Terror Network

With the recent arrests made in connection with the Ajmer blast, the Hindu terror outfits are once again under the scanner. Whether it is they who masterminded all the explosions attributed to Muslim youth is doing rounds.

Starting in the first decade of the 21st century the series of blasts picked up momentum, especially in the middle of the decade. Within hours of these blasts the media or the police had a habit of naming youth from the muslim community in the list of suspects. Some outfits apparently run by Muslims, as their name suggested---Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harkat-ul-Jihad Al-Islami, Students Islamic Movement of India, Indian Mujahideen, --were the easy ones to name. In the subsequent crackdowns, after every blast educated Muslim youth would be the immediate suspects without any discrimination whether the explosion had taken place at a public place or the target was a mosque, dargah or cemetery.

Explosions took place in mosques of Jalna, Purna and Parbhani (all in Maharashtra) in 2002-2003 and the accused were Muslims. They were also the alleged masterminds behind Jama Masjid, Delhi (April 2006), Malegaon Hameedia Masjid (September 2006) and Makkah Masjid, Hyderabad (2007) blasts. And of course Muslims who do not visit dargahs, were arrested after the Dargah Ajmer Sharif (October 2007) blasts in Ajmer.
Police were convinced that blasts were the work of only home-grown jihadi elements.

No sooner had the blast occurred that information regarding it was available witht he investigating authorities. “So sure were the investigators of their facts that we were fed innumerable details of what was supposed to have taken place: who hatched the conspiracy, how they recruited their allies, how they planted the bombs, and who they took orders from,” writes Vir Sanghvi in an article. Had such details been available before the explosions, they could have been used to deter the incident.

But, the availability of information immedietly after the blast has taken place, raises doubts if the details presented by police are made up.

The police arrested dozens of ulama, imams of mosques and madrassa teachers after Ajmer blast. Then-after a long probe---it nabbed there Hindu terrorists: Devendra Gupta in Ajmer and Chandrashekhar &Vishnu Prasad in Madhya Pradesh raising doubts over the fairness in police tackling the case. The ATS is in search for yet other culprits with the mastermind supposed to be hiding in Modi’s Gujarat.

Whenever, there was an unbiased probe, the executors behind most of the blasts turned out to be those who consider themselves to be the protectors of Hindutva (not Hinduism). They are arrested with explosives, were killed during manufacturing bombs in Nanded and fake Muslim attire, like beard and kurta pyjama, are recovered from their houses.

Also the Ajmer blast accused Gupta has been an active member of RSS. And of course the three arrested for the blast are attached to the notorious radical Hindutva outfit Abhinav Bharat. Late Maharashtra chief Hemant Karkare, who had received threats from Hindutva hardliners prior to him being killed in 26/11 attack, has tracked the link of Malegaon Blast executors to AB and had demanded a ban on it.

While Muslims distanced themselves from SIMI after it was declared a terrorist outfit—though substantial proof of it being involved in any anti-national activities did not exist with the government—the Hindu community has not reacted similarly when it comes to Abhinav Bharat. And the fact is that involvement of Abhinav Bharat in several blasts has been established.

Interestingly, after the exposure of the Hindutva network as the result of Karkare’s efforts, there was an abrupt halt in explosions. In the Goa blast again evidence pointed towards Abhinav Bharat and the Pune German Bakery blast was also similar.

AB like outfits are the black sheep in the Hindu community. While majority of Hindus are peace loving, AB is creating an image that the hindus are terrorists and killers of innocents.

The pre-assumption by the police that every terrorist must be a Muslim has to change. The real culprits escape from the hands of investigating agencies and hence they strike at will. This mentality must change to ensure that the terror network is broken. There is a need to have an unbiased intelligence network. The nation has to unite to fight terrorism. Hindus too should join muslims to stop these terrorists elements from within their communities.