By Faraz Ahmad
The Congress party may have its reasons to repudiate Shakeel Ahmad’s remarks that Indian Mujahideen (IM) is an outcome of the February 2002 Gujarat riots.
If you ask me, I would say I am not sure whether there really exists an organization known as Indian Mujhaideen because of two important reasons, one because our intelligence agencies are quite capable of creating fictitious organizations for legitimizing their nefarious activities. They have done this during the Punjab militancy as an excuse to liquidate thousands of innocent young Sikh boys and even girls, particularly from rural Punjab. This same regimen was repeated in the Kashmir valley to suppress a democratic voice against mismanagement of Kashmir affairs since Independence. So when the flavour of the day is Pakistan-sponsored Muslim terrorism, a name like Indian Mujahideen sounds very tantalizing.
Dr. Shakeel Ahmad in a tweet on July 20: “Indian Mujahideen was formed after Gujrat riots,says NIA in its charge sheet.Even now BJP&RSS will not desist from their communal politics?”
For all the claims, the probing and prosecuting agencies have not come out with one individual who has a proven association with this so-called nationwide organization supposedly working at the behest of Lashkar e Toiba, Hizbul Mujahideen, Taliban and you name who, so how do we know IM really exists or is merely the figment of imagination of the IB/Saffron brigade happily lapped up by an already biased media?
But let us just glean through the official explanation. Wikipedia says, “Investigators believe that Indian Mujahideen is one of many groups composed of lower-tier SIMI members. According to the Indian Intelligence Bureau, SIMI took new titles because the top leadership of SIMI have been detained and would be available for interrogation. The change in name is believed to signal a change in tactics as SIMI affiliated militants attempt to garner more support from India’s Muslim community rather than be seen as a group consisting of foreigners. Two days after the 13 May 2008 Jaipur bombings, the extremist group sent an e-mail to Indian media in which they claimed responsibility for the attacks and said they would “demolish the faiths (all religions apart from Islam) of the infidels of India”. The biggest and boldest attack to date by the group was the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts, where it gained national notoriety with a casualty count towards 50.”
Now who banned SIMI and when was it banned and on what grounds? First came the terror attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001, which is a grey area because of the apprehension of the whole exercise sponsored by the then NDA-led government and specifically the Union Home ministry under the then Home Minister LK Advani. Soon thereafter Narendra Modi led Gujarat government patronized the pogrom of Muslims ostensibly to avenge the burning down of kar sevaks in coach number S-6, in the Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002, just two months after the Parliament attack. Those who don’t suffer from a memory loss remember the whole charged atmosphere created by Advani-Modi and Jaitley combine against the Muslim youth in preparation of bringing in POTA and to justify POTA SIMI was banned just a little before POTA was conceived. While announcing the ban Advani held a press conference in North Block and distributed to the media some SIMI posters in Urdu, none of which carried any seditious material. All these were expressions of anger and frustration over the Gujarat pogrom and the inability of anyone to counter Modi.
So what is wrong in saying that IM is an outcome of Gujarat pogrom? When did IM come into prominence and how? The official version says, “Two days after the 13 May 2008 Jaipur bombings, IM sent an e-mail to the Indian media in which they claimed responsibility for the attacks and said they would “demolish the faiths of the infidels of India”. The biggest and boldest attack to date by the group was the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts, where it gained national notoriety when 56 people were killed in those serial blasts.” This is the official version.
Who according to the official version are prominent leaders of IM:
1. Abdus Subhan Qureshi, alias Ali Tauqeeer a Gujarati software engineer from Mumbai
2. Safdar Nagori from Indore
3. Qayamuddin Kapadia, a trader from Vadodra
4. Usman Agarbattiwala, a PG diploma holder from Vadodra
5. Alazeb Afridi, a jobless youth from Ahmedabad
6. Abdul Razzzak Mansuri, an embroidery unit owner from Gujarat
7. Mujib Shaikh, a stone polishing artisan from Gujarat
8. Zahid Sheikh, a mobile repair owner from Ahmedabad
9. Amil Parvaiz, a native of Ujjain. These were the original IM men according to the IB along with just one Mufti Abu Bashir from Azamgarh. Later after the Batla House incident of Delhi, according to the investigative agencies it had also spread its tentacles in UP as well, and in particular in Azamgarh district.
But then stating the obvious becomes a crime and the BJP cries hoarse attacking poor Shakeel Ahmad while the Congress always lacking spunk, hurriedly withdraws what with the Heir Apparent in the ruling party advising everyone not to irritate BJP/Modi too much and so poor Shakeel has to shut up.
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Faraz Ahmad is a Freelance journalist with past association with several national dailies.