Author: Varsha Bhosle
Publication: Rediff
on Net
Date: October 23, 2000
Here's a bit from The
News of October 19 that should warm the heart of every Atal Bihari Hajpayee
devotee: "While addressing the Jehad Conference at Eid Gah Cantt, Maulana
Masood Azhar asserted that affairs in occupied Kashmir had reached the
point of no return and freedom fighters could not afford to drop their
guns by way of a compromise. He again clarified that... Jaish-e-Muhammad
believes in continuous jehad. He urged the Ulema to create a passion
for jehad among Muslims in order to add force to the current efforts made
by freedom fighters."
And then: "The main event
of the Conference was Dastar Bandi of Chairman Supreme Council Sipah-e-Sahaba
Pakistan, Muhammad Ziaul Qasmi, by Masood Azhar to whom Qasmi also offered
bait [sic]. 'Now we go hand-in-hand, and Sipah-e-Sahaba stands shoulder
to shoulder with Jaish-e-Muhammad in Jehad,' said Azhar."
Wunderbar. The
Hajpayee-released bastard has enlisted the assistance of the Sipah-e-Sahaba
Pakistan, a super- extremist Deoband-Wahabi Sunni set-up that targets Shia
Muslims. SSP's death squad, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, by its own admission,
has conducted massacres of Shias at the sites of their religious congregations
and killed Shia religious leaders, VIPs and commoners in Pakistan, Afghanistan
and Iran.
The import of this news
can't be seen in isolation. It's not just a matter of the umbrella
group of Jaish-e- Muhammad ("Army of the Prophet," founded by Masood post-
release) adding SSP cadres to its ranks, which already contain remnants
of the banned Harkat-ul-Ansar as well as Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, Al-Umar
Mujahideen, Al Fateh, Tehrik-ul-Mujahideen and Harkat-e-Jehad-Islami.
It has to be examined in context of the overlapping stories of the SSP,
Masood Azhar, Taliban and Gen Musharraf. See if you can fit the separate
pieces together:
The SSP was born in 1982
in reaction to the Iranian Revolution and increased Shia militancy in Pakistan
as the Saudi government began backing the Deobandi school of thought in
retaliation to the Jafferia Shia discipline. The ultra-fanatic and
virulently anti-Shia organisation has been campaigning for the proclamation
of Pakistan as a Sunni State, and its death squad has murdered many Shia
leaders in Pakistan, and actively assisted the Taliban in the massacre
of the Shias of Bamiyan province in Afghanistan. In October 1997,
Jang quoted Malik Ishaq, leader of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, arrested for
the assassination of five Iranian technicians: "I have been instrumental
in the killing of 102 human beings."
The Taliban, too, is
rabidly anti-Shia. In March 1999, the UN's Special Rapporteur on
Afghanistan detailed horrific massacres by the Taliban when they captured
Mazar-e-Sharif: Between 4,000 to 5,000 Shias, including women, children
and the elderly were killed after its supreme leader, Mullah Omar, issued
a fatwa declaring that the killing of Shias was not a crime as they were
kaffirs. Osama bin Laden, a Deobandi Saudi, is with the Taliban.
Masood Azhar, general
secretary of the erstwhile Harkat- ul-Ansar, was a student of Maulana Haq
Nawaz Jhangvi, a sworn anti-Shia fanatic and founder of the SSP (he was
killed in 1990 in Sunni-Shia clashes). After Masood was arrested
in February 1994 in India, the Harkat-ul- Mujahideen became powerful in
(Paki) Punjab because SSP militants joined the org. With Masood's
reappearance (courtesy: the Indian prime minister), the Harkat split, with
at least three-quarters of its J&K cadre, and the old SSP cadre, migrating
to Masood's new terror org, Jaish.
The split in Harkat finished
Maulana Yusuf Ludhianavi, a vital figure in the Deobandi movement who was
the spiritual guide to two key Deobandi leaders, Maulana Fazlur Rahman
of the Jamiat-i-Ulema-e-Islami and Maulana Azam Tariq of the SSP.
The acolytes' Deobandi connection with Mullah Omar, the Taliban Ameer-ul-Momineen,
strengthened their presence in Pakistan, especially in Karachi where the
Banun Masjid emerged as the centre of the Paki wing of Taliban. After
Masood was escorted safely to Kandahar, he directly came to this masjid
and announced his anti-India plans.
The Kargil Committee
Report states that "Gen Musharraf himself served in Afghanistan and had
ties with Osama bin Laden and other extremists... He had served in
the Northern Areas for several years and had been associated with the crackdown
on the Shias. He had commanded the SSG which launched an attack on
Bilafond La in Siachen but was frustrated." The Northern Areas, locally
called Baltistan and Balawaristan, is inhabited by Shias; they do not enjoy
the rights that Pakistani citizens elsewhere have.
On August 14, the Balawaristan
National Front submitted a memorandum to the UN office in Islamabad, exposing
the Paki game plan in Kargil (Gilgit, the nerve centre of the Northern
Areas, is the headquarters of the Northern Light Infantry which led the
intrusions). The BNF said the area was being choked by the army and
the ISI; the citizens were treated like slaves and not allowed basic human,
economic and cultural rights; the ISI was forcibly sending Balawari youths
into India for terrorist activities; and, the Paki "occupation forces"
used Shias as cannon fodder in Kargil. Note: During the Kargil conflict,
the bodies of soldiers that Pakistan refused to accept from India were
those of Balawari soldiers.
Classified intelligence
reports warn that Masood has been listed by the ISI as the "real guiding
force" of thousands of Kashmir-bound jehadis. Following his release,
Masood became "quite popular" at the Pakistan Army HQ at Rawalpindi, and
in Islamabad, the seat of the government and the headquarters of the ISI.
Following the July "peace" overtures by the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, the ISI
is said to have "worked out a new strategy aimed at arranging quick and
effective moral and material support" for Jaish-e-Mohammad, specifically
meant to enhance its striking power. Also, Pakistan's powerful mullah
lobby has proclaimed Jaish as the "right weapon" against India (The Daily
Excelsior, August 30).
In August, Masood told
a gathering of armed militants in Peshawar his three "ambitions": To have
Jammu's Kotbalwal jail blown up; to hoist Pakistani flags all over J&K;
to see the "soldiers" of Jaish entrenched in all major cities and towns
of India, particularly Delhi's Red Fort. Then, documents recovered
from Jaish's 21-year-old Valley commander, Abdul Haseeb Khan, who was eliminated
by the Indian Army in July, provide an insight into the agenda of the dork
who was so hurriedly released by Hajpayee: Abdul's diaries repeatedly mentioned
a war against "kaffirs" and identified India as the "main source of polytheism
that has to be captured" (Frontline, Vol 17, Issue 15).
Assimilated that much?
(I know, those Mullahs and Harkats get confusing; maybe that's why the
PM couldn't see beyond the Nobel.) But none of the preceding makes a point
apart from that that Paki and Afghan Shias are targeted by Sunni militants;
the terrorist groups creating havoc in Kashmir are led by incestuously
tangled Sunnis; Musharraf has a dangerous anti-Shia history; Masood is
the current darling of the military and the ISI; and, the conquest of Kashmir
is not the sole aim of the Paki dogs -- it's India they want to lay waste.
But add to that these
facts:
o The Sipah-e-Sahaba
Pakistan (not to be confused with the Anjuman S-e-S), has been active only
in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan; rarely, if ever, have its dorks entered
J&K.
o Nearly 800,000
Kashmiri Muslims are Shias; together with Gujjars, Bakerwals, Dard and
Balti Muslims, they form about half of J&K's population. About
100,000 Shias live in different parts of Jammu region and an equal number
in Kargil district of Ladakh. All these are totally indifferent to
the separatist movement introduced in 1989.
o Ladakh is a sensitive
and strategic area lying in the vicinity of China, Pakistan, Afghanistan
and the Central Asian republics. Any demographic change here could
well extend the canvas of or even upset the delicate geo- political game
in the neighbourhood.
o The areas of
Drass, Kargil, Batalik, Suru Valley and Leh are predominantly Shia and
Buddhist. Even before the last Kargil incursion (Pakistan had attacked
Kargil town in 1997 and 1998, too), infiltrators never got local support
since the Shias have no love lost for the Valley's or Pakistan's Sunni
majority. It's the Sunni element of J&K -- including the leadership
-- that has a problem with India's absolute sovereignty.
In the Indian Defence
Review, Volume 14, Mr B Raman, director of the Institute For Topical Studies,
when asked if it was possible for the ISI to spread insurgency to Kargil,
replied: "Very difficult. Kargil is a predominantly Shia area.
So is Gilgit. The Shias of Gilgit have for many years been fighting
against the Sunni-dominated local administration. The Taliban of
Afghanistan is a strongly anti-Shia organisation, which has been training
the cadres of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, which has been systematically
eliminating the leaders of the Shia community in Pakistan. The Taliban
itself massacred the Hazaras of Bamiyan in Afghanistan last year.
Therefore, the Pakistan Army and the ISI using Afghan mercenaries to start
an insurgency in the Kargil area doesn't make sense."
Perhaps. But what
would happen if the SSP is enlisted to target and eliminate the Shias of
Kargil...? So far, all the massacres in J&K were aimed at the ethnic
cleansing of Hindus -- which made refugees of Kashmiri Pandits, who left
the Valley open to Sunnis. Ladakh, being a meeting point of various
religions and cultures from ancient times, has evolved a secular and composite
ethos; its Shias retain many characteristics of that ethos. What
if they were to flee and leave Ladakh open...?
"Sipah-e-Sahaba stands
shoulder to shoulder with Jaish-e- Muhammad in Jehad," said Masood Azhar...
Over 2 centuries ago, John Locke wrote that the chief role of government
is to protect people's lives and property from the transgressions of their
neighbours. Can this government shield Shias from Jaish and SSP?
Does protection mean visiting Pahalgam after the Yatri massacre? That responsibility,
you see, is the Indian Army's. And when the army captures to neutralise,
the prime minister liberates to earn brownie points...
Vijendra Singh Jafa,
former chief secretary of Assam and an authority on counter-insurgency,
writes, "The history of insurgencies, militant movements, and of widespread
and protracted terrorist activities in India over the past 50 years is,
in some measure, a history of rulers, legislators, civil servants and intelligence
agencies who went to bed at 10 o'clock and failed to notice the signals
of impending disasters. The truth is that the process of governance
in India are rendered nonfunctional by crippling conventions, the art of
equivocation, recurring errors of judgement, innumerable intangibles such
as personal attitudes, the politics of a particular point of view...
and acts of omission and prevarication in the face of urgent imperatives
for taking bold and *unpleasant* decisions. These have themselves
created the conditions for, or have failed to thwart or neutralise, the
trends towards terrorism and separatist insurgencies in the country." I
wonder to whom he's referring...
I received many letters
lauding Hajpayee for "enlisting US support against Pakistani terrorism."
I spat at that pervasive mommy-mommy-he's-beating-me mindset. Those
who consider America as The Saviour should remember that God helps those
who help themselves. The downing of the Atlantique was a great show
of force by the IAF, and that news was on the front pages across the world
-- with respect, however grudging. Those who believe that gunboat
diplomacy and muscle flexing won't take India far are better off in the
chudiyaan business. Do leave defence to people of an unambiguous
sex.