Phalgun Krushna Trayodashi
By Balbir Kunj
Little purpose will be served by cracking down on SIMI unless there is adequate political conviction that radical Islamism must be countered
What is tumbling out of the SIMI cupboard is a glimpse of the countrywide network of about 20,000 youngsters brainwashed to believe that through terror they can convert India into an Islamic country. As disclosed by Riyazuddin Nasir, SIMI leader Safdar Nagori had instructed his followers thus: "Jihad is our path. India is to be liberated by converting it to dar-ul Islam by either forcefully converting everyone to Islam or by violence."
There should be no surprise at such inspirations behind terror. No doubt, the recent Deoband gathering of imams has declared terrorism "anti-Islamic". However, the interpretation of Jihad that this global network of extremism preaches is effectively brought out in the Islamist literature that is getting widely distributed and is being used to mislead young Muslim minds.
From his hideout somewhere in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the two leading lights of Al Qaeda regularly call on Muslims to resort to terror in the name of Jihad, assuring them that this way the entire world will become Muslim. If the country has to be convinced that the Deoband call is going to be effective antidote to the poison that is being spread in the name of religion, there should be a positive action plan for the ulema to isolate the extremists so that the Government can finally overcome them.
This observation becomes relevant in the light of what Nasir has revealed. While the Madhya Pradesh Government deserves credit for this prized catch, it is obvious that Nagori and his terror merchants were operating with impunity in the last four years across the country. The fact that as many as six State police organisations and Central intelligence agencies are interrogating the SIMI leadership reveals how effective and widespread this terror network is. From the reports of interrogation of this group, it seems that SIMI was behind almost every incident of terrorism in country for the last four years.
This is not to say that police establishments in other States were not doing their work. In Hyderabad, for instance, soon after the Mecca Masjid bombing, many suspects were held. But the police could not interrogate them as much as they needed. A sustained campaign accusing the police of "torturing innocent Muslims" was launched. Soon, the Congress-led State Government caved in and the police were told to back off.
Hyderabad was also in the news when Gujarat Police traced the attack on Haren Pandya, the former Gujarat Home Minister, to a maulana in Hyderabad, arrested him and took him to Ahmedabad. There was once again demonstrations against this arrest. There is thus everything to suspect that such demonstrations are being inspired by those very forces that plan terror attacks in the country. Nasir is that maulana's son.
An engineering college dropout, Nasir, 21, is a Lashkar-e-Tayyeba operative, according to Hyderabad Police chief Prasad Rao. Nasir and Abu Bakr, a 21-year-old ayurveda student, were waiting to receive a consignment of explosives from Bangladeshi operatives when they were arrested on January 17. The media has been full of reports of the many plans that Nasir was privy to – ram the Andhra Pradesh police headquarters, attack the nuclear fuel complex in Hyderabad and also the nuclear reactor in Kaiga. There was also an assignment given to Nasir to attack American and Israeli tourists in Goa on the lines of the Bali bombing in Indonesia that killed at least 200 tourists.
Now that Central intelligence agencies and the police of six States have given out the same story of widespread network of SIMI that Nagori and his associates created from the Malabar coast to Uttar Pradesh through Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, etc, with links to the terror outfits working in Jammu & Kashmir and a regular flow of funds and explosives as well as mentors from Pakistan and Bangladesh, one wonders how these activities were going on for years without the knowledge of our security and Intelligence agencies.
A foreign-inspired Jihadi movement cannot strike roots unless there is a local organisation to facilitate it. The SIMI was suspect right from the day Parliament was attacked; the NDA Government then took the bold decision to ban the outfit. However, after 2004, there was little that was made known to the public about SIMI's activities. It is 'cool' to condemn the US on Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, as the imams at Deoband have done. But they have not directed their anger at those who are misleading Muslim youth in the country, about which they necessarily know much more than what the intelligence agencies do. Such a vast network cannot be built without local sympathies.
Muslim leaders have been fanning anger against the US to build their political constituencies. Worse, our self-styled secular leaders have ignored their duty to balance their support to what is termed as 'Muslim anger' with a strong condemnation of the extremist ideology that keeps the embers burning. On the other hand, they have done everything to fan these flames and tell the Muslim leadership that it's right to organise massive demonstrations against Danish cartoonists or Ms Taslima Nasreen.
Some political parties are misleading the people by saying that we are fighting terrorism. This is a half-truth. What we are fighting is not just terrorism, but radical Islamism. If we just focus on terror and ignore the ideology behind such subversive activities, we are inviting bigger trouble in future.
Source: http://www.dailypioneer.com
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