Blasts In Hindu Temples in India

03-09-2006, 11:25 PM

QUOTELashkar-e-Kahar claims Varanasi serial blasts 
UNI
Thursday, March 09, 2006 12:47 IST
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1017133
SRINAGAR: A hitherto unknown militant outfit, Lashkar-e-Kahar, on Thursday claimed the responsibility of the twin blasts in the temple town of Varanasi in which about 20 people were killed and more than 100 others wounded on Tuesday.

The Current News Service (CNS), a local news agency here, received a call from a person who identified himself as Abdul Jabbar, the spokesman of the outfit, on Thursday morning.

The caller claimed the responsibility for the twin bomb blasts in Uttar Pradesh's temple city of Varanasi on March 7. The caller threatened more such attacks. However, almost all the separatist groups here have condemned the blasts.

03-09-2006, 11:30 PM

<img src='http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41420000/jpg/_41420182_suspects203.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

Varanasi suspect sketches issuedQUOTEMr Sikera said the photofit pictures of the two men had been drawn up from information given by the shopkeeper, who says he remembers they spoke poor Hindi

03-10-2006, 02:44 AM

QUOTEHomegrown terrorism looms over India 
Pioneer.com
Navin Upadhyay/New Delhi
For long, Jammu and Kashmir has been the hotbed of terrorist violence in India. Even the daylight attack on Indian Parliament in 2001 was carried out by a fidayeen group that had sneaked into the country from across the border.

The terrorist violence of the past had a clear message: The bloodletting would go on till the liberation of Kashmir.

In the past two years of UPA Government's rule, the pattern of terrorist strikes has changed dramatically. The new choice of targets and locations are indications of a much more heinous design to destabilise the entire nation, and create a situation where India is pushed on the brink of a communal frenzy. What is equally disturbing is the fact that in most recent cases, the strikes were carried out by homegrown mercenaries, financed and trained by Pakistan-based terror outfits.

In dealing with terror factories operating in POK, the country has for long raised its hands in despair, hoping that someday General Pervez Musharraf will undergo a metamorphosis and work for dismantling terrorist training camps. While Mr Musharraf has so far done precious little to address India's concern, New Delhi has lowered its guard by opening one after another rail and road links, ignoring the warning from Intelligence and security agencies.

Now, the terrorists do not need to risk their lives in crossing the heavily guarded border. They can simply board a bus or train and arrive in India to a read carpet welcome. The opening of rail and road links have followed sudden spurt in seizure of explosives in different parts of the country. The coincidence could be overlooked only at the risk of inviting peril of the type the country witnessed in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ayodhya, and now in Varanasi.

With passage to India becoming easy, the terrorists have changed their tactics too. Instead of going for fidayeen attacks, they have now begun to train and hire local criminals and fundamentalist elements to carry out their tasks. Unabated illegal migration from Bangladesh, sprouting Madarsas on sensitive border points, growing ISI network and an indifferent attitude of several State Governments and the Centre have contributed to the creation of a situation where India finds itself seized from within.

The investigation in Delhi serial blasts and preliminary reports from Varanasi indicate that in both cases Pakistan-based terrorists had used homegrown elements to execute their plans. The involvement of local elements was also indicated in Bangalore and Hyderabad. There were telltale sighs all over that members of banned outfits like SIMI were working in close co-ordination with the Pakistan-based terror groups. But the Government conveniently refused to read the writing on the wall. After Delhi blast, when involvement of locals was firmly established and their links with SIMI proven, the need of the hour was to launch a nation-wide crackdown on such outfits. But, instead of parroting the "nation's resolve' to combat terror, the Government preferred to carry on a brazen minority appeasement politics that further communalised politics and society. 

From day one in office, the UPA Government had sent an unambiguous message that tackling terror threat was not its priority. The scrapping of POTA and its replacement by the anaemic Prevention of Unlawful Activities Act, showed that the Government would make any compromise to keep its so-called "secular" allies in good humour.

The demand to scrap POTA was uppermost on the agenda of those who thrive on brazen minorityism. It is not that only people from the minority community were booked under POTA. But somehow, a section of India's political class convinced the minority community that crackdown on anti-national elements was targeted at them, per se. This dangerous impression helped in creating a sense of alienation among the Muslims, who are now being manipulated for political ends by the 'thekedars" of secularism

03-10-2006, 02:59 AM

QUOTENew face of political Islam
Pioneer.com
Balbir K Punj
Last Friday, violence erupted in Aminabad and Qaiserbag, two prominent marketplaces in Lucknow, when an un-notified anti-Bush rally by local Muslims took a communal turn. Four lives were lost in the violence apart from injuries to another 10. The rally was un-notified but not unscheduled since, according to eye witnesses, preparations on a large scale were being made since morning. The violence could have been resisted but for the pronounced laxity of the police and the administration. The police should have anticipated the preparations that were afoot in full public view in Aminabad.

Violence erupted when Muslim protesters, after Friday prayers, marched through the streets forcing closure of shops on Latouche Road, Aminabad, Kaiserbagh, Nazirabad, Maulviganj and Hazratganj. They damaged shops and vehicles by pelting stones and set ablaze over two dozen two-wheelers. Bank of Baroda's Aminabad branch and a post office were torched by the rioters who also damaged two cinema halls. The Hindu shopkeepers, who have little to do with Islamic jihad against the US, protested against the bullying Muslim gangsters.

This led to pitched battle between the two communities. The Muslim gangsters were even carrying firearms and shot at three persons who later succumbed to their injuries. One of the victims was 12-year-old Shanu, son of one Rajendra Kumar. The police reacted strongly and effectively but only after rioters had inflicted heavy damage.

The events in Lucknow are latest from adherents of 'religion of peace and mercy'. This is an eerie reminder of grisly Kanpur riots in 1931. BR Ambedkar describes it in Pakistan or the Partition of India: "With three weeks of the 'pact' occurred the savage communal riots at Cawnpore, which significantly enough began with the attempts of Congress adherents to force Mahomedan shopkeepers to observe hartal in memory of Bhagat Singh who had been executed on March 23. On March 24 began the plunder of Hindu shops. On March 25 there was a blaze. Shops and temples were set on fire and burnt to cinders.

Disorder, arson, loot, murder, spread like wild fire. Five hundred families abandoned their houses and took shelter in villages. Ramchandra was one of the worst sufferers. All members of his family, including his wife, and aged parents were killed and their bodies thrown into gutters. In the same slaughter Ganesh Shankar Vidhyarthi lost his life (Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches, Vol 8, p 177).

Seventy five years later we observe a contrasting coincidence! In Kanpur it were Congressmen who were 'forcing' Muslim shopkeepers to close their shops. One should not misconstrue 'forcing' as compelling them on gun point because adherents of Gandhi were incapable of raising even a pen-knife. There was thus no vandalism. Whatever it be, the occasion was undoubtedly a solemn one for the whole nation - execution of Bhagat Singh and his two companions.

Bhagat Singh is a personality who is lionised by both the saffron and the leftist camps at the same time. Yet Muslim shopkeepers proved that Bhagat Singh meant nothing to them. It says a lot about their view on the freedom movement of India. Interestingly, Muslims not only refused to observe hartal but savaged the Hindu community. 300 lives were lost as per official estimate, in the riots that followed. It is no surprise that those who disowned Bhagat Singh also, subsequently disowned India later.

In Lucknow the reverse happened 75 years later. A Muslim mob, ready with arms and indulging in vandalism, tried to force Hindus to close their shops. The occasion had no connection with nationalism or national interest. They wanted Hindus to side with them to protest against US President George Bush's actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, Mr Bush's actions in these two countries did not have a bearing on India. Therefore, the Hindus feel no animosity towards President Bush.

The only section of 'secularists' who were seen making common cause with Muslims were Communists. But there was nothing 'national' about their protests. It again centred on Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. Their leaders were seen sharing dais with leaders of Jamat-e-Ulema-e-Hind at Delhi's Ramlila Maidan recently, spewing venom against the US. In Hyderabad, the only other city on Mr Bush's itinerary, it were the Leftist and Muslim groups who were protesting against him. They seemed least concerned about India benefitting from the nuclear, agricultural, commercial deals with the US. They were more bothered about what

Mr Bush did in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mr Bush is definitely no holy cow, but neither was Khrushchev or Zhou En Lai for whom Nehru had rolled out the red carpet. Why do Communists conspicuously shy away from even pronouncing on Tibet? Did they find Muslims by their side on the issue of Vietnam? However, India did not seek the track record of the USSR in Baltic countries like Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia that Russians had forcibly occupied in 1940. Our contact with Russia filled India with KGB agents about which The Mitrokhin Archives is quite explicit.

A fortnight before the anti-Bush riots, Lucknow had witnessed another Muslim mobilisation against cartoons of Prophet Mohammed published in Danish newspaper Jyellands-Posten. The BJP office had been attacked by a Muslim mob, which hurled abuses at Hindu deities as well. The concern of Hindus is quite legitimate. Why should they face Muslim ire for no fault of theirs? And how long can this be tolerated in a Hindu-majority country with the principle of secularism enshrined in its Constitution?

The sword of Islam is now tearing apart the mask of secularism. The burgeoning Muslim population and its increasing religious assertiveness will ensure that the days of living in the comfortable shadow of secularist ideology are numbered.

The tradition of 'secular' Congress caving in to communal demands of Muslim League had begun in Lucknow. At the time of signing 'the Lucknow Pact in 1916 the Congress had officially agreed to communal representation in legislative bodies to ensure peace and unity. In three years the Congress along with the Ali brothers was fighting for the jihadi cause of restoring the Caliphate.

Failure to restore Caliphate led the Muslims of India to vent their anger on Hindus in a manner never seen before. The secular formations that are today lending crutches to communal demands of Muslims like quota in armed forces, Government jobs and educational institutions must be forewarned about its after-effects. Such measures will most likely backfire.

Although Ms Sonia Gandhi might claim that Muslims are Congress's natural allies (only those who have not read history will believe it), Congressmen this time were on the wrong side of 'secular' divide. By rolling out the red carpet to Mr Bush, the Congress has acted in India's interest. It was necessary and the time for it had come. The generation next of the Congress will, for sure, not be able to escape the impact of Islamic explosions, a pernicious legacy of the party's appeasement policies over the last two generations.

Hence it is better that they are prepared for it, and don't repeat the blunders of the past. Mr Bush, at Purana Qila, did some hard talk which lacked the polish of 'secularism'. His tribute to the Hindu majority of India was no faux pas. It was confirmed by his rebuff to President Musharraf in Islamabad when he said there was a big difference between history of India and the history of Pakistan. Hence Pakistan, howsoever an important ally, cannot be equated with India. The history he was referring to was not merely post-1947 but started from 7th century AD.

(The writer, a Rajya Sabha MP, can be contacted at bpunj@email.com)

**acharya** · 03-10-2006, 06:22 AM

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`Slain terrorist not Pakistani national'

U.P. Assembly condemns Varanasi blasts

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Assembly on Thursday unanimously passed a resolution condemning the Varanasi serial blasts and resolved to unitedly fight terrorism.

The resolution, moved by Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, said the House expresses its concern over the incidents and condemns the dastardly act.

While paying tributes to those killed and expressing sympathies with the injured, the resolution also referred to fighting the menace of terrorism unitedly.

It was later passed amidst thumping of desks and the House also observed two minutes silence over the issue.

Earlier, in his statement on the Varanasi incidents and the action taken by the Government thereafter, the Chief Minister thanked UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil for adopting a positive and cooperative attitude by saying that the State and Central Governments would together fight the challenge posed by terrorism.

Acting promptly, the police gunned down an ISI-trained terrorist in Lucknow who was in charge of Lashkar in Uttar Pradesh and investigations were on to ascertain his hand in the Varanasi blasts, he said and clarified that slain ultra was not a Pakistani national.

Claiming that some people tried to spoil communal amity through this act of terrorism, Mr. Yadav exhorted the people to rise above party politics to exercise restraint as it was a matter of national interest. PTI

03-10-2006, 06:56 AM

Death in Varanasi (March 2006)
When do successive acts of mass murder and carnage enter the phase of ethnic cleansing and civil war? The mass murders in Varanasi, Delhi and scores of other places are a routine tactic used by militant Islam everywhere, from Bangladesh and Pakistan to Dafur and numerous locations in the Middle East, cowing and eventually expelling vast numbers of non Muslims. India's politicians, with an eye exclusively for the main chance, which is a hand in the till through the tiresome business of electoral politics, are making the usual inane noises about 'mindless violence'. The steadfast refusal to recognise what is happening to their country suggests that India's national bird should be an ostrich rather than a peacock since wilful self-denial is the hallmark of its people.

The mass murder is anything but mindless, unfailingly orchestrated by India's newly discovered dear friend Musharaff, for whom the world's media, Indian included, is lost for words coining paeans of praise. So bedraggled and morally bankrupt is India's English language television that it's entirely appropriately imitating in every detail the execrable BBC, the most determined surreptitious apologist of Islamic terror. One particularly dim interviewee insisted yesterday that Varanasi was like Mecca, while the interviewer confessed breathlessly to 'being frightened', presumably at a potential backlash rather than for the inconsequential dead Hindu worshippers of Varanasi. As it happens, at the last count, there were no Hindu temples in Mecca though I could be wrong, nor are Kafirs allowed into Islam's sacred city. Varanasi itself, by contrast, is barely a sacred Hindu city since it is now teeming with mosques. Adding insult to injury, at a moment of rising anger and profound distress, was the utterly deceitful suggestion that Muslims regarded the Sankatmochan temple as somehow worthy of respect because Bismillah Khan played there. Is there no end to arrogance and deceit, no respect for the dead, no self-respect?

Just in case there is any misunderstanding, friend Musharaff is letting his Indian supplicants know that Bush may come and go and goodies may flow, but Pakistan will always be there. And tormenting India is its sole raison d'Ãªtre and its GNP is mainly in the business of producing and exporting terror. As it happens, it is the hand of their friend Musharaff, the truly worthy successor to Jinnah that is always behind terror attacks in India. He controls the ISI personally on a daily basis and it is they who train, fund and dispatch its killers to do their deadly work. And such activities barely register on their moral Richter scale since they remain unpunished for monumental crimes in Bangladesh during 1971. And now we have a female descendant of Subhas Bose being quoted triumphantly by the Pakistani army, denying that it ever committed mass rapes in Bangladesh during 1971!

The Indo-US accord may be an unfortunate necessity, despite all the incomprehensible opposition to it, but the counsel of many that a very long spoon is imperative while supping with the US is well taken. A half-hour examination of what the US has done to Iraq and its people should remove any illusions about US propensity for honesty and goodwill. Alas, supping with the US has become an unavoidable necessity for India though remaining alert to the danger of betrayal must remain a constant refrain. It also needs to be recognised that the US will choose Pakistan over India if push comes to shove. And of course the price that Americans are prepared to pay for snubbing Musharaff, because US domestic politics no longer permits the earlier carte blanche sanctioned by the evil Dick Cheney for Pakistan's nuclear programme, is always denominated in the bodies of dead Hindu women and children.

Yet every bomb blast, leaving a trail of dead, consolidates the minority vote-bank in India, benefiting its unbearably misnamed secular parties. It is hardly credible that India's cynical politicians have allowed this marvellous happenstance to escape their attention. Hindus react by performing the sad last rites on their loved ones because they have no defenders in the quasi-Islamic State that India has already become. Muslims simply go out to vote in larger numbers and with greater conviction in favour of their temporary Hindu surrogates as Jamaat leader Ansari, honourably, made clear in a public meeting at the India International Centre that I attended. This is the price India's ruling elites are prepared to pay in the unseemly and no-holds barred scramble for the additional 40 or so parliamentary seats they require to rule the roost in Delhi unhindered. Never has secular politics anywhere in the world been so steeped in communal blood and the voiceless distress of one's own kin.

The pro forma Muslim denunciations of violence lack all conviction since nothing is allowed to happen in the interim that might reduce the Islamic truculence, fuelled by lies and incitement, that constitutes the backdrop to murdering Hindus. The restoration for POTA is not a measure Muslim leaders are now demanding for the security of their Hindu 'brethren' nor the scrutiny of illegal aliens nurturing assassins in their midst. Business as usual, until the next bomb and more dead Hindus, while worshipping in the most sacred sites in their own country. The expressions of sympathy remind one of a goat being petted with knowing cynicism just before its head is due to be chopped off. As for the defenders of civilisation, the less said the better because their credibility is at a nadir. Their behaviour reminds one of communities who navigated successfully, making money and duplicitously betraying fellow Hindus, at the height of Muslim power in India.

By now, any self-respecting country would have announced its intention of breaking off diplomatic relations with both Pakistan and Bangladesh. The borders should also be sealed and new paramilitaries raised to enforce it. If there is opposition to such a move from the government of West Bengal a national emergency should be declared. No more than two divisions will be required to pacify the region. It took only a few months and two divisions, if I recall correctly, to crush the Leftist menace in 1972 though the campaign was masterminded by India's greatest military genius since Shivaji. A systematic and ruthless rooting out of infiltrators and terrorists requires that the two officers most capable of accomplishing it, one from the IPS and the other the IB, who have worked together in the Punjab and the Northeast in the past, should be given a free hand. The one word they should be debarred from uttering is mercy.

Any third country, like puny Australia or Sweden, raising human rights concerns, should have their historical record thrust in their face and diplomatic relations downgraded. It may cost the country, but given India's size, the economy can easily survive. Furthermore, India should be prepared to enter into a fully-fledged alliance with Shia Iran, exchanging energy for whatever Iran seeks. India is at war and normal rules of diplomacy no longer apply. Finally, any business house seeking to subvert national security by lobbying for Pakistan, often the real problem in India beneath the surface should simply be extinguished. India's survival as a nation is at stake and nothing less will do. Enough is enough!

Dr. Gautam Sen
9th March 2006.

03-10-2006, 09:13 PM

some damn good articles posted above !!

i wish the BJP would come back to power soon and undo all the minotory apeasement crap and terroist grooming that the barmaid led congress is indulging in.

india is one unfortunate country, plagued with so many millions of camel-jockey scum. they live off india yet are anti india to their bones. they put food on the table at india's expense but are more concerned about afghanistan, iraq, palestine and other countries we could care less about, having as we do, so much on our plates already.

i just wish it were cheap to send people to mars or thereabouts.

03-10-2006, 10:28 PM

QUOTE--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Bomb explodes at Hindu temple in Indonesia
Posted online: Friday, March 10, 2006 at 1011 hours IST
www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=64158

Poso (Indonesia), March 10: One person was wounded when a homemade bomb exploded at a Hindu temple at the coastal town of Sulawesi.

The blast was caused by a low-intensity bomb that was placed in the home of the temple's guard, said Poso Deputy Police Chief Major Andreas Wayan.

The device detonated when the 40-year-old man, Nengah Sugiarta, opened the door, causing the roof and wooden walls to collapse, he said.

"Whoever did this wanted to create panic and spread terror here in Poso," Wayan said, adding that the police found black powder, nails, shrapnel and a battery at the scene, which indicated that the bomb was homemade

03-10-2006, 11:20 PM

Hindi Link - Nav Bharat
Police arrested 8 men from Hardoi, UP.
2 men resembles Police sketch.
. Identified as Sahid and Anwar, resident of Hardoi

**acharya** · 03-11-2006, 04:29 AM

Court moved for safety of temples in Varanasi

Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI: A petition was filed in the Supreme Court on Friday seeking directions to the Centre and the Uttar Pradesh Government to take appropriate steps to ensure the safety of all religious places in Varanasi following the bomb blasts at the Sankat Motchan temple on Tuesday.

Entry regulation

The petition, filed by Mohammed Aslam alias Bhure (who is one of the petitioners in the Ayodhya dispute), wanted the court to direct the authorities in Varanasi to regulate the entry of devotees at the religious places to ensure that large number of people did not assemble near these places.

Barricades

He has also requested the authorities to put barricades near the religious places and increase the security.

He has cited the earlier orders passed by the court directing the authorities to take measures to ensure the safety of the Vishwanath temple and the Gyanvapi masjid in Varanasi and Krishna temple and Idgah in Mathura.

The petition filed through lawyer M.M. Kashyap is expected to be mentioned shortly for early listing.

**acharya** · 03-11-2006, 04:35 AM

Understanding the harvest of hate

Praveen Swami

Varanasi was just an exclamation mark in Islamist terror groups' war against India. Learning from it needs an understanding not of each outrage, but the whole.

ALL THAT will remain, once the dead are cremated and the television cameras disappear, will be the detritus of the terror bombing in Varanasi: the fragments of metal and chemical residue laid out on forensic analysts' tables in New Delhi; the video images of the bomber who targeted the Sankat Mochan, temple which were captured by a wedding photographer in the last moments of his life.

In weeks or months to come, when those who executed the outrage are arrested or killed, the grief of the families of those who died at Varanasi will be revisited â and then forgotten. Forgotten, that is, until the next hideous bombing or shootout claims an adequate volume of lives elsewhere in India. The tragic truth is this: what happened in Varanasi was neither exceptional nor unexpected, just an exclamation mark in their long jihad against India.

The jihad in Uttar Pradesh

A curious innocence pervades the questions that are being asked after the Varanasi bombings. Is Uttar Pradesh, as some breathless media commentary has claimed, emerging as a major terrorist hub? Does it have something to do with global or domestic politics? Is more still to come?

That such questions are being asked at all illustrates the spectacularly amnesiac nature of Indian public discourse on terrorism. Journalists shocked by Varanasi seem to have obliterated from their memory the April 27, 1996, bombing of a bus in Roorkee by the Harkat-ul-Ansar, which claimed 16 lives.

Only passing mention was made of the explosion on a Patna-Delhi train near Jaunpur in July last year, a Lashkar-e-Taiba operation in which 12 persons were killed and 52 injured.

Questions like `why now' and `why Varanasi' are fundamentally misplaced. Data obtained by this correspondent make clear that Uttar Pradesh has not suddenly become a target for Islamist terror: like most Indian States, it has seen sustained levels of jihadi violence for the past several years. Since 2001, Uttar Pradesh has seen the interdiction of at least 22 cells linked to Pakistan-based jihadi groups in operations that led to the elimination of 10 terrorists, mainly Pakistani nationals, and 34 arrests.

Levels of terrorist activity in Uttar Pradesh, the data show, have risen steadily since 2001. In April that year, the Uttar Pradesh Police killed three Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists in Lucknow, after the Intelligence Bureau detected the first of what would be a series of terrorist attempts to target the makeshift temple that now stands on the site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. Operatives of the Lashkar, the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, and the Harkat were arrested later that year, while three terrorists were killed in a shootout at Bijnore.

In 2002, the prospect of an India-Pakistan conflict led the covert services of both countries to focus their energies on military espionage, rather than covert warfare. Of 14 cells interdicted that year in Uttar Pradesh, seven carried out espionage, not terrorism. However, the Uttar Pradesh Police also arrested several jihadi cadre, including a group of five Hizb-ul-Mujahideen operatives who had built a cache of weapons and explosives in the town of Bijnore.

Arrests of jihadi cadre became more frequent the following year. In 2003, intelligence-led operations led to the uncovering of four cells of the Jaish alone. Arrests were made from Lucknow, Allahabad, Muzaffarnagar, Sikandarabad, and NOIDA, a sign that Islamist terror groups were widening their networks across the State. Uttar Pradesh was also used as a base for operations in Delhi. For example, Jaish operatives Ijaz Husain Jan and Meraj Hasan were found in possession of maps of the Parliament building area.

Last summer, new evidence emerged on Uttar Pradesh's place in the plans of terror groups. In May 2005, police arrested Lashkar operatives Sadat Rashid and Masood Alam who were attempting to recruit seminary students in Bihar and Jharkhand. Again, in July, Lashkar recruiters Mohammad Hanif and Yamin Ahmad were arrested on the basis of information provided by the Assam Police. So too was Abu Razzak Masood, a Dubai-based Lashkar recruiter and fundraiser who had arrived in India to monitor these cells.

Despite these arrests, terrorist strikes continued apace. On July 5, six members of a Jaish fidayeen unit were shot dead as they attempted to storm the makeshift temple in Ayodhya, an act calculated to spark communal violence. Investigators soon discovered that the attack had been facilitated by cells run by new recruits from Deoband, Saharanpur, and Delhi. Just two weeks later came the bombing of the Delhi-Patna Shramjeevi Express near Jaunpur, making clear that other terror cells with lethal capabilities remained operational.

On February 1, less than six weeks before the Varanasi bombings, Kolkata Police Commissioner Prasun Mukherjee told journalists that his force had arrested a Lashkar operative who had planned to execute strikes across urban centres in north and east India. Kolkata resident Tariq Akhtar, Mr. Mukherjee said, had stored 16 electronic detonators and a laptop containing bomb-making manuals at safe house in Jamshedpur. A third cell member had travelled north to study targets.

Looking back, Mr. Mukherjee's press conference has a special resonance: the third cell member, Zubeid Ahmad, was arrested from Varanasi.

The war ahead

Nalgonda, Almatti, Bangalore, Chintamani, Mumbai, New Delhi: from these towns and cities, 14 members of nine Islamist terror cells were arrested between January 3 and February 27 this year. Chemicals used for making improvised explosive devices of the kind used in Varanasi, electronic detonators, and at least nine kg of the lethal military-grade explosive RDX were found in the raids that led to these arrests.

Records obtained by this writer make clear that the threat from jihadi groups across India is growing, even as levels of violence in their core theatre of operations, Jammu and Kashmir, have fallen. In all of 2005, for example, fewer Pakistan-linked cells â excluding spies â were detected than in just the first eight weeks of this year. Not counting the Jammu and Kashmir-based squad, which executed the serial bombings in Delhi, just eight jihadi cells were discovered. In 2004, the level was even lower â just six.

If nothing else, the figures demolish claims by the Bharatiya Janata Party that the United Progressive Alliance has been soft on terrorism. In reality, the origins and course of the long jihad has not a little to do with the BJP's own practice of politics. In 1985, incensed by successive communal pogroms, Andhra Pradesh resident Azam Ghauri and Uttar Pradesh's Abdul Karim `Tunda' set up a vigilante organisation that provided the Lashkar an operational apparatus outside of Jammu and Kashmir.

Led by Ghauri and Karim, a Mumbai-based doctor named Jalees Ansari helped set off a series of 43 explosions in Mumbai and Hyderabad and 7 separate explosions on trains on December 6, 1993, the first anniversary of the Babri Masjid's demolition â the first Lashkar strike. In Hyderabad, meanwhile, the Lashkar succeeded in tapping the resources of mafia organisations communalised by the pogroms unleashed by Hindu fanatics in the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

By the mid-1990s, these early cells had started developing a formidable all-India reach. One of Abdul Karim's most effective recruits, for example, was New Delhi resident Amir Hashim. Code-named `Kamran,' Hashim left India as a teenager to live with his sister in Pakistan, believing he had no future in this country. During his time in that country, he was recruited by the Lashkar-e-Taiba, and went on to execute a series of bomb explosions in New Delhi, Rohtak, and Jalandhar.

With local networks in place, top jihadi commanders were able to operate outside Jammu and Kashmir with ease. In 1998, for example, Lashkar operative Abdul Sattar, a resident of Pakistan's Faislabad district, was able to use his contacts to set up a terror base in the town of Khurja. In August 1999, police discovered an 11-member Lashkar module led by Pakistan national Amir Khan, which operated out of Bhiwandi in Maharashtra. Khan, they discovered was planning to marry a local woman to strengthen his cover.

Similarly, top Lashkar activist Mohammad Salim Junaid, a resident of Kala Gujran village in Pakistan's Jhelum district, developed deep links in the local community using local recruits. Junaid had begun his career with the Lashkar-e-Taiba in 1991, as a foot soldier for the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir, rising rapidly through the organisation's hierarchy as a protÃ©gÃ© of Azam Cheema, in charge of the trans-border movements of the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Junaid had married a Hyderabad woman and set up a spare parts export enterprise.

What happened in Varanasi, then, has little to do with the politics of the United Progressive Alliance or recent global Islamist mobilisations. It was driven by the irreducible hatred Pakistani Islamists have for India; a hatred born in the fires that led to the Partition of India, and fed by the fires that have raged after Independence. Most Indian jihad recruits have not personally experienced communal violence, but the fact is that pogroms have vested Islamist terrorism with the aura of just vengeance.

The former Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani's assertion that the Varanasi bombings were the consequence of "competitive minority appeasement" illustrates just why the war is nowhere near being won by India: for politicians like him, and to his doppelgangers on the Islamist side of the ideological fence, the jihad is in fact an opportunity to reap a harvest of hate.

03-11-2006, 05:29 AM

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2006/03/1...85189.html

Psyops . Hindus have always showed restrain in these matters and have tried to leave the matters to state (inspite of its utter incompetence). This is not the first time a hindu temple has been attacked.

Ofcourse if one wants a retaliation, one can replace a bomb attack with a crowd of 1000 attacking a temple and the retaliation will be there for all to see.

**acharya** · 03-11-2006, 05:57 AM

Associated Press
Indian City Shows Restraint Amid Bombings
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG , 03.10.2006, 04:54 AM

If anything was to set off the next round of bloodletting between India's Hindus and Muslims, many feared it would be this week's bombings in Hinduism's holiest city.

Twenty people were killed in the attacks, which were blamed on Muslim extremists and targeted a temple and the train station.

"Imagine if the Israelis attacked Mecca, or a Muslim man bombed the Vatican - that is how I, how we all, feel," said Ravneet Sharma before offering prayers at the Sankat Mochan temple.

Yet in the days since, this wounded city of temples and holy men has shown remarkable restraint. The feared retaliation has not come to pass, despite the inflammatory rhetoric of Hindu nationalist leaders.

The calm - if angry - aftermath, many here say, is booming India's modern response to ancient tensions that have long set South Asia's Hindus and Muslims against one another.

"So much pain is coursing through my heart," Sharma said. All around him the devout appealed to the monkey god Hanuman, chanting prayers and rubbing sandalwood paste on statues of the deity. The sound of monkeys running over the roof echoed throughout the building.

He made it clear he feels little love for his Muslim neighbors. "They are not my brothers," he said.

But India is a growing economic and diplomatic power and "these extremists want to destroy our peace and prosperity," he said. "Communal violence is their aim. We must control our impulses."

Instead of rioting, most of Varanasi's million people showed their anger through a general strike that shut down the city on Wednesday.

On Friday, the city's narrow alleyways were once again choked with pushcarts and cars and the Ganges River was coursing with boatmen ferrying pilgrims and tourists. Shopkeepers chewing betel leaves tended display cases of cell phones, cheap electronics and Hindi music.

More than 80 percent of India's 1 billion people are Hindu. Their relations with Muslims, the country's largest religious minority, have been largely peaceful since the partition of the subcontinent at independence from Britain in 1947, when more than 1 million people were killed as overwhelmingly Muslim Pakistan was carved from largely Hindu India.

But there have been periodic bouts of sectarian strife. Thousands died in rioting after Hindu militants tore down northern India's historic Babri Mosque in 1992. A campaign to build a Hindu temple at the site propelled the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to power in 1998.

But it's been two years since the BJP was voted out of national office, and with elections coming up in Uttar Pradesh state, where Varanasi is located, party leaders and other Hindu nationalists are making their presence felt here.

Seemingly endless processions of Hindu nationalists have made their way through Sankat Mochan since the attacks, chanting what sound more like a call to arms than a prayer.

Juel Oram, a BJP politician from the eastern state of Orissa, said the attacks are rooted "in the appeasement of Muslims by the government." Uttar Pradesh is run by a politician who has long championed Muslims and lower-caste Hindus.

Although Oram, like the other Hindu nationalists here, said he opposed violence, he spoke of the need to "crush the Muslim element if we are to solve this problem."

It's words like these that have led to violence in the past.

"Indian people pick up rocks and sticks at the behest of politicians," said Ashok Yadav, a 40-year-old shop owner. He said he was angry, but would "vote," not riot.

The temple's spiritual caretaker, 68-year-old Veer Bhadra Mishra, was blunter - "Wherever there is a carcass, you have vultures circling overhead," he said.

A senior civil servant in Uttar Pradesh who has served throughout India said politicians have riled up emotions in the past.

He cited religious riots in western India in 2002 that human rights groups have long charged were encouraged - and at times directed - by BJP officials.

The official, who requested anonymity because such statements could ruin his career, said after the bombings, authorities deployed hundreds of police to keep mobs from forming.

"Now it's best to let these people burn themselves out," said Alok Sinha, Uttar Pradesh's top home ministry official.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

03-11-2006, 10:39 AM

QUOTE Varanasi charity under scanner for jihad
NEW DELHI: A 'hardline' religious organisation in terror-scarred Varanasi has come under the security agenciesâ scanner for possible links with jihadi masterminds across the border.

The group, Ahle Hadis Jamaat al-Salahfiya, has been receiving funds from a Saudi charity which has also been generous to Markaz-ul Dawa al-Irshad, Lashkar-e-Taibaâs parent body. Markaz is headquartered in Muridke, Pakistan.

Saudi charities, the chief source of terror money, came under global watch after 9/11. US pressure forced the authorities in Pakistan and elsewhere to clamp down on the more notorious ones, like Al Rashid Trust. But suspicion persists that they have crafted their way around global vigilance to help fundamentalists promote their agenda.
Intelligence sources suspect they are also fundraisers for Hurriyat Conference leaders. Suspicions about Markazâs ability to avoid scrutiny from Pakistani authorities is heightened by the ease with which its chief, âProf â Hafeez Saeed, continues to operate despite being under house arrest.

Sworn to global jihad and increasingly linked with Al Qaida, Lashkar has emerged as the main jihadi outfit in India, spreading its operations beyond J&K and linking up with terror outfits like Jaish. In Pakistan, LeT camps train militants from as far as the Philippines and Chechnya.

Intelligence agencies have shortlisted a few other radical organisations as well, but Hadis has come in for special attention. The sect believes in a particularly austere, and exclusivist, form of Islam â like the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia.


Police/media is coming around slowly.

G.Subramaniam · 03-11-2006, 10:55 AM

In a perverse way, I welcome the open jihadism of Indian muslims
They have always been jihadist, but have hidden under 'secularism'
while trying to breed to critical mass

If the muslims had any brains they will wait 50 years until they breed to 18%, their premature jihadism, allows hindu consolidation before muslims reach critical mass

03-11-2006, 11:05 AM

I think after 9/11 they are in hurry to start Jihad. I think we may see more activities in coming months.

Right now their Jihadi activities are low intensity. Other than Godhara and Bombay Gold Market, these are not spectacular show. Two years back they were not very organized. Now they are gaining experience and more support from external brotherhood. Middle East is doing wonder and continuous preaching is working. Pan-Islamic brotherhood is spreading and they know it will work.

Some secular Hindus are worried about Yatra etc. They have failed to understand what is going on? Sooner or later either they will understand or will repeat 7th century history.

Bhootnath · 03-11-2006, 11:09 PM

http://ww1.mid-day.com/news/nation/2006/...132775.htm

Kashmiri terrorist arrested in Goa
By: Mayuresh Pawar
March 11, 2006

Panaji: The Goa police arrested a terrorist carrying ammunition on the
Matsyagandha (Nizam-uddim-Kerala) Express train at Madgaon Railway
station yesterday evening.

"We were tipped off about him. The suspect Tariq Anwar hailing from
Jammu and Kashmir, was carrying 2 kg of RDX and hand grenades with
him," Ujjwal Mishra, deputy inspector general of police (DIG) told
MiD DAY. The Madgaon police have taken Anwar into custody.

Bhootnath · 03-11-2006, 11:12 PM

Four Years, Two Attacks, One Story
B Shantanu
December 22, 2005
http://www.ivarta.com/columns/OL_051222.htm

See if you can spot anything unusual about these two newspaper
reports:

********
"The two groups specifically held responsible by New Delhi were
Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e- Mohammed. Pakistan vigorously denied the
charges and condemned the attack. It called for evidence of
Lashkar-e-Toiba or Jaish-e-Mohammed`s involvement to be made public and
said that, if such evidence were provided, it would take action. It also
offered to participate in a joint inquiry with the Indians."[1]

"Pakistan is prepared for joint impartial inquiry into the
attack..If any evidence is found in the inquiry about the involvement of
any individual or group from Pakistan's soil, Pakistan will initiate
action in its light", Pakistan's defence spokesman, Maj-Gen Rashid
Qureshi told the BBC here yesterday. [2]
********
"President General Pervez Musharraf while condemning the .blasts
has categorically noted "neither Pakistan is involved in the .blasts nor
supports militancy or terrorism but is ready to cooperate with India in
investigating the tragic incident.

President Musharraf also offered that Pakistan is ready to
cooperate (with) India in investigating the.explosions." [3]

"Pakistan fully condoles the Government of India as well as with
the families of the victims of the dastardly terrorist attack and
extends unequivocal support in any investigation," Musharraf told media
persons at the Army House. [4]

Notice anything unusual?

The first excerpt is from news reports written in Dec '01
following the attack on Parliament.

The second is datelined Nov '05 - almost exactly 4 years after the
first one - from new stories reporting the blasts in New Delhi.

Just two days after the brazen attempt by Pakistan to distance
itself from the blasts ("No evidence on Delhi blasts: Pak" [5],
Commissioner of Police, Dr K K Paul said that "Lashkar-e-Tayiba was
behind the blasts.

Addressing a crowded press conference in New Delhi Paul said,
"Lashkar-e-Tayiba was behind the blasts. Tariq came to Delhi on 4th of
October and went back to Srinagar on 6th of October. And thereafter the
conspiracy was hatched to engineer bomb blasts. The other two behind the
blasts are Abu Alqama and Abu Hafiza respectively who are acting as
Lashkar chiefs in Srinagar and Jammu respectively. Two of the suspects
are residents of Jammu and Kashmir and the other two are foreign
nationals." he said. [6]

I thought we had heard this before.

Here's Commissioner of Police, Ajay Raj Sharma quoted in The
Tribune datelined December 16, 2001 [7] "The December 13 terrorist
attack on Parliament House was carried out by five Pakistanis whose
objective appeared to be to get inside the Parliament and kill as many
politicians as possible, and the entire operation was under the guidance
of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). Police Commissioner
Ajay Raj Sharma said the entire operation was carried out by the
militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad with the help of another militant
outfit Lakshar-e-Toiba."

The "official" reaction from PM Manmohan Singh (after the Delhi
blasts) was that he "continued to be disturbed and dismayed at
indications of external linkages of terrorist groups with the 29 October
bombing". [8]

Four years ago, a supposedly hard-line government in Delhi said
this after the attack on Parliament: "The punishment will be as big as
the crime," Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was quoted as
saying by his party`s spokesman V. K. Malhotra before the parliament
session. "It is an attack on our country and we will decide the
punishment." Strong words but no resolve. Lest we forget, it was the
Vajpayee government that initiated the peace process with Pakistan,
Kargil notwithstanding. [9]

The Congress of course, did one better. The day after the blasts
in Delhi (29th Oct), the Congress-led government announced an agreement
with Pakistan to open several border-crossings on LOC [10] - in theory
to facilitate relief efforts for the earthquake victims - in practice to
make it a little bit easier for ISI to push jihadists across the border
before the winter snow makes any further movement impossible.

And so it will continue.

There may be yet another terrorist attack. Pakistan will once
again condemn it and even offer assistance in investigation.

There will be a strong "official" reaction.

A few weeks later, the police will unearth evidence that Pakistan
was indeed behind the attack - and things will move on.

Nothing will change.and a few years later, we may read the same
story again - the PM may be different, the Police Commissioner will
change, the editors may change - but the story will not.

Four years, two attacks.but one story.
I despair and wonder whether there is any hope?

References:
1] http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/566/war4.htm
2] http://www.tribuneindia.com/2001/20011217/main1.htm
3] http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=124219
4] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/artic...281198.cms
5] http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.ph...ntent_id=81831)
6] http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/nov/13dblast1.htm
7] http://www.tribuneindia.com/2001/20011217/main1.htm
8] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4393532.stm
9] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/decemb...ndia_12-18.html
10]
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/29/...ain994789.shtml

03-12-2006, 12:00 AM

Varanasi SSP transferred four days after blastsQUOTEFour days after the twin blasts in Varanasi, District Police Chief Navneet Sikera was transferred and replaced by G K Goswami, Senior Superintendent of Police, Moradabad, official sources said on Saturday.

Sikera has been attached with the Director General of Police office in the state capital, the sources said. 

It may be recalled that Sikera was attending a wedding in Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav's ancestral village Safai, when the explosions took place at the Sankatmochan temple and the Cantonment railway station in Varanasi on March 7.

03-12-2006, 12:03 AM

Mumbai: Explosive recovered, defusedQUOTEA day before the 13th anniversary of Mumbai serial bomb blasts, a major terrorist strike in the city was averted on Saturday with the timely detection of two kilograms of explosive Ammonium Nitrate from the Byculla railway station in Central Mumbai.

The Anti-Terrorist Squad received an anonymous call around 10 am, saying that a suspicious object was lying in the men's toilet at platform number one of the station since the past few hours.
...................
Apart from the explosive filled in a polypack water bottle, police also recovered a pocket-size transformer, that could have provided necessary current if a detonator was to be attached to the explosive device, Police Commissioner A N Roy said told reporters in Mumbai.
.....................
Roy said Ammonium Nitrate was also used in explosions that occurred at Varanasi earlier this week, but added that the explosive devices used there also contained RDX

Every media report have different version of bomb.

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