition, so let us be prepared for nation wide riots and violence."
Bukhari said, "all this talk about creation of Indian Mujahideen needs to be probed . I would not be surprised if such an organization has been floated by fundamentalist bodies like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or Vishwa Hindu Parishad with the sole intention of defaming Muslims."
Abu Asim Azmi said, "I am not giving any clean chit to anyone, but the manner adopted by the investigating agencies speaks of a blatant bias and a predetermined approach."
Azmi felt, "an appropriate way to deal with the situation would be to constitute a high level committee comprising secular minded judicial luminaries like Justice Sachar, Justice Krishna Iyer and Justice A A Ahmadi , it could even have representatives of Hindu organizations like RSS and VHP also. Let them question the arrested young Muslim boys and if the committee is convinced that they are actually involved in terrorism, let them be hanged."
However , in the same vein Azmi went on to add a word of caution, "but what the investigating agencies are doing today is grossly unfair ; they were all declared as terrorists well before any trial and this is what needs to be stopped.
http://www.rediff.com///news/2008/aug/21ahd1.htm
Recall Great Calcutta Killing
Prafull Goradia
Pioneer, Aug 15, 2008
For Jinnah, Direct Action Day on August 16, 1946, was the 'most historic act'
Not many people remember or know that on August 16, 1946, began the bloodiest and the biggest State-sponsored riot in the country's history. That was in Calcutta, capital city of undivided Bengal whose premier was Hussein Shahid Suhrawardy, the Muslim League leader; he later became Prime Minister of Pakistan.
The League, led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, planned to launch 'Direct Action' on August 16 to convince the British that Hindus and Muslims could not coexist in the same country and hence India must be partitioned. A 23-point tactical manifesto was distributed to League activists. Some of the points read as: "Destroy Hindus and drive all Hindus out of India. All transport should be used for battle against Hindus. Hindu women and girls should be raped, kidnapped and converted into Muslims from October 18, 1946. Hindu culture should be destroyed." The Calcutta District Muslim League published on August 13, 1946 an elucidation, clarifying that 'Direct Action Day' was to be conducted in the name of jihad a la the Battle of Badr.
On August 22, Bengal Governor Frederick Burrows wrote a report to Viceroy Lord Wavell on what came to be known as the 'Great Calcutta Killing'. "The trouble had already assumed the communal character which it was to retain throughout. At the time it was mainly in the northern half of the city. Later reports indicate that the Muslims were in an aggressive mood from early in the day and that their processions were well-armed with lathis, iron rods and missiles," he said about August 16.
To quote Burrows for August 17: "This tour that convinced me that the reports that I had received of the seriousness of the situation had erred on the side of underestimation. I observed very great damage to property and streets littered with corpses." The highlight of August 18 in the Governor's letter was: "I made another tour of inspection, this time with the Army Commander and the Chief Minister, covering large areas in the south and south-east of the city which I had not visited before. The Chief Minister showed an exasperating preoccupation with the sufferings undergone by members of his own community."
The slaughter over the first few days was so widespread that Burrows could not give any authoritative figures for casualties. Guided mainly by hospital figures, he guessed 2,000 dead at the very least. No one was available to clear the bodies until "the Army came to my rescue on the basis of Rs 5 a body to volunteers", the Governor wrote.
The Statesman, then a British owned daily, wrote on August 22: "The group of incompetents, or worse, who owing to their office necessarily bear primary responsibility for the criminal carnage in Calcutta, a catastrophe of scope unprecedented in India's history, have been insufficiently seen or heard in these grim days. We mean the Ministry."
In a leading comment, headlined "Calcutta's Ordeal", The Statesman said on August 20, "The origin of the appalling carnage and loss in the capital of a great Province, we believe the worst communal rioting in India's history, was a political demonstration by the Muslim League." What Jinnah said was the most authoritative declaration on the killing: "What we have done today is the most historic act in our history... This day we bid goodbye to constitutional methods."
Today, we are witnessing something similar in the Kashmir Valley where the PDP is inciting the people to take to bid goodbye to constitutional methods. Elsewhere, the 'Indian Mujahideen' has put out an e-mail, urging "Muslims to wage jihad against Hindus". The e-mail invokes Ghauri and Ghaznavi to charge Muslims. We could yet witness violence that may make the 'Great Calcutta Killing' look like a skirmish.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=OPED&file_name=opd3%2Etxt&counter_img=3
The Rangile Raje, the Prime Minister and the Home Minister.
Please read the following editorial entitled "Rangila Raj" in Indian Express dated 21.8.2008:
"This continent-sized country with a necessarily complicated history of nation-building is no stranger to difficult moments. One such moment is upon it now. Kashmir, says an increasingly vocal corner in the national debate — it’s of course great that a debate is happening — is posing difficult, perhaps unanswerable, political/ territorial questions because the impetus is all within. Really? Then how come just a few weeks before Kashmir was so off the news that peace, and therefore further dividends, had become boring stories? The principal reason that situation has transformed into the present crisis is that while Kashmir has been volatile before, the Centre has never been as weak as now. Not even when weak coalition governments ruled India. Just recall very recent history.First, a governor who was not even appointed by this government was allowed to handle Amarnath badly. Then, the implications of giving in to the Valley hardliners were not drawn.
Then the Jammu protest was not met by immediate state response in terms of not allowing highway blockades. Then a senior representative of this government offered the Valley’s agitating entrepreneurs not the promise that highways will be cleared but that paramilitary will buy their apples. An assurance that obviously signalled to the Valley hardliners that there’s a huge deficit of political/ tactical will at the Centre. No prizes for guessing who the senior representative was. The same gentleman runs the ministry that allowed all the other lapses. In Shivraj Patil’s heroic ineffectuality we have the symbol and part of the substance of this government’s terrifying inability, when occasions have demanded, to exhibit national will. Kashmir’s practiced agitpropists have sensed that at no time as now has the Centre been so sold on the idea that doing nothing in time and issuing vacuous statements at all times are good strategies.
Discussions on Kashmir always bring up history. Here’s a little bit of history to help contextualise the current state of state response: probably not since the early 18th-century ruler Muhammad Shah Rangila, who wrote the book on awesomely ineffective security governance, has India had administrators who have been so brilliantly incapable of discharging their basic remit. Needless to say 21st-century India can’t afford Rangilas in government. And all responses to the Kashmir crisis must start with this recognition. Also, let’s ask ourselves: is India to cut and run because of some weeks of violence when years of patient diplomacy, dogged army work and good politics had blunted the hard edges in Kashmir? The country has dealt with violence within before. It has dealt with groups calling loudly for a divorce with the Union. If we decide to take a particular course on Kashmir, what will we do when politicised violence erupts elsewhere? Drawing-room
solutions can look pretty and neat. Nation-building, sadly, isn’t always pretty and neat. It calls for clarity and determination. That’s what Delhi — and Srinagar — need."
Our Home Minister is, indeed, a Rangila Raja. He always expresses his helplessness when faced with a problem. He had expressed his inability to fence the borders with Bangladesh because of its geographical situation. The Prime Minister, who is a dummy and another Rangila Raja had done a blunder by making Shiv Raj Patil the Home Minister of India when the latter was not even an elected member of Lok Sabha. But Prime Minister himself is also not a member of Lok Sabha which is the representative body of the people. Or is it that fault lies with Sonia Gandhi who had selected both the Prime Minister and the Home Minister, both ineffective people. Whatever be the cause of selection of the Prime Minister and the Home Minister, although they are not drunkard like Mohammad Shah Rangila the ineffective Mughal Emperor, they are, indeed, both Rangila Rajas. We would be having the weakest Government till these two Rangila Rajas rule. Fortunately, the
elections are round the corner and we may get rid of these rulers in whose rule, people have become bold enough to suggest independence for J&K without thinking about the consequences of these suggestions.
Satbir Singh Bedi http://o3.indiatimes.com/ssbedi1945/
Don't Give In To Them
22 Aug 2008, 0010 hrs IST, K Subrahmanyam
A number of people have written on why India should consider allowing the Kashmiris to secede since the widespread demonstrations and disturbances taking place day after day would indicate that they don't want to be part of India. If this logic is to be accepted, Indian Parliament should be wound up since there are disruptions day after day holding up the proceedings of the two Houses. One writer has raised the issue whether the Kashmir problem involves the idea of India. It certainly does, just as the orderly conduct of Parliament also involves the idea of India. Both of them encompass the idea of an India as a pluralistic, secular, federal democracy aiming to achieve justice, equality and fraternity for all its citizens.
The efforts to achieve this aim may not be optimally effective as shown by inadequate governance, to put it
mildly. But the challenge facing India is whether we try to set right our governance and improve it or yield to the protesters. Disruption is being made part of India's political culture by most of our political parties. We must ponder over the consequences of yielding to the secessionists in Kashmir and the encouragement it would provide to other such movements elsewhere in the country.
Whether it is disruption in Parliament or on the streets of Kashmir, only a small group or minority resorts to it. The majority remains passive and silent. Those entrusted with the responsibility of enforcing order do not display adequate strength and courage to restore rule of law at the earliest but allow the situation to deteriorate. When Parliament is adjourned without transacting any business for the day or the use of excessive force becomes necessary to disperse unruly crowds in the streets resorting to violence, destruction of public property and casualties, those who engineer the disruptions know full well what the results will be. In fact, they desire those results. The silent majority and the governing authorities in both these cases do not have the moral fibre to assert their will and enforce the rule of law. This is the challenge before the Indian republic whether in Parliament or in Kashmir.
Kashmir has had two elections under international observation and they were considered to be free and fair though there were constituencies where the polling was so low as to indicate that the voters in those areas had boycotted the polls. But such places were few in number. Therefore, we cannot say that Kashmiris have not had an opportunity to elect their representatives or express their views democratically. Only those who advocate secession have not stood for election and demonstrated their strength through a democratic
process.
The basic issue is whether the Indian republic is in a position at this stage, 58 years after its constitution, to permit secession of a small portion of its population on the basis of religious identity. The agitation for secession in Kashmir is based on religion and religion alone. But if they were allowed to leave there would be consequences that have to be anticipated. During the partition of the subcontinent in 1947-48, such consequences were not foreseen and the result was a bloodbath resulting in the death of a million people and ethnic cleansing involving 15 million.
Secessionism on the basis of religion from a federal democratic republic, which has assured autonomy to Kashmir, is an irrational act. Such irrationality is unfortunately not the exclusive privilege of one faith only. We have seen the repercussions of events in the Kashmir valley, in Jammu and other places in India. There are forces in India which are likely to take advantage of such secession to unleash massive ethnic cleansing elsewhere in the country.
The values of the republic proclaimed in our Constitution are still to percolate down to the common man who is conditioned by his religious and caste prejudices. The republic envisioned in the Constitution will perhaps take another century to be realised. Allowing secessionism will be a defeat for secularism and that is not acceptable if the Indian republic is to be nurtured and brought to fruition. If a cost-benefit analysis were to be done of the consequences of yielding to Kashmiri secessionism, the likely costs would be much too heavy for the republic. There is the example of Tamil Nadu where the spirit of secession was intense in the decades after Indian independence. Now the former secessionists admit that being part of the Union has benefited the state immensely. There is no reason why Kashmir cannot be similarly brought around.
What Kashmir needs is good and firm governance. A lot more can be done with regard to crowd control without causing too many casualties. But the will to enforce respect for the law has been lacking just as it is in Parliament.
Demonstrations in the streets and consequent violence have become as routine as disruptions in Parliament and various state legislatures.
Not only Kashmir, but violent agitations elsewhere pose a challenge to the idea of India. The country has to seek a comprehensive strategy to deal with this challenge. Yielding to the Kashmiri secessionists is not a solution. It would be the end of the concept of India.
The writer is a Delhi-based strategic affairs analyst.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Dont_Give_In_To_Them/articleshow/3390921.cms
August 22, 2008 New York Times
Kashmir Rumbles, Rattling Old Rivals
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
SRINAGAR, Kashmir — Born and reared during the bloodiest years of insurgency and counterinsurgency, inheritors of rage, a new generation of young Kashmiris poured into the streets by the tens of thousands over the past several weeks, with stones in their fists and an old slogan on their lips: “Azadi,” or freedom, from India.
Their protests in Indian-controlled Kashmir were part of an unexpected outburst of discontent set off by a dispute over a 99-acre piece of land, which has for more than two months been stoked by both separatist leaders in Muslim-majority Kashmir and Hindu nationalists elsewhere in India.
Overnight, the unrest has threatened to breathe new life into the old and treacherous dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, which is claimed by both nations and lies at the heart of 60 years of bitterness between them, including two wars.
Disastrously for the Indian government, Kashmir has burst onto center stage at a time of growing turmoil in the region — with the resignation this week of Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, who had sought to temper his country’s backing for anti-Indian militancy here.
Even though the two countries have been engaged in four years of peace talks, India has grown nervous that the disarray in Pakistan has left it with no negotiating partner. From New Delhi’s perspective, that power vacuum has allowed anti-Indian elements in Pakistan’s intelligence services and the militant groups they employ to pursue their agenda with renewed vigor.
Relations between the countries have become newly embittered as Indian and Pakistani forces have engaged in skirmishes across the Line of Control that divides Kashmir between them for the first time in years.
Not least, India has blamed the Pakistani intelligence services for playing a hidden role in the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan last month, a charge that Pakistan vehemently denies.
The latest unrest here has only added to the difficulties of renewed dialogue.
How long this agitation will continue depends on both India’s capacity to assuage Kashmiri separatist leaders, and their ability in turn to control the sudden eruption of rage among the young.
The largest, most intense demonstration in years took place on Monday, as tens of thousands of Kashmiris, mostly men, streamed into an open area in the city center to demand independence from India. They came in motorcycle cavalcades, and on the backs of trucks and buses.
A few waved Pakistani flags. Some shouted praise for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the banned Pakistan-based militant organization that India blames for a series of terrorist attacks in recent years. “India, your death will come,” they chanted. “Lashkar will come. Lashkar will come.”
By Tuesday, traffic had returned to the city, as the separatists called for a three-day suspension of the strike. Shops and cafes reopened. The pro-Pakistan graffiti had been covered up, as though it were again an ordinary day.
Another mass gathering, however, is planned for Friday at the martyrs’ cemetery, where two generations of those killed in the conflict are buried, with all the potential to become yet another flash point of conflict.
Again and again, Kashmiris from across the political spectrum said these scenes reminded them of the peak of the anti-Indian rebellion in the early 1990s, except at that time, separatist guerrillas, aided by Pakistan, openly roamed the streets with guns.
Nineteen years after that rebellion kicked off, the current demonstrations have pierced what seemed, perhaps deceptively to the Indian government, like a return of the ordinary here.
Earlier this year, tourists were flocking to Dal Lake in Kashmir. Buses were running twice monthly so that Kashmiris could visit their relatives across the de facto border in the Pakistan-controlled region of Kashmir. A bookshop opened for the first time in nearly two decades.
“Before the storm, there is always a calm,” a Kashmiri woman, Assabah Khan, 34, declared. “The uprising we see now is the latent anger against the Indian state that has erupted again.”
Narendra Nath Vohra, the governor of the Indian-controlled Kashmir state, compared life in Srinagar today to darkness at noon.
In the last few weeks, tourists all but disappeared. Schools and offices closed. The main city hospital was filled with Kashmiris shot and wounded by Indian security forces.
Mehmeet Syed, who only a few months ago could sing her heart out on stage with her five-piece rock band, remained caged in her home, as her city erupted in a series of fiery protests and strikes. On the road leading to the Syed family home, children guarded a homemade roadblock the other day, clutching stones.
On Monday, on the edges of an open field where tens of thousands had gathered to vent their anger at Indian rule, Abdul Gani Mir, 62, marveled at a young man who had scaled a chinar tree to plant a green Islamic flag.
Mr. Mir said being here filled him with hope. “We succumbed, but I don’t think this generation will,” he said, and then he chuckled. “I wish I were young.”
His niece was among 20 unarmed Kashmiri protesters killed by Indian security forces last week, as they set off on a march to Muzaffarabad, in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
Sheik Yasir Rouf, 27, said he had never before taken part in a demonstration so large, so intense. He was a child in the early 1990s, when the anti-Indian rebellion was at its peak. “This feeling was always there,” he said. “We are fighting for our one right to be free.”
“Sooner or later, this had to be,” insisted his friend, Shahid Rasool, also 27.
Mr. Rouf said he had spent 15 days in jail during his senior year in high school, accused of harboring militants. Mr. Rasool was picked up by security forces and interrogated all night; he was 16 years old.
The trouble in the valley began two months ago, quite unexpectedly, over 99 acres of state government land that, for decades, had been used by Hindu pilgrims on the route to a Himalayan shrine called Amarnath.
In May, the authorities in Indian-controlled Kashmir authorized the panel that runs the pilgrimage site to put up “prefabricated structures” for pilgrims. The order enraged Muslims.
With state elections scheduled for this year, some politicians and separatist leaders pounced on the decision and declared it a bid to re-engineer the demography of Kashmir. Hard-line Islamists compared it to the Israeli occupation of Muslim holy lands.
The government soon rescinded the order, but nothing, as Governor Vohra pointed out, actually changed — Hindu pilgrims still used the land, and they still came this year in record numbers.
Nevertheless, the retraction of the original order enraged people in the Hindu-majority plains of Jammu, which is part of the same state. They, too, began agitating by the tens of thousands. And they, too, were goaded by politicians and hard-line leaders.
All told over the past two months, the protests here in the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley and counterprotests led by Hindu groups in the plains below, have left a death toll of nearly 40 in clashes with security forces.
The two sides remain at each other’s throats. Muslims in the valley allege that Indian troops have been quick to halt their protests, while letting Hindus in the plains carry on their agitation.
Hindu leaders in the plains were outraged that the government allowed anti-Indian separatists to march through the valley carrying Pakistani flags.
Many Indians regard the rebellious tableau in the valley as an unexpected affront. Kanwal Sibal, a retired diplomat, suggested in a livid column on Tuesday in Mail Today, an English-language newspaper, that unlike China with its Tibet policy, India has never sought to alter Kashmir’s Muslim-majority demography.
The latest fury, he suggested, “shows the failure, and perhaps the futility, of efforts to win the hearts and minds of the valley Kashmiris.”
Kashmiri public opinion is hardly uniformly anti-Indian, and the pro-Pakistan current is one among many. But distrust runs deep. Rumors travel and harden equally fast.
Muslims here complain that Indian security forces roam the streets, and they can recount at least one memory, usually more, of humiliation and fear.
“It is a volcano that has erupted,” Shad Salim Akhtar, 54, a doctor, said of the latest agitation.
That volcano kept Ms. Syed, the Kashmiri singer, at home. She had a video shoot scheduled for her new solo album; it has been postponed. Her father, Ahmad, a doctor was considering running in the elections this fall, but he is no longer sure.
Dr. Syed, 46, said he had just been getting used to the sense of the ordinary returning to his city. The guards at checkpoints were less aggressive than before. He did not worry much about his daughter’s concerts. “Three, four months ago, we thought, ‘It’s all over now, nothing to worry about,’ ” Dr. Syed said.
That is all over now, his daughter lamented. “Will that day come when we can move around freely?” she asked. “It is a dream.”
Amit Wanchoo, a Kashmiri Hindu and the leader of her band, Imersion, was also mostly staying home, leaving plenty of time to write new songs. One was dedicated to those killed last week.
“The sky is saying something, the air is saying something,” the lyrics went. “Where are my people, whom I met here?”
Yusuf Jameel contributed reporting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/world/asia/22kashmir.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Kashmiris too should not be hurting the nation s psyche
The government should not lose nerve and give concessions that have long- term implications
by kanwal Sibal (Mail today, 19 Aug. 2008)
HOW long will the country tolerate the offensive exhibition of separatism in Kashmir? How do the Kashmiris want the rest of us to react to the display of portraits of Jinnah and Pakistani flags? What should one feel when some demonstrators say defiantly that they are Pakistanis? What about these incessant calls for “ azadi”? Are we expected to excuse all this because the Kashmiri psyche has been hurt by us all these years and we are responsible for their sense of alienation because of our high- handed ways in Kashmir? Many of the presumptions we make about the Kashmiris and our own conduct in Kashmir are either mistaken or exaggerated. To what extent is the notion of Kashmiriyat shared in Jammu and Ladakh? Kashmiriyat should by definition mean an identity that transcends narrow religious affiliations; it should mean a sense of community felt by all. How have the Kashmiri Pandits fared in the valley even before the their exodus in 1990? Has Kashmiriyat protected their life and property? How much effort has been spontaneously by their Muslim brethren in Kashmir to welcome them back and to rehabilitate them in the Valley?
Kashmiriyat
From the time of independence Kashmiriyat was a political handle to keep separatist feelings in J& K alive.
It was an argument to seek exceptional treatment for J& K from which the power brokers in the state profited.
The Muslim domination of J& K was cloaked under the cover of Kashmiriyat.
This is not to say that before the “ arabised” Sunni Islam made inroads into the Valley, Kashmir did not practice a more tolerant, syncretic version of Islam. But the number of Hindus in the Valley was always too small to test the “ secular” fibre of Kashmiriyat. Islam has coloured Kashmiri politics from 1947 itself because of Pakistani claims to the state in the name of religion. That religious canker both internal and promoted by Pakistan continues to bedevil Kashmirs relations with the rest of India. The fact is that it has always been the Muslim sentiment in J& K that has needed to be placated.
Kashmiriyat gave an illusion of internal harmony and consensus in the state that did not actually exist.
The current crisis in J& K has been triggered by the shockingly communal position taken by the Valley Muslims on the transfer of 40 hectares of land to the Amarnath Shrine Board for setting up temporary structures for the convenience of the pilgrims.
To believe that the demography of Kashmir could be threatened by this decision is to abandon common sense. For the last 61 years the Indian authorities have not allowed the demography of J& K to be disturbed because of Article 370. We could have emulated the example of China in Tibet and encouraged outside migration into J& K in order to better control the ground situation. Even in POK, demographic protection to the local population has not been given.
But Indian democracy and respect for constitutional provisions have protected the core demographic interests of the Kashmiris over six decades. That local feelings could be aroused so intensely over such a nonissue shows and that mainstream parties should also want to make political capital out of this artificially induced uproar shows the failure, and perhaps the futility, of efforts to win the hearts and minds of the valley Kashmiris.
The reaction in Jammu to the cancellation of the decision to transfer the use of land by the government under pressure from the Valley Muslims has been exceptionally strong.
Neither terrorist attacks in Jammu nor the general feeling that Jammu gets unequal treatment at the hands of the government in Srinagar have provoked such intense public agitation as in this case. Perhaps this being a religious issue, the psyche of the people of Jammu has been more than ordinarily hurt, and all the pent up feelings of being discriminated against have erupted.
Victims
The impact of the Jammu agitation on road traffic to the Valley has, in turn, given further impetus to antinational activity in the Valley. Claiming that the Jammu agitators had blockaded the Valley, the secessionists with large public support are demanding that the road to Muzzafarabad in POK should be opened to traffic.
Rather than cooperating in resolving the issue at the root of the present turmoil, the Valley Muslims are trying to strike a blow at Indias sovereignty and affirm their pro- Pakistan attachments by seeking to move en masse to the LOC to force the opening of the road. The Pakistani card is being played against us, as usual. The declared aim is to mobilize the people to break the barrier between Kashmir and Pakistan, having perhaps the Berlin Wall in mind. Police firing on supposedly peaceful demonstrators would, they may be calculating, attract international attention to the Kashmir issue again, raise human rights concerns and embarrass India at a time when it would not want revival of international concerns about India- Pakistan tensions.
The Valley Muslims are presenting themselves as the victims of recent events when they are in fact the guilty party. Geelani openly espouses an Islamic platform to reject India; the Hurriyats separatist agenda, coordinated closely with Pakistan, projects self- determination. The Valley Muslims rise up against India periodically, irrespective of the concessions they get. India cannot agree to secession and so long as this remains on the agenda of political groups in the Valley, with Pakistans support, our Kashmir problem will not go away. No secular democracy can effectively deal with mosquebased politics. Street demonstrations can be suppressed but the voice of the mosques cannot be silenced without inviting charges of interference with the practice of religion.
Much is made of the argument that rigging of elections by the authorities has alienated the Kashmiri masses from us. Between alienation and secessionism there is a long road.
The Kashmiris have to look at the state of democracy in their benefacto— Pakistan. In next door Tibet, the language, culture, religion as well as the homogeneity of the local population are being undermined. The resources of Tibet are being exploited ruthlessly without regard to environmental damage.
Hazard
A more objective view should be taken by the Kashmiris of Indias respect for Kashmiri sensitivities, rather than claim immunity from state action within the law for antinational activities and recourse to terrorism.
The turmoil in the Valley is the consequence of pursuit of temporizing policies that have emboldened secessionist forces. The task of the government in dealing democratically with religious forces in a border state with strong anti- national leanings, that are networked, besides, with external state and non– state actors is no doubt exceedingly difficult.
Yet, without fully controlling the local situation, the decision to promote cross LOC ties, allow the Hurriyat leaders and Geelani to operate freely, to actively explore a solution to the Kashmir issue on the basis of making borders irrelevant and some joint management mechanisms, conveyed a readiness to make further concessions in search of durable peace in J& K. The demand to open the Srinagar Muzzafarabad road flows directly from earlier decisions. The government has, surprisingly, expressed its willingness to meet this demand in accordance with the 2005 agreement with Pakistan to permit border trade.
Here the question is not of controlled border trade but a political riposte to Jammus perceived blockade of the valley by the secessionists that signals that they can create an alternative economic lifeline through Pakistan in defiance of Indias sovereignty. Steps to calm a volatile situation are fine, but to lose nerve and make concessions with long term implications is another. Not only the Kashmiris, the rest of the nation has a psyche that should not be hurt.
The writer is a former Foreign Secretary( sibalkanwal@gmail.com)
http://www.mailtoday.in/2282008/showstory.aspx?queryed=9&querypage=10&boxid=3325231&parentid=2872&eddate=Aug%2019%202008%2012:00AM
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
'Human being' has no meaning in islamism
‘Human being’ has no meaning in Islamism
The Study of Political Islam
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, February 05, 2007
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Bill Warner, the director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam (CSPI). CSPI’s goal is to teach the doctrine of political Islam through its books and it has produced a series on its focus. Mr. Warner did not write the CSPI series, but he acts as the agent for a group of scholars who are the authors.
FP: Bill Warner, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Warner: Thank you Jamie for this opportunity.
FP: Tell us a bit about the Center for the Study of Political Islam.
Warner: The Center for the Study of Political Islam is a group of scholars who are devoted to the scientific study of the foundational texts of Islam—Koran, Sira (life of Mohammed) and Hadith (traditions of Mohammed). There are two areas to study in Islam, its doctrine and history, or as CSPI sees it—the theory and its results. We study the history to see the practical or experimental results of the doctrine.
CSPI seems to be the first group to use statistics to study the doctrine. Previous scientific studies of the Koran are primarily devoted to Arabic language studies.
Our first principle is that Koran, Sira and Hadith must be taken as a whole. We call them the Islamic Trilogy to emphasize the unity of the texts.
Our major intellectual breakthrough is to see that dualism is the foundation and key to understanding Islam. Everything about Islam comes in twos starting with its foundational declaration: (1) there is no god but Allah and (2) Mohammed is His prophet. Therefore, Islam is Allah (Koran) and the Sunna (words and deeds of Mohammed found in the Sira and Hadith).
Endless ink has been wasted on trying to answer the question of what is Islam? Is Islam the religion of peace? Or is the true Islam a radical ideology? Is a moderate Muslim the real Muslim?
This reminds a scientist of the old arguments about light. Is light a particle or is light a wave? The arguments went back and forth. Quantum mechanics gave us the answer. Light is dualistic; it is both a particle and a wave. It depends upon the circumstances as to which quality manifests. Islam functions in the same manner.
Our first clue about the dualism is in the Koran, which is actually two books, the Koran of Mecca (early) and the Koran of Medina (later). The insight into the logic of the Koran comes from the large numbers of contradictions in it. On the surface, Islam resolves these contradictions by resorting to “abrogation”. This means that the verse written later supersedes the earlier verse. But in fact, since the Koran is considered by Muslims to be the perfect word of Allah, both verses are sacred and true. The later verse is “better,” but the earlier verse cannot be wrong since Allah is perfect. This is the foundation of dualism. Both verses are “right.” Both sides of the contradiction are true in dualistic logic. The circumstances govern which verse is used.
For example:
(Koran of Mecca) 73:10: Listen to what they [unbelievers] say with patience, and leave them with dignity.
From tolerance we move to the ultimate intolerance, not even the Lord of the Universe can stand the unbelievers:
(Koran of Medina) 8:12: Then your Lord spoke to His angels and said, “I will be with you. Give strength to the believers. I will send terror into the unbelievers’ hearts, cut off their heads and even the tips of their fingers!”
All of Western logic is based upon the law of contradiction—if two things contradict, then at least one of them is false. But Islamic logic is dualistic; two things can contradict each other and both are true.
No dualistic system may be measured by one answer. This is the reason that the arguments about what constitutes the “real” Islam go on and on and are never resolved. A single right answer does not exist.
Dualistic systems can only be measured by statistics. It is futile to argue one side of the dualism is true. As an analogy, quantum mechanics always gives a statistical answer to all questions.
For an example of using statistics, look at the question: what is the real jihad, the jihad of inner, spiritual struggle or the jihad of war? Let’s turn to Bukhari (the Hadith) for the answer, as he repeatedly speaks of jihad. In Bukhari 97% of the jihad references are about war and 3% are about the inner struggle. So the statistical answer is that jihad is 97% war and 3% inner struggle. Is jihad war? Yes—97%. Is jihad inner struggle? Yes—3%. So if you are writing an article, you can make a case for either. But in truth, almost every argument about Islam can be answered by: all of the above. Both sides of the duality are right.
FP: Why, in your view, is there so much ignorance about the history and doctrine of political Islam in the West?
Warner: First, let’s see how ignorant we are about the history of political Islam. How many Christians can tell you how Turkey or Egypt became Islamic? What happened to the Seven Churches of Asia mentioned in Paul’s letters? Find a Jew who can tell you the Jewish history of dhimmitude (second class citizens who serve Islam). What European knows that white women were the highest priced slaves in Mecca? Everyone knows how many Jews Hitler killed, but find an unbeliever who can tell you how many died in jihad over the last 1400 years.
We are just as ignorant about the doctrine of Islam. An FBI agent gets two hours of training on Islam and most of that is how not to offend the imam. We are fighting in Iraq. Who utilizes the political, military doctrine of Islam to plan strategy? Who can find a single rabbi or minister who has read the Koran, Sira and Hadith? What governor, senator, congressmen or military leader displays a knowledge of the political doctrine of Islam? Try to find a course available in a college about Islamic political doctrine and ethics. Graduates are schooled in Islamic art, architecture, poetry, Sufism, and a glorious history that ignores the suffering of the innocent unbelievers. Graduates read comments about the Koran and Hadith, but do not read the actual doctrine.
FP: So why this ignorance?
Warner: Let’s start at the beginning. When Islam burst out of Arabia into a decaying Byzantine world, the unbelievers recorded it as an Arabic invasion. Similarly, the invasion of Eastern Europe was by Turks; the invasion of Spain was by Moors. Our scholars were incapable of even naming the invaders.
Mohammed killed every single intellectual or artist who opposed him. It was fear that drove the vast majority of the media not to reprint the Mohammed cartoons, not some imagined sensitivity. Fear is a fabulous basis for ignorance, but that is not enough to explain it all. What accounts for the almost psychotic aversion to knowledge about Islam? Beyond fear is the realization that political Islam is profoundly foreign to us.
Let’s examine the ethical basis of our civilization. All of our politics and ethics are based upon a unitary ethic that is best formulated in the Golden Rule:
Treat others as you would be treated.
The basis of this rule is the recognition that at one level, we are all the same. We are not all equal. Any game of sports will show that we do not have equal abilities. But everyone wants to be treated as a human being. In particular, we all want to be equal under the law and be treated as social equals. On the basis of the Golden Rule—the equality of human beings—we have created democracy, ended slavery and treat women and men as political equals. So the Golden Rule is a unitary ethic. All people are to be treated the same. All religions have some version of the Golden Rule except Islam.
FP: So how is Islam different in this context?
Warner: The term “human being” has no meaning inside of Islam. There is no such thing as humanity, only the duality of the believer and unbeliever. Look at the ethical statements found in the Hadith. A Muslim should not lie, cheat, kill or steal from other Muslims. But a Muslim may lie, deceive or kill an unbeliever if it advances Islam.
There is no such thing as a universal statement of ethics in Islam. Muslims are to be treated one way and unbelievers another way. The closest Islam comes to a universal statement of ethics is that the entire world must submit to Islam. After Mohammed became a prophet, he never treated an unbeliever the same as a Muslim. Islam denies the truth of the Golden Rule.
By the way, this dualistic ethic is the basis for jihad. The ethical system sets up the unbeliever as less than human and therefore, it is easy to kill, harm or deceive the unbeliever.
Now mind you, unbelievers have frequently failed at applying the Golden Rule, but we can be judged and condemned on its basis. We do fall short, but it is our ideal.
There have been other dualistic cultures. The KKK comes to mind. But the KKK is a simplistic dualism. The KKK member hates all black people at all times; there is only one choice. This is very straightforward and easy to see.
The dualism of Islam is more deceitful and offers two choices on how to treat the unbeliever. The unbeliever can be treated nicely, in the same way a farmer treats his cattle well. So Islam can be “nice”, but in no case is the unbeliever a “brother” or a friend. In fact, there are some 14 verses of the Koran that are emphatic—a Muslim is never a friend to the unbeliever. A Muslim may be “friendly,” but he is never an actual friend. And the degree to which a Muslim is actually a true friend is the degree to which he is not a Muslim, but a hypocrite.
FP: You mentioned earlier how logic is another point of profound difference. Can you touch on that?
Warner: To reiterate, all of science is based upon the law of contradiction. If two things contradict each other, then at least one of them has to be false. But inside of Islamic logic, two contradictory statements can both be true. Islam uses dualistic logic and we use unitary scientific logic.
Since Islam has a dualistic logic and dualistic ethics, it is completely foreign to us. Muslims think differently from us and feel differently from us. So our aversion is based upon fear and a rejection of Islamic ethics and logic. This aversion causes us to avoid learning about Islam so we are ignorant and stay ignorant.
Another part of the aversion is the realization that there is no compromise with dualistic ethics. There is no halfway place between unitary ethics and dualistic ethics. If you are in a business deal with someone who is a liar and a cheat, there is no way to avoid getting cheated. No matter how nice you are to a con man, he will take advantage of you. There is no compromise with dualistic ethics. In short, Islamic politics, ethics and logic cannot be part of our civilization. Islam does not assimilate, it dominates. There is never any “getting along” with Islam. Its demands never cease and the demands must be met on Islam’s terms: submission.
The last reason for our aversion to the history of political Islam is our shame. Islam put over a million Europeans into slavery. Since Muslims can’t be enslaved, it was a white Christian who was the Turkish sultan’s sex slave. These are things that we do not want to face.
Jews don’t want to acknowledge the history of political Islam, because they were dhimmis, second class citizens or semi-slaves, just like the Christians. Jews like to recall how they were advisors and physicians to powerful Muslims, but no matter what the Jew did or what position he held, he was still a dhimmi. There is no compromise between being equal and being a dhimmi
Why should a Hindu want to recall the shame of slavery and the destruction of their temples and cities? After Hindu craftsmen built the Taj Mahal, the Muslim ruler had their right hands cut off so that they could not build anything as beautiful for anyone else. The practice of suttee, the widow throwing herself on the husband’s funeral pyre, came about as a response to the rape and brutality of the Islamic jihad as it sweep over ancient Hindustan.
Blacks don’t want to face the fact that it was a Muslim who rounded up their ancestors in Africa to wholesale to the white slave trader. The Arab is the true master of the African. Blacks can’t accept the common bond they share with whites: that both Europeans and Africans were slaves under Islam. Blacks like to imagine Islam is their counterweight to white power, not that Islam has ruled them for 1400 years.
Dualistic logic. Dualistic ethics. Fear. Shame. There is no compromise. These are the reasons we don’t want to know about Islam’s political history, doctrine or ethics.
FP So is there such a thing as non-political Islam?
Warner: Non-political Islam is religious Islam. Religious Islam is what a Muslim does to avoid Hell and go to Paradise. These are the Five Pillars—prayer, charity to Muslims, pilgrimage to Mecca, fasting and declaring Mohammed to be the final prophet.
But the Trilogy is clear about the doctrine. At least 75% of the Sira (life of Mohammed) is about jihad. About 67% of the Koran written in Mecca is about the unbelievers, or politics. Of the Koran of Medina, 51% is devoted to the unbelievers. About 20% of Bukhari’s Hadith is about jihad and politics. Religion is the smallest part of Islamic foundational texts.
Political Islam’s most famous duality is the division of the world into believers, dar al Islam, and unbelievers, dar al harb. The largest part of the Trilogy relates to treatment of the unbelievers, kafirs. Even Hell is political. There are 146 references to Hell in the Koran. Only 6% of those in Hell are there for moral failings—murder, theft, etc. The other 94% of the reasons for being in Hell are for the intellectual sin of disagreeing with Mohammed, a political crime. Hence, Islamic Hell is a political prison for those who speak against Islam.
Mohammed preached his religion for 13 years and garnered only 150 followers. But when he turned to politics and war, in 10 years time he became the first ruler of Arabia by averaging an event of violence every 7 weeks for 9 years. His success did not come as a religious leader, but as a political leader.
In short, political Islam defines how the unbelievers are to be dealt with and treated.
FP: Can you touch briefly on the history of political Islam?
Warner: The history of political Islam starts with Mohammed’s immigration to Medina. From that point on, Islam’s appeal to the world has always had the dualistic option of joining a glorious religion or being the subject of political pressure and violence. After the immigration to Medina, Islam became violent when persuasion failed. Jihad entered the world.
After Mohammed’s death, Abu Bakr, the second caliph, settled the theological arguments of those who wished to leave Islam with the political action of death by the sword. The jihad of Umar (the second caliph, a pope-king) exploded into the world of the unbelievers. Jihad destroyed a Christian Middle East and a Christian North Africa. Soon it was the fate of the Persian Zoroastrian and the Hindu to be the victims of jihad. The history of political Islam is the destruction of Christianity in the Middle East, Egypt, Turkey and North Africa. Half of Christianity was lost. Before Islam, North Africa was the southern part of Europe (part of the Roman Empire). Around 60 million Christians were slaughtered during the jihadic conquest.
Half of the glorious Hindu civilization was annihilated and 80 million Hindus killed.
The first Western Buddhists were the Greeks descended from Alexander the Great’s army in what is now Afghanistan. Jihad destroyed all of Buddhism along the silk route. About 10 million Buddhists died. The conquest of Buddhism is the practical result of pacifism.
Zoarasterianism was eliminated from Persia.
The Jews became permanent dhimmis throughout Islam.
In Africa over 120 million Christians and animists have died over the last 1400 years of jihad.
Approximately 270 million nonbelievers died over the last 1400 years for the glory of political Islam. These are the Tears of Jihad which are not taught in any school.
FP: How have our intellectuals responded to Islam?
Warner: The basis of all the unbeliever’s thought has collapsed in the face of Islamic political thought, ethics and logic. We have already mentioned how our first intellectuals could not even name the invaders as Muslims. We have no method of analysis of Islam. We can’t agree on what Islam is and have no knowledge about our suffering as the victims of a 1400-year jihad.
Look at how Christians, Jews, blacks, intellectuals and artists have dealt with Islamic doctrine and history. In every case their primary ideas fail.
Christians believe that “love conquers all.” Well, love does not conquer Islam. Christians have a difficult time seeing Islam as a political doctrine, not a religion. The sectarian nature of Christian thought means that the average non-Orthodox Christian has no knowledge or sympathy about the Orthodox Christian’s suffering.
Jews have a theology that posits a unique relationship between Jews and the creator-god of the universe. But Islam sees the Jews as apes who corrupted the Old Testament. Jews see no connection between Islam’s political doctrine and Israel.
Black intellectuals have based their ideas on the slave/victim status and how wrong it was for white Christians to make them slaves. Islam has never acknowledged any of the pain and suffering it has caused in Africa with its 1400-year-old slave trade. But blacks make no attempt to get an apology from Muslims and are silent in the presence of Islam. Why? Is it because Arabs are their masters?
Multiculturalism is bankrupt against Islam’s demand for every civilization to submit. The culture of tolerance collapses in the face of the sacred intolerance of dualistic ethics. Intellectuals respond by ignoring the failure.
Our intellectuals and artists have been abused for 1400 years. Indeed, the psychology of our intellectuals is exactly like the psychology of the abused wife, the sexually abused child or rape victim. Look at the parallels between the response of abuse victims and our intellectuals. See how violence has caused denial.
The victims deny that the abuse took place: Our media never reports the majority of jihad around the world. Our intellectuals don’t talk about how all of the violence is connected to a political doctrine.
The abuser uses fear to control the victim: What was the reason that newspapers would not publish the Mohammed cartoon? Salman Rushdie still has a death sentence for his novel. What “cutting edge” artist creates any artistic statement about Islam? Fear rules our intellectuals and artists.
The victims find ways to blame themselves: We are to blame for the attacks on September 11, 2001. If we try harder Muslims will act nicer. We have to accommodate their needs.
The victim is humiliated: White people will not talk about how their ancestors were enslaved by Islam. No one wants to claim the victims of jihad. Why won’t we claim the suffering of our ancestors? Why don’t we cry about the loss of cultures and peoples? We are too ashamed to care.
The victim feels helpless: “What are we going to do?” “We can’t kill 1.3 billion people.” No one has any understanding or optimism. No one has an idea of what to try. The only plan is to “be nicer.”
The victim turns the anger inward: What is the most divisive issue in today’s politics? Iraq. And what is Iraq really about? Political Islam. The Web has a video about how the CIA and Bush planned and executed September 11. Cultural self-loathing is the watchword of our intellectuals and artists.
We hate ourselves because we are mentally molested and abused. Our intellectuals and artists have responded to the abuse of jihad just as a sexually abused child or a rape victim would respond. We are quite intellectually ill and are failing at our job of clear thinking. We can’t look at our denial.
FP: So summarize for us why it is so crucial for us to learn the doctrine of political Islam.
Warner: Political Islam has annihilated every culture it has invaded or immigrated to. The total time for annihilation takes centuries, but once Islam is ascendant it never fails. The host culture disappears and becomes extinct.
We must learn the doctrine of political Islam to survive. The doctrine is very clear that all forms of force and persuasion may and must be used to conquer us. Islam is a self-declared enemy of all unbelievers. The brilliant Chinese philosopher of war, Sun Tsu, had the dictum—know the enemy. We must know the doctrine of our enemy or be annihilated.
Or put another way: if we do not learn the doctrine of political Islam, our civilization will be annihilated just as Egypt’s Coptic civilization was annihilated.
Since unbelievers must know the doctrine of political Islam to survive, CSPI has written all of its books in simple English. Our books are scholarly, but easy to read. As an example, anyone who can read a newspaper can pick up A Simple Koran and read and understand it. It is not “dumbed down” and contains every single word of the original.
Not only is the language simple, but logic has been used to sort and categorize. Context and chronology have been restored. The result is a Koran that is an epic story ending in triumph over all enemies of Allah. All of our books and philosophy may be found at our center's website.
Islam declares that we are the enemies of Allah. If we do not learn the political doctrine of Islam we will end up just like the first victims of Islam—the tolerant, polytheist Arabs of Saudi Arabia who became the Wahabbis (a very strict branch of Islam) of today, the most intolerant culture on the face of the earth.
FP: Bill Warner, thank you for joining us today.
Warner: Jamie, thank you for your kindness and efforts.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=6AA49466-2575-491F-B712-CEA90FCCCD0D
Panel discussion on Amarnath land issue (audio): http://www.sdfgloba l.org/images/ audios/Aug% 2016%202008% 20Amarnath% 20Panel%20Discus sion.mp3
The Study of Political Islam
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, February 05, 2007
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Bill Warner, the director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam (CSPI). CSPI’s goal is to teach the doctrine of political Islam through its books and it has produced a series on its focus. Mr. Warner did not write the CSPI series, but he acts as the agent for a group of scholars who are the authors.
FP: Bill Warner, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Warner: Thank you Jamie for this opportunity.
FP: Tell us a bit about the Center for the Study of Political Islam.
Warner: The Center for the Study of Political Islam is a group of scholars who are devoted to the scientific study of the foundational texts of Islam—Koran, Sira (life of Mohammed) and Hadith (traditions of Mohammed). There are two areas to study in Islam, its doctrine and history, or as CSPI sees it—the theory and its results. We study the history to see the practical or experimental results of the doctrine.
CSPI seems to be the first group to use statistics to study the doctrine. Previous scientific studies of the Koran are primarily devoted to Arabic language studies.
Our first principle is that Koran, Sira and Hadith must be taken as a whole. We call them the Islamic Trilogy to emphasize the unity of the texts.
Our major intellectual breakthrough is to see that dualism is the foundation and key to understanding Islam. Everything about Islam comes in twos starting with its foundational declaration: (1) there is no god but Allah and (2) Mohammed is His prophet. Therefore, Islam is Allah (Koran) and the Sunna (words and deeds of Mohammed found in the Sira and Hadith).
Endless ink has been wasted on trying to answer the question of what is Islam? Is Islam the religion of peace? Or is the true Islam a radical ideology? Is a moderate Muslim the real Muslim?
This reminds a scientist of the old arguments about light. Is light a particle or is light a wave? The arguments went back and forth. Quantum mechanics gave us the answer. Light is dualistic; it is both a particle and a wave. It depends upon the circumstances as to which quality manifests. Islam functions in the same manner.
Our first clue about the dualism is in the Koran, which is actually two books, the Koran of Mecca (early) and the Koran of Medina (later). The insight into the logic of the Koran comes from the large numbers of contradictions in it. On the surface, Islam resolves these contradictions by resorting to “abrogation”. This means that the verse written later supersedes the earlier verse. But in fact, since the Koran is considered by Muslims to be the perfect word of Allah, both verses are sacred and true. The later verse is “better,” but the earlier verse cannot be wrong since Allah is perfect. This is the foundation of dualism. Both verses are “right.” Both sides of the contradiction are true in dualistic logic. The circumstances govern which verse is used.
For example:
(Koran of Mecca) 73:10: Listen to what they [unbelievers] say with patience, and leave them with dignity.
From tolerance we move to the ultimate intolerance, not even the Lord of the Universe can stand the unbelievers:
(Koran of Medina) 8:12: Then your Lord spoke to His angels and said, “I will be with you. Give strength to the believers. I will send terror into the unbelievers’ hearts, cut off their heads and even the tips of their fingers!”
All of Western logic is based upon the law of contradiction—if two things contradict, then at least one of them is false. But Islamic logic is dualistic; two things can contradict each other and both are true.
No dualistic system may be measured by one answer. This is the reason that the arguments about what constitutes the “real” Islam go on and on and are never resolved. A single right answer does not exist.
Dualistic systems can only be measured by statistics. It is futile to argue one side of the dualism is true. As an analogy, quantum mechanics always gives a statistical answer to all questions.
For an example of using statistics, look at the question: what is the real jihad, the jihad of inner, spiritual struggle or the jihad of war? Let’s turn to Bukhari (the Hadith) for the answer, as he repeatedly speaks of jihad. In Bukhari 97% of the jihad references are about war and 3% are about the inner struggle. So the statistical answer is that jihad is 97% war and 3% inner struggle. Is jihad war? Yes—97%. Is jihad inner struggle? Yes—3%. So if you are writing an article, you can make a case for either. But in truth, almost every argument about Islam can be answered by: all of the above. Both sides of the duality are right.
FP: Why, in your view, is there so much ignorance about the history and doctrine of political Islam in the West?
Warner: First, let’s see how ignorant we are about the history of political Islam. How many Christians can tell you how Turkey or Egypt became Islamic? What happened to the Seven Churches of Asia mentioned in Paul’s letters? Find a Jew who can tell you the Jewish history of dhimmitude (second class citizens who serve Islam). What European knows that white women were the highest priced slaves in Mecca? Everyone knows how many Jews Hitler killed, but find an unbeliever who can tell you how many died in jihad over the last 1400 years.
We are just as ignorant about the doctrine of Islam. An FBI agent gets two hours of training on Islam and most of that is how not to offend the imam. We are fighting in Iraq. Who utilizes the political, military doctrine of Islam to plan strategy? Who can find a single rabbi or minister who has read the Koran, Sira and Hadith? What governor, senator, congressmen or military leader displays a knowledge of the political doctrine of Islam? Try to find a course available in a college about Islamic political doctrine and ethics. Graduates are schooled in Islamic art, architecture, poetry, Sufism, and a glorious history that ignores the suffering of the innocent unbelievers. Graduates read comments about the Koran and Hadith, but do not read the actual doctrine.
FP: So why this ignorance?
Warner: Let’s start at the beginning. When Islam burst out of Arabia into a decaying Byzantine world, the unbelievers recorded it as an Arabic invasion. Similarly, the invasion of Eastern Europe was by Turks; the invasion of Spain was by Moors. Our scholars were incapable of even naming the invaders.
Mohammed killed every single intellectual or artist who opposed him. It was fear that drove the vast majority of the media not to reprint the Mohammed cartoons, not some imagined sensitivity. Fear is a fabulous basis for ignorance, but that is not enough to explain it all. What accounts for the almost psychotic aversion to knowledge about Islam? Beyond fear is the realization that political Islam is profoundly foreign to us.
Let’s examine the ethical basis of our civilization. All of our politics and ethics are based upon a unitary ethic that is best formulated in the Golden Rule:
Treat others as you would be treated.
The basis of this rule is the recognition that at one level, we are all the same. We are not all equal. Any game of sports will show that we do not have equal abilities. But everyone wants to be treated as a human being. In particular, we all want to be equal under the law and be treated as social equals. On the basis of the Golden Rule—the equality of human beings—we have created democracy, ended slavery and treat women and men as political equals. So the Golden Rule is a unitary ethic. All people are to be treated the same. All religions have some version of the Golden Rule except Islam.
FP: So how is Islam different in this context?
Warner: The term “human being” has no meaning inside of Islam. There is no such thing as humanity, only the duality of the believer and unbeliever. Look at the ethical statements found in the Hadith. A Muslim should not lie, cheat, kill or steal from other Muslims. But a Muslim may lie, deceive or kill an unbeliever if it advances Islam.
There is no such thing as a universal statement of ethics in Islam. Muslims are to be treated one way and unbelievers another way. The closest Islam comes to a universal statement of ethics is that the entire world must submit to Islam. After Mohammed became a prophet, he never treated an unbeliever the same as a Muslim. Islam denies the truth of the Golden Rule.
By the way, this dualistic ethic is the basis for jihad. The ethical system sets up the unbeliever as less than human and therefore, it is easy to kill, harm or deceive the unbeliever.
Now mind you, unbelievers have frequently failed at applying the Golden Rule, but we can be judged and condemned on its basis. We do fall short, but it is our ideal.
There have been other dualistic cultures. The KKK comes to mind. But the KKK is a simplistic dualism. The KKK member hates all black people at all times; there is only one choice. This is very straightforward and easy to see.
The dualism of Islam is more deceitful and offers two choices on how to treat the unbeliever. The unbeliever can be treated nicely, in the same way a farmer treats his cattle well. So Islam can be “nice”, but in no case is the unbeliever a “brother” or a friend. In fact, there are some 14 verses of the Koran that are emphatic—a Muslim is never a friend to the unbeliever. A Muslim may be “friendly,” but he is never an actual friend. And the degree to which a Muslim is actually a true friend is the degree to which he is not a Muslim, but a hypocrite.
FP: You mentioned earlier how logic is another point of profound difference. Can you touch on that?
Warner: To reiterate, all of science is based upon the law of contradiction. If two things contradict each other, then at least one of them has to be false. But inside of Islamic logic, two contradictory statements can both be true. Islam uses dualistic logic and we use unitary scientific logic.
Since Islam has a dualistic logic and dualistic ethics, it is completely foreign to us. Muslims think differently from us and feel differently from us. So our aversion is based upon fear and a rejection of Islamic ethics and logic. This aversion causes us to avoid learning about Islam so we are ignorant and stay ignorant.
Another part of the aversion is the realization that there is no compromise with dualistic ethics. There is no halfway place between unitary ethics and dualistic ethics. If you are in a business deal with someone who is a liar and a cheat, there is no way to avoid getting cheated. No matter how nice you are to a con man, he will take advantage of you. There is no compromise with dualistic ethics. In short, Islamic politics, ethics and logic cannot be part of our civilization. Islam does not assimilate, it dominates. There is never any “getting along” with Islam. Its demands never cease and the demands must be met on Islam’s terms: submission.
The last reason for our aversion to the history of political Islam is our shame. Islam put over a million Europeans into slavery. Since Muslims can’t be enslaved, it was a white Christian who was the Turkish sultan’s sex slave. These are things that we do not want to face.
Jews don’t want to acknowledge the history of political Islam, because they were dhimmis, second class citizens or semi-slaves, just like the Christians. Jews like to recall how they were advisors and physicians to powerful Muslims, but no matter what the Jew did or what position he held, he was still a dhimmi. There is no compromise between being equal and being a dhimmi
Why should a Hindu want to recall the shame of slavery and the destruction of their temples and cities? After Hindu craftsmen built the Taj Mahal, the Muslim ruler had their right hands cut off so that they could not build anything as beautiful for anyone else. The practice of suttee, the widow throwing herself on the husband’s funeral pyre, came about as a response to the rape and brutality of the Islamic jihad as it sweep over ancient Hindustan.
Blacks don’t want to face the fact that it was a Muslim who rounded up their ancestors in Africa to wholesale to the white slave trader. The Arab is the true master of the African. Blacks can’t accept the common bond they share with whites: that both Europeans and Africans were slaves under Islam. Blacks like to imagine Islam is their counterweight to white power, not that Islam has ruled them for 1400 years.
Dualistic logic. Dualistic ethics. Fear. Shame. There is no compromise. These are the reasons we don’t want to know about Islam’s political history, doctrine or ethics.
FP So is there such a thing as non-political Islam?
Warner: Non-political Islam is religious Islam. Religious Islam is what a Muslim does to avoid Hell and go to Paradise. These are the Five Pillars—prayer, charity to Muslims, pilgrimage to Mecca, fasting and declaring Mohammed to be the final prophet.
But the Trilogy is clear about the doctrine. At least 75% of the Sira (life of Mohammed) is about jihad. About 67% of the Koran written in Mecca is about the unbelievers, or politics. Of the Koran of Medina, 51% is devoted to the unbelievers. About 20% of Bukhari’s Hadith is about jihad and politics. Religion is the smallest part of Islamic foundational texts.
Political Islam’s most famous duality is the division of the world into believers, dar al Islam, and unbelievers, dar al harb. The largest part of the Trilogy relates to treatment of the unbelievers, kafirs. Even Hell is political. There are 146 references to Hell in the Koran. Only 6% of those in Hell are there for moral failings—murder, theft, etc. The other 94% of the reasons for being in Hell are for the intellectual sin of disagreeing with Mohammed, a political crime. Hence, Islamic Hell is a political prison for those who speak against Islam.
Mohammed preached his religion for 13 years and garnered only 150 followers. But when he turned to politics and war, in 10 years time he became the first ruler of Arabia by averaging an event of violence every 7 weeks for 9 years. His success did not come as a religious leader, but as a political leader.
In short, political Islam defines how the unbelievers are to be dealt with and treated.
FP: Can you touch briefly on the history of political Islam?
Warner: The history of political Islam starts with Mohammed’s immigration to Medina. From that point on, Islam’s appeal to the world has always had the dualistic option of joining a glorious religion or being the subject of political pressure and violence. After the immigration to Medina, Islam became violent when persuasion failed. Jihad entered the world.
After Mohammed’s death, Abu Bakr, the second caliph, settled the theological arguments of those who wished to leave Islam with the political action of death by the sword. The jihad of Umar (the second caliph, a pope-king) exploded into the world of the unbelievers. Jihad destroyed a Christian Middle East and a Christian North Africa. Soon it was the fate of the Persian Zoroastrian and the Hindu to be the victims of jihad. The history of political Islam is the destruction of Christianity in the Middle East, Egypt, Turkey and North Africa. Half of Christianity was lost. Before Islam, North Africa was the southern part of Europe (part of the Roman Empire). Around 60 million Christians were slaughtered during the jihadic conquest.
Half of the glorious Hindu civilization was annihilated and 80 million Hindus killed.
The first Western Buddhists were the Greeks descended from Alexander the Great’s army in what is now Afghanistan. Jihad destroyed all of Buddhism along the silk route. About 10 million Buddhists died. The conquest of Buddhism is the practical result of pacifism.
Zoarasterianism was eliminated from Persia.
The Jews became permanent dhimmis throughout Islam.
In Africa over 120 million Christians and animists have died over the last 1400 years of jihad.
Approximately 270 million nonbelievers died over the last 1400 years for the glory of political Islam. These are the Tears of Jihad which are not taught in any school.
FP: How have our intellectuals responded to Islam?
Warner: The basis of all the unbeliever’s thought has collapsed in the face of Islamic political thought, ethics and logic. We have already mentioned how our first intellectuals could not even name the invaders as Muslims. We have no method of analysis of Islam. We can’t agree on what Islam is and have no knowledge about our suffering as the victims of a 1400-year jihad.
Look at how Christians, Jews, blacks, intellectuals and artists have dealt with Islamic doctrine and history. In every case their primary ideas fail.
Christians believe that “love conquers all.” Well, love does not conquer Islam. Christians have a difficult time seeing Islam as a political doctrine, not a religion. The sectarian nature of Christian thought means that the average non-Orthodox Christian has no knowledge or sympathy about the Orthodox Christian’s suffering.
Jews have a theology that posits a unique relationship between Jews and the creator-god of the universe. But Islam sees the Jews as apes who corrupted the Old Testament. Jews see no connection between Islam’s political doctrine and Israel.
Black intellectuals have based their ideas on the slave/victim status and how wrong it was for white Christians to make them slaves. Islam has never acknowledged any of the pain and suffering it has caused in Africa with its 1400-year-old slave trade. But blacks make no attempt to get an apology from Muslims and are silent in the presence of Islam. Why? Is it because Arabs are their masters?
Multiculturalism is bankrupt against Islam’s demand for every civilization to submit. The culture of tolerance collapses in the face of the sacred intolerance of dualistic ethics. Intellectuals respond by ignoring the failure.
Our intellectuals and artists have been abused for 1400 years. Indeed, the psychology of our intellectuals is exactly like the psychology of the abused wife, the sexually abused child or rape victim. Look at the parallels between the response of abuse victims and our intellectuals. See how violence has caused denial.
The victims deny that the abuse took place: Our media never reports the majority of jihad around the world. Our intellectuals don’t talk about how all of the violence is connected to a political doctrine.
The abuser uses fear to control the victim: What was the reason that newspapers would not publish the Mohammed cartoon? Salman Rushdie still has a death sentence for his novel. What “cutting edge” artist creates any artistic statement about Islam? Fear rules our intellectuals and artists.
The victims find ways to blame themselves: We are to blame for the attacks on September 11, 2001. If we try harder Muslims will act nicer. We have to accommodate their needs.
The victim is humiliated: White people will not talk about how their ancestors were enslaved by Islam. No one wants to claim the victims of jihad. Why won’t we claim the suffering of our ancestors? Why don’t we cry about the loss of cultures and peoples? We are too ashamed to care.
The victim feels helpless: “What are we going to do?” “We can’t kill 1.3 billion people.” No one has any understanding or optimism. No one has an idea of what to try. The only plan is to “be nicer.”
The victim turns the anger inward: What is the most divisive issue in today’s politics? Iraq. And what is Iraq really about? Political Islam. The Web has a video about how the CIA and Bush planned and executed September 11. Cultural self-loathing is the watchword of our intellectuals and artists.
We hate ourselves because we are mentally molested and abused. Our intellectuals and artists have responded to the abuse of jihad just as a sexually abused child or a rape victim would respond. We are quite intellectually ill and are failing at our job of clear thinking. We can’t look at our denial.
FP: So summarize for us why it is so crucial for us to learn the doctrine of political Islam.
Warner: Political Islam has annihilated every culture it has invaded or immigrated to. The total time for annihilation takes centuries, but once Islam is ascendant it never fails. The host culture disappears and becomes extinct.
We must learn the doctrine of political Islam to survive. The doctrine is very clear that all forms of force and persuasion may and must be used to conquer us. Islam is a self-declared enemy of all unbelievers. The brilliant Chinese philosopher of war, Sun Tsu, had the dictum—know the enemy. We must know the doctrine of our enemy or be annihilated.
Or put another way: if we do not learn the doctrine of political Islam, our civilization will be annihilated just as Egypt’s Coptic civilization was annihilated.
Since unbelievers must know the doctrine of political Islam to survive, CSPI has written all of its books in simple English. Our books are scholarly, but easy to read. As an example, anyone who can read a newspaper can pick up A Simple Koran and read and understand it. It is not “dumbed down” and contains every single word of the original.
Not only is the language simple, but logic has been used to sort and categorize. Context and chronology have been restored. The result is a Koran that is an epic story ending in triumph over all enemies of Allah. All of our books and philosophy may be found at our center's website.
Islam declares that we are the enemies of Allah. If we do not learn the political doctrine of Islam we will end up just like the first victims of Islam—the tolerant, polytheist Arabs of Saudi Arabia who became the Wahabbis (a very strict branch of Islam) of today, the most intolerant culture on the face of the earth.
FP: Bill Warner, thank you for joining us today.
Warner: Jamie, thank you for your kindness and efforts.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=6AA49466-2575-491F-B712-CEA90FCCCD0D
Panel discussion on Amarnath land issue (audio): http://www.sdfgloba l.org/images/ audios/Aug% 2016%202008% 20Amarnath% 20Panel%20Discus sion.mp3
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