Capital suggestion
Incredible India
Sunday, December 07, 2008 (The News)
by Dr Farrukh Saleem
Did you know that over the past 14 years 54,969 Indians have been killed by Indian militants? Incredible. That translates into roughly 4,000 Indians getting killed per year by India's own militant entities. Did you know that of the 608 districts in India at least 231 districts are "currently afflicted, at differing intensities, by various insurgent and terrorist movements?" Incredible. And, that translates into roughly 40 per cent of the entire country being afflicted with some kind of militancy.
Did you know that RDX that killed 68 Samjhauta Express passengers was stolen from the Indian army by Indian army's Lt-Col Shrikant Purohit (RDX is explosive nitroamine used by militaries around the world)? Incredible. In 1985, National Security Guards or 'Black Cats' was formed to respond to terrorist activities. Do you know where the 'Black Cats' were on the night of November 26? Well, Black Cats were on VIP security duties. Sounds just like Pakistan, doesn't it? Guess who was arrested by India's Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) after a series of bomb blasts that killed 37 people in Malegaon (290 kilometres from Mumbai). It was Indian army's Lt Col Purohit. Do you know that the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) had accepted responsibility for the 2008 Ahmedabad bombing, the 2008 Japipur bombing and the 2008 Delhi bombing?
Clearly, the incidence of corruption within the Indian army is high. Clearly, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) is in a coma, RAW was caught snoring, the Joint Intelligence Committee has been caught sleeping and the Joint Cipher Bureau was nabbed napping.
Did you know that India suffers a $100 billion trade deficit? Did you know that this year the Bombay Stock Exchange has come down from 21,000 points to around 8,000; a loss of 60 per cent? Did you know that India is heavily dependent on foreign direct investment (FDI) to fill its external deficit?
These are all facts. Three more facts: one, the Indian State of Mizoram goes to polls on December 2. Two, the Indian State of Rajasthan goes to polls on December 4. Three, India must call general elections by April 2009. Now let us move to perceptions. The overwhelming perception, not just in India but around the world, is that there was some Pakistani connection to the Mumbai tragedy. The Indian National Congress (INC) has a serious political need to retaliate. And, India's national security apparatus would want to make sure that the Mumbai mishap is not repeated. At the same time, it is not in the interest of America's 'war on terror' that Pakistan's attention is diverted from FATA to the eastern border.
Intelligence Bureau (IB), India's internal intelligence agency, has already identified 270 home-grown militant entities operating within India. India's militants are out of control. So are Pakistan's.
The Indian army has absolutely no surgical strike capability and a very limited inventory of infrared-guided or laser-guided 'smart bombs' or precision guided munitions. Introducing combat projectiles (BM-30 Smerchs with a firing range of 90km, for instance), heavy munitions, BrahMos cruise missiles (from Brahmaputra of India and Moskva river of Russia) or Indian Air Force's (IAF) Jaguar IS, MiG-27s or Sukhoi Su-30s, ground attack aircraft, would achieve no national security objective -- and may in effect prove counterproductive. The INC is therefore using the US to pressurise Pakistan into producing substance that is politically sellable to voters in Delhi. The Pakistan army is already heavily burdened by battles in Bajaur, Swat, FATA and frequent drone attacks. Can it realistically afford to open up additional fronts?
Why is there a global perception that there was some Pakistani connection to the Mumbai tragedy? We must indeed be doing something wrong. Ronald Reagan used jihadis to defeat Russia. George Bush used the Northern Alliance to bring down the Taliban. India uses the Balochistan Liberation Army and the Baloch Students Organisation. In realpolitik, countries use non-state actors to bolster their foreign policy aims. So does Pakistan. But, our ex-proxies are going out and undertaking operations that are not in our strategic interest -- and those operations are giving us a bad name the world over.
Perceptions can be more powerful than facts. Pakistan must therefore redress global perceptions -- and crackdown on all sources of such perceptions. "Will Pakistan succumb to Washington's pressure to meaningfully clamp down….." wrote Syed Saleem Shahzad, the best strategic analyst around in these most difficult of days. That in fact amounts to tightrope walking -- domestic turmoil or an international crisis. Which one would it be?
The writer is an Islamabad-based freelance columnist. Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com
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Showing posts with label VHP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label VHP. Show all posts
Sunday, 7 December 2008
Did you know that over the past 14 years 54,969 Indians have been killed by Indian militants? Incredibe India - by Dr Farrukh Saleem
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
Prospects of Hindu terrorism in India
At least 10 people, including a serving Lieutenant Colonel Prashad Srikant Purohit and a Hindu monk and nun, have been arrested over alleged involvement in bomb explosions that killed four people in the Muslim-dominated town of Malegaon in the western Maharashtra state in India. The network is linked to another arrested former major Ramesh Upadhyay who represents the terrorist organisation Abhinav Bharat. The accused Lt Col Purohit is also being investigated over a bomb attack in February 2007 that killed 68 people on the Samjhauta Express, a “friendship” train between Delhi and Lahore, killing mostly Pakistani passengers. Investigators fear that the trail will go on to net more serving and retired officers.
The colonel has confessed to the Samjhauta Express blast and foreclosed the “options” of “conspiracy” screamed by some Hindutva politicians. Col Purohit has also confessed to training Hindu terrorists who had taken to attacking Muslims and has told investigators that he not only trained the Samjhauta Express terrorists, he also supplied them with the explosives to do the job. The intent he says was to cause armed conflict between Pakistan and India so that anti-Muslim passions could be nurtured in India, leading to violence.
Indian analysts are now worried about Hindu terrorism. Some of it has been on display for a long time against the Muslim community. Some of it is recent, targeting Christian missionaries and Christian converts. Because of the rise of Hindu fundamentalism in the 1980s, or a revival of old Hindu supremacist thinkers like Savarkar, who was behind the killing of Gandhi, India is now open to terrorism that is lashing out at the state. People are accustomed to voting the BJP to power as an alternative to the Congress and that in turn empowers the grand Hindu fundamentalist alliance called the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) that contains such extremist outfits as Bajrang Dal.
The Indian state of Gujarat that supplied India with some of its great moderate leaders and gave birth to the trading elite that has brought great prestige to the country, is now ruled by the BJP even after its government was found complicit in the carnage of Muslims. What will Hindu terrorism look like if, God forbid, it should spread into other provinces and the state proves too weak to tackle it? Will it take the shape of the Taliban violence in Pakistan? Will the Indian state be forced to retreat in the face of the terrorists because of its vulnerability to religion? Will the terrorists use intimidation to force the civilian population to elect extremists to power?
While terrorism derives strength from the general disorder prevailing around the globe, the Indian state was thought to be different, being secular constitutionally. But the rise of Hindu fundamentalists has begun to challenge the state and Indian analysts worry that there may be greater penetration of Hindutva ideology in the armed forces. The BJP has been wooing officers and brought into its fold many former generals, giving them tickets to contest elections for Lok Sabha. One former general affiliated with the BJP is a chief minister and one former governor S K Sinha stirred communal passions to a point where the Indian Held Kashmir is up in protest against New Delhi. There is no central dogma in Hinduism which the Hindu terrorist can refer to but Hindutva is being transformed into a dogmatic creed with Hindus agreeing to kill non-Hindus. Given that Lt Col Purohit was working in the Military Intelligence Directorate, the possibility of the intelligence agencies having been tainted can hardly be ignored.
Political parties like the BJP have built upon the idea of the Hindu state on the basis of an ideology that indicts the Muslims for having ruled India and imposed their religion on the local population. What is happening today is the high point of this “reaction” to the state’s alleged “pampering” of the Muslim minority even though the Muslims of India are a most backward and disadvantaged community and need affirmative action from the secular state to improve their lot. This “reactive” terrorism may not terrorise the world directly but if it gets out of hand within the region, it will have an indirect larger impact by spurring on the Muslim fundamentalists that are already gearing up for an Armageddon. It could also suck in Bangladesh.
On the plus side, the discovery of a connection between the Indian army and the Hindu fundamentalist could galvanise New Delhi into adopting a new policy that reduces focus on Pakistan as the origin of all such violence in India. The unravelling of the mystery of the Samjhauta Express blasts will hopefully bring India and Pakistan together and reduce their mutual recrimination. Once this trend subsides, the populations of the two countries will be freed from the rhetoric of hatred and distrust released by the two states against each other. Hatred of Pakistan in India feeds upon the constant refrain of “Pakistani involvement” in the bomb explosions in the various Indian cities that are later owned by local organisations. (Daily Times, 19 Nov 2008)
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The colonel has confessed to the Samjhauta Express blast and foreclosed the “options” of “conspiracy” screamed by some Hindutva politicians. Col Purohit has also confessed to training Hindu terrorists who had taken to attacking Muslims and has told investigators that he not only trained the Samjhauta Express terrorists, he also supplied them with the explosives to do the job. The intent he says was to cause armed conflict between Pakistan and India so that anti-Muslim passions could be nurtured in India, leading to violence.
Indian analysts are now worried about Hindu terrorism. Some of it has been on display for a long time against the Muslim community. Some of it is recent, targeting Christian missionaries and Christian converts. Because of the rise of Hindu fundamentalism in the 1980s, or a revival of old Hindu supremacist thinkers like Savarkar, who was behind the killing of Gandhi, India is now open to terrorism that is lashing out at the state. People are accustomed to voting the BJP to power as an alternative to the Congress and that in turn empowers the grand Hindu fundamentalist alliance called the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) that contains such extremist outfits as Bajrang Dal.
The Indian state of Gujarat that supplied India with some of its great moderate leaders and gave birth to the trading elite that has brought great prestige to the country, is now ruled by the BJP even after its government was found complicit in the carnage of Muslims. What will Hindu terrorism look like if, God forbid, it should spread into other provinces and the state proves too weak to tackle it? Will it take the shape of the Taliban violence in Pakistan? Will the Indian state be forced to retreat in the face of the terrorists because of its vulnerability to religion? Will the terrorists use intimidation to force the civilian population to elect extremists to power?
While terrorism derives strength from the general disorder prevailing around the globe, the Indian state was thought to be different, being secular constitutionally. But the rise of Hindu fundamentalists has begun to challenge the state and Indian analysts worry that there may be greater penetration of Hindutva ideology in the armed forces. The BJP has been wooing officers and brought into its fold many former generals, giving them tickets to contest elections for Lok Sabha. One former general affiliated with the BJP is a chief minister and one former governor S K Sinha stirred communal passions to a point where the Indian Held Kashmir is up in protest against New Delhi. There is no central dogma in Hinduism which the Hindu terrorist can refer to but Hindutva is being transformed into a dogmatic creed with Hindus agreeing to kill non-Hindus. Given that Lt Col Purohit was working in the Military Intelligence Directorate, the possibility of the intelligence agencies having been tainted can hardly be ignored.
Political parties like the BJP have built upon the idea of the Hindu state on the basis of an ideology that indicts the Muslims for having ruled India and imposed their religion on the local population. What is happening today is the high point of this “reaction” to the state’s alleged “pampering” of the Muslim minority even though the Muslims of India are a most backward and disadvantaged community and need affirmative action from the secular state to improve their lot. This “reactive” terrorism may not terrorise the world directly but if it gets out of hand within the region, it will have an indirect larger impact by spurring on the Muslim fundamentalists that are already gearing up for an Armageddon. It could also suck in Bangladesh.
On the plus side, the discovery of a connection between the Indian army and the Hindu fundamentalist could galvanise New Delhi into adopting a new policy that reduces focus on Pakistan as the origin of all such violence in India. The unravelling of the mystery of the Samjhauta Express blasts will hopefully bring India and Pakistan together and reduce their mutual recrimination. Once this trend subsides, the populations of the two countries will be freed from the rhetoric of hatred and distrust released by the two states against each other. Hatred of Pakistan in India feeds upon the constant refrain of “Pakistani involvement” in the bomb explosions in the various Indian cities that are later owned by local organisations. (Daily Times, 19 Nov 2008)
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Friday, 31 October 2008
Suspected Indian Army Personnel's involvement in Malegaon blasts - ISI versus RAW and sectarianism in India and Pakistan
Indeed, it is not just ISI (or 'was not' just ISI) that has (had) connections with organizations which are (were?) involved in terrorist/sectarian activities in and outside Pakistan. Indian Army too does not seem to be not much different.
BJP = Jamaat-e-Islami, MMA, (and other right wing parties in Pakistan)
Vishwa Hindu Preshad = All sectarian and jihadi organizations in Pakistan particularly those sponsored by ISI (e.g. Sipah-e-Sahaba, Jaish-e-Muhammad etc)
RAW = ISI
There are however three key differences.
1. Unlike Mullah-Military Alliance in Pakistan, there is no VHP military alliance in India.
2. Their police is authorized to arrest a serving colonel.
3. India is far behind Pakistan in terms of the operation and effectiveness of disinformation cells which spring into action against every democratic government in Pakistan notwithstanding party affiliations, convincing many people that Musharraf and Zia were much better than Sharifs and Bhuttos.
Suspected involvement in Malegaon blasts: Indian Army says police can quiz its officials
By Iftikhar Gilani (Daily Times)
NEW DELHI: The Indian Army said on Thursday it was extending full co-operation to police to question its serving officials found in league with recently arrested Hindu terrorists involved in the bomb blasts in Muslim localities and mosques. “‘In the course of investigations by the Maharashtra police in the Malegaon bombing, some inputs of possible linkages of a serving army officer with other suspects have come to light. Accordingly, the police have, at this stage, sought to interact with the officer concerned and seek clarifications from him so as to proceed with further investigations,” said a statement issued by the Army Headquarters.
Sources said the army had already “moved” the suspected serving officer, Lt Colonel Prasad Purohit, to Mumbai so that he could be questioned by the police in connection with the blasts on September 29. The Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) of the Mumbai police suspects Purohit was associated with Major (r) Ramesh Upadhye, who is also under arrest in connection with the blasts. The ATS claims it has evidence of Purohit and Upadhye’s telephone conversations. It suspects Purohit was also in contact with Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, a Hindu woman ascetic, who is under arrest in connection with the blasts.
Purohit and Thakur allegedly met at the Bhonsle Military School in Nashik on September 16. The army, in a press statement, said it would provide all assistance to the investigating agencies to probe suspects as and when required. “While no formal application has been received from the police authorities, the army headquarters have decided to extend full co-operation and facilitate interaction of the officer with the concerned investigating officials of the police. The officer has been moved to Mumbai to facilitate interaction at a mutually convenient date,”’ said the statement. Sources, however, said the army gave permission to quiz the officer with the stipulation that he would be interrogated in the presence of another army officer. It is learnt that the officer could be discharged from the army if his involvement in the crime is preliminarily proved and may be tried by a civilian court.
....
Also, read BBC Urdu dot com article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/india/story/2008/10/081031_malegaon_blast_arrest_sz.shtml
Read more...
BJP = Jamaat-e-Islami, MMA, (and other right wing parties in Pakistan)
Vishwa Hindu Preshad = All sectarian and jihadi organizations in Pakistan particularly those sponsored by ISI (e.g. Sipah-e-Sahaba, Jaish-e-Muhammad etc)
RAW = ISI
There are however three key differences.
1. Unlike Mullah-Military Alliance in Pakistan, there is no VHP military alliance in India.
2. Their police is authorized to arrest a serving colonel.
3. India is far behind Pakistan in terms of the operation and effectiveness of disinformation cells which spring into action against every democratic government in Pakistan notwithstanding party affiliations, convincing many people that Musharraf and Zia were much better than Sharifs and Bhuttos.
Suspected involvement in Malegaon blasts: Indian Army says police can quiz its officials
By Iftikhar Gilani (Daily Times)
NEW DELHI: The Indian Army said on Thursday it was extending full co-operation to police to question its serving officials found in league with recently arrested Hindu terrorists involved in the bomb blasts in Muslim localities and mosques. “‘In the course of investigations by the Maharashtra police in the Malegaon bombing, some inputs of possible linkages of a serving army officer with other suspects have come to light. Accordingly, the police have, at this stage, sought to interact with the officer concerned and seek clarifications from him so as to proceed with further investigations,” said a statement issued by the Army Headquarters.
Sources said the army had already “moved” the suspected serving officer, Lt Colonel Prasad Purohit, to Mumbai so that he could be questioned by the police in connection with the blasts on September 29. The Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) of the Mumbai police suspects Purohit was associated with Major (r) Ramesh Upadhye, who is also under arrest in connection with the blasts. The ATS claims it has evidence of Purohit and Upadhye’s telephone conversations. It suspects Purohit was also in contact with Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, a Hindu woman ascetic, who is under arrest in connection with the blasts.
Purohit and Thakur allegedly met at the Bhonsle Military School in Nashik on September 16. The army, in a press statement, said it would provide all assistance to the investigating agencies to probe suspects as and when required. “While no formal application has been received from the police authorities, the army headquarters have decided to extend full co-operation and facilitate interaction of the officer with the concerned investigating officials of the police. The officer has been moved to Mumbai to facilitate interaction at a mutually convenient date,”’ said the statement. Sources, however, said the army gave permission to quiz the officer with the stipulation that he would be interrogated in the presence of another army officer. It is learnt that the officer could be discharged from the army if his involvement in the crime is preliminarily proved and may be tried by a civilian court.
....
Also, read BBC Urdu dot com article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/india/story/2008/10/081031_malegaon_blast_arrest_sz.shtml
Read more...
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