One of the
reasons why the siege like that of the attack on the Taj will happen again and
again is “because people are not taking 26/11 seriously enough.” The author
Adrian Levy says further that there “is not a serious response to a seminal
event like 26/11. The sacrifice by people, and also the stigma of the attack on
the city, and it is one of the first of many things that will happen now”. (1)
But why does he or for that matter his coauthor Cathy Scott-Clark feel so? Such
things did happen in Nairobi subsequently, but the moot question is did not
such things happen before? To illustrate the point with instances, like what
happened on 29 September 2008 or 8 September 2006? Even the top cop they lionize DCP Rajvardhan
Sinha (now ACP) played a significant role in Malegaon 2006 blasts case. If the authors justify that the Americans had
given enough tidbits to the Indians who did not care to join the dots to
decipher the “honey bee” and the “mice” in India, did they not do so in the
earlier cases, either?
In the interview to Rediff Levy praises “the
policemen who did fight” the terrorists.” Did the same police “fight” the
terrorists in 2006 in Malegaon? Enough number of warnings though not like the
26 warnings as in the case of the 26/11 were given in advance. What is more a
local leader and former MLA had given direct information of impending bomb
attacks (of 8 September 2006) with even name of train by which the terrorists
would travel to Manmad and then to Malegaon. What is most astounding it was
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Sigh who addressed the chief ministers of the states
of India and the governors thereof on 5 September 2006 and 17 September 2008
and cautioned them of possible bomb attacks? His predecessor in office AB
Vajpayee also had warned of possible attacks as on the Parliament a day before
13 December 2001, when it really did take place!
In the case of Malegaon it was most amusing. If this
advance warning was true then those who were detonating the rocks en route from
Manmad to Malegaon in widening the road were stopped and workers had been
dispersed in hurry and the same was the case near the quarries in Malegaon
itself where deepening the wells was in progress by blasting mines! Who
shooed them away? This correspondent of the Milligazette
had put the same question to Pramod B Mane, NIA officer, on 14 June 2011. The
officer had a sketch of the route drawn with the hill between Manmad and
Malegaon marked and shown to him where the blowing of rocks was underway. It
was too obtuse for him! Have Levy and Clark done the big picture? What happened
in Pakistan Red Mosque in 2007 and Marriot hotel on 21 September 2008 are for
the Pakistanis to bother.
Why do we in India fail to relate 26/11 to 8
September 2006 and 29 September 2008 in India itself?
If the “jihad factory” of Al Qaida was active in
1998 in Kenya, Darussalam then there was no such factory in Coimbatore in Tamil
Nadu where native Muslims tried to avenge the murder of their relatives injured
in the riots. They were admitted in hospitals where the extremist Hindus had
attacked and killed them while they were treated for their wounds. The Muslims
chose the hospitals as their target. There was no pan Islamic movement as is
misconstrued by some. Indian terrorist scenes have a different setting and
there is no “jihadi factory” within India as it is in Pakistan or in al Qaida.
Furthermore, the police informer Zabiuddin aka Abu
Jindal had helped in importing huge amount of RDX and weapons including AK 47s
on 9 May 2006 to Mumbai, Malegaon and Verud near Aurangabad. Apparently no
police officer was involved in planting the material. But a resident of
Malegaon Shakeel Ahmad Mohammad Yusuf gave in writing through his affidavit submitted
to MCOCA court that it was allegedly ASP Rajvardhan Sinha who had used Pius
Agarwal and others to plant the arms in a dry well near Ankai on 9 May 2006 .
And it was at the instance of Sinha the material was removed and local Muslims
were arrested at the instance of[Agarwal and other local Hindus. A copy of the
affidavit is with the Milligazette. During
the hearing in the court in the third week of November 2013 the police officer
who arrested some of the accused at Verud said that there was no road that went
through the temple. The defense lawyer Wahab asked him then how did he come
there inside and intercept the arms laden car. (Fuller report in Inquilab 22November 2013)
Police informers have played havoc with intelligence
agencies. Zabiuddin, Sajid Ahmad, Abrar Ahmad and hundreds of others from
Muslim community fell victim of police network of spies for snooping. David
Headley was also after all a Muslim. The heart of the matter is who employs
them to carry out terror related activities. To do the larger picture in the
words of Devy it is also to reverse the logic of his assumption: “Why don't you
use me” assumes Levy as Headley to be saying to FBI, “as the Trojan Horse? I
look like a white guy, as you say like a gora. I have an American
passport.' And he said 'I will stake out a city for you and I will choose
places where there is an international crowd and I will enable you to attack
India but also to appease Al Qaeda, the people who are enamored with Al Qaeda,
by broadening the base of the attack out, attack the West, attack America,
attack the British, attack Jews. We all find somewhere like that and I propose
that the place to do that is the metropolis.'” Were the Americans, the
Israelis, the Pakistanis, really spoiling for such a big operation for their
future strategic use by outsourcing it to the LeT and the honey bee and the
mice for assorted reasons?
DGP AN Roy had taken control of the events though he had no operational responsibility. He set up his control room at NCPA while Gafoor was at the Leopold Café and Maria operated from Crawford market Police commissioner’s head office. What is worth noting is how did Maria behave in the crisis period. When Gafoor ordered him to remain at his post the head of the Crime Branch became “incandescent”, (2) that is extremely angry at the commissioner. He wanted to rush to the Nair hospital to interrogate Kasab who was brought there. The commissioner said that the Additional Commissioner of Police Tanaji Ghadge was already dispatched because the hospital was in the jurisdiction of Ghadge. Even then Maria sent a DCP to shadow Ghadge. According to Levy and Clark Maria wanted to see that Ghadge did not screw it up, meaning fail to interrogate Kasab properly. The question arises why would Ghadge fail? Or, did Maria have a brief on what and how to interrogate?
This also became quizzical when during the trial Judge Tahilyani did not record when he questioned Kasab whether he knew Faheem Ansari who allegedly had supplied hand drawn map according to the Mumbai police but according to the Levy the terrorists had Google map to guide them and they had customized it before they left Karachi. Why did the judge also ask everyone to leave the court room before he questioned Kasab in camera? This angle of conspiracy within a conspiracy or intrigue with an intrigue is a serious aspect. Levy and Clark have simply not taken it in record nor did Pradhan Commission bother about it in its skimpy 64 page report on 26/11. However SM Mushrif did deal with this aspect. His book too is anathema to others, Levy and Clark also ignored it.
It is relevant in this context to quote in detail Mushrif who approximated in hinting at the ‘honey bee’ of Levy and Clark:
“The beginning of the 21st century witnessed a series of bomb blasts across the country; their blatant wrong and exaggerated reporting in the media, apparently at the instance of the premier intelligence agency of the country ( the IB), the uncalled for interference of the IB in the investigation of bomb-blast cases with ulterior motives; the self-detected Nanded blast case of 2006; the absolutely honest and transparent investigation of the Malegaon blast case of 2008 by the then chief of the ATS Maharashtra, late Hemant Karkare, exposing a nationwide terror network; the interruption of the Malegaon blast investigation by the Mumbai terror attack of 26/11 which was a result of the deliberate blocking of an extremely specific piece of intelligence by the IB, the dastardly and brutal killing of the ATS chief Hemant Karkare; the post haste appointment of the highly controversial officer KP Raghuvanshi as Hemant Karkare’s successor; the doubtful investigation of CST-CAMA Ranghbhavan Lane part of the Mumbai terror attack by the IB and the FBI, with the Crime Branch Mumbai merely acted as a puppet, and so on.” (3)
Mushrif was Inspector General of Police in
Maharashtra and should know the way the police and the intelligence agencies
work. His statement shows that 26/11was stage managed to happen to stop Karkare
from his exposure of the network of Hindutva terrorism all over the country when
he found the Hindutva hand in Malegaon 29 September 2008 attack. It is
corroborated by Karkare’s smiley farewell of 24 November 2008 interview to the
Indian Express. He referred to threat to his life and family and reportedly
sought help/sanctuary from the US embassy.
Abrar Ahmad one of the nine accused in Malegaon 2006
blasts says that [the so called “battled hardened”] Raj Vardhan Sinha had given phones to him and his wife
Jannatunnisa and recorded fake conversation. This fake conversation implicates
innocent youths of Malegaon; one of them is Zahid, another accused in the same
case. This is clear case of perjury on the part of both Abrar and Raj V Sinha.
But Sinha made Lt Col Prasad Purohit hear it when Abrar was in illegal
detention in Jagtap Mala in Nashik. Even more disturbing is that ATS kept him in
a hotel in Dadar in Mumbai. The same Sinha met Abrar along with deputy ATS
officer Subodh Kumar Jaiswal and another ATS officer Sachin Kadam on 1
September 2008. They assured him that they would get him out on bail after they
have finished their mission of removing those who were disproving what they had
written in their charge sheet against the nine accused. Urdu speaking Abrar’s
words in his native tongue clearly shows Sinha as the very opposite of what
Levy and Clark say of him. Hum logon ka
ek mission hai do dhai mahiney men pura hojaye ga. Phir beech men kutch log
tang ada rahen hain koi nahin rahey ga. “We have a mission which would be over in two
and half months. Then there will no one be left who is creating obstacles in
our path.” It is after accomplishing this mission that the three would see that
Abrar gets bail. When Abrar questioned about what relation was there between
their mission and his bail. They clarified that they had made investigation and
written charge sheet on the 2006 blasts which the new comers in the ATS like
Hemant Karkare were changing. This would mean that the three officers were the
staunch advocates of the Hindutva nefarious ideology that only Muslims are
terrorists. Hindus cannot be. This development clearly buttresses what Mushrif
has said in his book. Unfortunately this requires a different inquiry which is
beyond the ambit of the courts of law. Only a neutral foreign investigation
agency or commission can unearth for which the national courts and the law
ministry can ever agree.
Another instance of this stalemate is that of the
convicted and sentenced to death in Pune German Bakery case, Himayat Baig. Baig
wrote a letter to the High Court asking it not to give Yasin Bhatkal to ATS
Maharashtra custody because the ATS would torture Bhatkal and make him confess
under duress that he was with Baig in planting the bomb at the German Bakery. (4)The
ATS under Rakesh Maria ala Raghuvanshi was totally biased against Muslims and
had been trained by Purohit to prove only Muslims as terrorists. That was what
Purohit’s training the ATS in counter terrorism amounts to. How does the ATS do it is spelled by Baig as
“third degree” treatment and “force”. And Levy and Clark lift the veil when
they observe the characteristic modus operandi of Rakesh Maria, in charge of
Crime Branch during the 26/11 and ATS chief during the German Bakery blast and
the trial. Methods of torture: “sleep deprivation, near drowning [read,
notorious in-human water boarding as in the case of Khwaja Yunus], mock
executions [as in the case of Fahim Ansari, another falsely implicated in
26/11] and electrocutions [as in the case of Noorulhoda, an accused in Malegaon
2006 blasts]in secret holding pens. (p. 82) In fact when Maria met Kasab first
time he pointed his knuckles and threatened him that he would not kill him but
Kasab must tell everything automatically. Can the likes of Maria, Sinha and
Raghuvanshi let anyone do the larger picture? The Pradhan Commission on 26/11
is an eye wash as it is based on what the cops say merely.
-------
(1)
(2) The Siege:
The Attack on the Taj. Andrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark. Penguin India, New Delhi, 2003. P. 148.
(3) Who Killed
Karkare, the real face of terrorism in India. SM Mushriff. New Delhi, Pharo 2009.
(4) Don’t give Bhatkal to ATS: Baig. The Times of
India Nashik edition 24 October 2013.
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