Author: Bulbul Roy Mishra
Publication: Organiser
Date: October 1, 2006
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=150&page=8
No state in India, other than the J&K,
has experienced as much ravages of terrorist strike in last 13 years as Maharashtra,
and the woes of the common people of the state seem to be never ending. It
is time to analyse the reasons why Maharashtra of all states is being targeted
time and again by Islamic terrorist outfits?
Over 13 years after the deadliest terrorist
strike in Mumbai on March 12, 1993, killed 257 people, the designated Mumbai
court has started convicting the foot soldiers of the terrorist squad with
the likes of Mohammed Shoaib Ghansar, found guilty of parking an explosive-laden
scooter in Zaveri Bazar. Eleven out of the 123 defendants have died since
the trial began in 1995, while the two masterminds, namely Dawood Ibrahim
and Tiger Memon, are still at large, probably under the sheltering care of
Pakistan. There has been no let up in explosions in Mumbai or Maharashtra,
thanks to incompetent enforcement and slow, cumbersome judicial process.
By contrast, well within five years of the
worst terrorist strike in the USA on September 11, 2001, which killed over
2700 people, the American court sentenced Zacarias Moussaoui on May 4, 2006,
to consecutive life counts. Next day after the strike, the American flag was
visible everywhere in a show of spontaneous unity and patriotism. On October
26, 2001, the USA Patriot Act, conferring wide power on the enforcement authorities,
was passed in the Senate by a vote of 98 to 1, and in the House by a vote
of 357 to 66. It was renewed on March 2, 2006 with a vote of 89 to 11 in the
Senate, and on March 7 with 280 to 138 in the House. According to June 2005
statement of President Bush, out of the 400 accused, charged as terrorists,
more than half were convicted.
The above reaction of the people and the US
administration explains why there has not been another 9/11, constant threat
of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda notwithstanding. The passivity of the enforcement
authorities and political leaders in India on the other hand largely account
for the series of terrorist attacks rocking Maharashtra over a decade.
It defies logic why India cannot have stringent
anti-terrorist laws of the type of the USA Patriot Act of October 2001 that
substantially amended immigration laws, banking and money laundering laws
and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in the interest of national
security. It is also repugnant to logic why top enforcement officers in Maharashtra
are not held accountable for their non-performance. It does no credit to Indian
intelligence to take six long years to discover through an Al Jazeera TV documentary
that Laden threw a lavish party in honour of his close acquaintance Maulana
Masood Azhar in 1999, soon after he was released from an Indian jail in exchange
of the hijacked IC 814, thereby revealing his nexus with Al Qaeda. Such failure
of intelligence at the national level to unravel the nexus of Pak-sponsored
terrorists in Kashmir with notorious international terrorist groups like Al
Qaeda was no doubt responsible for the barrage of terrorist attacks experienced
in Maharashtra,
Why is it that fundamentalist organisations
like Lashkar-e-Toiba, Harakat-ul-Mujahideen or Jaish-e-Mohammed must target
Maharashtra each time they want to send a message of terror to India? Is it
because Mumbai, the financial capital of India, happened to be the traditional
forte of the mafia raj from the era of Haji Mastan to the time of Dawood Ibrahim?
Is it because of the close nexus between the law enforcers and some political
leaders on one hand and the cash-rich drug Mafiosi on the other? Or is it
the weak government and the failing system that are primarily responsible
for the ongoing holocaust? Dr Pasricha, Maharashtra's Director General of
Police, hinted at political linkage to the recent train serial blasts, but
he was obviously brow-beaten into silence as nothing further came to light.
The solution obviously lies in collective
determination of the people, the overhauling of the system on the US line,
and total transformation of the State Police Department. As for collective
determination of the people of Maharashtra, it is time for them to raise their
level of awareness as also preparedness to resist terrorism without depending
entirely on the government machinery. As regards overhauling of the existing
system, it is primarily for the central government to re-visit anti-terrorist
laws to arm the enforcement authorities with larger power like what has been
done under the US Patriot Act, and also to simplify and expedite trial procedure
so as to administer prompt justice.
