'The many missing links in the investigation of this strike as well as in the terrorist attack on the Mumbai suburban trains should be a cause for concern. Targeted attacks on innocent Muslims by Al Qaeda and other jihadi organisations is nothing new. Such attacks take place often in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. But in those countries, the attacks on Muslim civilians are generally due to one of two factors. Either the targeted Muslims belonged to a rival sect (Sunni vs Shia or Deobandi vs Barelvi) or rival organisation or were perceived as collaborators of the government and hence apostates. None of these factors applied in the case of the Muslims -- Indians and Pakistanis -- who were travelling by the Samjhauta Express.
'The conventional wisdom was that the Muslims were now being deliberately targeted by the jihadi organisations in order to provoke them against the government and the Hindus. I do not subscribe to this wisdom. It is important to keep an open mind while investigating these targeted attacks on Indian Muslims and one should not jump to the conclusion that the Lashkar e Tayiba or the Harkar ul Jihadi Islami must have been involved.
'We owe it to our Muslims, most of whom have kept away from Al Qaeda and other pan-Islamic organisations, to see that these cases of targeted attacks on Muslims are thoroughly investigated instead of coming to a facile conclusion that jihadi organisations must be behind them.'
The above are my comments on the terrorist strike in the Samjhauta Express in my book Terrorism -- Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow published in June 2008, by Lancer Publishers of New Delhi (www.lancerpublishers.com).
'While there are grounds for suspecting that the blasts in Delhi and those of Agartala might have been carried out by the Indian Mujahideen and its associates from the Lashkar e Tayiba in Delhi and the Harkat ul Jihad al Islami of Bangladesh in Agartala, the blasts in Modasa and Malegaon seem to stand apart. Though the Gujarat police are reported to have detained some members of the Students' Islamic Movement of India during their investigation into the Modasa blast, the Modasa and Malegaon blasts do not carry any unique signature. More evidence will be required before one could analyse as to who might have been responsible.'
These were from my article Mushrooming Terrorism: Now Agartala.
In the last three years, we have had at least seven terrorist strikes in different parts of the country in which the perpetrators seemed to have targeted innocent Muslim civilians. Those seemed to be not indiscriminate attacks on all civilians, but targeted attacks on Muslims. There were two such incidents in Malegaon in Maharashtra and one each in New Delhi, Hyderabad, in Ajmer Sharif in Rajasthan, on Samjhauta Express to Pakistan, and in Modasa in Gujarat.
On the basis of the available reports, I had myself stated after five of these strikes -- but not after the Malegaon and Modasa blasts of September 29, 2008 -- that they seemed to have been carried out by terrorists belonging to jihadi terrorist organisations. I had also referred to instances of jihadi terrorists deliberately targeting innocent Muslims in many countries in pursuit of their agenda.
Some months after the Ajmer Sharif blast, a young Muslim officer of the Indian Police Service met me privately and expressed his doubts as to whether Muslims would have been involved in these incidents. He strongly believed that no Muslim, however extremist he might be and whichever jihadi organisation he belonged to, would have planted a bomb in or near Ajmer Sharif.
I did not feel convinced, but felt somewhat troubled by what he said. I felt that as a senior (though now retired) officer of the IPS, I owed it to him and other young Muslim officers of the IPS to take note of what he said and re-open my mind. It was in pursuance of this that I made the above-mentioned observations in my book.
Who carried out the pre-September 29, 2008, terrorist strikes, which seemed to have mainly targeted innocent Muslims? Were they acts by the usual jihadi organisations or were they the precursor to acts of reprisal terrorism against members of the Muslim community by some irrational elements in the Hindu community? These questions, which were already being raised by sections of the public -- Muslims as well as non-Muslims -- even before September 29, have resurfaced following the publication or dissemination by some sections of the media of reports claiming that the Anti-Terrorism Cell of the Mumbai police has detained three Hindus in connection with their investigation into the recent Malegon blasts. The ATS itself has neither officially denied nor confirmed these reports.
The matter is in the initial stages of investigation. To instill confidence in our Muslim community, the ATS should see that the investigation against these Hindus and any others associated with them is carried out thoroughly irrespective of their organisational affiliation. Religion is not a mitigating factor in deciding the culpability of a person suspected of involvement in a criminal act. If they are proved to have participated in acts of terrorism in Malegaon and Modesa, the fact that they are Hindus would not make them any less criminal or terrorist.
Indian criminal laws -- the Indian Penal Code, the Indian Evidence Act and the Criminal Procedure Code -- do not talk of the majority or the minorities or even of Indian citizens or foreigners. Their provisions apply to anyone who commits an offence on Indian territory -- whether he or she is an Indian national or a foreigner, whatever be his or her religion, language or ethnicity. The arrested persons must be investigated and proceeded against without worrying about their background or organisational affiliation.
Do these arrests strengthen the case for a ban on the Bajrang Dal or any other organisation to which they might have belonged? Or do they at least call for a characterisation of such organizations as terrorist? To characterise an organisation as a terrorist organisation and to take legal action against it -- and not merely against its members -- two types of evidence are required. First, that its constitution or manifesto advocates the resort to violence amounting to terrorism for achieving its objective. Second, that it has been involved in repeated acts of pre-meditated violence which amount to terrorism. One has to wait and see whether such evidence surfaces during the investigation.
The writer is Additional Secretary (retired), Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com
