06-14-2006, 12:03 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In the introduction to Albrightâs book, The Mighty and the Almighty â Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs, Clinton writes: âDuring my visit to India in 2000, some Hindu militants decided to vent their outrage by murdering 38 Sikhs in cold blood.â
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Must be before Bill & Hillary Clinton moved into New York. New York Times had covered an article where the LeT scum from across the border in TSP had confessed to this crime.
NY Times article
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->To their relief, however, another militant had recently been captured, someone, they said, who truly had partaken in the massacre -- someone who had even fired shots. His name was Mohammad Suhail Malik.
"Would you like to talk to him?" I was asked.
ddly enough, I had already interviewed the new prisoner. This had happened unexpectedly. On the return drive from Chittisinghpora, the Sikh businessman spotted a friend, another prominent Sikh, in a car going the other way. The vehicles stopped, and the two men went off for a private chat. This friend, using his influence, had just met Suhail Malik, who, so far as he could tell, was rendering an authentic confession. He agreed to help us get into the small compound that served as the Indian interrogation center.
Malik is an 18-year-old with an upstart beard and hair that falls down into his eyes. He appeared somber and tired, a suitable look for someone in his predicament. I twice offered him a chair, but he refused, preferring the floor. A heavy chain sagged between the tight manacles on his wrists. He barely moved.
Conditions for the interview were far from ideal. There were six of us in a small, dark room, including a nervous guard who felt the liaison lacked adequate approval. A display on one wall carried horrid snapshots of dead militants. Malik responded to every question, but his answers were spare, repeating details I had already read in a police dossier in Srinagar: he was from the city of Sialkot, in Pakistan. He belonged to the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which had tutored him in marksmanship and mountain climbing. He sneaked into India in October 1999, carrying the rupee equivalent of $200 in expense money. He took part in only two missions before Chittisinghpora, one an attack on an army outpost, the other an assault on a bus carrying soldiers. He knew nothing about the plot to kill the Sikhs until immediately beforehand, as he stood in an orchard. He used his weapon when commanded. "I fired, but I don't know if I killed anyone," he said laconically. "I suppose I did. I don't know."
The conversation was mostly in Urdu, once again a language I did not speak. I could study his eyes but not his phrasing or inflections, the little clues as to what was being held back in the privacy of his head. When we left, I asked Surinder Oberoi, my journalist friend, if he thought Malik was telling the truth.
"Yes, I think so," he answered after a pause. Then he added a cautionary shrug and a sentence that stopped after the words "But you know. . . . "
Malik showed no signs of physical abuse, but, as with Wagay, the torture of someone in his situation would not be unusual. Once, over a casual lunch, an Indian intelligence official told me that Malik had been "intensively interrogated." I asked him what that usually meant. "You start with beatings, and from there it can go almost anywhere," he said. Certainly, I knew what most Pakistanis would say of the confession -- that the teenager would admit to anything after persistent electrical prodding by the Indians. And it left me to surmise that if his interrogators had made productive use of pain, was it to get him to reveal the truth or to repeat their lies?
My second talk with Malik came the next day, courtesy of the more formal invitation. This session was less hurried but still unsatisfactory. Three of us were asking questions, including someone from the authorities. The prisoner, chains in tow, still refused a chair. I told him again that I was an American journalist trying to get at the facts. I could only imagine how far-fetched that sounded to an 18-year-old Pakistani in an Indian jail.
I asked about his family. His mother was dead, and his father ran a small general store. Malik had attended a government school through the fifth grade, but like many boys in Pakistan, he had switched over to a madrassah, a religious academy, where the books and courses were free. He knew parts of the Koran by heart. "If I could, I would spend my entire life learning about the holy prophet," he said.
We again went over the details of the massacre. I tried to test him, asking for descriptions of the village. But he said he had not seen much in the darkness. He had been ordered to shoot -- and so he shot. He did not have much more to add. "We were told what to do and not why," he said. "Afterward, we were told not to talk about it."
He allowed that he was likely to spend the rest of his life in an Indian prison -- and yes, he said, this was a dreary prospect. He would have preferred the glory of martyrdom.
His eyes, usually downcast, had occasionally drifted about, and with this talk of a purposeful death, all of us in the room grew aware of a loaded Kalashnikov leaning against a wall in the corner. With a flicker of a smile, the gun's careless owner slowly rolled the wheels of his chair to the right, blocking the manacled prisoner's path to the weapon. Malik never looked that way again.
I was curious to know how he had linked up with Lashkar-e-Taiba. It was one of the largest -- and perhaps the most unflinching -- of the dozen or so militant groups. Malik said he had heard their speeches while he studied in the city of Lahore. He trusted their vision of the world -- and said he trusted it still. Penance did not accompany his confession. As for the 35 dead Sikhs, he said they may have been civilians, but they could not have been innocents. "The Koran teaches us not to kill innocents," he said. "If Lashkar told us to kill those people, then it was right to do it. I have no regrets."
This one time, he seemed to think his answer too abbreviated. His lips pursed, his eyebrows narrowed. He said: "When I was sent here from Pakistan, I was told the Indian Army kills Muslims. It treats them badly and burns their mosques and refuses to let them pray. They must be freed from these clutches."
Then he looked at me curiously, seeming to ask, Isn't that so?
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Must be before Bill & Hillary Clinton moved into New York. New York Times had covered an article where the LeT scum from across the border in TSP had confessed to this crime.
NY Times article
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->To their relief, however, another militant had recently been captured, someone, they said, who truly had partaken in the massacre -- someone who had even fired shots. His name was Mohammad Suhail Malik.
"Would you like to talk to him?" I was asked.
ddly enough, I had already interviewed the new prisoner. This had happened unexpectedly. On the return drive from Chittisinghpora, the Sikh businessman spotted a friend, another prominent Sikh, in a car going the other way. The vehicles stopped, and the two men went off for a private chat. This friend, using his influence, had just met Suhail Malik, who, so far as he could tell, was rendering an authentic confession. He agreed to help us get into the small compound that served as the Indian interrogation center.
Malik is an 18-year-old with an upstart beard and hair that falls down into his eyes. He appeared somber and tired, a suitable look for someone in his predicament. I twice offered him a chair, but he refused, preferring the floor. A heavy chain sagged between the tight manacles on his wrists. He barely moved.
Conditions for the interview were far from ideal. There were six of us in a small, dark room, including a nervous guard who felt the liaison lacked adequate approval. A display on one wall carried horrid snapshots of dead militants. Malik responded to every question, but his answers were spare, repeating details I had already read in a police dossier in Srinagar: he was from the city of Sialkot, in Pakistan. He belonged to the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which had tutored him in marksmanship and mountain climbing. He sneaked into India in October 1999, carrying the rupee equivalent of $200 in expense money. He took part in only two missions before Chittisinghpora, one an attack on an army outpost, the other an assault on a bus carrying soldiers. He knew nothing about the plot to kill the Sikhs until immediately beforehand, as he stood in an orchard. He used his weapon when commanded. "I fired, but I don't know if I killed anyone," he said laconically. "I suppose I did. I don't know."
The conversation was mostly in Urdu, once again a language I did not speak. I could study his eyes but not his phrasing or inflections, the little clues as to what was being held back in the privacy of his head. When we left, I asked Surinder Oberoi, my journalist friend, if he thought Malik was telling the truth.
"Yes, I think so," he answered after a pause. Then he added a cautionary shrug and a sentence that stopped after the words "But you know. . . . "
Malik showed no signs of physical abuse, but, as with Wagay, the torture of someone in his situation would not be unusual. Once, over a casual lunch, an Indian intelligence official told me that Malik had been "intensively interrogated." I asked him what that usually meant. "You start with beatings, and from there it can go almost anywhere," he said. Certainly, I knew what most Pakistanis would say of the confession -- that the teenager would admit to anything after persistent electrical prodding by the Indians. And it left me to surmise that if his interrogators had made productive use of pain, was it to get him to reveal the truth or to repeat their lies?
My second talk with Malik came the next day, courtesy of the more formal invitation. This session was less hurried but still unsatisfactory. Three of us were asking questions, including someone from the authorities. The prisoner, chains in tow, still refused a chair. I told him again that I was an American journalist trying to get at the facts. I could only imagine how far-fetched that sounded to an 18-year-old Pakistani in an Indian jail.
I asked about his family. His mother was dead, and his father ran a small general store. Malik had attended a government school through the fifth grade, but like many boys in Pakistan, he had switched over to a madrassah, a religious academy, where the books and courses were free. He knew parts of the Koran by heart. "If I could, I would spend my entire life learning about the holy prophet," he said.
We again went over the details of the massacre. I tried to test him, asking for descriptions of the village. But he said he had not seen much in the darkness. He had been ordered to shoot -- and so he shot. He did not have much more to add. "We were told what to do and not why," he said. "Afterward, we were told not to talk about it."
He allowed that he was likely to spend the rest of his life in an Indian prison -- and yes, he said, this was a dreary prospect. He would have preferred the glory of martyrdom.
His eyes, usually downcast, had occasionally drifted about, and with this talk of a purposeful death, all of us in the room grew aware of a loaded Kalashnikov leaning against a wall in the corner. With a flicker of a smile, the gun's careless owner slowly rolled the wheels of his chair to the right, blocking the manacled prisoner's path to the weapon. Malik never looked that way again.
I was curious to know how he had linked up with Lashkar-e-Taiba. It was one of the largest -- and perhaps the most unflinching -- of the dozen or so militant groups. Malik said he had heard their speeches while he studied in the city of Lahore. He trusted their vision of the world -- and said he trusted it still. Penance did not accompany his confession. As for the 35 dead Sikhs, he said they may have been civilians, but they could not have been innocents. "The Koran teaches us not to kill innocents," he said. "If Lashkar told us to kill those people, then it was right to do it. I have no regrets."
This one time, he seemed to think his answer too abbreviated. His lips pursed, his eyebrows narrowed. He said: "When I was sent here from Pakistan, I was told the Indian Army kills Muslims. It treats them badly and burns their mosques and refuses to let them pray. They must be freed from these clutches."
Then he looked at me curiously, seeming to ask, Isn't that so?
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