12-01-2006, 11:41 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Whodunit at Malegaon </b>
Kanchan Lakshman
"Hindu extremists" were blamed for Malegaon, but now we know better
With the disclosure by Maharashtra Police that the Malegaon bomb blasts case had been "solved", there is certain clarity now with regard to one of the most intriguing terrorist incidents in recent times.
At least 38 people, including many women and children, died and 297 sustained injuries in the serial bomb explosions at Malegaon in the Nashik district on September 8. On November 27, the Maharashtra Director-General of Police, PS Pasricha, disclosed that two Pakistani nationals, including one Muzammil, manufactured the improvised explosive devices and assembled the four bombs.
<b>"The conspiracy was hatched in Malegaon on May 8 on the occasion of the wedding of Noor-ul-Huda, one of the accused. All eight persons arrested in this case are former SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India) members. The RDX was transported from Mumbai to Malegaon in the third week of July (after the 7/11 train bombings), and the bombs were made there,"</b> Mr Pasricha informed the media.
<b>He added that while eight SIMI activists have been arrested in connection with the blasts, an equal number are still at large. Both the Pakistani nationals are yet to be arrested.</b> Mr Pasricha further said that while one of those arrested, Zahid Ali, planted the bomb at Mushawerat Chowk, Huda and his accomplice Raees Rajjab Ali planted bombs in the cemetery.
<b>In the immediate aftermath of the incident, reports mentioned investigations scrutinising the involvement of "some Hindu extremist groups like the Bajrang Dal". </b>It is now certain that they do not have the wherewithal to carry out operations of this scale. Subsequently, the Anti-Terrorist Squad of Maharashtra Police reportedly ruled out the involvement of groups like the Bajrang Dal for two reasons: "RDX is only available to Islamist terrorist outfits. Second, Bajrang Dal activists so far have used only crude bombs, as seen in the blasts at Parbani and Nanded."
<b>The modus operandi of 7/11 and Malegaon now look similar. Police said explosives used in Malegaon were a mixture of RDX, ammonium nitrate and fuel oil - the same assortment used in 7/11.</b>
Muslims - most of whom are reportedly migrant weavers from Uttar Pradesh - constitute the majority of the Malegaon population. "To kill their own" is intrinsic to any terrorist strategy. Across the globe, Islamist terrorists are currently targeting innocent Muslim civilians - Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'> Although, there are no clear linkages, there is a definite pattern of association among the various theatres of jihad across the globe. The spread of disorder and violence are currently being orchestrated by the same forces whose ideological worldview supplements the essential logic and dynamic of their operations.</span>
<b>It is significant to note in this context that Pakistan-backed jihadis in Jammu & Kashmir have killed scores of their own "Muslim brothers and sisters", </b>whose "rights" they claim to be fighting to protect. In fact, nearly 90 per cent of all civilian fatalities inflicted by terrorists in Jammu & Kashmir are Muslims. A parallel was the case in Punjab where 65 per cent of the civilian victims of the "Khalistani" terrorists, who claimed to be fighting for "Sikh rights", were themselves Sikhs.
<b>Same is the case in India's neighbourhood. Sectarian violence between Sunnis and the minority Shia community in Pakistan has claimed at least 2,435 lives between 1989 and 2006</b>. A recent illustration was the suicide attack in Karachi on April 11, when 57 people were killed and over 200 wounded. Virtually, the entire leadership of the Sunni Tehreek, which is of Barelvi orientation, was killed by extremists suspected to belong to the Deobandi school. Ironically, the blast occurred at a stage erected in a park where religious leaders and scores of the faithful were offering prayers at a meeting to mark the birth anniversary of Prophet Mohammed. And, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, arguably, the most lethal terrorist group in the world, has killed more Tamils than Sinhalese.
Since July 2005, there have been at least six Islamist terrorist attacks outside Jammu & Kashmir, which were, in one way or the other, linked to the milieu of Hindu-Muslim relations. Of these, two targeted Hindu places of worship (Varanasi on March 7, and the earlier failed attack at Ayodhya on July 5, 2005). One was in a Muslim place of worship (at Jama Masjid in Delhi on April 14); another targeted Muslims near a mosque (Malegaon). In addition, there have been two attacks against civilians (on Diwali-eve in Delhi, October 29, 2005 and Mumbai, July 11). More than 300 civilians died in these terrorist attacks, which were clearly meant to engineer instability in the country through a communal polarisation.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>The SIMI is only an instrument in the larger stratagem of Pakistan-based Islamist terrorists to weaken India by striking at its perceived "fault lines" and "to pursue the policy of a thousand cuts".Their intent and strategy is "increasingly apparent in a wide range of activities intended to provoke communal confrontations, engineer terrorist attacks, and recruit soldiers for a pan-Islamist jihad in pockets of Muslim populations across India".</span>
During a three-day annual congregation of the members of the Markaz-ud-Da'awa-wal-Irshad at Muridke near Lahore on February 6, 2000, its chief, <span style='color:red'>Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, declared that Kashmir was a "gateway to capture India" and that it was the aim of the Markaz and its military wing, the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, to "engineer India's disintegration". </span>
Such declarations are expressions of pan-Islamist ambitions shared by all Islamist extremist groups operating in the region, and a reiteration of Pakistan's larger strategy of destabilisation beyond the "core issue" of Kashmir. Acts of terror - especially like the one at Malegaon - represent the culmination of years of preparation that are reflected in motivation, mobilisation and organisational development of Islamist extremism.
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Kanchan Lakshman
"Hindu extremists" were blamed for Malegaon, but now we know better
With the disclosure by Maharashtra Police that the Malegaon bomb blasts case had been "solved", there is certain clarity now with regard to one of the most intriguing terrorist incidents in recent times.
At least 38 people, including many women and children, died and 297 sustained injuries in the serial bomb explosions at Malegaon in the Nashik district on September 8. On November 27, the Maharashtra Director-General of Police, PS Pasricha, disclosed that two Pakistani nationals, including one Muzammil, manufactured the improvised explosive devices and assembled the four bombs.
<b>"The conspiracy was hatched in Malegaon on May 8 on the occasion of the wedding of Noor-ul-Huda, one of the accused. All eight persons arrested in this case are former SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India) members. The RDX was transported from Mumbai to Malegaon in the third week of July (after the 7/11 train bombings), and the bombs were made there,"</b> Mr Pasricha informed the media.
<b>He added that while eight SIMI activists have been arrested in connection with the blasts, an equal number are still at large. Both the Pakistani nationals are yet to be arrested.</b> Mr Pasricha further said that while one of those arrested, Zahid Ali, planted the bomb at Mushawerat Chowk, Huda and his accomplice Raees Rajjab Ali planted bombs in the cemetery.
<b>In the immediate aftermath of the incident, reports mentioned investigations scrutinising the involvement of "some Hindu extremist groups like the Bajrang Dal". </b>It is now certain that they do not have the wherewithal to carry out operations of this scale. Subsequently, the Anti-Terrorist Squad of Maharashtra Police reportedly ruled out the involvement of groups like the Bajrang Dal for two reasons: "RDX is only available to Islamist terrorist outfits. Second, Bajrang Dal activists so far have used only crude bombs, as seen in the blasts at Parbani and Nanded."
<b>The modus operandi of 7/11 and Malegaon now look similar. Police said explosives used in Malegaon were a mixture of RDX, ammonium nitrate and fuel oil - the same assortment used in 7/11.</b>
Muslims - most of whom are reportedly migrant weavers from Uttar Pradesh - constitute the majority of the Malegaon population. "To kill their own" is intrinsic to any terrorist strategy. Across the globe, Islamist terrorists are currently targeting innocent Muslim civilians - Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'> Although, there are no clear linkages, there is a definite pattern of association among the various theatres of jihad across the globe. The spread of disorder and violence are currently being orchestrated by the same forces whose ideological worldview supplements the essential logic and dynamic of their operations.</span>
<b>It is significant to note in this context that Pakistan-backed jihadis in Jammu & Kashmir have killed scores of their own "Muslim brothers and sisters", </b>whose "rights" they claim to be fighting to protect. In fact, nearly 90 per cent of all civilian fatalities inflicted by terrorists in Jammu & Kashmir are Muslims. A parallel was the case in Punjab where 65 per cent of the civilian victims of the "Khalistani" terrorists, who claimed to be fighting for "Sikh rights", were themselves Sikhs.
<b>Same is the case in India's neighbourhood. Sectarian violence between Sunnis and the minority Shia community in Pakistan has claimed at least 2,435 lives between 1989 and 2006</b>. A recent illustration was the suicide attack in Karachi on April 11, when 57 people were killed and over 200 wounded. Virtually, the entire leadership of the Sunni Tehreek, which is of Barelvi orientation, was killed by extremists suspected to belong to the Deobandi school. Ironically, the blast occurred at a stage erected in a park where religious leaders and scores of the faithful were offering prayers at a meeting to mark the birth anniversary of Prophet Mohammed. And, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, arguably, the most lethal terrorist group in the world, has killed more Tamils than Sinhalese.
Since July 2005, there have been at least six Islamist terrorist attacks outside Jammu & Kashmir, which were, in one way or the other, linked to the milieu of Hindu-Muslim relations. Of these, two targeted Hindu places of worship (Varanasi on March 7, and the earlier failed attack at Ayodhya on July 5, 2005). One was in a Muslim place of worship (at Jama Masjid in Delhi on April 14); another targeted Muslims near a mosque (Malegaon). In addition, there have been two attacks against civilians (on Diwali-eve in Delhi, October 29, 2005 and Mumbai, July 11). More than 300 civilians died in these terrorist attacks, which were clearly meant to engineer instability in the country through a communal polarisation.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>The SIMI is only an instrument in the larger stratagem of Pakistan-based Islamist terrorists to weaken India by striking at its perceived "fault lines" and "to pursue the policy of a thousand cuts".Their intent and strategy is "increasingly apparent in a wide range of activities intended to provoke communal confrontations, engineer terrorist attacks, and recruit soldiers for a pan-Islamist jihad in pockets of Muslim populations across India".</span>
During a three-day annual congregation of the members of the Markaz-ud-Da'awa-wal-Irshad at Muridke near Lahore on February 6, 2000, its chief, <span style='color:red'>Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, declared that Kashmir was a "gateway to capture India" and that it was the aim of the Markaz and its military wing, the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, to "engineer India's disintegration". </span>
Such declarations are expressions of pan-Islamist ambitions shared by all Islamist extremist groups operating in the region, and a reiteration of Pakistan's larger strategy of destabilisation beyond the "core issue" of Kashmir. Acts of terror - especially like the one at Malegaon - represent the culmination of years of preparation that are reflected in motivation, mobilisation and organisational development of Islamist extremism.
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