Samjhota Express bombing case

In a major breakthrough, India’s NIA has arrested one Chauhan, a member of the Hindu extremist group, who masterminded the Samjhauta Express bombing in 2007 that killed more than 70 innocent Muslims, mostly Pakistanis. His group has been found involved in hundreds of acts of violence and terrorism across India. This has certainly exposed the Hindu extremist groups involved in terror activities inside India.

Chauhan was held from Indore, and already a Hindu Swami Assemanad, member of the RSS, made confessions of involvement in the then Indian army’s serving Colonel Prohit-led act of disastrous blast. Primarily the Indian police and government officials hurled their traditional accusation on Pakistan and LeT but later a retired Indian police official Mushraff in his best selling book unmasked a number of Hindus, including a serving Colonel and Major of the Indian army who have been providing IEDs and bomb-making components to Hindu assailants. After a lapse of five years no significant progress was made despite Mushraff’s disclosures.

The 2008 Mumbai attacks case also seems stage-managed, but the Indian government has made startling twists. The recent being the planners watched the Mumbai attacks live via cameras while sitting in a rented house in Karachi. This also seems to be an effort to implicate Pakistan and its security agencies.

The Indian government sanctioned its National Investigation Agency in December 2011 to charge sheet nine people including an American Mr Headley and others. But given the Hindu extremists counts, if the independent investigations are made in the direction of Samjhauta like cases, hopefully the real culprits can be found from within the same Hindu groups that are active there.

Unfortunately, these cases are being blindly backed by the international community without any convincing evidence as nothing had been confirmed against the Pakistan based groups.

Obviously it is aimed at implicating Pakistan, its army and ISI. India needs to further investigate and find out the real culprits from within their ranks. The international community should also not see it through one eye only. Such efforts on the sidelines of trade and cultural ties are to undermine Pakistani nation’s credentials in the eyes of the world community.

FOZIA S NIAZI

Islamabad

(II)

According to a news report a key suspect in the Samjhauta blast case has been held by India’s National Investigation Agency.

This is surely a great breakthrough as it exposes the Hindu extremist groups involved in terror activities inside India. Kamal Chauhan was captured from Indore and is being termed as the mastermind of the deadly blast that resulted in the death of 70 innocent Muslim passengers in 2007. Despite the lapse of five long years no significant progress has been seen over the case by the Indian authorities.

Incidents of terrorism in India have always been suspiciously viewed as the work of external elements such as the Pakistan based religious organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba in India, thus becoming the popular India narrative circulated through Indian media extensively both nationally and internationally.

The confessions made by Swami Aseemanad, an important member of RSS, had drastically changed ground realities and has stripped naked the true Indian face.

The attack on the Indian parliament is another incident of terror that was used by the Indians to take military, political and diplomatic action against Pakistan as it happened soon after the 9/11 scenario. This became instrumental in accusing Pakistan for perpetrating cross border terrorism, thus gaining sympathy from the international community. The Indian case had been backed internationally without any convincing evidence as nothing had been confirmed against the Pakistan based groups.

Saffron terrorism becomes the most vicious form emanating from the Indian soil that threatens to destroy the prospects of any relations between the two neighbours. The Indian authorities need to expose the saffron terror networks that operate with such blatant impunity upon its territory. For that it needs to increase efforts of its security apparatus as the Hindu extremists enjoy full support of the masses and have profoundly entrenched themselves into the societal fabric in such a manner that it poses great problems for the state to reverse its momentum.

This network needs to be dismantled immediately if peace is to prevail in the region. As India is growing with great rapidity to become the biggest democracy to dominate South Asia, a core infested with terrorism of the most malignant nature can destabilize the entire region. Furthermore, the Indian authorities ought to speed up their investigation procedure to apprehend all the perpetrators of the Samjhauta blast case.

AYAANA MALIK

Islamabad