How to Fight Terror

The question how to fight terror should concern all right thinking Indians as well as others affected by the menace directly or remotely. But fighting terror should not be fighting ideology of those you consider your rivals or the “other”. Fighting terror should be your strategy and not your own warped ideology. Given this veritable although unpleasant truth as the rock foundation of fight against terrorism we must not indulge in fear peddling nor should we keep harping on what is skewed perception at the best.

Nowhere is this more pertinently true than in the zeal and enthusiasm shown in fighting what is generally called the jihadist terror. Terror itself does not make discrimination. The relatively easygoing concern for ULFA or Naxal terror is quite obvious. Those who are immediately in the vicinity of such a terror can only express their apprehension. Their concern is not shared with the political right or even the left. But the jihadist terror is another kettle of fish, at least in India.

The perception of the investigation or intelligence agencies also is equally skewed. Thus CBI says that there is a great difference between Malegaon blasts of 2006 and Jaipur blasts of 2008. The agency says that the explosions in Malegaon were calculated to produce less casualties than those in Jaipur.. This would imply that the terrorists wanted to minimize the toll in Malegaon but maximize it in Jaipur. As a matter of fact more than forty lost their life in Malegaon while 80 in Jaipur. But there is a vital factor that the agency does not consider. There were only three bombs which blew up in Malegaon, two in the cemetery and one in the Mushawarat chowk. In Jaipur there were eight bombs which exploded at five different places.

As far as the shibboleth of terror in India is concerned it is Afzal Guru. There is a fair amount of reason that Afzal Guru could also have been acquitted had an astute lawyer with legal acumen been available for him. As Sayyed Abdul Rehman Geelani could fortunately get support of excellent legal help and support of fellow teachers and students his innocence was made convincing in the court of law. There are certain dark areas in the mess up in which Afzal Guru found himself. Our assumption is and should be that if Afzal is guilty he should hang. There should be no ifs and buts there.

However the matter does not rest there. There are puzzling circumstances structurally built into the whole affair. Was he really employed by the special task force of the police? If so what task was he assigned to do just before the attack on the parliament of our country? He transported a would-be terrorist from Jammu and Kashmir to Delhi and helped him obtain the car used in the attack. Who exactly used him and for what? There is a kind of idiocy and naiveté ascribed to him that makes him look like the retarded brother in law of The Secret Agent of Joseph Conrad who carried the bomb to the observatory. He was incapable of understanding what he was doing. No doubt Afzal is not mentally handicapped but what if he was used by someone? Who used him is more important.

We almost went to war with our neighbour Pakistan for the attack on Parliament. The US and allies attack on Iraq on the pretext of a bogus WMD and terrorist link has now made many Americans rue the day they went to war on so called terror in Iraq. With a hind sight it would be better that we do our home work with meticulous care before we rush to any conclusion. A lone convict in death row can wait as long as possible till those who are behind him are also caught and punished. Punish we must, we did it once in the case of Maqbool Butt. No one should doubt our resolve!

How much more stringent antiterrorist law could you make? The contemporary American laws in the matter of water boarding, all the three kinds of renditions, including the extraordinary, the Guantanamo detention without trial have all failed. More innocent people have suffered. Did Khwaja Yunus also go through water boarding? What killed this innocent citizen of our country? He came from a part of Maharashtra where de facto terrorist attacks have taken place. They have been brushed under the carpet of crackers. If the police selectively apply even the most stringent laws will it be effective? The fear is that more disaffection between people will be produced. And against what?

Despite this, the former lawyer and now a spokesperson of BJP Arun Jaitley has counted 5 reasons why we are unable to fight terror. One, the BJP ruled states want very strict laws against terror but the central government does not allow them to have such laws. In his sophistry he mentions Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh but does not mention Gujarat where even ordinary crimes are booked under Pota. Even so the attack on Akshardham had taken place. He mentions Maharashtra which has a law against organized crime. How does he forget that despite this law the explosions of bombs in Nanded in the house of RSS, Bajrang Dal, VHP activists were cavalierly treated. Incidentally the Supreme Court recently came down heavily against booking the alleged culprits of bomb blasts of 2006 against the organized crime law. Two, the central government has failed to execute Afzal Guru. Three, those who allegedly burnt Sabarmati express are booked under Pota and yet the central government is helping them. Arun Jaitley does not specify what he means by help. He should not have better mentioned Gujarat. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had ignored the written letters of the President of India, KR Narayanan, on the situation in Gujarat at that height of the massacres of Muslims in 2002. Jaitley also mentions Madhya Pradesh. But he conveniently forgets that Mr Sreekumar was DIG of intelligence department of Gujarat police. He has mentioned in diary the details which would have damned any head of state elsewhere in the world. The Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh was no other than BJP President Rajnath Singh who was also entrusted with Home Department and he had not complied with the reporting of the unruly behaviour of the kar sevaks of the Sabarmati express which had passed through his state. Confessions of crime by people like Babu Bajrangi have been recorded on camera and yet nothing has happened. What greater Pota does Gujarat want? Even in the investigation of the burning of the train different inquiry commissions have found different versions of truth and the confessions of the alleged and also police statements have been changed and facts fabricated. Four, confession of alleged perpetrators is not taken as proof of their crime. Jaitley would like mere confession as admissible proof, and he a former lawyer at that! Five, the culprits are able to get bail easily. How short is our memory! The bomb blasts of Faizabad, Lucknow and Varanasi reveal that the alleged criminals were attacked by lawyers and their bail applications are pending because no lawyer can dare plead for them. This is not only unconstitutional but inhuman. Jaitley and his party would make this unconstitutional into a stringent law to fight terror. Perhaps this can be done otherwise. But then India would have to attack and annex a part of Sri Laka and create its own Guantanamo prison somewhere in Jaffna.

Spain did fight terrorism with convincing justification as far as the Madrid bombing is concerned. It did not take on the followers of any ideology per se. Nor did it pass any more stringent laws to deal with the situation. Australia did try to use extraordinary legal provision but then set Dr Haneef free although his cell phone card was used by his cousin who blew himself at the Glasgow airport. Dr Haneef himself was not involved. In the case of 7/11 metro bombing in England a brother of the main accused was set free which would be impossible if the kind of draconian law we want to enact here in our own country. There was no proof against him. His identity was not important there. But is the identity of an accused important here?