SAN-Feature Service SOUTH ASIAN NEWS-FEATURE SERVICE August 1, 2008 Ahmedabad blasts: the usual suspects Praveen Swami In the weeks to come, the police and intelligence investigators will have to find out the perpetrators of the bombings. Politicians, however, have a far more important task: to ensure that justice and equity are placed at centre stage of civic life in Gujarat, and SAN-Feature Service : One still afternoon in March 2002, Feroze Abdul Latif Ghaswala watched 40 victims of the anti-Muslim pogrom being buried near his aunt's home in Ahmedabad. Back home in Mumbai, the automobile mechanic saw a printout of a Lashkar-e-Taiba pamphlet, which purported to show a riot victim begging for his life: "Do you think he should have a gun," it asked. In September 2003, Ghaswala volunteered for training in Ever since last week's bombings in Ahmedabad — one among half-a-dozen major plots targeting Gujarat that the Indian police and intelligence services did not succeed in interdicting — the media have not tired of informing us that jihadist terrorism has taken a dramatic new turn. Instead of Pakistan-based terrorists, it is claimed, a new generation of Indian jihadists is spearheading the attacks. On point of fact, the claim is nonsensical: not one single Islamist urban terror cell since 1993 has not involved a preponderance of Indian nationals. But the claim does show how little Islamist terror groups, and the politics that have driven their growth, are understood in Politics isn't welcome at the Lal Masjid seminary in Ahmedabad's Kaulpur area. Its students learn the six principles of Islam as enunciated by the founder of the Tablighi Jamaat, Mohammad Illyas, and are exhorted to give up frivolities like television and cinema. Maulana Sufiyan Patangia, who ran the seminary, often travelled to The al-Qaeda's bombing of Patangia used to be jokingly called 'Mullah Omar,' after the Taliban leader. His second-in-command Suhail Khan adopted an Osama bin-Laden-style headgear, acquiring the nickname 'Chhota Osama,' or Little Osama. In February 2002, when the communal pogrom in Gujarat began, Patangia was in Most important, though, Patangia made contact with Rasool Khan 'Party' — nicknamed with the Ahmedabad argot for 'contractor' because of his work for top Gujarat mafioso Abdul Latif Sheikh and his Pakistan-based boss, Dawood Ibrahim Kaksar. In May 2002, Khan and his brother Idris met Patangia in Mumbai to discuss just how vengeance might be planned. Late in May 2002, five bombs went off on buses in Ahmedabad, injuring 26 people. It was the first act of violence by Gujarat-based jihadists. In December, Khan arranged for eight of Patangia's volunteers to travel to Soon, the vengeance they sought was delivered. Despite the CBI's successes, plans for large-scale reprisal attacks in In June 2004, the LeT despatched two Pakistani nationals from The Maharashtra- Intellectual infrastructure Has the vengeance the jihadists sought been delivered? Not quite. Minutes before the latest bombing, the Indian Mujahideen — a Lashkar-SIMI front organisation which also took responsibility for the earlier bombings in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh — sent out a manifesto explaining just what it now seeks. According to the manifesto, the Indian Mujahideen is "raising the illustrious banner of Jihad against the Hindus and all those who fight and resist us, and here we begin our revenge with the help and Permission of Allah — a terrifying revenge of our blood, our lives and our honour that will Insha-Allah terminate your survival on this land." The manifesto calls on Hindus to "realise that the falsehood of your 33 crore dirty mud idols and the blasphemy of your deaf, dumb mute and naked idols of ram, krishna and hanuman [sic; capitalisation as in original throughout] are not at all going to save your necks from being slaughtered by our hands." It demands that Hindus change their attitudes, lest "another Ghauri shakes your foundations, and lest another Ghaznavi massacres you, proving your blood to be the cheapest of all mankind." No great effort is needed to locate the intellectual genesis of this body of ideas: it draws heavily on long-standing LeT polemic. Indeed, the manifesto's plea that the LeT not take responsibility for the attacks is something of a giveaway, since the terror group has never owned up to actions targeting civilians. In 2003, for example, the LeT argued on its website that violence against Muslims in Lashkar chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed also said, "the Hindu is a mean enemy and the proper way to deal with him is the one adopted by our forefathers [who] crushed them by force." He made clear — just as the Indian Mujahideen has — that the objective of the jihad was extending Muslim control over what it saw as Muslim land. At a November 1999 rally, he promised that he would "not rest until the whole of SIMI, like the Indian Mujahideen, also invoked medieval conquerors in its literature. In the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, SIMI called for Muslims to avenge the act by following in the steps of the 11th century conqueror, Mahmud Ghaznavi. SIMI posters appealed to god to send another Ghaznavi, and thus avenge attacks on Muslims and their mosques by attacking temples. Local influences Local religious influences are also evident. In its manifesto, the Indian Mujahideen describes itself as "terrorist," an apparently odd usage. However, it suggests that the author followed the neoconservative television evangelist Zakir Naik — just as several past Mumbai-based Lashkar operatives like Rahil Sheikh and Feroze Deshmukh did. In a controversial speech on al-Qaeda chief Osama bin-Laden, Naik proclaimed, "If he is fighting the enemies of Islam, I am for him. If he is terrorising Most Indian Muslims would dispute the proposition: it is not for nothing, after all, that the Indian Mujahideen manifesto devotes considerable space to railing against clerics who oppose its jihadism. But the fact remains that some numbers of young Muslims — angered by discrimination, enraged by pogroms — see jihadism as the sole option available to them. As the work of scholar Ashutosh Varshney points out, the roots of this tragedy lie in the breakdown of inter-communal institutions: in a creeping religious apartheid that enveloped In the weeks to come, the police and intelligence investigators will have to find out the perpetrators of the bombings. Politicians, however, have a far more important task: to ensure that justice and equity are placed at centre stage of civic life in Gujarat, and Praveen Swami, a senior correspondent of THE HINDU newspaper, is |
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