[Reader-list] The rebirth of the Indian Mujahideen - PRAVEEN SWAMI

Wed Apr 21 22:09:36 IST 2010

Lalith, those who preach of freedom of expression, are now have made me a
Mukhbar.The posts are returned by post fix program of the site., as per the
return message i get.!

On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 9:00 PM, Lalit Ambardar
<lalitambardar at hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> One need not necessarily
> be a fan of PS to express outrage over attempts to purge him from this
> forum.
>
>
>
> Never thought that it
> was mandatory to respond to every ‘progressive’ or even ‘not so
> progressive’
> thought posted on this forum. My concurrence on any issue if assumed on
> that
> pretext stands withdrawn.
>
>
>
> Also, this anti PS
> campaign is akin to the modus operandi that was adopted as part of the well
> executed
> process of ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindu Pandits in the valley in
> 1989-90.
> Many of them were selectively declared as ‘Mukhbar’ – informer or agent (of
> India) & killed brutally to create
> fear psychosis in the community.
>
>
>
> Regards all
>
> LA
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> > Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2010 17:40:16 +0530
> > From: javedmasoo at gmail.com
> > To: pawan.durani at gmail.com
> > CC: reader-list at sarai.net
> > Subject: Re: [Reader-list] The rebirth of the Indian Mujahideen - PRAVEEN
>     SWAMI
> >
>  > Everyone means those who agreed (that Praveen's writing are not
> > trustworthy) and those who didn't object to that fact.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 3:26 PM, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > > Everyone ? Who all consists of everyone ? Pls enlighten
> > >
> > > On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 3:25 PM, Javed <javedmasoo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> Dear Pawan
> > >> If you remember, some weeks ago, everyone on this list agreed that
> > >> whatever Praveen Swami says is not to be trusted. So, kindly do not
> > >> forward any of Swami's write-ups here.
> > >>
> > >> Thanks
> > >>
> > >> Javed
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 9:34 AM, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >>> http://beta.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article402892.ece
> > >>>
> > >>> Saturday's bombings in Bangalore are a grim reminder that the
> jihadist
> > >>> movement is far from spent.
> > >>>
> > >>> Less than an hour before police surrounded the Indian Mujahideen
> > >>> bomb-factory hidden away on the fringes of the Bhadra forests in
> > >>> Chikmagalur, Mohammad Zarar Siddi Bawa had slipped away on a bus
> bound
> > >>> for Mangalore — the first step in a journey that would take him to
> the
> > >>> safety of a Lashkar-e-Taiba safehouse in Karachi.
> > >>>
> > >>> Inside the house, officers involved in the October, 2008, raid found
> > >>> evidence of Bawa's work: laboratory equipment used to test and
> prepare
> > >>> chemicals, precision tools, and five complete improvised explosive
> > >>> devices. Even as investigators across India set about filing
> paperwork
> > >>> declaring Bawa a fugitive, few believed they would ever be able to
> lay
> > >>> eyes on him again.
> > >>>
> > >>> But in February, a closed-circuit television camera placed over the
> > >>> cashier's counter at the Germany Bakery in Pune recorded evidence
> that
> > >>> Bawa had returned to India — just minutes before an improvised
> > >>> explosive device ripped through the popular restaurant killing
> > >>> seventeen people, and injuring at least sixty.
> > >>>
> > >>> Dressed in a loose-fitting blue shirt, a rucksack slung over his
> back,
> > >>> the fair, slight young man with a wispy beard has been identified by
> > >>> police sources in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka as “Yasin
> > >>> Bhatkal” — the man who made the bombs which ripped apart ten Indian
> > >>> towns and cities between 2005 and 2008. Witnesses at the restaurant
> > >>> also identified Bawa from photographs, noting that he was wearing
> > >>> trousers rolled up above his ankles — a style favoured by some
> > >>> neo-fundamentalists.
> > >>>
> > >>> Bawa is emerging as the key suspect in Saturday's bombings outside
> the
> > >>> M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore — a grim reminder that the
> > >>> jihadist offensive that began after the 2002 communal violence in
> > >>> India is very far from spent.
> > >>>
> > >>> The obscure jihadist
> > >>>
> > >>> Little is known about just what led Bawa to join the jihadist
> > >>> movement. Educated at Bhatkal's well-respected Anjuman
> > >>> Hami-e-Muslimeen school, 32-year-old Bawa left for Pune as a
> teenager.
> > >>> He was later introduced to other members of the Indian Mujahideen as
> > >>> an engineer, but police in Pune have found no documentation
> suggesting
> > >>> he ever studied in the city.
> > >>>
> > >>> Instead, Bawa spent much of his time with a childhood friend living
> in
> > >>> Pune, Unani medicine practitioner-turned-Islamist proselytiser Iqbal
> > >>> Ismail Shahbandri. Like his brother Riyaz Ismail Shahbandri — now the
> > >>> Indian Mujahideen's top military commander — Ismail Shahbandri had
> > >>> become an ideological mentor to many young Islamists in Pune and
> > >>> Mumbai, many of them highly-educated professionals.
> > >>>
> > >>> The Shahbandari brothers' parents, like many members of the Bhatkal
> > >>> elite, had relocated to Mumbai in search of new economic
> > >>> opportunities. Ismail Shahbandri, their father, set up
> leather-tanning
> > >>> factory in Mumbai's Kurla area in the mid-1970s. Riyaz Shahbandri
> went
> > >>> on to obtain a civil engineering degree from Mumbai's Saboo Siddiqui
> > >>> Engineering College and, in 2002, was married to Nasuha Ismail, the
> > >>> daughter of an electronics store owner in Bhatkal's Dubai Market.
> > >>>
> > >>> Shafiq Ahmad, Nasuha's brother, had drawn Riyaz Shahbandri into the
> > >>> Students Islamic Movement of India. He first met his Indian
> Mujahideen
> > >>> co-founders Abdul Subhan Qureshi and Sadiq Israr Sheikh, in the
> months
> > >>> before his marriage. Later, Riyaz Shahbandri made contact with
> > >>> ganglord-turned-jihadist Amir Raza Khan. In the wake of the communal
> > >>> violence that ripped Gujarat apart in 2002, the men set about
> > >>> funnelling recruits to Lashkar camps in Pakistan.
> > >>>
> > >>> Early in the summer of 2004, investigators say, the core members of
> > >>> the network that was later to call itself the Indian Mujahideen met
> at
> > >>> Bhatkal's beachfront to discuss their plans. Iqbal Shahbandri and
> > >>> Bhatkal-based cleric Shabbir Gangoli are alleged to have held
> > >>> ideological classes; the group also took time out to practice
> shooting
> > >>> with airguns. Bawa had overall charge of arrangements — a task that
> > >>> illustrated his status as the Bhatkal brothers' most trusted
> > >>> lieutenant.
> > >>>
> > >>> Bhatkal, police investigators say, became the centre of the Indian
> > >>> Mujahideen's operations. From their safehouses in Vitthalamakki and
> > >>> Hakkalamane, bombs were despatched to operational cells dispersed
> > >>> across the country, feeding the most sustained jihadist offensive
> > >>> India has ever seen.
> > >>>
> > >>> Communal war
> > >>>
> > >>> Like so many of his peers in the Indian Mujahideen, Bawa emerged from
> > >>> a fraught communal landscape. Bhatkal's Nawayath Muslims, made
> > >>> prosperous by hundreds of years of trade across the Indian Ocean,
> > >>> emerged as the region's dominant land-owning community. Early in the
> > >>> twentieth century, inspired by call of Aligarh reformer Syed Ahmed
> > >>> Khan, Bhatkal notables led a campaign to bring modern education for
> > >>> the community. The Anjuman Hami-e-Muslimeen school where Bawa studied
> > >>> was one product of their efforts, which eventually spawned
> > >>> highly-regarded institutions that now cater to over several thousand
> > >>> students.
> > >>>
> > >>> Organisations like the Anjuman helped the Navayath Muslims capitalise
> > >>> on the new opportunities for work and business with opened up in the
> > >>> United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia during the 1970s. But this
> > >>> wealth, in turn, engendered resentments which laid the ground for an
> > >>> communal conflict. In the years after the Emergency, the Jana Sangh
> > >>> and its affiliates began to capitalise on resentments Bhatkal's
> Hindus
> > >>> felt about the prosperity and political power of the Navayaths. The
> > >>> campaign paid off in 1983, when the Hindu right-wing succeeded in
> > >>> dethroning legislator S.M. Yahya, who had served as a state minister
> > >>> between 1972 and 1982.
> > >>>
> > >>> Both communities entered into a competitive communal confrontation,
> > >>> which involved the ostentatious display of piety and power. The
> > >>> Tablighi Jamaat, a neo-fundamentalist organisation which calls on
> > >>> followers to live life in a style claimed to be modelled on that of
> > >>> the Prophet Mohammad, drew a growing mass of followers. Hindutva
> > >>> groups like the Karavalli Hindu Samiti, too, staged ever-larger
> > >>> religious displays to demonstrate their clout.
> > >>>
> > >>> Early in 1993, Bhatkal was hit by communal riots which claimed
> > >>> seventeen lives and left dozens injured. The violence, which began
> > >>> after Hindutva groups claimed stones had been thrown at a Ram Navami
> > >>> procession, and lasted nine months. Later, in April 1996, two Muslims
> > >>> were murdered in retaliation for the assassination of Bharatiya
> Janata
> > >>> Party legislator U. Chittaranjan — a crime that investigators now say
> > >>> may have been linked to the Bhatkal brothers. More violence broke out
> > >>> in 2004, after the assassination of BJP leader Thimmappa Naik.
> > >>>
> > >>> Iqbal Shahbandri and his recruits were, in key senses, rebels against
> > >>> a traditional political order that appeared to have failed to defend
> > >>> Muslim rights and interests. Inside the Indian Mujahideen safehouses
> > >>> raided in October, 2008, police found no evidence that traditional
> > >>> theological literature or the writings of the Tablighi Jamaat had
> > >>> influenced the group. Instead, they found pro-Taliban videos and
> > >>> speeches by Zakir Naik — a popular but controversial Mumbai-based
> > >>> televangelist who has, among other things, defends Al-Qaeda chief
> > >>> Osama bin-Laden.
> > >>>
> > >>> “If he is fighting the enemies of Islam”, Naik said in one speech, “I
> > >>> am for him. If he is terrorising America the terrorist—the biggest
> > >>> terrorist — I am with him.” “Every Muslim” Naik concluded, “should be
> > >>> a terrorist. The thing is, if he is terrorising a terrorist, he is
> > >>> following Islam”. Naik has never been found to be involved in
> > >>> violence, but his words have fired the imagination of a diverse
> > >>> jihadists — among them, Glasgow suicide-bomber Kafeel Ahmed, 2006
> > >>> Mumbai train-bombing accused Feroze Deshmukh, and New York taxi
> driver
> > >>> Najibullah Zazi, who faces trial for planning to attack the city's
> > >>> Grand Central Railway Station.
> > >>>
> > >>> Language like this spoke to concerns of the young people who were
> > >>> drawn to separate jihadist cells that began to spring up across India
> > >>> after the 2002 violence, mirroring the growth of the Indian
> > >>> Mujahideen. SIMI leader Safdar Nagori set up a group that included
> the
> > >>> Bangalore information-technology professionals Peedical Abdul Shibli
> > >>> and Yahya Kamakutty; in Kerala Tadiyantavide Nasir, Abdul Sattar, and
> > >>> Abdul Jabbar set up a separate organisation that is alleged to have
> > >>> bombed Bangalore in 2008
> > >>>
> > >>> Storms of hate
> > >>>
> > >>> Well-entrenched in the political system, Bhatkal's Muslim leadership
> > >>> has been hostile to radical Islamism. Efforts by Islamist political
> > >>> groups to establish a presence there have, for the most part, been
> > >>> unsuccessful. But authorities acknowledge Bhatkal, like much of the
> > >>> Dakshina Kannada region, remains communally fraught. Small-scale
> > >>> confrontations are routine. Earlier this month, the Karavalli Hindu
> > >>> Samiti even staged demonstrations in support of the Sanatana Sanstha,
> > >>> the Hindutva group police in Goa say was responsible for terrorist
> > >>> bombings carried out last year.
> > >>>
> > >>> Pakistan's intelligence services and transnational jihadist groups
> > >>> like the Lashkar nurtured and fed India's jihadist movement — but its
> > >>> birth was the outcome of an ugly communal contestation that remains
> > >>> unresolved. Even as India's police and intelligence services work to
> > >>> dismantle the jihadist project, politicians need to find means to
> > >>> still the storms of hate which sustain it.
> > >>> _________________________________________
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-- 
Rajen.