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 Terrorism: will we ever know the truth?
By
M Ghazali Khan
The
Milli Gazette Online
6
June 2006
The attempted terrorist attack on RSS’s headquarters in Nagpur is as much deplorable, despicable and dangerous as the previous attacks on Akshardham, Parliament, Red Fort, Ayodhya, Varanasi, and Delhi. Like before, this latest terrorist bid must be condemned by all Indians and non-Indians.
Like previous attacks, once again the three terrorists involved in this incident are being described as “Muslims”. Like before, local support is being suspected. And once again, an opportunity has been provided to the Sangh Parivar to blame the central government. BJP’s president Rajnath Singh has blamed the Congress-led UPA’s ‘‘appeasement policy’’ for this and previous terrorist attacks. LK Advani has attributed it to the abolition of POTA while VHP’s fork-tongued Pravin Togadia was quick to find a new target for his armed goondas: “If we have to defeat the jehadis, we must defeat their local supporters first.’’
The police had prior knowledge of the possibility of such an attack, we are told. No wonder then that the alleged terrorists were killed before they could succeed in their plans. No wonder also that within minutes of the killing of the terrorists, their identities were revealed to the media and details of their Pakistani origin, their shopping in Bihar and visiting Delhi too was discovered in record time. There is no need for anyone to doubt the efficiency of our intelligence agencies and the swiftness of our police in thwarting the plans of the terrorists. We also believe the police claim that the terrorists displayed extreme level of expertise by smuggling deadly weapons into India and procured police uniforms, an Ambassador car complete with a beacon on its roof and tampered with the car’s chassis number. Yet they so naďve as to carry their identity cards and other personal records with them. However, one fails to understand why the intelligence agencies and the police could not stop the smuggling of RDX and other weapons into India? For sure, there are “enemies within” who are helping the foreign terrorists. There must have been elements in the intelligence and police who were bribed by the terrorists to smuggle their weapons into India. Until an open judicial enquiry is ordered by the government, speculation and counter speculation will continue to be made and inter-communal mistrust will continue to grow. If the reports of foreign terrorists entering India are true, then this is the duty of the Government to destroy the underground conduits through which terrorists get their ammunition. The public has a right to know what steps the Government is taking to ensure their safety.
The public has a right to know why no enquiry has ever been held to uncover previous terrorist attacks. Why are all the alleged terrorists killed instantly and no effort is made to arrest them alive or why our ever-efficient police, equipped as it is with all the modern and sophisticated gadgets, fails to pin them down alive so that more information could be extracted from them? When it comes to terrorism in India, the blind faith in police version of the story by our otherwise vigilant media raises questions about its objectivity.
In a democratic and fast developing society like ours the silence of our elected MPs on such a sensitive issue is even more shameful. Unfortunately it is the Indian Muslims who are being made to pay the price of this secrecy/inefficiency by being looked upon with suspicion. Now is the time when thorough judicial investigation should be ordered into the Nagpur incident and the truth about the alleged “local support” and connivance of high officials be brought to light and those who are found guilty must be made a lesson for others.
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