Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Who could have blown up the Samjhota Express?
Editorial
The latest outrage in the lives of innocent Pakistani citizens is that somebody has detonated a couple of bombs inside the Pakistan-bound Samjhota Express train on Monday, killing 67 persons, mostly Pakistani passengers returning from a visit to India. The tragedy happened about 60 miles out of New Delhi, from where the train had started for Atari at the Pakistani border where the passengers would have changed trains. The explosion was caused in two bogies with suitcase bombs made from explosive powder and kerosene. Similar ââ¬Ësuitcase bombsââ¬â¢ were found in two other bogies too ââ¬â they failed to explode.
Most of the victims of the fire that engulfed the coaches were Pakistanis. Out of the total passengers (757) travelling in the train, 555 were Pakistanis because the ââ¬Ëfriendship trainââ¬â¢ is basically meant for separated Muslims families.
Looking at the pattern of travel on the special train, one can say that Pakistani families travel more often to India than those of Indian Muslims to Pakistan. One can therefore assume that whoever sabotaged the train knew that only Muslims would die and most of them would be Pakistanis. Does that mean that this dastardly act could not have been perpetrated by Muslims? No, it doesnââ¬â¢t. On the contrary, in fact, on recent record, one is almost reluctant to accuse anyone but Muslim terrorists for this act.
The fact that 26 men, 14 women and 13 children died in the blast, gives no clue because the jihad of our day doesnââ¬â¢t bother about what kind of collateral damage it does.
However, quite understandably the Indians have lost no time in linking the blast with the explosions in Mumbai last year in July that killed 186, mostly Hindu citizens. Obviously, the Indian railways minister, Laloo Prashad Yadav, who made the accusation, did not note that the passengers killed on Monday were mostly Muslims.
The tragedy was enhanced by the fact that the windows of the train were barred and the doors locked. Although it is normal the world over to seal the compartments, it is probably not wise to seal trains in South Asia where people may need to evacuate to save their lives in short order. Other complaints such as that the Indians are not releasing information are irrelevant.
The Jamaat-i-Islamiââ¬â¢s Shabab Milli has actually staged a protest in Lahore accusing the Indians of having done the deed. But responsible MNAs who seemed to jump the gun on the incident should have acted with more restraint.
India has lately been victim of sabotage and terrorism, but the trend is more associated with Pakistan than with India. Just as the Indians accuse some lashkar or the other every time there is a blast in India, we used to accuse India whenever there was an explosion on our side, until, of course, our noses were rubbed in the evidence that it was our own jihadis who were doing it. If India has a knee-jerk response, the world doesnââ¬â¢t laugh at it as much as it does when we accuse India, simply because Pakistani Islamist-jihadis like Omar Sheikh and his friends were actually caught doing mischief in India and were sprung from an Indian jail through a hijacking.
Clearly, whoever did it is unhappy over the current state of affairs. Our foreign minister, who was to arrive in India to push the normalisation forward, says it was someone opposed to the peace process between India and Pakistan. This peace process has been initiated at the cost of the jihad being waged by our religious warriors. Some opposition politicians and the jihadi elements have openly accused President General Pervez Musharraf of having betrayed the Kashmir cause by trying to normalise relations with India. The culprits can be narrowed down further. It could be someone who hates General Musharraf more than he loves fellow Muslims.
Why wasnââ¬â¢t the deed done in Pakistan? Simply because then the finger would have pointed to Pakistanis inside Pakistan. Also, the Samjhota Express travels inside Pakistan hardly any distance at all. But Pakistan is wide open to this kind of thing. After the big blast at the Sessions Court in Quetta, the tallest building in Pakistan, the 16-storey Shipping Corporation Building in Karachi, has been hit the same week. There have been blasts in Islamabad ââ¬â where seminarian girls are up in arms threatening suicide-bombing ââ¬â that hardly help in our posturings of outrage against India.
Let us keep our fingers crossed and pray it is not a Pakistan-linked terrorist organisation that has killed people going to India to meet their relatives. And let us pray that better measures are taken to secure the cross-border trains plying from Punjab and Sindh. *
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\02\21\story_21-2-2007_pg3_1
