Even as India and its security apparatus grapple with the imponderables that emerge constantly with Pakistan’s proxy war in Kashmir Valley, the death by a thousand cuts asymmetrical warfare takes its toll on our forces continuously. The rapid use of the dark web and the onion router (TOR which provides annonymity) to subliminally indoctrinate the youth in the Valley with a bent towards Wahhabi Salafisim is not lost on our sleuths. However, that does not for a moment mean that our deep state can take its eyes off the ball in the rest of the country.
India’s vast swathe of counter-terrorism grid which combines the skills of hardcore investigation, dogged information reporting and ground level intel gathering on knowing who your adversary picks up every nano or sliver or nugget of information and processes it. Following the 3D approach of detect, deter and destroy, in the wake of 26/11, it is a much more robust network.
While RAW provides the external inputs, IB domestic, NTRO algos pick up chatter, it is the state police and its CIDs and Q Branch, say, in Tamil Nadu or Special Branch in other states who collate, disseminate and act on the information packs. In states like Maharashtra and southern states, these investigators are reportedly top of line and have achieved many kills and successes.
There are designated counter terrorism groups within RAW and IB and of course, there is now a full-fledged NIA which is part of a seamless information sharing and acting main frame. Ministry of Home Affairs now has a counter-terrorism and counter radicalisation division.
How and why did India manage to provide solid information leads to Sri Lanka is based on this grid and its strategic imperatives. Right from the beginning, Jamaat Inayat Ansural Momin has for long been active in Kerala and on the radar of India’s deep state, it follows pure Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) ideology. Progenitor of the LeT grand plan to use the fertile breeding grounds of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Maldives for fresh recruits to wreak havoc on India – Muzzamil Bhat – wanted at first to use JIAM to come to Lanka and train there and return as suicide bombers to India.
In 2009, in a celebrated case, a Malyalee Muslim was found wandering around suspiciously in Kashmir till he was arrested by the security forces. Kerala has a history of communal violence, none more famous than the Marad massacre which saw the killing of eight Hindus by a Muslim mob on May 2, 2003 at the Marad beach of the Kozikhode district.
In the early evening, eight Hindus were hacked to death by a Muslim mob on the beach after reeling in their catch for the day. The killers then escaped into the local Juma Masjid, the Marad enquiry commission’s (Justice Thomas P Joseph) report notes the submission of then Kozhikode Police Commissioner T.K. Vinod Kumar that hundreds of local Muslim women converged on the mosque to prevent the police from entering it to catch the attackers.
Police commissioner, T.K. Vinod Kumar stated: “It was an operation carried out by a well-knit organization. It was a quick and sudden attack which was over in 10 minutes. The attack came from a particular community. “One of the attackers, Mohammed Ashker, was also killed during the incident. The police recovered explosives and arms from the local Juma Masjid two days after the killings as well as special investigation team of the Kerala Crime Branch filed chargesheets against 147 people accused of involvement or complicity in the crime. Some suspected a JIAM hand in this.
Terror central, many reckon, was always in north India, but actually it has existed in Maharashtra and southern states for many years. Its genealogy can be traced to JIAM. Middle-eastern terror networks have been known to flirt with JIAM and that is how the Bhatkals in Karnataka emerged as a follow up to the Shahid Bilal network and dreaded Amjad LeT promoted terror cell in Hyderabad busted with his arrest in 2010.
An existential crisis gripped Bhatkal in Karnataka with the rise of Mohammed Ahmed Zarar Siddibapa who became a poster boy of indigenous terror as the dangerous and deadly Indian Mujahideen terrorist Yasin Bhatkal. What did not help the town in coastal Uttara Kannada district was that other IM top guns, brothers Riyaz and Iqbal Shabantri, also became branded as Riyaz and Iqbal Bhatkal.
The town was subsumed by their identity. Its genesis can be traced to a clash in 1991 during the Lok Sabha polls followed by communal clashes which erupted in 1993. A police officer who did not want to be named said, “The town remained tense for nearly six months, during which 17 people were killed, three were reported missing and property worth Rs 12 crore was destroyed.” Tension rose alarmingly in April 1996 after the then local MLA Dr U Chittaranjan was murdered, leading to a police crackdown.
Investigators now claim that birthed seven years later was Yasin Bhatkal along with six other young men who sat together in the town and decided to form the Indian Mujahideen. Muslims in Bhatkal are primarily known to be either Nawayaths or Dahknis. The Nawayaths trace their origins to Arab countries and believe their ancestors came to the seashore town in the 8th century.
The Dakhnis are referred to as original inhabitants. IM became a terror power house — in signature moves it planted bombs all over the country leaving behind a trail of blood. It was only the combined operation of RAW under Alok Joshi and IB under Syed Asif Ibrahim that Yasin Bhatkal was captured after a stakeout in Nepal in August 2013 since when he remains incarcerated.
This is one of the biggest wins of Indian intelligence which helped dismantle the IM network which killed hundreds in different locations in India.
In early 2010, captured Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative T Naseer reportedly told his Kerala police interrogators that Hyderabad was Pakistani-based LeT’s Indian headquarters and the epicentre of all anti-national activities. Information provided by security agencies revealed that Hyderabad had the most number of alleged terror operatives who had gone missing or are currently believed to be residents in Pakistan.
Mohammed Shahid Bilal, the alleged mastermind in the August 2007 twin blasts in the city and the Mecca Masjid blasts in May that year, who is said to have been killed in an encounter in Pakistan, continues to remain a hero in the area where he lived. A youth from his area, who preferred not to be identified for this report, says, “Saab jab tak Bilal tha, paani or current ka problem nahin tha (when Bilal was alive, we did not have water or power problems).”IANS
There is a vicious circle of action and reaction. The matter needs to be looked into in totality. The causes that help terrorists from all groups,nations and religions get easy recruits must be studies and eliminated creating prevailance of justice for all. Then all the terrorist organizations will collapse like house of cards. It’s foolishness to force one’s own world view on the unwilling. In my opinion, this is the cause of people becoming violent.
For the sake of enforcement of one’s own world view nations are engaged in a kind of state terrorism not allowing people to live as per their ways even in their own countries. And these so called civilised nations do all this including pulling down democratically elected governments in the name of their so called national interests!!! Look at Israel. It has grabbed lands of Palestine killing Palestinians and Trump has recognized them as Israeli lands. And yet these criminals boast that they’re civilised!!!
The rogues indeed. Those who single out violent reactions to this state terrorism as only terrorism and seek to address it are also white caller terrorists.
World and especially white Christians don’t want democracy in Arabia. They have planted puppet kings who do the biddings of their masters white Christians countries and through them these countries rule Arabia. They will find it difficult to do all this if Arabia is ruled by democratic parliaments. The talk of free press and democracy is only for furthering their world view. When not so they prefer dictators. They have crushed democracy in Egypt and Algeria and right now seeking to install their puppet in Venezuela. To further their world view they have cultivated their own terrorist groups.