07-17-2007, 04:02 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>India loses the plot </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Don't prejudge Glasgow inquiry
Kafeel Ahmed is in hospital, where he was brought severely burnt after a failed suicide-bombing attack on Glasgow Airport. His brother Sabeel Ahmed has been charged with assisting the terrorist plot and arrested. Their cousin, Mohammed Haneef, has been detained by Australian police for, most certainly, lending his SIM card to those who used it to make criminal phone-calls, and, possibly, not disclosing what he knew about the Glasgow conspiracy. All three are from Bangalore and, as phone and computer records now show, the Ahmed brothers planned the Glasgow assault at least partly in the capital of Karnataka. In recent years, Kafeel also organised radical meetings and conferences in Bangalore, raising Islamist slogans, and seeking an Indian Muslim intervention on such obscure issues as the situation in Chechnya. The Bangalore Police and Indian intelligence agencies knew nothing of this and the Ahmed brothers - and their cousin, though the degree of his complicity is not clear - were not on their radar. Today, they must be feeling very silly, as British and Australian investigators reveal what should have been old information. When asked for help,<b> Indian agencies such as the CBI can only respond by telling Australian Federal Police to route the message through "proper channels" and be thorough with their paperwork. There is no pro-active determination or urgency; there is no difference for the Indian bureaucracy, it would appear, between a request for assistance in case of an act of terrorism or a banking swindle. Instead, a churlish 'Indian intelligence' has been planting stories in friendly media outlets, alleging it was "kept out of the loop", and insisting that Sabeel and Haneef were innocent and only Kafeel was guilty</b>. No evidence is offered, no explanation is pronounced - how do Indian authorities know so much since the family was not even under surveillance till London and Canberra got in touch?
<b>There is a strange nexus at work here - between a domestic intelligence that failed spectacularly, a political class in denial, and a Government living on large doses of political correctness. It began with the Prime Minister suggesting that the Indians arrested in the UK and Australia were probably victims of racial profiling</b>. As matters turned more conclusive, the focus moved to Haneef and his likely release, with much prominence being given to his detention "only" because he gave his SIM card to his cousin. Is this the sole lead the Australians have? Do they suspect more? Given the nature of the crime, do Indians have a right to jump to conclusions? Of course, nobody has time for these questions.
<b>Through the 1980s - when the Khalistan fire raged - and in the jihadi phase post-1990, India had one consistent complaint: The West did not take its terrorist problem seriously. When it pointed fingers at Pakistan and provided dossiers on training camps and funding, these were disbelieved. The burden of proof India was expected to offer was extraordinarily weighty. Its interlocutors had already made up their minds. Now consider what the Indian establishment's reaction has been to the Glasgow outrage</b>. <b>How would this country have responded if, for instance, terrorist Lal Singh's wife had been interviewed by a Canadian television channel shortly after the bombing of Air India's Kanishka in 1985, and had said, "Of course he is innocent. The Indian Government is stupid to suspect him."</b>
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The Pioneer Edit Desk
Don't prejudge Glasgow inquiry
Kafeel Ahmed is in hospital, where he was brought severely burnt after a failed suicide-bombing attack on Glasgow Airport. His brother Sabeel Ahmed has been charged with assisting the terrorist plot and arrested. Their cousin, Mohammed Haneef, has been detained by Australian police for, most certainly, lending his SIM card to those who used it to make criminal phone-calls, and, possibly, not disclosing what he knew about the Glasgow conspiracy. All three are from Bangalore and, as phone and computer records now show, the Ahmed brothers planned the Glasgow assault at least partly in the capital of Karnataka. In recent years, Kafeel also organised radical meetings and conferences in Bangalore, raising Islamist slogans, and seeking an Indian Muslim intervention on such obscure issues as the situation in Chechnya. The Bangalore Police and Indian intelligence agencies knew nothing of this and the Ahmed brothers - and their cousin, though the degree of his complicity is not clear - were not on their radar. Today, they must be feeling very silly, as British and Australian investigators reveal what should have been old information. When asked for help,<b> Indian agencies such as the CBI can only respond by telling Australian Federal Police to route the message through "proper channels" and be thorough with their paperwork. There is no pro-active determination or urgency; there is no difference for the Indian bureaucracy, it would appear, between a request for assistance in case of an act of terrorism or a banking swindle. Instead, a churlish 'Indian intelligence' has been planting stories in friendly media outlets, alleging it was "kept out of the loop", and insisting that Sabeel and Haneef were innocent and only Kafeel was guilty</b>. No evidence is offered, no explanation is pronounced - how do Indian authorities know so much since the family was not even under surveillance till London and Canberra got in touch?
<b>There is a strange nexus at work here - between a domestic intelligence that failed spectacularly, a political class in denial, and a Government living on large doses of political correctness. It began with the Prime Minister suggesting that the Indians arrested in the UK and Australia were probably victims of racial profiling</b>. As matters turned more conclusive, the focus moved to Haneef and his likely release, with much prominence being given to his detention "only" because he gave his SIM card to his cousin. Is this the sole lead the Australians have? Do they suspect more? Given the nature of the crime, do Indians have a right to jump to conclusions? Of course, nobody has time for these questions.
<b>Through the 1980s - when the Khalistan fire raged - and in the jihadi phase post-1990, India had one consistent complaint: The West did not take its terrorist problem seriously. When it pointed fingers at Pakistan and provided dossiers on training camps and funding, these were disbelieved. The burden of proof India was expected to offer was extraordinarily weighty. Its interlocutors had already made up their minds. Now consider what the Indian establishment's reaction has been to the Glasgow outrage</b>. <b>How would this country have responded if, for instance, terrorist Lal Singh's wife had been interviewed by a Canadian television channel shortly after the bombing of Air India's Kanishka in 1985, and had said, "Of course he is innocent. The Indian Government is stupid to suspect him."</b>
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