Evolving The Terrorist's Defence

Without exception every media outlet in the country is calling Yasin Bhatkal (real name  Zarar Ahmed Siddibaba) an “escape artist” or a “master of disguise” for having escaped arrest on a couple of occasions. That sounds like the Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative is a highly intelligent character. It’s reasonable to assume that terrorists are indeed a smart bunch to be operating the way they do. But this guy is so smart that he could hoodwink the Indian police twice? I have serious doubts about that. One, it appears that our police don’t share a national database of “wanted” criminals and two, they must be quite dumb to have believed and accepted his fake names and IDs as quickly as they did. Do police officials detain and allow top “wanted” suspects to go just like that? Not really! But in India there is political pressure to be soft on “certain suspects” as also by many sympathisers in the media. Nothing explains it better than the following piece of moronery:

“When in doubt about a terror investigation, blame the most readily available Muslims. Within days of the Dilsukh Nagar blasts in Hyderabad on February 21, the police announced the suspects were the Indian Mujahideen (IM), that its founder Riyaz Bhatkal was the possible "mastermind", and that 'Imran' and 'Maqbool' had recced the area… In the same week as the names 'Bhatkal', 'Maqbool' and 'Imran' swirled around in the media, two youths, journalist Muthi-ur Rahman Siddiqui, also once dubbed "mastermind" in a terror conspiracy by the media and DRDO scientist Aijaz Mirza were released after six months in jail”.

You probably guessed right. That little blast is from India’s greatest economist cum terror-expert cum social-genius cum moron par excellence Sagarika Ghose. She shoots her mouth off crying “meat shops” in Dilsukhnagar and then sermonises the police after the Hyderabad blasts of February 2013. She’s not alone. Most of the media and politicians force the police to go soft on Muslim suspects for very obvious reasons. Consequently, the police too play dumb and let off serious suspects (Sagarika obviously didn’t see Rahul Kanwal’s tweet in February). It is inevitable that in a terror-stricken country and in a terror-atmosphere some suspects will be held for longer periods till they’re cleared. Our police just allowed Bhatkal to walk away each time. Even Bollywood and South Indian actors have been detained in the US. It is unfortunate, but the threat of terror requires being absolutely careful. If you thought all this is phoney, then I recommend you read this story of a Hindu titled “Don’t travel during Ramadan” in the US (the story may be a bit dramatized but may not be entirely fake).

Bhatkal’s arrest probably came by absolute secrecy. The Intel agencies have now probably learned there are many leaks in the system. Yet, what did the Bihar cops do? A bit more of comedy! The moment they brought Bhatkal to the court at Motihari they made an “exhibit” of him and allowed the media to get close enough to get sound-bites from him. Which professional police force allows such an idiotic thing to happen? The police could have released their own pics or videos instead of allowing the media close to this terrorist. So they bring Bhatkal to the court in a black mask and then uncover it for the media to take a glimpse and then put it back on. Does that make any sense? Why the mask at all? Who were they hiding him from? Prospective brides? In the few seconds he got, Bhatkal grandly tells the media “Blasts happen, nothing new about them”. That, I agree with. Because even during the 26/11 attacks the Maharashtra HM R.R. Patil said "Bade bade shehron mein aisi choti choti baatein hoti rehti hain” (small attacks keep happening in big cities). Amazing, isn’t it? How the thoughts and lines of politicians and terrorists converge in strange coincidence. Patil thinks 26/11 was a small attack so there is practically nothing wrong in what Bhatkal says either.

Union Minister K. Rahman Khan even said there’s a “perception among Muslims that IM does not exist”. Bravo! The GOI and media must assume Muslims are totally ignorant and isolated from events. And then, the “self-styled” Indo-Pak peace maker NDTV comes up with another debate on the theory of “home grown terror” (August 29). So you have Barkha Dutt asking the question if Bhatkal’s arrest confirms home grown terror. Add to this concoction Mani Shankar Aiyar, your circle of denial comes right back. MSAiyar says he doesn’t know what the IM is or what their leadership structure is or what their operational cells are and that MHA should tell him and the parliament about it. Who are they making a case for? This is a good follow-up on A.K. Antony’s “dressed in Pak military uniform” comment. Obviously, it seems this was some effort to clear Pakistan having anything to do with IM. For the record, the IM was declared a terrorist organisation by GOI in 2010. The US and UK have also declared it a terrorist organisation. But MSAiyar and Rahman Khan, wilfully blind and ignorant as they are, want to know what IM is. The reason why India doesn’t progress in the fight against terrorists is there are people like these who put a spanner in the works.  

The New York Police Dept. has even put all mosques in their area under a watch for terrorist activities. In India, some politicians and media folks are still debating whether IM exists at all. Naturally, they will make cops look like jokers. Yasin Bhatkal comes from a place called Bhatkal (Karnataka) which has been known in the past to ship bombs and bomb-making material. But hey, if you ask Digvijaya Singh he will tell you where all the bomb-making factories are located. Neither Diggy nor the NIA or CBI are yet to discover these RSS bomb factories. And believe it or not, Kamal Farooqui of SP said Bhatkal has been arrested because he’s a Muslim. Hmm… “Terror has no religion” does it? Bhatkal’s lawyer told the Patiala House court in Delhi he is not Bhatkal but some “Mohammad Ahmed”. Left to these guys, they would allow a blanket pardon for all Muslim terrorists by an enactment in parliament. So does anyone take India’s fight against terrorists seriously? Fortunately, former Home Secretary R.K. Singh was on NDTV too and here is what he said:

“We have a fair idea about the organisation (IM) and its roots, contacts etc., we also know who are their leaders. We also know where they are… so it’s not true that we are in the dark about IM. To say it’s home grown terror I would not agree. It’s not entirely home grown, the leaders are based in Pakistan, they are mentored by the ISI, the LeT. When people were taken to Pakistan for training they were received at the airport by ISI operatives. All that information we have”.

R.K. Singh is a man who should know; he has been in the thick of things for a long time. The previous Home Secretary G.K. Pillai and many other sources had certified Ishrat Jehan a LeT operative. Yet there are NGOs and vested interests that are in denial. If they want to challenge the encounter of Ishrat Jehan that is one thing, but to claim she had no connection to LeT despite all evidences and then hold “solidary meets” to mourn her is a shameful act. Pretty soon, there will be “solidary meets for Bhatkal” led by many of the NGOs and bounty-hunting lawyers. Digvijaya Singh and others even suspected the Batla House encounter in which a senior cop was killed. Farooqui has already sounded a bugle for them. Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat and some other states are seeking custody of Bhatkal to question him. Well, the Bihar govt that got first custody did not even want to question him and there’s no report of even an FIR being filed. That’s how Nitish Kumar wants to fight terrorists who have made strong bases in Bihar.

 

Trying to create the impression that IM or any other terror group is merely home-grown is a tactic used by the Pakistan-friendly gangs to ensure dialogue continues with that failed state or to protect their own vested interests. The real question that Barkha Dutt should have asked instead of the stupid “How big is the home grown terror threat?” is “How big is the gang of politicians, media crooks, NGOs and assorted vested interests who defend terrorists?” As long as we have powerful forces backed with endless funds the fight against terrorists will be a long struggle. It makes our police force a handicapped unit. For the media that claims that Bhatkal’s arrest is a “big blow to IM” it’s a premature act of moronery that is consistent with their practice of talking utter nonsense. Bhatkal’s saviours may be just around the next bend or the next corner. Bhatkal’s case has been given to the NIA. Everyone knows where that might end up.

India's Most Communal Politician

It started with a report of 5 blasts on the morning of Sunday, July 7. The number changed to 7 blasts, then 9 and at last count it seems 13 bombs were placed at the Mahabodhi temple complex in Bihar. Other TV news reports stated that the bombs weren’t crude but sophisticated IEDs. A few days ago when Nitish Kumar and JDU claimed Ishrat was “Bihar ki Beti” little would he have imagined that he and Bihar would get such a rude awakening. In the normal course any sensible politician would stay far away from anyone even remotely tagged as a terrorist but such is the clamour for Muslim votes that our ‘sickular’ politicians don’t think twice before making silly statements when it comes to Muslims accused of terrorism. Bihar seems to have suddenly become a safe haven for all kinds of criminals from rapists to terrorists. That’s not me saying it but a TOI report clearly points out the systematic penetration of Bihar by potential terrorists and terror suspects to make it a Jihadi hub. From this hub the spokes reach Hyderabad, Delhi and other places for terror attacks. How did Bihar get here?   

It’s not just Nitish Kumar but in the last decade every major politician from Bihar has been like a ‘Terrorist-wife’. Like a Mafia-wife! From Lalu Prasad to Ram Vilas Paswan they seem to believe the only way to electoral success is flaunting a terrorist. And like jealous mafia-wives they competed to prove who is better in the race. In return, they want people to vote for them. Take a look at this image from The Telegraph, May 2011:

Pawan paraded an Osama Bin Laden look-alike in 2005 for his election campaign. The guy, Khalid Noor, even had a permanent seat in Paswan’s chopper. Jealous little Lalu couldn’t take it. He stole Osama from Paswan it seems and proudly proclaimed “Paswanji ka Osama Bin Laden mere pas aa gaya”. In a newer version of ‘Deewar’ Amitabh Bachchan could have been given the line: “Tere pas maa hai, mere pas Osama hai’. When CMs and MPs flaunt an internationally wanted terrorist as their mascot it definitely sends a signal to other potential terrorists: “You are welcome here”. Since their break-up with the BJP and to combat Lalu and Paswan for Muslim votes the JDU and Nitish Kumar are sending similar messages with Ishrat Jahan as the mascot. Still, despite the extraordinary credentials of these men, they don’t come anywhere near Digvijaya Singh.

The first time I heard much about Diggy was in the 2003 MP elections. He made a grand, arrogant statement that “election victories are managed”. There is no link available for this statement but I state it from memory. In short, Diggy was suggesting that it wasn’t performance but elections were about “managing”. Oh well, he took the people of MP for fools because they dumped him pretty convincingly. Since then, Diggy has been taking the whole nation for fools. After every terror attack Diggy has regularly thrown a spanner in the works of every terror attack with his stupid statements. The worst has to be his endorsement of 26/11 being an RSS conspiracy with some stupid writer. There is the Batla House encounter which he termed as fake even as it claimed the life of a cop. There isn’t a single terror attack after which he hasn’t pointed fingers at RSS, BJP (Particularly Narendra Modi) and has gone to the extent of claiming RSS was running bomb-making factories.

Of course, our media is no less a mafia-wife. In the many interviews that they frequently have with Diggy, not once have they questioned him on why none of his claims and accusations has ever been backed up with evidence. This guy is a typical shoot and scoot operator. There is his famous screw up of wanting an honourable funeral for “Osamaji”. All his nonsensical utterances have now become legendary jokes. While Diggy (and his party too) goes around calling every opponent communal, fascist and so on I wonder why the media doesn’t call his bluff. His string of glorious BS had to finally come undone. There was nobody screwing him either, he did it himself. After the BodhGaya bomb blasts on July 7 here are some moronic tweets Diggy sent out:

On July 8 Diggy was floating around all TV channels “clarifying” the stupidity in his tweets above. He thought as head of the Congress “dirty tricks department” he could get away with his nonsense again. First tweet: I do not recall media or BJP raking up Myanmar it was done by some “sickular” politicians. Next he drags in Amit Shah and Ram Temple and implies BodhGaya blasts were a consequence of Modi asking Bihar to “teach Nitish a lesson”. Ever heard of a bigger moron with such filthy imagination? And then he asks if there is a connect between Modi’s speech and the blasts. So Diggy was airing sermons like a Mullah but wasn’t “politicising” the terror attack. But his biggest piece of moronery was saved for his second tweet (the one in bottom at left).

“Aren’t they suggesting a Muslim involvement…” asks Diggy! Who did? All media reports, based on initial indications and footprints pointed to the Indian Mujahideen. On what basis was he suggesting Amit Shah, Modi etc. were connected to the blasts without any investigation? Never mind! The bigger blunder of Diggy was to equate the IM with all Muslims. So while he and the entire Congress and the ‘sickular’ claim all Muslims are not terrorists, Diggy is the one equating the IM to all Muslims. This was the tweet I sent out on July 8:

I can’t claim my tweet influenced him but sure as hell the hate-monger-in-chief did a complete U-turn and started sermonising in the media that he wanted everyone to hold their horses till the NIA completed its investigations. Well then, what was the haste for him to rush and blame Modi and everyone else or scream “don’t blame Muslims” when nobody was blaming them? One thing seems clear from the experience of the last decade. For the Congress and Diggy regardless of whether the group is IM, LeT, JuD or any other, it shouldn’t be mentioned because it has Muslim members. This is how both Diggy and his party prove hurdles to any serious investigation and closure of any terror case.

Since the last one week Diggy has been going around warning non-BJP states to be alert for communal riots. I have stated in a recent post that India’s history shows that it’s the Congress that has a record of ‘engineering’ communal riots for political gains. Considering general elections are around the corner I estimate the pitch on communal riots is going to grow louder. But the threat is from the Congress party and not from others. Diggy fools nobody but himself and his bosses. The tweet on the left is from Retributions. Rohit Pradhan is a lot more sympathetic to Congress than I am and he rates Diggy to be among the most communal politicians in India. I will just go ahead and make a small correction to the tweet. Diggy is not “among the most” communal politicians. He IS the MOST communal politician in India and his dirty tricks are the ones that people and states should watch out for.

Footnote: TimesNow reported yesterday that an IB alert on a possible terror attack was sent to Bihar govt as far back as October 2012. These were not even generic alerts but specific alerts. What alert was the “Bihar ki Beti” guy watching all the time? The pic below by Satish Acharya says it all. It’s not just Nitish, this is the same fear that haunts Diggy, Sonia and the entire sickular clan.

  

Terror - Unintelligent Before, Unintelligent After

By now most people in the world are familiar with the story of the ‘News Of The World’ (NOTW). This tabloid is a grand example of sleazy journalism. Sex, celebrity scandals, phone hacking, sensationalism, rumour mongering – you name it and this tabloid would have it every day. The newspaper wound up July 10 following revelations that their associates had hacked into the voice mail of a murdered teenager. Their CEO and former editor, Rebekah Brooks, who has now been arrested had also admitted to bribing police officials for leaks. Following these events the media empire of Rupert Murdoch (whose group also owns Star TV) has been hit quite badly. While the misdeeds of NOTW are excessive there is no reason not to believe that a good chunk of the Indian media indulges in similar practices, perhaps to a lesser scale. A scoop, a sensational story are dreams of every journalist to achieve stardom. But that is about the NOTW and media corruption. In a grave turn of events the London chief of police, Sir Paul Stephenson, has resigned. Why? There are questions over his links to various journalists and the police bribery scandal. Ring any bells? Anyway, let's get back home.

So given the latest terror attacks in Mumbai how has our media really conducted itself during and after the incident? In a good departure from the past the government and investigating agencies had maintained they would not disclose any information till they have full details and investigations are complete. The news media also patted itself on the back for behaving more responsibly than in the past. They had now turned intelligent enough to have learned from past mistakes. P. Chidambaram stated there was no ‘intelligence’ on this particular attack so it was not an ‘intelligence’ failure. Alright, so we were unintelligent before. What about after? Well, this is where our media starts to replicate NOTW!  

PC and the government steadfastly refused to name Pakistan or any particular group till the investigations are over. So who is the first person our media runs to? You guessed it! Digvijay Singh, the Chief Congress Investigator, who possesses intelligence on every terror attack in the nation that nobody else does. He delights the media by suggesting RSS hand cannot be ruled out to vaguely imply a lot of things. If you know a dog to be infected by rabies would you deliberately feed it and risk your hand being bitten? Well, our media would! So they get a few bites out of DS and allow his ‘dance on the blood floor’. To hell with dead bodies, to hell with grieving families, to hell with the injured, to hell with those who will be disabled for life, to hell with general public sentiments – let’s have some fun and sensational crap from DS. That’s our responsible news media.

Alright, let’s sample a few headlines:

Sify- July 15: Mumbai blasts, first suspects spotted?

TOI-July 17: Police prepare suspects sketch……

TOI-July 16 – Indian Mujahideen duo in focus….

The Hindu-July 17: Police prepare sketch of suspect…

Deccan Chronicle – July 17: Nationwide hunt for IM suspects behind blasts…

India Today-July 17: Mumbai serial blasts: Terrorists rented rooms near targets

TOI – July 17: Mumbai blasts: Cops unmask suspected Opera House bomber

TOI – July 17: Terror chatter intercepted after Mumbai blasts?

I could go on and on and on. All the headlines and the reports in the media clearly indicate the involvement of the Indian Mujahideen. Well, strangely neither the central government nor the ATS have actually named IM. The last headline on ‘terror chatter’ is quite interesting. It has supposedly come from police sources in Delhi. So you see while the official line is no one will named before investigations are complete there are police sources who keep revealing bits and pieces to our media. That’s the strict policy not to disclose anything till investigations are done with. Are police sources in the payroll of our media?

Rakesh Maria, the ATS chief in Mumbai, in his press briefings keeps throwing crumbs to the media to keep them happy. Mind you, he has only given out general information and is doing a decent job in these meetings. His only mistake is taking questions from the hungry wolves. In such situations it is better to make press statements and not take questions. Why? Most questions are likely to be leading questions and invariably a slip or two will result which will then be twisted and sensationalised by the media. Our Police Chiefs are certainly not trained press spokespersons.

So, we didn’t have intelligence before the attacks. But after the attacks the media has more or less connected the dots except actually naming the criminals. And here is the best piece in the whole episode:

Hindustan Times: “ A police constable has been suspended ……for ignoring a 'tip-off' by a citizen over Mumbai serial blasts that killed 19 people and injured over 130, a senior officer said….According to the officer, one Abdulla Latif Rauf Shaikh from Kurla approached Mahatma Phule police station after the blasts claiming he had overheard four persons discussing about the terror plot two days before the incident…..However, constable Prabhakar Bagrao ignored him….”

So we were ‘unintelligent’ before and now we are ‘unintelligent’ after as well.