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The Hindu, June 26, 2004, Saturday AHMEDABAD ENCOUNTER - PART I Gujarat Lashkar conspiracy was infiltrated by Intelligence mole By Praveen Swami AHMEDABAD, JUNE 25. Claims by the Gujarat Police that four Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists killed in an encounter last week intended to execute an attack on the Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, may have been overblown. An investigation by The Hindu has found that the group was indeed engaged in reconnaissance for a suicide-squad attack on Hindu fundamentalist leaders ??” but the mission was monitored by intelligence agencies at each stage and infiltrated from its outset. Last week's encounter on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, along with a separate encounter in Mumbai which claimed the lives of alleged Lashkar operatives, Adnan Kirmani and Anwar Illahi, was the outcome of a four-month-long covert operation by the Intelligence Bureau. The operation was sparked by a letter discovered on the person of the Lashkar commander, Ehsan Illahi, who was eliminated along with six other terrorists in a shootout at Andarwali Dhoke in Arai, in the border district of Poonch, on February 20 last. Authored by Haji Sadiq Ahmad, a Poonch resident held in the Ahmedabad Central Jail for his role in a related 2003 terrorism-crime, the letter provided the Intelligence Bureau considerable insight into the Lashkar's pan-India apparatus. In the light-blue inland letter, written in Urdu, Mr. Sadiq Ahmad asked for Rs. 2 lakhs "to get ourselves freed from here." He proceeded to name suspected Intelligence Bureau sources in Poonch, and asked Ehsan Illahi for his intercession to help four Lashkar recruits from Hyderabad to escape a police dragnet. Most important of all, though, Mr. Sadiq Ahmad's letter mentioned the name of a key member of the Lashkar's support network in Gujarat ??” a lawyer. It turned out he was peripherally involved in transporting six Ahmedabad men to Poonch for training with the Lashkar in 2003. One of the six, Munir Ahmad, died in an encounter while the others made their way across the Line of Control. A Poonch resident who operated a transport business in Gujarat, Latif Khan, was subsequently held for his role in the affair. It turned out that the lawyer's elderly mother had passed on information, during questioning, to the Ahmedabad Crime Branch on the group of six. Mr. Sadiq Ahmad's letter made it clear that the Lashkar knew of this betrayal. It is most likely that the Ahmedabad police told the lawyer that the score would be settled. After some persuasion, he turned and began cooperating with the intelligence agency. The Intelligence Bureau's Ahmedabad station now took charge of their new-found mole, and began using him to lure Lashkar cadre to Gujarat. In essence, the operation was simple. The lawyer was instructed to tell Javed Sheikh, a Pune resident who was among those killed on June 16, that the infrastructure was in place to execute an attack on Mr. Modi. Much of their subsequent dealing was conducted through Ishrat Jehan Raza, a Mumbai college student whose killing sparked off furious protests. Police officials in Ahmedabad now have in their possession records of several calls she had made to Javed from Tavakkal Communications, a public telephone centre in Mumbra, where she resided. By early May, Javed had requisitioned two suicide-squad members to launch the actual attack. The Border Security Force's in-house intelligence wing, the General Branch, picked up signs of the movement in mid-May. Its signals intelligence staff intercepted coded wireless communications asking two Lashkar cadre to report to a handler in Udhampur, near Jammu, and then proceed to their final destinations. New Delhi was referred to as Rajdhani, and the final destination, Ahmedabad, as Manzil. Informed official sources say that both suicide-squad volunteers had served upwards of a year in Jammu and Kashmir. Jishan Johar, a resident of Gujaranwala in Pakistan, had operated in the Bandipora area while Amjadali Rana, who hailed from Sargodha, worked with a Lashkar unit in the Reasi area. Rana also held fake identification papers issued by an executive magistrate from the mountain town of Mahore. Like the Lashkar operatives who carried out the earlier attack on the Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar, the terrorists probably hoped to reach Ahmedabad just days or hours before the intended assault. In this case, however, there was no target: just a police ambush. The Hindu, June 27, 2004, Sunday AHMEDABAD ENCOUNTER - PART II Lashkar fishes in troubled waters By Praveen Swami AHMEDABAD, JUNE 26. Like most young people her age, Ishrat Jehan Raza occasionally cruised the internet. If the Gujarat police are right and the Mumbai college student who was killed in Ahmedabad on June 15 was a Lashkar-e-Taiba operative, she would most certainly have seen a graphic image on the organisation's website: riot survivor Qutubuddin Ansari begging for his life. Underneath the image, the Lashkar's site designer added a slogan: "don't you think he should have a gun?" Like most things to do with the organisation, the Lashkar's plans for Gujarat are no secret. Ever since the pogrom of 2002, the organisation has been publicly calling on Indian Muslims to join its Jihad. In an article published that year on the Lashkar website, its political head, Hafiz Mohammad Sayeed, asked "the Muslims of India that they themselves rise up for their protection." "Only Jihad," he continued, "is the defence of the oppressed Muslims. The riots have proved that the Hindus are fully armed but the Muslims are badly ill-equipped to cope with such a situation." Almost two weeks after the controversial encounter that claimed Ishrat's life, along with those of Pune resident Javed Sheikh and two Pakistani nationals, it is still unclear just what motivated the young college student to join the ranks of the Lashkar. That she did so, in at least some peripheral form, seems probable. Evidence has emerged that Ishrat maintained telephone contact with Javed, and that codenames entered in her diary match those in a separate register maintained by her associate. These codenames, meant to refer to potential assassination targets, offer at least some clues to her motivation. Leaders widely believed to be at the cutting edge of anti-Muslim political mobilisation received particularly venomous nomenclature. Bajrang Dal leader Vinay Katiyar is referred to as `Kutta,' or dog; Vishwa Hindu Parishad demagogue Dr. Praveen Togadia as `Tingu,' or dwarf. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is coded `Mubarak,' or congratulations ??” a reference, perhaps, to the sentiments the Lashkar would pass on to his assassins. Ishrat's sentiments mirror those of some youth who were incensed by the Indian state's failure to deliver justice during or after the violence in Gujarat. Mr. Sayeed's article taps this anger, arguing that "the only way for the Muslims of India is to organise their movements [sic.] for liberation. There is no other way out." "Why to die helplessly?" the Lashkar chief asks. Some have been listening. Since the Gujarat riots, evidence has emerged that the Lashkar has succeeded in recruiting several ??” perhaps dozens ??” of young people from the State and elsewhere. Apart from six men known to have trained with the Lashkar in Poonch, the investigation into the assassination of former Gujarat Home Minister Haren Pandya threw up a mass of evidence on recruitment by Islamist groups in Gujarat. Residents of the State working in West Asia are major targets. Key figures in such recruitment include Abdul Bari, a Hyderabad resident last seen in Saudi Arabia operating under the nom de guerre Abu Hamza. Javed, like several of those involved in recent terrorist crime, is believed to have been recruited on the second of two visits to Oman. It would, however, be facile to link recent recruitment only to the Gujarat pogrom. Lashkar recruitment outside Jammu and Kashmir dates back to the immediate aftermath of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, when the organisation won several recruits. Ishrat's neighbourhood, the Thane ghetto of Mumbra, has a strong subterranean tradition of support for the Lashkar, underpinned by the influence of the local Ahl-e-Hadis seminary ??” the sect from which the terrorist groups derives its religious legitimacy. As early as 2000, four top Lashkar terrorists were arrested in Mumbra, along with local sympathisers. Religious organisations such as the Tabligh-i-Jamaat and the Ahl-e-Hadis have cashed in on the climate of fear generated by decades of anti-Muslim violence, emphasising communal separateness. From this ideological foundation, violence is for some just a small step away. The HIndu, June 28, 2004, Monday AHMEDABAD ENCOUNTER - PART III Questions of life and death By Praveen Swami AHMEDABAD, JUNE 27. Almost a fortnight after the elimination of four alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives in Ahmedabad, the big question isn't about their guilt or innocence. It is whether the encounter was a genuine response to an imminent attack ??” or a cold-blooded execution. On the face of it, several parts of the Gujarat Police narrative on the June 15 encounter don't make sense. According to the Ahmedabad Crime Branch, the four suspects were interdicted at Himmatnagar, on the bypass that skirts Gujarat's principal city. The route is used by most traffic approaching Ahmedabad from Maharashtra. Assistant Commissioner of Police Narendra Amin, who led one of the ambush groups, later told journalists that the shootout lasted some 30 minutes. Critics note that this account leaves several key questions unanswered. The light blue Indica car used by the four alleged terrorists would have taken at least four and a half hours to reach Ahmedabad from the Gujarat border, near Vapi. This leaves open the question of why the police waited to ambush the vehicle until it almost entered the city. Nor did the police find in the car the Rs. 5 coupon its occupants would have purchased to use the toll bridge near Sarkhej, just short of the city. None of this, however, is conclusive. The Ahmedabad Crime Branch could have waited to execute the ambush in their own jurisdiction, reluctant to share credit with another police district. The toll coupon could have been thrown out of the window after purchase, something many drivers do. While ACP Amin's claims of a half-hour encounter seem overblown, since the first bullets directed at the Indica would have claimed the lives of those inside, those who have faced fire know the duration of the engagement often appears longer than it actually is. Whatever the truth, though, the fact is the Gujarat Police carry part of the blame for their current crisis of credibility. Thirteen suspects held in an earlier alleged assassination attempt on Chief Minister Narendra Modi were discharged after the killing of key suspect Samirkhan Pathan, on whose confession the prosecution had been based. The Ahmedabad Crime Branch also faced embarrassment after the Jammu and Kashmir Police blew open its claims that several city residents had collaborated in the storming of the Akshardham Temple. It is also true that since at least 1999, when the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight 814 to Kandahar forced India to release top terrorists Mohammad Masood Azhar, Sayyed Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Zargar, police forces across India have been reluctant to take Pakistani nationals prisoner. In the absence of a political decision on not negotiating with hostage-takers, holding high value terrorists poses problems. Then, despite years of debate on police modernisation and reform, forces on the ground do not have access to the kinds of technology needed to secure convictions. On top of it all, India has no witness protection programme. As such, anyone deposing on a terrorist crime does so at considerable risk to his or her life. All of this has manifested itself in a dismal conviction rate in terrorism-related offences: less than 50 people have been convicted for the tens of thousands of civilian deaths in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab. "Policemen on the ground are finding that law and order are sometimes in opposition," argues a senior official, "but no one seems to be talking about the structural reforms that are so desperately needed." What is known about the Ahmedabad case does not enable an unequivocal finding of fact. Advanced forensics could settle the questions: tests exist, for example, which could establish whether any of the four accused fired a weapon during the shootout. What the controversy has underlined is the need for a transformation of the criminal justice system: a process that needs both cash and political will, commodities conspicuous by their absence. (Concluded) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Confederation of Human Rights Organizations (CHRO) 3, Rams' Cottage Ambalathumukku, Pettah Thiruvananthapuram-695 024 (Ph.: 0471-2476262) Web: www.humanrightsindia.com www.humanrightskerala.com |
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June30, 2004 - [India Thinkers Net]CHRO updates >> |
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