MUSLIM
HATE IN INDIA!
Drones, explosives, and hate literature: How a village just 50 km away from Mumbai turned into India’s ISIS nerve centre
Opindia
May 20, 2024
Padgha experienced a dramatic and menacing transformation, earning the
reputation of becoming India's ISIS hub. This shift was masterminded by
the notorious terrorist Saqib Nachan. Under his direction, Padgha was
renamed Al Sham and began functioning almost like an independent
enclave, governed by the repressive Sharia rule.
Mumbai, India’s financial centre and the capital of Maharashtra, is a
bustling city known for its cosmopolitan nature and bustling
activities. But a new report by journalist Pankaj Prasoon paints a
sinister development underway in its neighbourhood, Padgha, a backwater
town 50 kilometres northeast of Mumbai.
Padgha experienced a dramatic and menacing transformation, earning the
reputation of becoming India’s ISIS hub. This shift was masterminded by
the notorious terrorist Saqib Nachan. Under his direction, Padgha was
renamed Al Sham and began functioning almost like an independent
enclave, governed by the repressive Sharia rule.
Saqib Nachan, a notorious terrorist, turned Padgha into a hub for
extremism. Once a serene village, Padgha experienced a dramatic shift
with the influx of unfamiliar and suspicious individuals, accompanied
by a rise in Islamic radicalisation. This transformation accelerated
Padgha’s descent into a centre for terror planning and radicalism,
significantly altering its character and raising substantial security
concerns.
In 2023, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) executed a major raid
in Padgha, uncovering 44 drones primed for an attack on Mumbai. This
significant cache suggested that the terrorists had sophisticated plans
and likely external support. However, the drones were not the only
alarming discovery. The NIA also found a substantial stash of weapons
and extremist literature. Surprisingly, Israeli flags were among the
items seized, hinting at broader and more complex motives behind the
activities in Padgha, possibly aiming to incite greater tension and
violence.
The revelation of such a well-equipped terror hub so close to Mumbai
raised serious national security concerns. The once peaceful village
had become a significant threat, capable of launching major attacks,
prompting critical questions about local security and community
vigilance.
Padgha’s transformation from a quiet village to an ISIS hub known as Al
Sham starkly illustrates the severe dangers posed by modern terrorism.
It underscores the urgent need for robust intelligence, swift action,
and a unified effort to ensure national safety.
Who is Saquib Nachan? The SIMI-linked terrorist who is the brains behind establishing ISIS hub Al Sham in India
Terrorist Saquib Nachan is the mastermind behind the village of
Al-Sham. Nachan gained infamy after being involved in multiple terror
blasts in Mumbai in just four months. He was accused of a blast at
Mumbai Central railway station that injured 25 people in December 2002.
A month later, he was accused of another bomb blast, this time in Vile
Parle which killed 1 and injured 25 others. In March 2003, Nachan was
named in a bomb blast at Mulund station that killed 11 and injured 82.
He was arrested shortly after that by Mumbai Police in April 2003 and
held in prison for over 7 years. In 2011, he managed to secure bail but
was arrested months later in connection with an attempted murder of VHP
activist and lawyer Manoj Raicha.
The former secretary of SIMI was finally convicted in March 2016 for
possessing weapons under the anti-terror law and sentenced to 10 years
in jail. He served one year and 8 months in jail as a convict, while
the remainder of the term as undertrial to come out free in November
2017.
In Padgha, Nachan strategically settled recruits in the pursuit to
create a separate state. Intelligence sources reveal that Nachan played
a pivotal role in radicalizing youth, organizing various training
programs, and managing foreign operations, funding, and psychological
warfare against India. His plans included orchestrating bombings across
India, surpassing the severity of the 26/11 attacks. Additionally,
Nachan administered the Bayʿah (oath of allegiance) to recruits,
strengthening their commitment to the jihadist cause.
Under the guidance of foreign handlers, the accused actively
participated in terrorist activities, including manufacturing
improvised explosive devices (IEDs) for planned attacks. They
encouraged vulnerable Muslim youths to move to Al-Sham (Padgha) to
bolster their presence.
However, the details of the nefarious designs of waging armed jihad and
terror attacks in India with Padgha or Al-Sham as the ISIS India base
came to the fore when the NIA arrested 15 terrorists, including Nachan
in December 2023. Nachan’s arrest had come months after the security
agencies got hold of his son, Shamil Nachan, who is accused of similar
terror activities as his father, underscoring the enormity of rampant
Islamic radicalism and terrorism prevalent in India.
Tension in
Katihar district after Islamist mob desecrate, vandalise
Chhath Puja ghat
Quoting the
Muslims in the area, a Hindu woman stated, "They say that they will create
more Muslim dominated areas, drive Hindus away and grab their lands."
22 November,
2020
Opindia.com
Amidst the Chhath Puja festivities on Friday, the Hindu community in
the Katihar district of Seemanchal division in Bihar
was subjected to
consistent harassment by Islamists.
As per locals,
a Muslim mob disrupted the Chhath Puja celebrations,
and vandalised the ghats, leading to a
communally-surcharged atmosphere in the area. Although the Hindus were able to
observe Chhath Puja in the evening, there were
terrified by the events of the morning when a group of Islamists had stopped
them from conducting the rituals. The Muslim mob had initially objected to the
use of firecrackers but later resorted to vandalising
the Chhath ghat, destroying the paraphernalia,
urinating and defecating on the site.
In a video
that has now gone viral on social media, the locals have demanded the
intervention of Kahtiyar MLA Tarkishore
Prasad and police protection to all Hindu devotees in the area. All the men and
women, standing in the background, were seen making a desperate appeal to the
district administration. A young boy in the said video had called upon other
Hindus to make the video viral so that they can get justice.
Locals recount
how a fanatic Muslim mob intimidated them
When OpIndia spoke to the people in the area, one local person
informed that the son-in-law of a local Islamic cleric was involved in the
disruption of Hindu festivities. As such, the district administration has asked
the aggrieved Hindus to settle the matter outside the police station. An
eyewitness and victim, Devnarayan Uraon,
narrated, “As soon as we got there, a group of Muslims started harassing us.
They warned us to not celebrate Chhatt else they
would throw us off the ghats. When we returned home, they destroyed the
decoration and vandalised the site….” He added that
following the incident, he and other locals went to Ratora
police station to register a case.
Devnarayan informed that the police accompanied the
locals to the ghat at 10 pm in the night and found that the ghat was vandalised. While the police provided a sum of ₹500
as monetary help, the Hindus had to spend hours in re-decorating the ghats.
Several videos of Hindu activists have now come to light wherein they
complained about ill-treatment at the hands of the dominant Muslim community in
the area.
Quoting the
Muslims in the area, a Hindu woman stated, “They say that they will create more
Muslim dominated areas, drive Hindus away and grab their lands.” In a shocking
claim, a local Vikas Uranv said that he had witnessed
the desecration of the Chhath ghat himself and
claimed that miscreants belonging to the Muslim community made videos of Hindu
women changing their clothes. He had also lamented about how the same
miscreants harass and eve-tease their women on a daily basis.
Police claims
situation under control, VHP spokesperson flags concerns about growing
fundamentalism
While speaking
about the incident, SDPO (Katihar) Amarkant Jha
conceded that the desecration was the handiwork of some anti-social elements
during the Chhath Puja at Rautara.
He stated that the police took immediate action on learning about the incident
and ensured that the Chhath Puja rituals went
unhindered. Jha further stated that no case was registered as it wasn’t such a
big incident and that law and order situation was
under control. He added that no arrest has been as the matter has been
resolved. He further emphasised that the Station
House Officer (SHO) took cognisance of the incident
at the earliest and that he was monitoring the situation on the ground.
VHP national
spokesperson Vinod Bansal told OpIndia that the Bihar
government should pay attention to the concerns of Hindus in sensitive areas
such as Seemanchal. While condemning the incident, he
urged upon local MLA Tarkishore Prasad to meet the
people and listen to their demands. He expressed concerns about the rising
Islamic fundamentalism in the area and the threats it posed to the Hindu
community.
Gurdaspur attackers heard shouting Islamic
slogans during siege
Hindustan
Times, Dinanagar
Jul 28, 2015
Punjab Police personnel said on Monday they heard terrorists shout 'Allah hu
Akbar' — Arabic for 'God is great' — before three attackers were killed after
an intense gunfight in Gurdaspur district, indicating the assault was a suicide
attack.
Heavily armed men stormed a police station in the Punjab district close to the
border with Pakistan, killing six people and wounding several others. Armed
police exchanged fire with the attackers, who were holed up in the police
station after the assault began at 5.30am. The police were sweeping the area
after the three terrorists were killed.
A source in the Punjab Police said Khalistani
militants were not known to carry out such suicide attacks. India fought a
deadly Sikh insurgency in Punjab in the 1980s that peaked with the
assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at the hands of her Sikh
bodyguards in 1984. Sikh militant groups were demanding an independent homeland
for minority Sikhs at the time, which they called Khalistan.
Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal said the incident had nothing to do
with the revival of terrorism in Punjab and that it appeared to be an attack
carried out by a terrorist group active outside the state.
"The Khalistanis never indulged in suicide
strikes at any target. This is clearly a suicide attack, perpetrated by some
known terror groups," former Punjab Police chief Julio F Ribeiro said
after the attack on Monday.
News agency Reuters, meanwhile, quoted police sources as saying that the
attackers entered India from Pakistan two days ago in the troubled state of
Jammu and Kashmir.
Jitendra Singh, a junior minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's office,
said he did not rule out Pakistan's involvement. "There have also
been earlier reports of Pakistan infiltration and cross-border mischief in this
area," said Singh, whose constituency in the Jammu region borders
Gurdaspur.
Earlier this month, Modi met his Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif and agreed
top security officers from the two countries would meet to discuss counter-terrorism.
Modi also agreed to visit Pakistan next year.
In a
pluralistic part of India, fears of rising Islamic extremism
By Emily Wax
The Washington
Post
Saturday,
February 5, 2011
IN MUVATTUPUZHA, INDIA Wearing jeans and leaving her auburn hair uncovered
never created problems for Rayana Khasi, a
22-year-old Muslim engineering student in the coastal state of Kerala.
But then came the threats. About two months ago, members of the Popular Front
of India, a fast-growing Muslim political and social organization in Kerala,
allegedly started sending text messages to her saying, "You're committing
blasphemy."
They admonished her publicly in her home town of Kasaragod, confronted her
family and pelted her car with stones, she said.
"Many women here are now listening to them and covering. But this is
India, not Afghanistan," said Khasi, who has moved to a different city and
changed her cellphone number several times as Indian authorities investigate
her charges.
For centuries, Kerala has been known as "God's country," and
generations of Muslims, Christians and Jews were warmly welcomed by Hindus
here. One of India's most religiously diverse states, Kerala has rarely
experienced the religious violence that has flared in other parts of the
country.
But the Popular Front's rise here is stirring concern as a growing number of
its young members embrace a radical brand of Islam. Authorities say they fear
that the group has become an example of how extremism can creep into a society,
even one in which the vast majority of Muslims are not conservative.
Intelligence authorities say the government is investigating threats against
women such as Khasi and other attacks, including a case in which Popular Front
members are accused of severing the right hand of a Christian professor for
what they felt was a slight against Islam. More than 25 men have been arrested
in the case, and trials are set to begin soon.
The Popular Front, which has denied involvement in any attacks, says it sets
out to defend minority groups and lower castes. But officials say they are
troubled by the group's connection to the Students Islamic Movement of India
(SIMI), which was banned in 2001 for supporting terrorism and accused of
involvement in the 2003 train bombings in Mumbai that killed 10 people. Many
Popular Front members were once part of SIMI.
The government has struggled with how to respond to the Popular Front because
it often voices ideas through protests, a right "available in a democratic
society and provided for by the Indian constitution," said Hormis Tharakan, former chief of
India's intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing. "But it's the
propensity toward violence that is most worrying."
The group's emotional messages that mention the Palestinians and such common
Muslim grievances as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan resonate among Kerala's
highly educated population, which tends to be more aware of global issues. And
nearly every household has at least one male working in Persian Gulf countries,
a migration that began during the oil boom of the 1980s.
"Once there, some Keralites undergo a spiritual reawakening in countries
that espouse a far stricter version of Islam," said M.G.S. Narayanna, former chief of the Indian Council of Historical
Research, who is based in Kerala. "They are told that Indian Islam is not
pure and they should learn Arabic, study the Koran in Arabic. That is how it
starts. Then they start learning about what they are told is hatred and
injustice against Muslims around the world."
T.J. Joseph, the professor whose right hand was cut off in July, was allegedly
attacked by a mob of Popular Front recruits.
The Mumbai Atrocities: Where is the Outrage?
Cinnamon
Stillwell
San Francisco Chonicle
Thursday,
December 17, 2008
It was often
said after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that everything had
changed. And for a few years afterwards, indeed it had. After decades of
denial, America and its allies went on the offensive against Islamic terrorism,
both militarily and morally. Most importantly, there was no hesitancy to name
the enemy or to condemn his inhumanity.
But if the
lack of outrage over the Islamic terrorist assault on Mumbai, India last month
was any indication, everything has changed back.
The obfuscation that
characterized much of the early reporting on Mumbai is partially to blame.
Watching a number of television reporters go through visible pains not to use
the word "terrorist" to describe a four-day reign of terror that
would eventually kill more than 170 people and injure hundreds was a surreal
spectacle. Initial articles described
"militants," "gunmen," and "extremists," but
rarely terrorists, and rarer still, Islamic terrorists. So-called experts
prattled on vaguely about the perpetrators' motivations, as if the ideology
fueling a group called the Deccan Mujahedeen was a complete and utter
mystery. ("Deccan" refers to a historic Islamic claim on the Deccan
Plateau, the territory which stretches between Mumbai and Hyderabad, while
"mujahedeen" are Muslim fighters engaged in jihad.) Links to the Pakistan-based
terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba added further confirmation and yet
still, many of the talking heads remained stubbornly ambiguous. Indeed, the
attack was largely presented as if it were occurring in a vacuum.
Perhaps they
were taking a cue from last year's Departments of State and Homeland Security internal memorandum forbidding employees from
using Islam-specific terminology to discuss Islamic terrorism or the British
politicians who earlier this year adopted the phrase "anti-Islamic activity"
to describe it. In any case, Orwell would have been proud.
When it was
learned that the terrorists had attacked a Chabad center in Mumbai, the only
specific target other than hotels and restaurants catering to Western tourists
and wealthy Indians, the coverage become stranger still. No context was provided
for the torture and murder of the
Chabad Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg,
his wife, Rivka, and four other Jews, although it was obvious why they were targeted. The Holtzberg's surviving toddler son,
Moshe, who was rescued by his Indian nanny, was certainly
not the first Jewish child orphaned by Islamic terrorism.
No connection was made to the virulent anti-Semitism
fueling jihadist ideology. Nor to the Nazi-like propaganda promulgated throughout
the Muslim world and fed to children so that
they too will grow up to hate Jews, whether Israeli or not.
Similarly
unexamined were the implications of the terrorists' barbarism. Witnesses described victims being
lined up and shot execution-style and terrorists spraying bullets
indiscriminately into crowds of men, women and children.
Some survived by feigning death for hours under the weight of countless dead
bodies. If not for the heroism of the hotel
and restaurant staff, as well as others who rose to the occasion, more lives
would have been lost. But lacking analysis, these horrific details were soon
forgotten. Is it any wonder that the world no longer grasps the utter depravity
and cruelty of the formidable opponent it's facing?
This is the
same enemy who held hostage and slaughtered Russian children in Beslan; who lobs rockets at schools,
uses women and children as human shields, preys
upon the weakest in their own societies - women and children -- to mold them
into suicide bombers, targets mosques and plans
attacks on Muslim holidays, murders
school teachers and aid workers, commits beheadings, hangings, stonings
and honor killings, puts children and pregnant women into car
bombs so they can more easily pass through checkpoints, indiscriminately targets civilians the world
over, and who seeks to squelch all human achievement and progress.
Should not
this grave threat to human rights be called what it is? Should not the world
rally against this cancer within its midst and spare no expense or effort to
stop it from metastasizing? Should not human rights groups make defeating this
ideology its chief priority? Should not women's groups make the oppression of
Muslim women, both within and without the Muslim world,
its first priority? Should not gay rights groups turn their attention to the hangings of young men
across the Muslim world? Should not Jewish groups condemn the hateful,
anti-Semitic propaganda that is brainwashing Muslim youth? Should not those who
believe in religious freedom denounce the persecution of religious minorities, apostates, and atheists in the Muslim
world? Should not those who advocate free speech condemn the campaign to silence journalists
and activists in the Muslim
world, as well as attempts to do the same in the West?
Should not the international community do everything in its power to prevent
fanatical Islamist regimes from acquiring nuclear weapons and wreaking
unprecedented havoc on the planet?
The answer to
these questions would seem to be self-evident, but sadly, the world continues
to waffle. Just as in the past when aggression and brutality were met with
indifference or appeasement, today we are at risk of falling into the same
trap. The old habit of believing one can mollify one's enemies by understanding
his alleged grievances,
avoiding offense, and indulging in self-blame is back in full force. Those who
argue for forthright terminology and decisive action are demonized and bullied,
while those who peddle in pacification and platitudes are glorified. Without
leadership and moral clarity, we have become numb to the horrors at hand.
Meanwhile, the enemies of civilization gain strength from our lack of
fortitude.
There are
those trying to call attention to the threat of radical Islam, but increasingly
they are voices in the wilderness. Either that or they persecuted under the
aegis of "Islamophobia." Defying this characterization, Muslim and
Arab reformers are forthright
about the conflict raging within Islam and the religious nature of the ideology
fueling the jihadists. An inspiring show of opposition came from Mumbai's Muslims, who refused to bury the dead
terrorists and who marched against their
hate and violence. While such demonstrations are few and far between in the
Muslim world, they should be broadly recognized and supported when they do
occur.
Similarly,
reformers in the West such as M. Zuhdi Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, Ali Alyami,
executive director of the Center for Democracy & Human
Rights in Saudi Arabia, and former Dutch parliamentarian and women's
rights advocate Ayaan Hirsi Ali, should be supported as
modern-day dissidents. But instead, they are hardly household names and in some
cases face castigation, even as they risk their lives to tell the truth.
Perhaps the problem is the world is not ready to hear the truth.
Until there is
a united will to defeat this modern-day fascism, this threat to human rights,
this abject evil, it will continue to thrive and to leave atrocities in its
wake. And we will have no one to blame but ourselves for letting it happen.
Militants,
commandos fight on in India's Mumbai
* Mumbai
"still not under control" - state government
* Indian Prime
Minister says attacks plotted overseas
* Police say
119 people killed, 315 wounded
By Krittivas Mukherjee
Thu Nov 27,
2008
MUMBAI, Nov 28
(Reuters) - Indian commandos fought to regain control of Mumbai on Friday, more
than 24 hours after heavily armed militants killed at least 119 people and
wounded more than 300 others in coordinated attacks in the commercial capital.
Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh pinned blame for the attacks on militant groups based in India's
neighbours -- usually an allusion to Pakistan --
raising prospects of renewed tension between the nuclear-armed rivals.
He warned of
"a cost" if these nations did not take action to stop their territory
being used to launch such attacks.
An estimated
25 men armed with assault rifles and grenades -- at least some of whom arrived
by sea -- fanned out across Mumbai on Wednesday night to attack sites popular
with tourists and businessmen, including the city's top two luxury hotels.
At least six
foreigners, including one Australian, a Briton, an Italian and a Japanese
national, were killed. Scores of others were trapped in the fighting or were
being held hostage.
Commandos
battled the militants through Thursday -- often room to room in the hotels --
to rescue people, police said. Flames billowed out of the buildings and loud
explosions were heard during the fighting.
Dipak Dutta
told NDTV news after being rescued at the Taj Mahal hotel that he had been told
by troops escorting him through the corridors not to look down at any of the
bodies.
"A lot of
chef trainees were massacred in the kitchen," he said.
The city of
nearly 18 million people, the nerve-centre of India's
growing economic prowess and home to the "Bollywood" film industry,
was virtually shut down on Thursday as the battles raged.
Sporadic
gunfire and explosions could be heard early on Friday, and authorities said at
least one militant was still holed up in the Taj Mahal hotel and several more
in the nearby Oberoi-Trident hotel. Many staff and guests were also trapped,
but it was not clear how many.
"It is
evident that the group which carried out these attacks, based outside the
country, had come with single-minded determination to create havoc in the
commercial capital of the country," Prime Minister Singh said in a
televised address.
"We will
take up strongly with our neighbours that the use of
their territory for launching attacks on us will not be tolerated, and that
there would be a cost if suitable measures are not taken by them."
Muslim
terrorism is active in India
Islamic
teachers targeted an American Center in India
Made in India
Islamism
Indian
Muslims, we are told, are a "bewildered, angry and hurt" lot.
"They can't understand the sharp reactions to the largescale protests they
took part in during the past weeks," a report in a weekly news magazine
says.
The magazine
goes on to quote sociologist Imtiaz Ahmed: "There are clear double
standards here. On the one hand, you keep telling Muslims to come into the
mainstream. When they believe they have a stake in the country and the right to
protest, then why are you upset?"
The question,
in a sense, explains why Muslims, or at least those to whom the magazine refers
to in its report, are "bewildered, angry and hurt". What it does not
elaborate on, however, are the reasons behind the "sharp reactions".
Mobilising tens of thousands of Muslims, most of them
from madarsas that preach the pre-eminence of Islam
and the unique right of the ummah to disregard the sensitivities of others, as
the Jamait-e-Ulema-e-Hind did in Delhi on the eve of
US President George Bush's visit, does not reflect any desire whatsoever to
"come into the mainstream".
Nor does the mobilising of Islamists who believe that the cartoonists
whose caricatures of Prophet Mohammad were published in the little-known Danish
daily Jyllands-Posten should be murdered for committing "blasphemy"
amount to Muslims declaring their intention to "come into the mainstream".
If raucous and
riotous assertion of support for pan-Islamist causes - the war in Iraq, the
cartoon controversy - are to be interpreted as Muslims coming into the
mainstream of Indian public life, then we might as well give up all pretensions
to being a secular society and accept the socio-political hegemony of a
tyrannical minority.
The
"sharp reactions" were as much against the mass mobilisation
of Islamists across the country on issues that have no bearing at all on
India's national interests as against the loathsome manner in which Muslim rage
manifested itself.
In Hyderabad,
after burning the Danish national flag that was earlier used as a foot mat by
believers entering the city's main mosque for Friday's noon prayer, Muslims
protesting against the Jyllands-Posten cartoons went on a rampage, beating up
Hindu shopkeepers and looting their shops.
A fortnight
later, Muslims in Lucknow did a repeat performance. The only difference was
that while in Hyderabad there was no loss of lives, in Lucknow innocent
persons, including a 14-year-old Hindu boy, were killed. In Hyderabad, the
Islamists' ran amok to register their protest against the Danish cartoonists;
in Lucknow they rioted to register their disapproval of Mr
George Bush's visit.
In between, we
were witness to the Uttar Pradesh Minister for Minority Welfare, Haji Yaqoob
Qureshi, addressing a mammoth gathering of Islamists in Meerut where he
declared a bounty of Rs 51 crore for any believer who kills the Danish
cartoonists. Those who are given to thumping the Constitution of India have
remained remarkably silent after this call for murder by a Minister who holds
office by virtue of the fact that he has sworn to abide by the Constitution.
We were also
witness to Islamists chanting slogans in praise of Osama bin Laden, heaping
abuse on the US, calling for the death of Americans and waving banners eulogising jihad and jihadis - in Delhi, Mumbai, Meerut,
Lucknow, Hyderabad and numerous other cities and towns.
If memories of
Islamist rage and hate had dulled during the intervening years after Syed
Shahabuddin's outrageous call to Muslims to boycott Republic Day celebrations,
they have surfaced following the ummah's recent public belligerent
demonstration of allegiance to causes and issues that lie beyond the boundaries
of India.
What has also
alarmed mainstream India is the ease with which such mobilisation
can be done. It is not a very calming site, the gathering of tens of thousands
of Islamists united by a common enemy: Anybody who dares defy their perverse
worldview.
Imtiaz Ahmed
senses "clear double standards" in this response. But there are no
double standards - the only standard against which popular repudiation of
Islamist rage can be measured is that of revulsion generated by the
manifestation of Muslim rage on issues for which mainstream India does not care
a toss.
There is also
the other aspect, that of the sudden upsurge of minorityism,
which has come to define the UPA Government's policies. From education to
quotas, disbursement of development funds to meek acceptance of fatwa (remember
Gudiya and Imrana?) that are antipodean to the law of
the land, from sneakily conducting a Muslim headcount of the armed forces to
mollycoddling minority educational institutions, and, from repealing the
Prevention of Terrorism Act to subverting the Supreme Court's verdict against
the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act, the Congress and its
allies in the UPA and the Left are perceived as bending over backwards to
appease the Islamists and cravenly succumbing to their basest demands.
Yes, there
were terror attacks when the BJP-led NDA Government was in power, and some of
them were astonishingly daring. There was an assault on the Jammu & Kashmir
legislature, terrorists struck Parliament House complex, jihadis assaulted
Akshardham Temple.
But there was
tough retaliatory action, too. Even the most cursory glance through the
anti-terrorism record of the NDA regime will show that there was a certain
resolve of the Government of India to fight this scourge. That resolve,
tragically, has been severely diluted by the UPA regime.
It is,
therefore, not surprising that the rash of terror attacks that have taken place
after the return of the Congress and its cheerleaders to power should have been
carried out by jihadis among us; they may have been inspired by foreign role
models and Pakistani masters, but they were born in India.
The impact of
the UPA Government's shameless pandering to fanaticism disguised as minority
assertion is there for all to see. If the fidayeen
attack on the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya last July and the
subsequent serial bombings in Delhi on the eve of Diwali were fierce
expressions of incipient Islamism, the bombings at Sankat
Mochan Temple and the railway station in Varanasi on
the eve of Holi, preceded by the public demonstrations of jihadi might, mark
the coming of age of that which all of India must unanimously deplore -
homegrown militant Islam.
Mainstream
India should be worried. Very, very worried.
Mumbai probe eyes local Muslim group
India's
Muslim community has a moderate reputation, but pockets of alienation exist in
growing ghettos.
By Anuj Chopra Correspondent of The Christian
Science Monitor
MUMBRA, INDIA – As the investigation into last week's bomb blasts gathers pace,
authorities are probing a link between Pakistan-based Lashkar-i Tayyaba (LeT), the main
suspect, and a banned Islamic organization in India called the Students Islamic
Movement of India (SIMI).
Tests confirmed Monday that the bombers used the powerful military explosive
RDX, a weapon used before by the LeT. Indian
investigators say they suspect that LeT provided the
bombs, the funding, the target, and the know-how to SIMI, which in turn
provided the people on the ground. Authorities have rounded up nearly 300 local
men from Muslim suburbs like Mumbra - including 11
detained Monday near the Bangladesh border.
This thread of the investigation has Indians facing the uncomfortable
possibility that international jihad may have found a receptive ear within
pockets of a huge religious minority. Already, some politicians are calling for
tougher antiterrorism measures. But Muslim leaders here express concern that a
harsh police crackdown and tough rhetoric from politicians would only serve to
alienate a community with a strong reputation for moderation.
"India's Muslims don't countenance the killing of innocent civilians, and
Muslim leaders have come out in the open and condemned these attacks. The
terrorists want communal riots. They want to divide us," says Abdul Rauf
Khan, an imam in Mumbra.
After bomb attacks in Mumbai three years ago, India's stringent antiterrorism
law - the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) - had been used with particular
force against Muslims, resulting in arbitrary arrests, harsh interrogations,
and detention without charge. POTA was repealed in 2004, and so far police tactics over the past week haven't been as
sweeping. Many of the hundreds interrogated were let go in a few hours; only a
few remain in detention.
Given the charged debate over POTA's repeal, Indian politicians may be loathe to reinstate it. But the
controversial chief minister of Gujarat state traveled to Mumbai to publicly
challenge Delhi to do just that - or allow state governments to pass their own
versions.
"If we are allowed to enact such an antiterrorism act, Gujarat will be the
first state to do so, and I will be the first chief minister who will show this
country how terrorism is curbed and how to hang terrorists," Chief
Minister Narendra Modi told an assembly Monday.
The timing and message of Mr. Modi's visit is seen as provocative by those who
view him as complicit in communal riots that gripped Gujarat in 2002, leaving
some 1,000 dead, mainly Muslims.
"It's a difficult time for Muslims in India after every terrorist
attack," says Sayeed Khan, the founder of a nongovernmental organization
MY India, an acronym for Muslim Youth of India - a name chosen to demonstrate
that India's Muslims were Indian, and not Pakistanis, as alleged by some.
In times such as these, Mr. Khan says, people talk about Muslims disparagingly
- and view them with suspicion.
"The terrorists are Muslims, and we're Muslims, too. That's our only
fault," says Mohamed Tariq Qazi, a 27-year-old call center employee who
was called in for questioning after the blasts.
In 2003, Mr. Qazi was arrested following a set of bombings. He had been
mistaken for a SIMI activist because of his work with the Students Islamic
Organization (SIO), part of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind,
a moderate religious social organization working for Muslim uplift and at one
time associated with SIMI. "The word 'Islamic' in my organization's name
makes all the difference."
"They [Mumbai's police] came in large numbers at 1:30 a.m., in pitch
darkness, and arrested me," he recalls. "My neighbors thought I was a
terrorist."
More Muslims live in India than in most Muslim-majority nations, and they've
long been upheld as a moderate community, showing little passion for jihad in
Iraq, Afghanistan - or even Kashmir. Not one of India's 150 million Muslims,
thus far, has been found associated with Al Qaeda.
Although Muslims in secular, democratic India have access to greater rights and
freedoms than in most Muslim countries, statistics paint a picture of a marginalized
community. According to one study, the income of the average Muslim is 11
percent less than the national average. There's a dearth of Muslim police,
government officials, and soldiers - only 29,000 Muslims make up the 1.1
million-strong Indian army.
Outbreaks of communal violence in recent years have caused some Muslims to
relocate to Muslim-majority areas.
Mumbra, a suburb 25 miles from Mumbai, saw an influx
of Muslims after Hindu-Muslim riots in Mumbai in 1992 and blasts in 1993. Mumbra's squalid quarters, dubbed derisively as "mini Pakistan," are notorious havens for criminals -
and, police allege, terrorists.
In conversations with young men at SIO meetings, Mr. Qazi has observed a
hardening aggression, and impatience with perceived mistreatment and prejudice.
Tough questioning and long detentions of Muslim locals by police are often
viewed as state harassment - and breed anti-state notions, he says.
Locals note that police have approached this week's investigation sensitively.
A senior Mumbai police official says detentions are necessary to crack the
local nexus of militants to prevent future strikes. Terrorists, he says, easily
permeate Muslim-dominated areas, and thus combing operations are necessary.
"Only if we interrogate locals can we zero in on the main accused."
The sluggish pace of bringing to court those responsible for the Gujarat riots
also rankles Muslims here.
"The wounds of the Gujarat riots have still not healed. There's barely
been any justice," says Sayeed Khan. "It might be easy to brainwash
the youth by welling up memories of the Gujarat killings. Those wounds are
still fresh."
One theory on why last week's bombs were planted in first-class train
compartments ties into this frustration over Gujarat. Commuters in those compartments
are usually traders from Mumbai's diamond industry - most of them Gujarati
Hindus. Nearly 50 Gujaratis are believed dead in the
bombings.
To ensure that youths don't easily fall for the violent preaching of
fundamentalists, Mr. Khan, the imam, emphasizes the need to give Muslim youths
better education opportunities.
"Our madrassahs need to be reformed," Khan says. "There's a need
to teach subjects taught in regular school, like science, besides [memorization
of] the Koran ... to bring Muslim men into mainstream society."
Indian Government in Denial after Bombay Train Blasts
July 29th, 2006
Sonia Gandhi’s
softness towards Islamic Fundamentalists runs the risk of making India an
attractive destination for the Jihadis. …Sonia Gandhi, though not officially a
member of the government has the responsibility for keeping the ruling
coalition afloat. Her principal coalition partners—the Communists and Islamic
power brokers—are in a position to make demands, which she is not in a position
to reject.
I wrote the
above paragraph in article published almost a
year ago. The words are truer than ever today.
Both of my
contentions— Sonia Gandhi’s dhimmitude, which I called ‘softness towards
Islamic Fundamentalists’ and India becoming a destination and even a base for
Jihadis were in full display following the Mumbai train blasts of 7/11 that
killed more than 200 and injured 700 more. While the public was reeling from
this brazen attack, Sonia Gandhi and her hand-picked Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh and other members of the government went around trying to assure the
public that Indian Muslim groups were somehow not responsible for the terror
attack. The government trotted out the timeworn ‘foreign hand’ theory, blaming
Pakistan for engineering the outrage.
The idea in
all this is to assure the public that Indian Muslims are somehow not affected
by the worldwide Jihadi movement. But no one is buying this theory in spite of
the Sonia-Manmohan Government’s strenuous propaganda through dhimmi
journalists. Tavleen Singh, a leading columnist, minced no words when she
wrote, “Don’t blame Pakistan, look inside”:
… I am
beginning to worry about whether Dr Manmohan Singh’s [and Sonia’s – NSR]
government is capable of defending us against the ‘‘jehad’’ that is being waged
against us so successfully that if it continues unchecked, it could cause a
civil war and worse…
The Bombay
blasts were triggered by eight separate explosions on the city’s commuter
train system, within minutes of one another but miles apart; it is hard to
believe that it could be carried out by remote control from Pakistan without
local logistical support. Ms. Singh rejected it out of hand pointing out:
“It is
indigenous. It is a jehad being fought by homegrown terrorists and the sooner
we come to terms with this the easier it is.”
Manmohan
Singh’s “Pakistan hand” theory was only the beginning of the denial. While
Sonia Gandhi maintained her customary silence over Jihadi terror, other members
of her government went to the extent of exonerating known sources of terror. Shivraj Patil, the minister in charge of internal security
extolled madrasa education. The Times of India reported:
Trying to
dispel doubts about madrassas, often accused of being breeding ground of
militancy, Union home minister Shivraj Patil on
Sunday said these religious seminaries were not centres
of terrorism. “…madrassas are seats of social service. They are not the centre of terrorism,” Lauding the key role played by
madrasas in imparting education to a vast section of people, the home minister
said the government appreciated the significant contribution being made by
Islamic seminaries in eradicating illiteracy and spreading the message of human
values and unity in society.
Americans
probably first learnt of Sonia Gandhi’s Islamist appeasement when she gave what
The Telegraph of
London called a ‘strongly pro-Muslim speech’ at the bin Laden family-funded Oxford
Centre for Islamic Studies, that too shortly after the 9/11 attacks. This was
mild compared to her overall record in India.
The silent
Sonia has not always been silent when it comes to defending Islamist
organizations. She defended the banned Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI)
and had the ban lifted, but the Supreme Court of India ruled against her
recommendation by ruling that SIMI was a terrorist outfit. Her henchman Salman Kurshid had argued for lifting the ban in the courts. SIMI
has been implicated in the Bombay blasts.
The
appeasement policy of her government has serious consequences for the global
war on terror. As Tavleen Singh pointed out, the bombings in Mumbai (Bombay)
are proof that Indians can no longer run away from the reality of a jihad
indigenous to India. This means, India, far from being a bulwark in the war
against terror will be a weak link as long as Sonia Gandhi’s hold over the
government lasts.
N.S. Rajaram is a mathematician and historian of science. He lives in
Oklahoma City and Bangalore, India.
Taj Mahal closed after religious riot
The Australian
Bruce Loudon,
South Asia correspondent
August 31, 2007
THOUSANDS of tourists were being evacuated from the
famed Taj Mahal city of Agra yesterday after angry mobs set fire to shops and
cars and attacked police in protest at the death of four Muslims in a traffic
accident.
A total curfew
clamped by authorities on the city of 1.6million people, 200km northwest of
Delhi, failed to halt the rioting in which at least one person has been killed,
more than 50 have been injured, and millions of rupees of damage has been
caused.
Scores of cars
and trucks were destroyed in the rampage, and five local factories, including a
soft-drink bottling plant, were ransacked, looted and set on fire.
Terrified
tourists were ordered to stay in their hotels, and the Taj Mahal, India's top
tourist attraction, which attracts more than 20,000 visitors a day, was briefly
closed and surrounded by armed police.
By late
yesterday, the curfew had been restricted to just six suburbs and the Taj Mahal
was reopened for tourists.
A senior
police official in the city, which remained shrouded in a heavy pall of black
smoke from fires caused by the rioting, described the situation as "still
very tense" and tourists were being provided with armed guards as they
drove along the Agra to New Delhi highway.
The violence
erupted after a speeding truck killed four Muslims as they were riding home on
a motor cycle after observing Shabb-e-Barat, a holy
"night of salvation" festival held 15 days before the start of
Ramadan.
The four were
relatives of a prominent local MP in the state of Uttar Pradesh, and rampaging
mobs, most of them believed to be Muslim, soon poured onto the main Agra-New
Delhi highway, blocking it and doing battle with police and rival gangs from
the majority Hindu community.
"The
cause of this violence was that traffic was not regulated properly. Trucks were
allowed into a no-entry zone meant for pedestrians who were going for the Shab-e-Barat procession," state government spokesman
J.N. Chamber said yesterday.
On the streets
leading to the Taj Mahal, police fired volleys of tear gas in a vain attempt to
disperse the mobs, but came under sustained attack from stone and
bottle-throwers.
Eventually, they
were forced to fire live rounds of ammunition in the air.
Many of those
injured in the rioting were police, and the child who died is said to have been
hit by a stray police bullet.
About 20 per
cent of Agra's residents are Muslim, the rest mainly Hindu.
The national
newspaper The Pioneer described the scenes in Agra as "an orgy of
pre-planned violence" in which Hindus were being attacked.
"If the
accident (involving the four Muslim men) had not occurred, the mobs would have
manufactured some other reason," it claimed in an editorial.
Meanwhile, in
another manifestation of communal strife last night, the controversial chief
minister of the state of Gujarat, Hindu nationalist hardliner Narendra Modi,
was at the centre of charges that a Muslim man had
been seriously bashed by security guards after he walked in front of the chief
minister's convoy of cars. Mr Modi is a hate figure
to many Muslims.
The 22-year-old
Muslim man was reported to have been "mercilessly thrashed" by police
after disrupting the convoy of cars carrying the chief minister.
Islamic group
claims India blasts
By R.K. MISRA
July 27, 2008
AHMADABAD,
India (AP) — An obscure Islamic group claimed responsibility for a series of
synchronized explosions that killed at least 45 people in western India,
warning of "the terror of Death" in an e-mail sent to several
television stations minutes before the blasts.
Another
unexploded bomb was found and defused early Sunday, said the city's police
commissioner, O.P. Mathur. He said police had detained 30 people.
"In the
name of Allah the Indian Mujahideen strike again! Do
whatever you can, within 5 minutes from now, feel the terror of Death!"
said an e-mail from the group sent to several Indian television stations
minutes before the blasts began.
The e-mail's
subject line said "Await 5 minutes for the revenge of Gujarat," an
apparent reference to 2002 riots in the western state which left 1,000 people,
mostly Muslims, dead. The historic city of Ahmadabad was the scene of much of
the 2002 violence.
Saturday's
e-mail, sent from a Yahoo account and written in English, was made available to
AP by CNN-IBN, one of the TV stations that received the warning.
State government
spokesman Jaynarayan Vyas said 45 people were killed
and 161 wounded when at least 16 bombs went off Saturday evening in several
crowded neighborhoods. The attack came a day after seven smaller blasts killed
two people in the southern technology hub of Bangalore.
Investigators
in Surat, a city about 160 miles south of Ahmadabad, found a car carrying
detonators and a liquid that police suspect may be ammonium nitrate, a chemical
often used in explosive devices, city police Chief R.M.S. Brar told reporters.
Cities around
the country were put on alert and security was stepped up at markets,
hospitals, airports and train stations.
The e-mail was
sent by a group calling itself Indian Mujahedeen which was unknown before May,
when it said it was behind a series of bombings in Jaipur, also in western
India, that killed 61 people.
In its e-mail,
the group did not mention the bombings in Bangalore and it was not clear if the
attacks were connected.
"An
e-mail was received by many news organizations. We are inquiring into that. We
haven't traced it yet," city police Chief A.N. Roy said.
The Saturday
bombs went off in two separate spates. The first, near a busy market, left some
of the dead sprawled beside stands piled high with fruit, next to twisted
bicycles. The second group of blasts went off near a hospital.
The side of a
bus was blown off and its windows shattered, while another vehicle was engulfed
in flames. Most of the blasts took place in the narrow lanes of the older part
of Ahmadabad, which is tightly packed with homes and small businesses. Bomb-sniffing
dogs scoured the areas.
Distraught
relatives of the victims crowded the city's hospitals. One of the wounded was a
6-year-old boy whose father was killed in the blasts. He lay in a hospital bed
with his arms covered in bandages and wounds on his face.
Narendra Modi,
the chief minister of Gujarat state where Ahmadabad is located, called the
blasts "a crime against humanity." He said the bombings appeared to
have been masterminded by a group or groups who "are using a similar modus
operandi all over the country."
India has been
hit repeatedly by bombings in recent years. Nearly all have been blamed on
Islamic militants who allegedly want to provoke violence between India's Hindu
majority and Muslim minority, although officials rarely offer hard evidence
implicating a specific group.
The
perpetrators also rarely claim responsibility — a fact that raised doubts about
the Indian Mujahedeen when it took credit in May for attacking Jaipur.
Fears that an
attack could spark religious riots are real in India, which has seen sporadic
violence between Hindus and Muslims since independence from Britain in 1947.
Those fears
were amplified by the recent history of the 2002 religious
riots. The violence was triggered by a fire that killed 60 passengers on a
train packed with Hindu pilgrims. Hindu extremists blamed the deaths on Muslims
and rampaged through Muslim neighborhoods, although the cause of the blaze
remains unclear.
Ahmadabad is
also known for the elegant architecture of its mosques and mausoleums, a rich
blend of Muslim and Hindu styles. It was founded in the 15th century and served
as a sultanate, fortified in 1487 with a wall six miles in circumference.