[Reader-list] Ahmedabad blasts: the usual suspects

[Shivam Vij शिवम् विज्]

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http://ia.rediff.com/news/2008/aug/01ahd3.htm



On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 6:54 PM, Partha Dasgupta <parthaekka at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Don't know were you sourced this from, but this large continuous block of
> text with punctuation missing is unreadable.
>
> Rgds, Partha
> ...............................
>
> On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 6:44 PM, TaraPrakash <taraprakash at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Ahmedabad blasts: the usual suspects
> >  Praveen Swami  Gujarat has been targeted by jihadists half-a-dozen times
> > since 2002 in a little-understood war.  One still afternoon in March 2002,
> > Feroze Abdul Latif Ghaswala watched 40 victims of the anti-Muslim pogrom
> > being buried near his aunt's home in Ahmedabad.Back home in Mumbai, the
> > automobile mechanic saw a printout of a Lashkar-e-Taiba pamphlet, which
> > purported to show a riot victim begging for his life:"Do you think he should
> > have a gun," it asked.  In September 2003, Ghaswala volunteered for training
> > in Pakistan with a group led by the 2006 Mumbai serial bombing architect,
> > Rahil Abdul Rehman Sheikh.When the Delhi police caught up with him in the
> > summer of 2006, Ghaswala, along with computer engineer Ali Mohammad Cheepa,
> > had just received a consignmentof military-grade explosives from the Lashkar
> > for a major bombing in Ahmedabad Ever since last week's bombings in
> > Ahmedabad — one among half-a-dozen major plots targeting Gujarat that the
> > Indian police and intelligence services didnot succeed in interdicting — the
> > media have not tired of informing us that jihadist terrorism has taken a
> > dramatic new turn. Instead of Pakistan-basedterrorists, it is claimed, a new
> > generation of Indian jihadists is spearheading the attacks.  On point of
> > fact, the claim is nonsensical: not one single Islamist urban terror cell
> > since 1993 has not involved a preponderance of Indian nationals. Butthe
> > claim does show how little Islamist terror groups, and the politics that
> > have driven their growth, are understood in India. Politics isn't welcome at
> > the Lal Masjid seminary in Ahmedabad's Kaulpur area. Its students learn the
> > six principles of Islam as enunciated by the founderof the Tablighi Jamaat,
> > Mohammad Illyas, and are exhorted to give up frivolities like television and
> > cinema. Maulana Sufiyan Patangia, who ran the seminary,often travelled to
> > Saudi Arabia, seeking support for his students. After the January 26, 2001
> > Gujarat earthquake, the cleric put these networks to useto raise funds for
> > relief work. It was his first foray into the secular world. The al-Qaeda's
> > bombing of New York and Washington D.C. gave Patangia a new cause. In the
> > wake of the United States-led war on the Taliban, he declared thatIslam was
> > in danger. He set up a study group, Idara-e-Fadlullah-ul-Muslimeen
> > (Institution of Charity for Muslims), to educate his earthquake
> > volunteers.The IFM members monitored events in Afghanistan on the Internet,
> > and listened to tapes of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Mohammad Masood Azhar's
> > speeches.  Patangia used to be jokingly called 'Mullah Omar,' after the
> > Taliban leader. His second-in-command Suhail Khan adopted an Osama
> > bin-Laden-style headgear,acquiring the nickname 'Chhota Osama,' or Little
> > Osama. In February 2002, when the communal pogrom in Gujarat began, Patangia
> > was in Saudi Arabia on hisannual pilgrimage. He turned to the South Asian
> > Islamist there for help to defend his community — and to exact revenge.
> > Abdul Bari, a one-time Hyderabadresident who is among the Lashkar's top
> > financiers, put up Rs.3,75,000. Two Saudi-based JeM fundraisers of Hyderabad
> > origin, Farhatullah Ghauri and AbdulRehman, threw in another Rs.5,00,000.
> > Most important, though, Patangia made contact with Rasool Khan 'Party' —
> > nicknamed with the Ahmedabad argot for 'contractor' because of his work for
> > topGujarat mafioso Abdul Latif Sheikh and his Pakistan-based boss, Dawood
> > Ibrahim Kaksar. In May 2002, Khan and his brother Idris met Patangia in
> > Mumbai todiscuss just how vengeance might be planned.  Late in May 2002,
> > five bombs went off on buses in Ahmedabad, injuring 26 people. It was the
> > first act of violence by Gujarat-based jihadists. In December,Khan arranged
> > for eight of Patangia's volunteers to travel to Pakistan for training. Along
> > with other groups of young people from Hyderabad, Mumbai andBangalore, the
> > Ahmedabad jihadists flew to Pakistan through Dhaka, Kathmandu, Dubai and
> > Bangkok. Soon, the vengeance they sought was delivered. Gujarat's Home
> > Minister, Haren Pandya, who had led some of the most murderous mobs in
> > Ahmedabad during thepogrom, was shot just 13 months later, by when he ceased
> > to be Home Minister. Central Bureau of Investigation detectives later
> > determined that he was killedby a hit-team directed by Patangia. Nine of the
> > 12 assassins received life terms last year. Despite the CBI's successes,
> > plans for large-scale reprisal attacks in Gujarat continued apace. The LeT
> > and the Maharashtra-based Students Islamic Movementof India operatives took
> > the lead — helped by a steady flow of funds.  In June 2004, the LeT
> > despatched two Pakistani nationals from Jammu and Kashmir to execute a
> > fidayeen attack in Gujarat. Jishan Johar of Gujranwala in Pakistanand Amjad
> > Ali Rana, who hailed form Sargodha, were killed in a controversial encounter
> > in Ahmedabad along with SIMI activist Javed Sheikh and his friend,Ishrat
> > Jehan Raza.  The Maharashtra-based SIMI bomb-maker Zulfikar Fayyaz Kagzi
> > built a sophisticated suitcase bomb that was planted on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad
> > Express train inFebruary 2006. An error in the timer circuit resulted in the
> > bomb exploding 12 hours after the scheduled detonation time, by when the
> > cleaning staff haddeposited the suitcase in an empty corner of the Ahmedabad
> > station. And in May 2006, the Intelligence Bureau prevented a potentially
> > catastrophic bombingin Gujarat, penetrating an Aurangabad-based SIMI unit,
> > which was in an advanced stage of preparation for serial bomb strikes.
> >  Intellectual infrastructure  Has the vengeance the jihadists sought been
> > delivered? Not quite. Minutes before the latest bombing, the Indian
> > Mujahideen — a Lashkar-SIMI front organisationwhich also took responsibility
> > for the earlier bombings in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh — sent out a
> > manifesto explaining just what it now seeks. According to the manifesto, the
> > Indian Mujahideen is "raising the illustrious banner of Jihad against the
> > Hindus and all those who fight and resist us,and here we begin our revenge
> > with the help and Permission of Allah — a terrifying revenge of our blood,
> > our lives and our honour that will Insha-Allahterminate your survival on
> > this land." The manifesto calls on Hindus to "realise that the falsehood of
> > your 33 crore dirty mud idols and the blasphemy of your deaf, dumb mute and
> > naked idolsof ram, krishna and hanuman [sic; capitalisation as in original
> > throughout] are not at all going to save your necks from being slaughtered
> > by our hands."It demands that Hindus change their attitudes, lest "another
> > Ghauri shakes your foundations, and lest another Ghaznavi massacres you,
> > proving your bloodto be the cheapest of all mankind." No great effort is
> > needed to locate the intellectual genesis of this body of ideas: it draws
> > heavily on long-standing LeT polemic. Indeed, the manifesto'splea that the
> > LeT not take responsibility for the attacks is something of a giveaway,
> > since the terror group has never owned up to actions targeting civilians.In
> > 2003, for example, the LeT argued on its website that violence against
> > Muslims in India was an outcome of the core character of Hindus, who "have
> > nocompassion in their religion." It was the duty of Muslims to wage a jihad
> > against "Hindu oppressors," and it was "the Hindu who is a terrorist."
> > Lashkar chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed also said, "the Hindu is a mean enemy and
> > the proper way to deal with him is the one adopted by our forefathers
> > [who]crushed them by force." He made clear — just as the Indian Mujahideen
> > has — that the objective of the jihad was extending Muslim control over what
> > it sawas Muslim land. At a November 1999 rally, he promised that he would
> > "not rest until the whole of India is dissolved into Pakistan." All those
> > who participatedin this project were promised "huge places in Paradise."
> > SIMI, like the Indian Mujahideen, also invoked medieval conquerors in its
> > literature. In the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, SIMI called
> > forMuslims to avenge the act by following in the steps of the 11th century
> > conqueror, Mahmud Ghaznavi. SIMI posters appealed to god to send another
> > Ghaznavi,and thus avenge attacks on Muslims and their mosques by attacking
> > temples. Local influences  Local religious influences are also evident. In
> > its manifesto, the Indian Mujahideen describes itself as "terrorist," an
> > apparently odd usage. However,it suggests that the author followed the
> > neoconservative television evangelist Zakir Naik — just as several past
> > Mumbai-based Lashkar operatives like RahilSheikh and Feroze Deshmukh did.
> >  In a controversial speech on al-Qaeda chief Osama bin-Laden, Naik
> > proclaimed, "If he is fighting the enemies of Islam, I am for him. If he is
> > terrorisingAmerica the terrorist — the biggest terrorist — I am with him."
> > "Every Muslim should be a terrorist," Naik concluded. "The thing is, if he
> > is terrorisinga terrorist, he is following Islam." Most Indian Muslims would
> > dispute the proposition: it is not for nothing, after all, that the Indian
> > Mujahideen manifesto devotes considerable space torailing against clerics
> > who oppose its jihadism. But the fact remains that some numbers of young
> > Muslims — angered by discrimination, enraged by pogroms— see jihadism as the
> > sole option available to them. As the work of scholar Ashutosh Varshney
> > points out, the roots of this tragedy lie in the breakdownof inter-communal
> > institutions: in a creeping religious apartheid that enveloped Gujarat in
> > the second half of the last century, decades before the pogrom. In the weeks
> > to come, the police and intelligence investigators will have to find out the
> > perpetrators of the bombings. Politicians, however, have a farmore important
> > task: to ensure that justice and equity are placed at centre stage of civic
> > life in Gujarat, and India as a whole. No other way exists tobring down the
> > intellectual infrastructure of hate, on which the jihadist campaign rests.
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>
>
>
> --
> Partha Dasgupta
> +919811047132
> _________________________________________
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