“Where is the Indian director?” Terrorists’ Search for a Target

During the guesthouse attacks in Kabul the blood curdling cry of the Lashkar-e-Toiba or Afghan Taliban was not sectarian but national. They were hunting to kill Indians irrespective of their religion or caste. They would not have lowered the pants of their victims as is the wont within India to identify the hapless victims in communal riots or otherwise. Their hunting cry whether in Urdu or Pashtu was the blood thirsty baying for blood like that of the hordes who descend upon their quarry beyond the Khyber pass in the long past. Their precursors in Ajmal Kasab and Ismail Khan also did not discriminate the forty plus Muslim men and women and their children killed at the CST on 11/26.
Of the eighteen people killed in the targeted bombing in Kabul nine were Indians. Richard Holbrooke may not agree as to the nationality issue of the target but given the situation in the three south Asian neighbours there is little doubt left. The 27 odd Mossad terrorists who had descended on the Dubai hotel to kill Hamas leader Mohammad al Madhou on January 19 also included a couple of Palestinians. The killers in Dubai had stolen identities, what mattered to them was their quarry.
In Pune blast the victims were of different religions and nationality but the target was transnational as in the case of the Kabul attack. However different people read different significance in the two events. Holbrooke remarked: “I don’t accept the fact that this was an attack on an Indian facility like the (Indian) embassy. They were foreigners, non-Indian foreigners hurt.” (Hindustan Times March 6, 2010).The US envoy views it as a region-problem of political nature which has no religious dimension. Eight Afghans along with an Italian diplomat and a French film maker were also killed. But in the case of Pune blast the Intelligence Bureau would have us believe that it was the work of Indian Mujahiddeen. This is what can be termed in a different register as congenital. No sooner does a blast take place than the agencies at the behest of the mother of all agencies, IB, declare IM or yet another avatar of it behind the attack. IM is itself the transformation of LeT.
After mulling over for more than a fortnight the police have taken away Arif Pathan as one connected to the blast in Pune. He went missing since March 3. The police have confirmed that he was interrogated but he is not arrested. The lawyer of this personal assistant of MLC Sanjay Dutt termed it as illegal detention. (Indian Express March 6, 2010) There is widespread apprehension that this might turn out to be another framing of the Muslims a la Gulzar Ahmed Ganai and Mohammad Amin Hajam. These two were arrested by Mohan Chand Sharma (“martyred” in Batla house) with doctored bus record and faked photo. The two innocents languished three years in Tihar until justice Dharmesh Sharma acquitted them and ordered their release on December 12, 2009.
Those behind the targeting of Indians in Kabul are dioramic in personal and collective appearance. The border region between India’s two neighbours is the hotbed of multilingual groups with a common target. They belong to a movement rather than a terrorist group that is hell bent in their fight to get rid of the Americans. These days they perceive that Indians are toeing the lines drawn by the Yankees.