Girl, innocent?

Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: June 19, 2004

The deluge of media reports affirming that Ishrat Jahan Mohammed  Shameem Raza, the 19-year-old Mumbai student killed in an encounter  between terrorists and Gujarat Police in Ahmedabad on Tuesday  morning, was a simple, nice, girl who attended college regularly,  seems to have swept away an important question: What was such a girl  doing in the company of terrorists so far away from home at four in  the morning when the encounter reportedly occured?
 
It needs to be asked because some of the contradictory versions  carried in different sections of media raise puzzling questions. One  report quotes her mother as saying, "She left on Saturday (June 12)  but I did not know where she had gone. Later, my children told me  that she had taken some clothes with her."Another quotes her as  saying that she knew that her daughter had left for Ahmedabad on the  night of July 12 but did not tell anyone because she did not want to  set tongues wagging. According to yet another report, her mother's  contention that this was her first trip out of Mumbai was at variance  with the version of a neighbour, Sharif Ahmed Ansari, an autorickshaw  driver, who said he had dropped Ishrat and her brother to the Mumbra  railway station some months ago and that she had then told him that  she was going to Ahmedabad.

One needs to ask here: What took Ishrat to Ahmedabad? Also, did her  mother and other family members know what it was? The interpretation  most favourable to her is that she was involved with one of the men  who were gunned down. Both Ms Shakila Khan, head of a local body  which had been helping her family since her father's death two years  ago, and a Crime Branch officer of Thane Police, have reportedly  stated this possibility. Should this be true, and assuming that she  did not know that the man she was involved with was a terrorist, her  death, though tragic, was an unfortunate consequence of the  encounter. It was another matter if she knew that the man was a  terrorist. She was then an accomplice: Terrorists often move with  women and children to throw security personnel off scent by giving  the impression that it is a family that is travelling. Indeed,  terrorist outfits and intelligence agencies deliberately choose as  agents-who act as messengers or provide support and shelter to those  who carry out operations-people whose ways are least likely to arouse  suspicion. They invariably seek out people like Ishrat, get them  either ideologically motivated or emotionally involved with one of  their men, and ruthlessly exploit their services.
 
One, doubtless, is still left with the question whether the three men  killed were actually terrorists. Gujarat Police's version that they  were, and indentification of two of them as hardened killers of the  Lashkar-e-Toiba, has aroused scepticism because of its involvement in  several encounters in the recent past under circumstances that  warrant misgiving. It, therefore, urgently needs to disprove the  allegation that Tuesday's was a fake encounter and also hone its  skill in dealing with terrorists so that it can arrest and not kill  them. This, of course, does not in any way condone Gujarat Congress's  blatant effort to politicise the issue with the leader of the  Opposition in the State Assebly, Mr Amarsinh Chaudhary, dubbing the  encounter as fake. He should have waited for events to unfold further  before opening his mouth. Partisan politicisation will cripple the  country's fight against terrorism besides providing welcome grist to  Pakistan's propaganda mill.
 

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