11 Indians plan to become human shields

"Suhailbhai, please take me also with you to Iraq," pleaded a young man wearing a skullcap in a tiny toyshop on Mumbai's Abdul Rehman Street.

"Not now, I am busy, we'll talk later," said Suhail Rokadia, general secretary of the Raza Academy.

Rokadia and 10 others are planning to go to Iraq in a day or two, before the war begins. "We want to become human shields and die before American bombs kill the innocent citizens of Iraq," he said.

"George W Bush is against Islam and Muslims in general and he is misguiding the American people who are not against Muslims," Rokadia said. "They want to kill innocent civilians and establish their supremacy. Today, 75 per cent of people in the world are against the war, but that has not deterred Bush. The whole world was with America in 1991 because they were on the right side. But today they are on the wrong side and nobody is with them, but still they want to wage war."

Three organisations of Indian Muslims, the All-India Jamait-e-Ulema, the Sunni Tableeqah Jamaat, and the Raza Academy, are sending 11 people to Iraq to become human shields.

According to the academy, 235 others have applied to join the 11 as soon as possible. "We have told the others that we will see what will be our future plan of action once we reach Iraq," Rokadia said.

"We will tell them to come to Iraq only after we manage to reach there."

Asked how he would reach Iraq so soon, Rokadia said, "I have applied for a visa and was told by the Iraqi embassy that I will get it by tomorrow. We will fly to Amman in Jordan and from there we will go to Iraq."

Rokadia said they would try to join up with 135 other peace activists already in Iraq. He said they had tried to contact these people from Mumbai itself, but without success. "But I am hopeful that once we reach Iraq, we will be able to contact them and join them," he added.

Asked why only Muslims were going to Iraq, Rokadia said, "So far only Muslims have applied. But we welcome all communities to join us. In fact, in Iraq the existing human shields are Christians and Gujarati Hindus. So it is not that only Muslims are opposing this war."

Iraq is home to three holy Islamic sites -- the mausoleum of the fourth caliph, Hazrat Ali, who was also the son-in-law of Prophet Mohammed; the battleground of Karbala, where Imam Hussain, the prophet's grandson, was killed, and the shrine of saint Shaikh Abdul Qadir Geelani. "Our plan is to visit the grave of Saint Geelani first and then proceed for our peace mission," Rokadia said.

Asked why there is so much support for Saddam Hussein among the Muslims of India, he said, "We are not pro-Saddam. We are for the innocent people of Iraq. We don't want them killed."