By Asghar Ali Engineer
Four months after bomb blasts in Mecca Masjid terrorists struck again in Hyderabad in the evening of 25th August at around 7.50 p.m. just when I started to go to Hyderabad airport after conducting workshops on peace and communal harmony and learnt about these blasts on reaching the airport around 8.20 p.m. It was a great shock for me too as I was elated that the youth, students, women and police had greeted these workshops with great enthusiasm. And it had such anti-climax that city witnessed such horrible carnage. I returned a very sad person though a few moments before I was elated at the success.
One could hardly expect carnage on such scale (41 persons dead and more than 50 injured) so soon after Mecca Masjid blast in the month of May 2007. According to the Times of India, India has emerged with largest number of deaths in terrorist attacks. According to the Times of India figures in India 3,647 people have been killed in 3032 incidents compared to 1,121 deaths in 1,112 incidents of terrorist attacks.
However, it is not clear whether these deaths and incidents include those of North East and Kashmir or not. Probably it does. The question then is why India is at such a high risk of terrorist attacks? Answers given are on expected lines: India is a secular democracy and some forces from neighboring countries wish to destroy our secular democracy by provoking communal riots.
Second theory is that Indian economy is growing fast and Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai etc. are emerging as growth engine for Indian economy and hence they are also emerging as centers of terrorist attack or perhaps combination of both these factors. Also usual suspects are Lashkar-i-Tayyiba, HUJI (Harkat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami), a Bangla Desh based organization or similar other terrorist organizations based in Pakistan or Kashmir.
Of course, these are mere guesswork. So far Indian police has not been able to catch any real culprits despite several major attacks like in October in Delhi, on Hanuman Chalisa Temple in Varanasi, July 11, 07 in Mumbai and so on. Still no one has been caught in Mecca Masjid attack also. Soon after such attacks the police points its finger at these terrorist organizations of Pakistan and Bangla Desh and starts investigations on those lines. Both in Malegaon mosque and Mecca Masjid blasts in Hyderabad, these organizations were suspected though to Muslims it appeared improbable, if not impossible, that Muslims will be involved in blasts taking places in mosques and in Malegaon, on the sacred day of Shab-e-Baraat, an important Muslim festival.
Just before Malegaon blasts and after it several explosions took place in Nanded at the home and godown of Hindu extremists and yet, police turned totally blind eye to these incidents and arrested, as usual, some Muslim youth, a doctor and others and extracted ‘confessions’ from them. Later they retract telling the courts that these confessions were extracted under duress from them and case remains unsolved. In all these major blasts hardly any case has bees solved.
Among political parties BJP takes the usual line that POTA or TADA must be re-enacted and only stringent laws will help curb terrorist attacks. Advani and other BJP leaders forget that during their 6 years rule despite these monstrous laws large number of terrorist attacks including one on Parliament took place. It is totally erroneous assumption that stringent laws will curb such incidents. Despite these laws, our years of experience suggest, terrorist incidents continue. Nagaland became comparatively peaceful only after political negotiations. Kashmir saw relative peace only after peace initiative was taken by Central Government and negotiations started both with Pakistan as well as with Hurriyat leaders.
Terrorism, let us remember, is a political phenomenon and can be effectively fought only through political initiative. The world has seen that how USA has miserably failed to solve the problem of terrorism despite its declaration of ‘war against terrorism’. Both Iraq and Afghanistan are rocked with terrorist violence. In fact, tragically, it has become way of violence for the people in these two unfortunate countries. Pakistan too, witnesses horrible incidents of violence despite being frontline state in war against terror. Main problem is political, not legal and legal solution never helps.
To tackle terrorist problem one really needs, besides political efforts, to tighten effectiveness of intelligence agencies. Intelligence gathering is most essential part of preventive measure. In the case of communal riots also, more often than not, main failure of intelligence gathering. Intelligence gathering requires most competent and dedicated officers with commitment to secularism. Generally, non-competent officers are dumped there or these posts are used for punishment posting. One will hardly find dedicated and competent officers. And even if competent, they are unwilling as most of them want ‘better’ posting with greater potential for ‘earning’.
Also, the investigating officers should not have communal biases and should be ones with unambiguous secular commitment. If investigations are started on wrong lines on the basis of communal biases, as it often happens, there is very little chance of real culprits being caught. Innocent people are arrested on the basis of suspicion, tortured to give confession and then claim made to have ‘solved’ the case.
Thus the real culprits are never caught and innocent persons or mere carriers are caught. From my experience of conducting several police workshops I can say that police people, specially at lower and middle levels have very raw prejudices against minorities and at the top too, there are quite a few, though with more sophisticated, prejudices. There is hardly any serious training for secular orientation of these officers. Many of course come from direct RSS background. There is hardly any checking of ones ideological background at the recruitment level.
In both the Hyderabad explosions, the finger of suspicion was once again pointed towards Pakistan and Bangla Desh based terrorist organizations. In fact a section of the press has reported that bombs were made in Hyderabad itself. According to the Asian Age “All bombs were similar. About one kg. of slurry was stuffed into a curved wooden container covered with metal sheets. Iron balls bearings 2 weighing about 700 grams were found in the bomb”. It is also pointed out that though slurry is commonly used by terrorists but use of curved container for powerful impact is not seen much, maintained an Intelligence Bureau official. A.P. Forensic Science Laboratory Director O.Narsimha Murthy said that explosive material in the bomb was ammonium nitrate (slurry) mixed with emulsifier. It was made by a Nagpur firm.
Thus there also could be a Naxalite angle as Naxals are active both in Andhra Pradesh as well as in Maharashtra in areas adjoining to Nagpur. All these angles must be kept in mind while investigating. Investigations must be carried out with an unbiased mind. Nothing should be ruled out in case of these terrorist attacks.
It is all the more difficult to tackle this deadly disease as ideologically inspired actors have no fear of death, much less of imprisonment. So many youth are unfortunately ready to kill and be killed without even a second thought. That is why in all the conflict areas around the world which have ideological dimensions many youth are ready to become human bombs.
In sixties and seventies of last century there was talk of urban guerrilla warfare by the extreme left ideologues. It had died down after seventies in the post-modern societies of the West. Red guerrillas had played havoc in many European countries like Germany and France as well as those of Latin America. But now left extremism died down but due to other political factors now religious extremists have become main players and they are wreaking havoc.
Now the terrorists are no more European or Latin American but mainly migrants from African and Asian countries and their European or American born children brought up in those countries. They remain alien to cultural values of European countries as they remain on the margins of those countries and never become part of their mainstream despite so much talk of multi-culturalism.
Of course causes of terrorism in Indian sub-continent are quite different but mainly due to political factors peculiar to subcontinent. Cessationist forces are active in Kashmir and North East on one hand, and those inspired by religious extremism from neighboring countries on the other. As far as neighboring countries are involved political stability in these countries is in our own interest. More the instability in these countries, particularly in Pakistan and Bangla Desh, greater the problems for us.
Thus leaders of our political parties will have to show greater political wisdom and sagacity, along with tightening of vigilance, to solve this deadly problem of terrorism. We will also have to win over confidence of minorities and let us remember anti-minorityism of communal parties and outfits is going to further aggravate the situation. It is in our own interest to keep our country free of communal hatred and respect religious as well as democratic rights of all sections of population.
These are some of the suggestions worth pondering and taking suitable steps to fight this menace of communalism. Complex analysis and complex solution is needed for complex problem. Earlier we realize this better for us.