By IANS,
New Delhi : Military action thriller writer Mukul Deva, a former Indian Army officer, has a prescription to eliminate terror – target selected terrorists and assassinate them.
“Don’t go after Pakistan as a country, attack individual terrorists. Do not use defence strategy against them, the terrorists will eventually wear you down. It’s high time that those who spread terror look behind their backs and wonder where the next bullet will come from. The best way to destroy the enemy is not to kill him, but to degrade him and destroy his will to fight,” novelist Mukul Deva told a gathering of former armymen, defence writers, journalists, novelists and old friends at the India International Centre (IIC) Thursday.
His book, “Salim Must Die”, the second in a series of four military action thrillers, was released by television anchor and action thriller writer Vikram Chandra. The first book in Deva’s thriller series, “Lashkar”, was published in March 2008.
Deva, who was commissioned in the Sikh Light Infantry of the Indian Army in 1981 after graduating from the National Defence Academy in Pune and the Indian Military Academy in Dehradun, opted out of service prematurely after 15 years. He was a major.
The Delhi-based writer-entrepreneur, who already has five books in his kitty, feels there’s a lot waiting to happen.
“Look at the way, the al Qaeda is building global linkages. They are now looking for bio-chemical weapons and it’s almost certain that they will get their biological arms. And then who will be the target? Us, across the border,” the novelist warned.
Totting statistics, Deva said at the time of partition, Pakistan had nearly 249 madarssas – a figure that he researched on the Internet.
“And now the country has roughly 13,000 Muslim academies that churn out 1.4 to 1.7 million students every year. Nothing wrong with that – they impart education. But 90 percent of these madarssas are funded by Saudi money. It is the Wahabi (orthodox Islam) ideology, which is indoctrinating these madarssas,” Deva said.
To prove his point, the novelist quoted a “reported” Pakistan Board of Education whip: “From kindergarten, a child will be gauged by the fervour with which he recites jihad and shahadat (Islamic tenets of struggle and martyrdom).”
“Salim Must Die” takes off from where “Lashkar”, his earlier novel, left off.
The outgoing American president wants to leave his stamp on posterity. And on the other side of the globe, Pakistan’s besieged military dictator does everything in his power to remain at the helm of the government – and his life. With Afghanistan and Iraq already imploding, the Middle East is a tinderbox waiting to erupt.
As the clash of civilisations spins out of control, ex-brigadier Salim Murad of ISI (a character from Deva’a first book) plots a global strike against the ‘kafir’ (infidel). Caught in the eye of an impending storm, the Indian prime minister turns yet again to Force 22 – the Indian Army’s (fictitious) crack strike unit, which must become the final block between Salim’s secret weapons and the death of thousands of innocent people.
“Why did I chose to write military action thrillers? I am an Army guy and despite the fact that almost everyone in this country has a cousin, brother or friend in the Army, we have a hazy idea about what the guys in the defence services are all about. That’s why I chose to take up this genre,” Deva said.
The novelist, who began writing “Lashkar” just after the bomb blasts in Sarojini Nagar in Delhi in 2005, felt that he had to tell a strong story and put a lot of facts right. “I have used history, lots of things that happened over the last two centuries till now, to build up the story.”