On November 26, 2008, Pakistani terrorists attacked Mumbai. They not only terrorised the people of Mumbai but also terrorised the entire Indian subcontinent. At the global level, the people glued themselves to their seats and watched the naked dance of terrorism on cable television, downloaded latest information about the situation in Mumbai on the internet, communicated and provided information through cell phones. This dance of barbarism and terrorism continued for more than 60 hours creating chaos, confusion and death. These terrorists were first described as Indian Mujahedeen and later Deccan Mujahedeen. We, the Muslims, living in the United States of America from around the world and including the Indian Muslims, were saddened by the killing of the innocent human beings: Indian Hindus, Indian Muslims, Orthodox Jews, Americans and other foreigners. We are angry and outraged.
We, the Muslims of the United States, have always raised our voices against wars, terrorism, oppression, dropping of bombs and chemicals, killings, murders, and state-sponsored terrorism. We also condemn Mumbai massacre and terrorism in the strongest terms.
We always condemned terrorism, yet the anti-Muslim forces, Islamophobia practitioners and racists continued to declare that we sympathise with them. Many other groups accuse the Muslims that they do not condemn enough.
Dr. Maher Hathout, Senior Advisor of Muslim Public Affairs Council of America wrote, some time back, an article in Los Angeles Times about terrorism and the response of the US Muslims. An exact quote of what he wrote is not available at this time, however, in part, he wrote something close to this: “We always condemn terrorism, speak against terrorism, proclaim and shout that it is against Islam to engage in terrorist activities. We are shouting and you can’t hear it, because you are deaf.”
We suffered after the terrorist attack of 9/11. At that time the Muslims living in the United States of America through CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) declared:
“Not in the Name of Islam”. “We, the undersigned Muslims, wish to state clearly that those who commit acts of terror, murder and cruelty in the name of Islam are not only destroying innocent lives, but are also betraying the value of the faith they claim to represent. No injustice done to Muslims can ever justify the massacre of innocent people, and no act of terror will ever serve the cause of Islam. We repudiate and disassociate ourselves from any Muslim group or individual who commits such brutal and un-Islamic acts. We refuse to allow our faith to be held hostage by the criminal actions of tiny minority acting outside the teachings of both the Qur’ān and the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.”
The extremists and democracy manipulators living in these United States of America continued to harass and discriminate Muslims in the US. They started the rumour mills and propaganda against Muslims saying that Muslims do not condemn acts of terror. Extremist individuals and Non-Residence Indian organisations in the US also joined the democracy manipulators in condemning the Muslims. Mosques, Islamic Centres and Muslim Religious organisations always condemned these terrorist attacks both at the organisation level and at the individual level. To validate the Islamic position by Muslim individuals and Muslim organisation, the Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) Council of North America issued a Fatwa in 2005.
“Fiqh Council Issued a Fatwa to reaffirm Islam’s absolute condemnation of terrorism and religious extremism. In the light of Qur’ān and Sunnah it declared that (1). All acts of terrorism targeting civilians are Haram (forbidden) in Islam. (2). It is Haram for a Muslim to cooperate with any individual or group that is involved in any act of terrorism or violence. (3). It is the civil and religious duty of a Muslim to cooperate with law enforcement authorities to protect the lives of all civilians.”
We, the Non Resident Indian Muslim Americans, are saddened, angry and outraged by the acts of this tiny Muslim group called LeT that has not only murdered innocent people in Mumbai on November 26, 2008, but also is holding our religion hostage. The political forces and extremists living in India have taken advantage of the situation and started grinding their own axes to gain an upper hand in the political arena. At the same time, we, the Muslim NRIs are also outraged and angered by the activities of the Indian extremists living in the United States of America who encourage harassment, discrimination and torture of Muslims in India and assist Hit-and-Run terrorists in India who kill, burn houses and business enterprises of Muslims, and then disappear under the protective wings of their sponsors. These Hit-and-Run terrorists are getting all kinds of help from the NRIs in the United States of America.
Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times staff writer, reporting from New Delhi, dispatched his report on December 9, 2008. In part it said:
“The BJP took out front-page newspaper ads branding the government as incompetent on public security and sent Narendra Modi, a particularly controversial party leader, to Mumbai while the attacks were still underway. Modi, the chief Minister of Gujarat state, is widely held to have allowed or even encouraged a pogrom in 2002 in which as many as 2,000 Muslims were killed, some by being set ablaze in the streets.”
Who benefits from all this? And how is it that Anti-Terrorism Squad Chief Hemant Karkare, his associates Ashok Kamte, Vijay Salaskar and his entire team of about seven were gunned down in a narrow lane near Cama Hospital about 12.5 miles away from the Taj Hotel? How is it that they happened to be by the Cama Hospital? Why were they there? The Marathi papers in Mumbai have reported that the killers of Hemant Karkare and his associates spoke to them in Marathi before killing Karkare and others.
The hard and dedicated work of ATS chief Hemant Karkare had led to the arrest of Lt. Col. Purohit for serial bomb blasts at the Malegaon and Samjhauta Express trains. Initially the blame had been laid on Muslims, but Karkare proved the culprits were not Muslims. The real terrorists were Lt. Col Purohit, Sadhivi Pragya Singh Thakur, Dayanand Panday alias Swami Amritanand, and others of higher political and law enforcement officers. It is said that Karkare was about to announce the names of people in higher offices of BJP, RSS and Chota Rajan, a mafia don of Mumbai. (Dr. AS Nakadar, in The Muslim Observer, Farmington City, Michigan, USA, December 4, 2008)
The extremists have discovered that the fertile ground and area for raising funds for anti-India causes is the United States. Last year, in April 2008, Dr. Subramanian Swamy, President of Janata Party and Sardar Joginder Singh, former Chief of India’s Central Bureau of Intelligence spoke in the United States at a function arranged by the Indian American Intellectuals Forum and several other Hindu extremist organisations.
“Dr. Subramanian Swamy argued that the terrorists have political objectives that every Indian must act to nullify. For example, he cited the fact that terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir have killed the Hindu Pandits and driven 375, 000 Hindus to create a Caliphate there. “Retaliate,” he thundered, “by sending one million ex-servicemen to settle in the Valley for good. Give them the necessary weapons to defend themselves and also an amount of Rupees 5 lakhs (Rs 500,000= $ 10,000) each to build their homes.” The jam-packed auditorium roared with approval at every punch line and gave Dr. Swamy a standing ovation for five minutes when he finally finished his talk. (India Tribune, 3302 West Peterson Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, USA 60659; April 12, 2008)
Speaking on the menace of terrorism, former CBI chief Sardar Joginder Singh said, “Thousands of innocent people have been killed in India due to terrorism. We should follow the Israeli model to handle terrorism.” (India Tribune, 3302 West Peterson Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, USA 60659; April 12, 2008)
Dr. Subramanian Swamy has displayed his vast knowledge of pure ignorance about Islam by stating that Kashmir will become the centre of Caliphate. He urged Hindus to retaliate. Sardar Joginder Singh urged the NRI extremists living in the United States to seek assistance of the politicians of Israel who are looters and oppressors of Palestine. This is what the Hindutva extremists and Hindutva policy makers, who wear saffron dress, have been saying for the last 60 years. They are unaware of the new realities now in place in the Kashmir valley.
“Despite the crying of the hawks, armed attacks in the Valley of Kashmir are at an all-time low since the insurgency of 1989. As Yaroslov Trofimov noted recently in the Wall Street Journal, India’s biggest foe in Kashmir is no longer a Pakistani-sponsored militancy. The new threat comes from a civil disobedience movement that is being carried out in the best Gandhian tradition. It is being led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq who says, “India is not scared of the guns here in Kashmir… (but it is scared of)… people coming out in the streets, people seeing the power of non-violent struggle”.
Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, India’s home minister at the peak of the insurgency and the state’s chief minister during 2002-05, agrees. Sayeed notes that there is a big difference between killing a militant versus killing a demonstrator. The general public, which regards the former as justified, condemns the latter. The zeitgeist of the resistance in Kashmir is hewing toward protests, not bombs. (Deccan Chronicle , Sarojini Devi Road, Secunderabad-Deccan – Andhra Pradesh , INDIA, December 22, 2008, “In clash of the hawks, cow is sacrificed”, by Ahmad Faruqui)
“While the BJP is busy provoking the Hindus in Jammu and further widening the chasm between the religious communities in the region, many members of the liberal intelligentsia in New Delhi have started wondering if the time has not, in fact, come to give in to the demands of those who want to have nothing to do with India. Some are pointing out that the costs of holding on to Kashmir are far too great even as others are suggesting that India should not be a colonizer, ruling people against their will. Booker-prize winning author-turned-activist Arundhati Roy writes, “India needs freedom from Kashmir as much as Kashmir needs freedom from India.” (Harsh V. Pant teaches at King’s College London ; Deccan Chronicle, Sarojini Devi Road, Secunderabad-Deccan – Andhra Pradesh , INDIA September 24, 2008)
The Indian political leaders come to the United States, arouse emotions of the NRI and urge them to make contributions that are eventually used in formulating plans to terrorise the minorities, especially the Muslims. Even decent Hindus are finding that Indian movies shown in the US are too violent, and are being used to instil fear in decent Hindus and collect funds.
The Hit-and-Run-Terrorists in India are accepting and responding to the propaganda and are ready to do any thing to engage in activities that are designed to destroy the democratic fabric and harmony in India. In August 2008 Bajrang Dal’s involvement in explosions in Kanpur prompted the Centre to urge the Uttar Pradesh government to conduct a CBI probe into this explosion. Two persons suspected to be members of Bajrang Dal extremist organisation were blown into pieces in the explosion carried out with the help of ammonium nitrate on Janmashtami day. This is preparation for terrorism.
In the third week of July 2009, the prime accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur threatened to kill herself. (India West, 933 MacArthur Blvd., San Leandro, California 94577, USA). Lt. Col. Srikant Prasad Purohit used his contacts to steal RDX explosives from the Indian Army artillery regiment stores for terrorism in Malegaon. Dayanand Pandey alias Swami Amritanand Dev Teerth Maharaj is also accused of involvement. The Malegaon blast triggered by a bomb placed on a motorcycle killed five Muslims and wounded 30 others on September 30, 2008 when Muslims were shopping during the fasting month of Ramadhan. This is a Hit-and-Run-Terrorism technique.
Even petty actions taken by the emotionally charged youth is used as a pretext to start a riot and burn down the businesses of the Muslim community. In October 2008, in the small town of Dhulia, Maharashtra, the youth removed posters pasted by Hindus in the Muslim area. This incident gave a green signal to the extremists to start a riot and engage in looting and burning of Muslim businesses in Dhulia on October 5, 2008. There were approximately 70 businesses and shops belonging to Muslims and around 55 of them were looted and burned down.
“I mean these shops were completely cleaned out; looted for all the stocks that they possessed and thereafter, for all the furniture. The amazing thing is that the looting was clinically planned, and it was conducted with the help of organised transport under police vigilance. You already had a number of Tata Ace mini-vans line in front of mumineen shops and looted of high cost and quick moving stock in the first phase of the looting that began on 6 October. After one mini van had been stocked with looted, another empty minivan would materialize immediately after and after this van had been stocked, another could come immediately after. It was like an assembly line operation, one would actually think that the shop was up and running and someone inside the shop was actually filling out a challan and dispatching material for sale, except that this was full-fledged loot! The riots were selected cleverly as an opportunity for looting with official protection. Police played an excellent job of playing spectators. In other cases where the shop and house were joint – this is a common feature in semi urban India – the process employed was to torch the house, drive real fear into the residents and then loot the shop.” (As per interview given by Ebrahimbhai Dhuliawala to Mudar Patherya of Kolkata). These are Hit-and-Run-Terrorism techniques.
The rise in intolerance and subsequent riots are creating a new climate of hostility towards the Muslims in India. Abundant evidence of Hit-And-Run terrorism exists from the activities of the planners of these anti-Muslim riots.
The Pakistani terrorist Kasab has admitted to engaging in terrorism on Indian soil. Let the Government of India prosecute him to the maximum extent of the law. Let the Government of India also prosecute Indians who are engaged in terrorism on Indian soil including Dr. Sharad Kunte, RSS leader who had organised bomb-making training camps in Singhad, a fort near Pune, Maharashtra, Lt. Col. Srikant Prasad Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur. This is just one example.
It is time to prosecute Hit-and-Run terrorists from India and Pakistan who are operating in India. It is also a good time to acquit and release innocent young Muslims arrested in various parts of India for alleged extremist activities. Hyderabad Court acquitted 21 innocent Muslim youths for unavailability of any evidence of their involvement in the bomb blast in 2007 in Hyderabad. The police arrested these innocent Muslim youths and framed them into false and fabricated cases. Hundreds of Muslim youths who are languishing in jails throughout India on fabricated charges should also be released. This is just one example.
The same Hindu American Foundation members, who applauded Dr. Subramanian Swamy, President of Janata Party and Sardar Joginder Singh, former Chief of India’s Central Bureau of Intelligence, for their suggestions to establish colonies and settlements in Kashmir are now seeing the fruits of their activities of helping the extremists in India in the form of a report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom that has placed India on its Watch List for not providing protection to its religious minorities, and also for disturbing increase in communal violence in India against religious minorities.
The report in part says, “The report recommends that Obama administration must urge the Indian government to take new measures to promote communal harmony, protect religious minorities and prevent communal violence by calling on all political parties and religious or social organisations to denounce violence against and harassment of religious minorities, women and low-caste members, and to acknowledge that such violence constitute a crime under Indian law.” (India West, August 21, 2009, 933 MacArthur Blvd., San Leandro, California 94577, USA).
We, the Non Resident Indians, living in North America are hopeful that the only way for India to recover from this shameful act of not applying the Indian law to criminals and terrorists regardless of their religion is to prosecute the criminals and Hit-and-Run terrorists and prove to the world that India is upholding the law.