Alternative theories to the Mumbai attack

[was]

yesterday a man in mumbai slipped on a banana, manmohan singh has sayed that foreign element are involved, later fm parnab mukherjee sayed the isi is directly involved in all this.
the mubai police sayed the terrorist were very well trained in putting bananas .
star news.

 

[dr.umer]

False Claims regarding Torture of Hostages.

There are two different claims regarding torture of hostages. Indian media is insisting that hostages were tortured specially the "Israelis".

Read this report below.

Doctors shocked at hostages's torture

They said that just one look at the bodies of the dead hostages as well as terrorists showed it was a battle of attrition that was fought over three days at the Oberoi and the Taj hotels in Mumbai.
Doctors working in a hospital where all the bodies, including that of the terrorists, were taken said they had not seen anything like this in their lives.

"Bombay has a long history of terror. I have seen bodies of riot victims, gang war and previous terror attacks like bomb blasts. But this was entirely different. It was shocking and disturbing," a doctor said.

Asked what was different about the victims of the incident, another doctor said: "It was very strange. I have seen so many dead bodies in my life, and was yet traumatised. A bomb blast victim's body might have been torn apart and could be a very disturbing sight. But the bodies of the victims in this attack bore such signs about the kind of violence of urban warfare that I am still unable to put my thoughts to words," he said.

Asked specifically if he was talking of torture marks, he said: "It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood," one doctor said.

The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: "Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again," he said.

Corroborating the doctors' claims about torture was the information that the Intelligence Bureau had about the terror plan. "During his interrogation, Ajmal Kamal said they were specifically asked to target the foreigners, especially the Israelis," an IB source said.

It is also said that the Israeli hostages were killed on the first day as keeping them hostage for too long would have focused too much international attention. "They also might have feared the chances of Israeli security agencies taking over the operations at the Nariman House," he reasoned.

On the other hand, there is enough to suggest that the terrorists also did not meet a clean, death.

The doctors who conducted the post mortem said the bodies of the terrorists were beyond recognition. "Their faces were beyond recognition."

There was no way of identifying them," he said. Asked how, if this is the case, they knew the bodies were indeed those of the terrorists, he said: "The security forces that brought the bodies told us that those were the bodies of the terrorists," he said, adding there was no other way they could have identified the bodies.

An intelligence agency source added: "One of the terrorists was shot through either eye."

A senior National Security Guard officer, who had earlier explained the operation in detail to rediff.com, said the commandos went all out after they ascertained that there were no more hostages left. When asked if the commandos attempted to capture them alive at that stage, he replied: "Unko bachana kaun chahega (Who will want to save them)?"

---------------------------

Now Jerusalem Post has different story to present.

Mumbai doctor finds no signs of torture on Chabad House bodies

A hospital doctor at Mumbai's JJ Hospital, which received the bodies of six Jewish and Israeli hostages from the Chabad House terrorist siege, has cast doubt on a report claiming that signs of torture were apparent on the bodies of the victims.


Dr. Gajanan Chawan, who saw the bodies, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday he did not believe the wounds he observed suggested the hostages had been tortured prior to their deaths.

Asked if he saw any evidence of torture on the bodies, Chawan replied, "No, I don't think so." He added that the majority of the wounds he could identify had been caused by firearms.

On Monday, a morgue employee at the JJ hospital who had also seen the bodies told the Post by telephone that the bodies of the Jewish victims had a higher number of gunshot wounds than the bodies of other victims.

"On the Jewish bodies, there were more injuries in numbers, they were firearms injuries," the morgue official said.

The bodies of the victims were flown to Israel on Monday after successful Israeli diplomatic efforts to prevent autopsies being performed on them in accordance with the religious sensitivities of some of the victims' families.

On November 30, an article was posted on the Rediff Indian news portal which cited an unnamed doctor from an unspecified hospital as claiming that torture marks were evident on the hostages' bodies.

"Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again," the doctor was quoted as saying.

The report has since been widely circulated among news outlets and internet blogs.

At least 172 people are believed to have died over 60 hours during the multiple terror attacks on Mumbai last week.

----------------------------------------

It is a fact that Indian News are mostly mixed with Masala to attract viewers but million dollar question is why are they doing it ? Just to some how prove that terrorist were hardline Islamic militants and were linked to Pakistan ?

Also, Is IB source lying about claim made by arrested Ajmal Kamal that they had instructions to specifically target Israelis and if so why is he doing that ? Is it an effort to link terrorist to Pakistan ? Tme to show some "transparency" and bring that alleged terrorist in front of people.

These matters need to be investigated fully. Police said that those and those guys were terrorist, OK - fine, accepted, no questions asked, everyone knows that those were terrorist bodies.

This all scenario doesn't make sense.

 

[daredevil]

yesterday a man in mumbai slipped on a banana, manmohan singh has sayed that foreign element are involved, later fm parnab mukherjee sayed the isi is directly involved in all this.
the mubai police sayed the terrorist were very well trained in putting bananas .
star news.

Keep your stupid theories to yourself. Post some thing constructive and don't degrade this.

 

[donrahul]

yesterday a man in mumbai slipped on a banana, manmohan singh has sayed that foreign element are involved, later fm parnab mukherjee sayed the isi is directly involved in all this.
the mubai police sayed the terrorist were very well trained in putting bananas .
star news.

Pak Government categorically denies the allegation and says that they have no bananas in their territory and if any, it was mainly due to non-state actors. President Zardari and FM Quereshi, offers, joint mechanism to investigate the Fructal menagerie, that is fracturing the subcontinent..

 

[Kharian_Beast]

Bananas attract more attention to themselves than drawing Pakistan and India in a well laid trap. Indian media playing it cool, getting praise from Pakistan.

Z News

 

[donrahul]

Bananas attract more attention to themselves than drawing Pakistan and India in a well laid trap. Indian media playing it cool, getting praise from Pakistan.

Z News

Now can we get back to the topic pls?

 

[fatman17]

ASIA PACIFIC

Date Posted: 04-Dec-2008

Jane's Defence Weekly

India reserves right to strike Pakistan in response to Mumbai attack

Rahul Bedi JDW Correspondent - Mumbai

Key Points

Tensions between India and Pakistan remain high after the terrorist attack on Mumbai, with the United States urging Islamabad to co-operate in the hunt for those responsible

The only surviving Mumbai terrorist has revealed details of his extensive training inside Pakistan


Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee has declined to rule out the use of military force against Pakistan in response to the terrorist attack on Mumbai.

Announcing that India was withdrawing from the four-year bilateral peace process with Islamabad, Mukherjee said on 3 December that he would not be "making comments on military options" and that "every sovereign country has a right to protect its territorial integrity and take appropriate action as and when it feels necessary".

On 4 December Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari promised "strong action" against those responsible for the attack, though he questioned Indian claims that the terrorists had all been Pakistanis. India had earlier demanded that Pakistan hand over 20 high-profile suspects, while US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on a visit to Islamabad and Delhi, said Pakistan needed to "co-operate fully and transparently" and with "resolve and urgency".

Meanwhile, an Indian National Security Guard (NSG) commando who led one of the three five-man teams that fought terrorists inside Mumbai's Taj Mahal Palace hotel has told Jane's that the attackers were highly trained, professional operatives.

"They were ferocious fighters, disciplined and motivated," he said shortly after the siege ended on 29 November. "Their fire discipline was excellent and they used their ammunition judiciously, mostly to draw us out," he added.

The NSG officer went on to reveal that his unit, which was unfamiliar with the Taj's layout, had been forced "to go in blind" to neutralise the gunmen in the hotel.

Over 180 people are now thought to have died in the attacks, with over 300 injured.

Basing their information on the testimony of Ajmal Amir Qasab, the only attacker to have been taken alive, Indian investigators said all 10 terrorists were indoctrinated, trained in military craft and dispatched by Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT): an Islamist group based at Mudrike near the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore.

Qasab, a Punjabi, said he was recruited by LeT in December 2007 and was sent to the group's headquarters where, along with scores of others, he underwent intense indoctrination centring on alleged Indian Army atrocities in Kashmir.

Along with around 24 others Qasab was then put through basic instruction in weapon and explosives handling for six to eight weeks at a camp near Manshera in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan.

He then completed an advanced course in urban guerrilla warfare followed by 10 weeks of marine training at the nearby Mangla dam, which ultimately gave the attackers the necessary skills to launch the Mumbai operation from the Arabian Sea.

Mumbai police commissioner Hassan Gafoor also claimed that the terrorists had been in constant contact with their LeT handlers in Lahore during the attack.

LeT cadres have been battling Indian rule in Kashmir since the mid-1990s. The group was held responsible for the December 2001 strike on the Indian parliament that led to India and Pakistan deploying their armies in a tense stand-off lasting 10 months, as well as the Mumbai train bombings of 2006.

While not directly accusing Pakistan of involvement in the strike, New Delhi has blamed Islamabad for either its unwillingness or its inability to prevent militant groups from using its territory to launch attacks on India.

However, there were admissions of guilt within India itself, as navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta conceded that India's security apparatus was afflicted with "systemic failure".

However, he denied that the IN had received "actionable intelligence", as claimed by the country's Research and Analysis Wing, India's overseas information gathering agency, that could have allowed the navy or coast guard to interdict the trawler that carried the 10 terrorists to Mumbai's coast.

Meanwhile, a former army general has criticised India's entire approach to security. "The [Indian] leadership appears to have a myopic outlook that continues to view terrorism as a law and order problem, when it is actually warfare," former army vice chief Vijay Oberoi commented. "All we do is crisis management."

© 2008 Jane's Information Group

 

[fatman17]

India admits security mistakes in run-up to Mumbai terrorist attack

Rhys Blakely, Mumbai

The Indian government today admitted that intelligence and security mistakes were made before last week's terrorist strikes on Mumbai.

The admission comes as public anger grows at the authorities' lax handling of the attacks, which killed nearly 200 people.

The newly appointed Home Minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, said: "Ultimately there have been some lapses. These are being looked into and I will do my utmost ... to overcome the causes of these lapses and try to improve the effectiveness of the security system.

"What happened in Mumbai must be the trigger for a fundamental change of our attitude towards terrorism and combating terrorism. Neither the state governmental authorities nor the citizens can go back to business as usual."

As he was speaking, India's major airports were on high alert after officials said that credible intelligence had been unearthed that indicated a plot to hijack a plane in an attack that could have resembled those mounted in New York in 2001.

There has been a public outcry in India in the wake of the deadliest terrorist attack to hit the country in 15 years. Last year India trailed only Iraq in terms of the number of people killed in terrorist attacks and there have been at least 11 serious strikes across the country in the past 12 months. Now, many Indians are angry that numerous reports warning of a terrorist strike on the country's financial capital were not acted upon.

There is also fury that well-equipped troops took at least eight hours to make a two-hour flight to Mumbai from their base near Delhi as a plane was not immediately available. Even the group of elite marine commandoes based in Mumbai did not arrive at the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels until 1am, about three and a half hours after the first shots were fired, by which time gunmen had trapped hundreds of guests.

In the preceding hours, Mumbai's security was in the hands of an under-equipped police force which found itself outgunned and overwhelmed by ten heavily-armed gunmen wielding AK-47s and grenades.

Experts say the safety of the city had effectively been placed in the hands of the anti-terror squad of the Mumbai police - a unit that has just 200 staff and is responsible for a city with a population of 18 million.

The faith of Mumbai's residents in their security forces, already sorely tested, was given another severe blow this week, when a bag containing 8kg of explosives was found at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai's main train station and one of the world's busiest.

Two gunmen killed 56 people at the terminus last Wednesday. It is thought the explosives, which were found with the bags of passengers who fled the station that night, had lain there undiscovered since the attacks.

Yesterday, it emerged that a private company that supplied explosives sniffer dogs to one of Bombay's rail operators had withdrawn its services because a bill of about £2,000 had not been paid. A Western Railway official refused to comment on the matter.

There have also been reports that the boat possibly used by the terrorists, who arrived in Mumbai by sea, was spotted off the coast of Gujarat but that at an alert to check the vessel was ignored.

This week thousands of protesters gathered at the Gateway of India, close to the Taj Mahal Palace, one of the two luxury hotels attacked last Wednesday. "Our politicians are thieves" was one of the slogans being shouted. There were also anti-Pakistan chants.

Mr Chidambaram took over as India's home minister on Sunday, the day after the attacks finally ended, replacing Shivraj Patil, who took "moral responsibility" for the assault and resigned.

Mr Chidambaram did not reveal any details of the investigation that left 172 people dead.

"All work is under way. A lot of evidence has been gathered. Many aspects are being checked ... and when the full picture is drawn up I expect to be able to make a statement in parliament, if parliament is in session at that time," he said.

The minister also repeated India's claim that "this particular crime was committed by terrorists who came from outside the country."

He said: "There is ample evidence to show that the source of the terrorist attack was clearly linked to organisations which have in the past be identified as being behind terrorist attacks in India.

"There are one or two countries which have broadly confirmed our preliminary conclusions ... At this stage of the investigation it would be inappropriate for me to name any organisation or any entity."

Mr Chidambaram's words are likely to be interpreted as pointing towards Pakistan. Several Indian officials have claimed that the gunmen were all from Pakistan and linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, which was formed to free Kashmir from Indian rule.

Mr Chidambaram described the attacks as a "horrific tragedy" and pledged that the government would do all it could to investigate what happened.

"The government is determined to take the investigation to its logical conclusion and punish the guilty," he said.

Beaver County Times & Allegheny Times Online - Front

 

[fatman17]

ANALYSIS: Winners and losers —Najmuddin A Shaikh

Let us be clear however that we do have a problem of uncontrolled and uncontrollable forces in Pakistan that are intent on sabotaging any efforts at Indo-Pak reconciliation. Whether or not the Indians provide us with evidence, we should initiate inquiries ourselves

Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of India, has suffered a horrendous terrorist attack. In a siege that lasted some 60 hours, 173 people were killed and more than 300 were injured. On the very first day, local security forces confronted two terrorists who had attacked Mumbai’s principal railway station and then gone on a shooting spree in other areas. One of them died, while the other was captured alive. Initial Indian press reports said two other ‘fidayeen’ had been arrested but mention of them disappeared thereafter.

The normally circumspect Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asserted that the terrorist group responsible was “based outside the country”, and warned that there would be a cost for these countries if “suitable measures are not taken by them”.

Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee went further, stating that “elements from Pakistan” were responsible. Both however carefully avoided suggesting that the Pakistani government was involved, leaving open the possibility that they would genuinely seek Pakistan’s cooperation in combating terrorism, the common enemy.

India has had a series of terrorist attacks in the last year, and these have claimed more lives than anywhere else except Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. The Indian press has pilloried the government for the security lapses that made this attack possible and for the poor performance of the security forces that permitted just 6 people to hold out for 60 hours.

The ruling party is also contesting 6 state elections which are due to conclude on December 4, and is girding its loins for national elections which must be called at the latest by May next year. Searching for a scapegoat even before evidence is available was understandable, particularly when the leading opposition party, the BJP, was accusing the government of being soft on terrorism and on Pakistan.

Much less understandable was why the demarche presented to the Pakistani high commissioner asked for the arrest of the same people that it has been asking for since 1993 in some cases, and since 2002 in most others. Mukherjee called it a list that had been adjusted somewhat, while Pakistani officials said it was identical to the list the Indian home secretary had presented earlier in Islamabad during talks with his Pakistani counterpart. He did not dwell on what evidence they had of the involvement of Pakistan-based elements in the Mumbai carnage. And yet at this time, surely the focus should have been on presenting such evidence as the Indians had been able to gather and on seeking Pakistan’s cooperation in corroborating their findings and bringing the perpetrators to trial.

Perhaps this is because the Indians do not have much hard evidence. They have officially released very little information but according to Indian press reports based on briefings from official sources, it would appear that despite three people having been arrested, only one has survived and that all the information that the Indians have gathered has come from him. Reading the Hindu, one of the more sober and professionally sound newspapers, one sees a measure of confusion in the information that has been gathered from this single source.

On December 1, the Hindu’s Praveen Swami reported that the terrorist was named “Amjad Amir Kamaal, a resident of the small village of Faridkot in the Okara district of Pakistan’s Punjab province. He and his colleagues had sailed from Karachi and then boarded a Merchant vessel, the Al-Husseini. After an encounter with an Indian Coast guard vessel they had abandoned the merchant vessel and taken over an Indian fishing boat called the ‘Kuber’. Kamaal was said to be from a landless family and had dropped out of school after the fourth class. He had been promised a payment of Rs 1.5 lakhs for participating in the attack.”

Swami also reported that a satellite telephone had been recovered from the Kuber by RAW and that several telephone calls had been made from that phone to the Lashkar’s operations chief, going by the code names of Muzzamil, Yusuf and Abu Hurrera.

On December 2, Swami reported that the name was Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman who had been trained in camps in Kashmir and who, with his partner and 4 other two-man groups, sailed out of Karachi equipped with arms and ammunition (200 rounds each), explosives, a GPS and mobile phones that had been acquired in New Delhi and Kolkata. Near Indian coastal waters, they hijacked an Indian fishing boat and then on approaching Mumbai switched to an inflatable dinghy. There is no mention of a satellite phone or of the Kuber, but Iman reportedly told his interrogators that the Lashkar headquarters remained in touch with the group, calling their phones through a voice-over-internet service. Swami surmised that these calls were intercepted and recorded by RAW.

This seems to give the lie to press reports about valuable information having become available from the monitoring of the satellite phone and from the personal belongings that the attackers had allegedly left behind in the Kuber.

The American press, primarily the New York Times, relying on a press conference by the Mumbai deputy police commissioner, Rakesh Maria, maintained that the name of the one surviving attacker was Ajmal Amir Qasab. Inspector Maria also said there were only 10 attackers in all, denying earlier suggestions by public officials that there had been more. Earlier reports in the same newspaper had, however, put the number of terrorists killed at 11 with 1 having been captured. It had asked how so much mayhem could be caused by so small a group.

Given this doubt about the size of the assault party, another report in the same newspaper talked of the landing of one party of ten men outside a fishing village in Mumbai and surmised that they were joining “a larger terrorist force, which included some attackers who, unconfirmed local news reports say, had embedded themselves in Mumbai days before the attacks.”

The BBC has reported that its Urdu and English service reporters in Pakistan visited three villages called Faridkot in Southern Punjab to try and find out what they could about the man known as Iman or Kasab. They failed to find a trace of him in any of the villages.

Even while condoling with the Indians on the grievous loss they have suffered, we have to conclude that there is much more that remains to be discovered or revealed about the attackers, their motives and the remarkable security lapses. We have also to assume perhaps that evidence is not being provided because it is not available.

Let us be clear however that we do have a problem of uncontrolled and uncontrollable forces in Pakistan that are intent on sabotaging any efforts at Indo-Pak reconciliation. Whether or not the Indians provide us with evidence, we should initiate inquiries ourselves. Regardless of the nationality of the attackers, the Indo-Pak process has been set back. Hardliners in India will be encouraged, ignoring India’s own long-term interests to exploit Pakistan’s many vulnerabilities. Both countries have lost.

The Americans, desperately anxious to ensure that Pakistan continues its present intensified effort to eliminate terrorists from the tribal areas, will do everything they can to prevent a further deterioration in Indo-Pak relations. But they will also advise — if not demand — that more be done against groups that see India as a fair target for their activities. They may concede that India’s evidence is spotty but we must realise that for Washington, it is Pakistan that will in all likelihood be the venue from which the next terrorist attack will be launched on the US. It is this as much as sympathy for their strategic ally that will drive their demarches. This is the message we have probably received from Admiral Mullen and will be the message that Secretary Rice delivers. This will not be well received by the Pakistani establishment. America too will have lost.

The only people who have gained are those who desire chaos in Pakistan and in the region.

The writer is a former foreign secretary

 

[Flintlock]

Muslim outfit asks Centre to chase and kill Pak terrorists
Piyush Srivastava
Lucknow, December 5, 2008

It’s an act of solidarity with the Centre and the people. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) — which reportedly represents the minority voice in the country — expressed its outrage over last week’s Mumbai terror attacks and demanded tougher and decisive measures soon.

The Muslim body asked the UPA government to “chase and eliminate” the four big ‘terror’ fish — currently in Pakistan — who are on India’s most wanted list. These noted terrorist include Hafiz Muhammed Saeed, head of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba; Syed Salahuddin, chief of Hijbul Mujahideen; Dawood Ibrahim, underworld don and main accused in the 1993 Mumbai blast; and Maulana Masood Azhar, founder of Jaish-e-Mohammed. Maulana Kalbe Sadiq, AIMPLB vice-president, said the nation stands firmly behind the UPA government in its battle against the terrorists. Khalid Rashid Firangimehli, a well-known Sunni cleric and an AIMPLB member, echoed Sadiq’s stand. “All existing problems can be solved if these four terrorists are eliminated. These people are running training camps in Pakistan and ***. If required, the Centre should chase and kill them without any delay. We can assure you that we’ll support whatever stand the Centre takes in this regard,” Firangimehli said. Sadiq also has an advice for the neighbouring country: this is the right time for its government to act with an iron fist and save their nation.

He said: “The terrorists are like rats, with their holes dug out in Pakistan.” Firangimehli said: “Since it is clear that Pakistan and *** are breeding grounds of these extremists, there shouldn’t be any hitch in destroying them to save our land.”

Sadiq’s stance assumes significance because he is a well-known Shia cleric with substantial following in the sub-continent and southeast Asian countries. He has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, stating the country’s Muslim community was fed up with the rise in terror attacks. “Forget that these men identify themselves with fellow Muslims. The fact remains that they are killers and so they should be killed. Don’t be scared of the votebank.

Just finish them!” he said. This is the toughest stand the country’s Muslim clerics have taken against terrorism. Earlier, Darul Uloom, Deoband, issued a fatwa against the terrorists and asked the community to fight against terror.

Courtesy: Mail Today

India Today - India's most widely read magazine.

 

[fatman17]

Greenway: The unhealed wound of Kashmir

By H.D.S. Greenway

Published: December 2, 2008

If the twin towers of the World Trade Center seemed to symbolize New York, how much more does the storied Taj Mahal hotel, with its overwrought architecture and mock Mughal flourishes, symbolize the great, rambling city of Bombay, which the Indians now call Mumbai.

When it was built in 1903 - the dream of Jamsetji Tata, who named it after India's most enduring monument - it was the first building in Bombay to be lit by electric lights. Today the Tata Group is among India's greatest industrial conglomerates with a worldwide reach.

The triumphal arch between the hotel and the bay, The Gateway to India, was built to commemorate the 1911 landing of the king - Emperor George V - at the height of the British Empire, and through it marched the last British soldiers to leave India, the Somerset Light Infantry, in 1948, when the imperial sun was setting and India was newly free.

The maharajas in the Taj lobby were replaced by industrial moguls and high-end foreigners, and the hotel became the place where well-off Indians had their weddings and their grand occasions, just as much a symbol of the new India shouldering its way onto the world stage as of the colonial past.

The terrorists knew that, of course, as they slipped by the Gateway to attack the Taj. Terrorists are great ones for symbolism, and to strike Mumbai was the equivalent of striking New York with Hollywood thrown in.


India points the finger toward Pakistan, and it's becoming clear that the unhealed wound of Kashmir is spreading its gangrenous grievance yet again. The mostly Muslim region was assigned to India when the subcontinent was being partitioned, and the Muslim population remains unreconciled to Indian rule.

The terrorists seemed so familiar with their targets, including a hard-to-find Jewish center. One wonders if they had local help. How sad for India if local Muslims were involved. Although a minority, Muslims in India represent one of the world's biggest Muslim populations, after Indonesia and Pakistan, which was created as a Muslim homeland. Communal violence has always been the lethal gene in the Indian body politic, and Mumbai's Muslims were hunted down and massacred by angry Hindus as recently as 1993.

One terrorist screamed "Remember Babri Masjid!" - a mosque destroyed by Hindu nationalists in 1992. Another cried "Remember Godhra!" the scene of anti-Muslim riots in Gugarat six years ago.

Local elections have begun in India, leading up to a general election next year, and the Hindu nationalist opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, longs to paint the ruling Congress Party as soft on terrorism and national security.

The big question is to what degree will Pakistan be blamed? A similar attack on the Indian Parliament seven years ago brought the two countries to the brink of war. Pakistan wants no trouble with India while a consuming fire of Islamic militancy blazes in its own country. But elements of Pakistan's military and security forces have been known to give succor and support to militants just in order to bedevil India over Kashmir.

The terrorists clearly hoped to worsen Indo-Pakistan relations.

India and Pakistan have fought several wars, most of them over Kashmir, and Pakistan feels threatened by India's growing influence in Afghanistan. India, in turn, fears becoming a war zone itself, with constant bombings and terrorist outrages, some of them traceable to Pakistan.

The British partition of India 60 years ago, which cost so many lives and so much anguish, was designed to resolve the problems between Hindus and Muslims. It did not. The grievances growing out of that partition live on to poison both successor states to the British Raj.

This is a nightmare for the incoming Obama administration, which, like its predecessor, wants peace between the two nuclear neighbors and Pakistan's attention focused on its own growing Islamic insurgency.

The danger is that an attack this spectacular can trigger an overreaction that will create more terrorists, to which the actions of the Bush administration after 9/11 so sadly attest. Hopefully, India will prove the wiser.

But most certainly, the Taj will rise again.

 

[fatman17]

Muslim outfit asks Centre to chase and kill Pak terrorists
Piyush Srivastava
Lucknow, December 5, 2008

It’s an act of solidarity with the Centre and the people. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) — which reportedly represents the minority voice in the country — expressed its outrage over last week’s Mumbai terror attacks and demanded tougher and decisive measures soon.

The Muslim body asked the UPA government to “chase and eliminate” the four big ‘terror’ fish — currently in Pakistan — who are on India’s most wanted list. These noted terrorist include Hafiz Muhammed Saeed, head of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba; Syed Salahuddin, chief of Hijbul Mujahideen; Dawood Ibrahim, underworld don and main accused in the 1993 Mumbai blast; and Maulana Masood Azhar, founder of Jaish-e-Mohammed. Maulana Kalbe Sadiq, AIMPLB vice-president, said the nation stands firmly behind the UPA government in its battle against the terrorists. Khalid Rashid Firangimehli, a well-known Sunni cleric and an AIMPLB member, echoed Sadiq’s stand. “All existing problems can be solved if these four terrorists are eliminated. These people are running training camps in Pakistan and ***. If required, the Centre should chase and kill them without any delay. We can assure you that we’ll support whatever stand the Centre takes in this regard,” Firangimehli said. Sadiq also has an advice for the neighbouring country: this is the right time for its government to act with an iron fist and save their nation.

He said: “The terrorists are like rats, with their holes dug out in Pakistan.” Firangimehli said: “Since it is clear that Pakistan and *** are breeding grounds of these extremists, there shouldn’t be any hitch in destroying them to save our land.”

Sadiq’s stance assumes significance because he is a well-known Shia cleric with substantial following in the sub-continent and southeast Asian countries. He has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, stating the country’s Muslim community was fed up with the rise in terror attacks. “Forget that these men identify themselves with fellow Muslims. The fact remains that they are killers and so they should be killed. Don’t be scared of the votebank.

Just finish them!” he said. This is the toughest stand the country’s Muslim clerics have taken against terrorism. Earlier, Darul Uloom, Deoband, issued a fatwa against the terrorists and asked the community to fight against terror.

Courtesy: Mail Today

India Today - India's most widely read magazine.

they sound scared to me!

 

[daredevil]

they sound scared to me!

Why does they sound scared to you?. Do you think Muslims are not nationalistic?.

 

[Flintlock]

^Muslims, unlike Hindus, are organized. Its important that their central body unequivocally condemns the terror attacks.

 

[was]

Keep your stupid theories to yourself. Post some thing constructive and don't degrade this.

if you don,t like it shut up and let mods do their job
this isn,t your baharat rakshak