International Implications Of Malegaon Blasts
By Mustafa Khan
07 June, 2010
Countercurrents.org
Unfortunately Indian foreign policy and much that goes in matters of internal security vis-à-vis terrorism in MHA is captive to the partition of the country. If this were not so the sleuths of Haryana would have cracked the Samjhauta express attack of 2007 and carried it to its logical end. The national security advisor MK Narayanan would not have to advise the government to reverse the investigation in order to not stand in the rank of ISI over Samjahuta. However unpalatable this may be but we have got stuck in the rut of retaliation.
One fact of this is that we are closer to Israel today than we ever were. In the early seventies Pune had a poster pasted at public places asking Indians to know who is causing hardship to them due to the oil embargo and petrol crunch. This kind of insinuation has not stopped.
Israel has a bearing on the bomb blasts in Malegaon in 2006 and 2008. Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit worked in his capacity as liaison officer of the military intelligence of the Indian army dealing with counter terrorism. He was also a member of Abhinav Bharat and had established contact with the Jewish state officials. It is difficult to say without official confirmation if he acted as a military officer when he interacted with the Israelis. Indian police and army have very close contact with the Jewish state ever since 1993 and particularly after the visit of Moshe Dayan and the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries. DGP of Maharashtra Shivanand and former SP of Nashik (rural) Rajwardhan have visited Israel. Like them Purohit must have also visited Israel and met Mossad agents and other officials. They had told him to prove two incidents on the ground for which they vouchsafed support for the proposed Hindu Rashtra which Abhinav Bharat wanted to establish.
Purohit averred in his confession and in the narco test that he had given RDX for Samjhauta express attack and had used non Wahabi or Salafi Muslims earlier (the 2006 blasts). When this writer wrote “Malegaon: the Israeli connection” emails poured in Hebrew, a sure sign how sensitive and tangent is the matter. Protests or support show the extent of involvement. Until Nehru and Indira Gandhi our foreign policy was clear cut type of the non-alignment movement of which India was a leading founder member. But since the induction of the BJP into government at centre a kind of relativity has come in our diplomatic relationship. The perception that Israel besieged by hostile Islamic countries is worthy of emulation has led to our security agencies dispatching officials to the new Mecca of security in the Middle East for training.
A particular tactic in our so called war on terror is to use informers of the target community in a place in acts of espionage and acts of violence deemed as efficacious in counter-terrorism. The Israelis have used it during the Intifada movement of the Palestinians to counter the protests as well as in their war on ‘terror.’ They have brainwashed Indian security agencies into adopting this. As most of the Indian officials visiting Israel are RSS tainted the strategy works on the assumption that your enemy’s enemy is your friend. It is not for nothing that Moshe Dayan( Israeli Defence and Foreign minister) entered India in the garb of a dhoti clad Hindu!
The other acquired tactic in our strategy of fighting ‘terror’ is what national security advisor MK Narayanan spoke in the aftermath of the bombing of our embassy in Kabul, paying Pakistan in the same coin. When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Sharm al Sheikh accepted our involvement in the troubled regions of Pakistan many were shocked and disturbed. India is now viewed as making a concerted effort in league with the US and Israel in fight on ‘terror.’ This new, but not so ‘shining’ India, stands in contrast with the non-alignment movement India of yore.
Thus much of what happened in Malegaon since the dawn of the twenty first century is on account of what we have inherited: a complex world. Street protests with banners showing pictures of Osama bin Laden and slogans in support of Iraq and in condemnation of the US and Israel, handbills calling on the people to “be Indian and buy Indian” and boycott Jewish owned companies’ products led to riots of October 2001 and cast shadow on the blasts of 2006 and 2008. Those who were sighted in the protest march were hounded and arrested as members of SIMI and framed in the bomb attacks. This meets the overall strategic requirement of the war on ‘terror’. That is, involve the members of the target community in crimes, blame them for what happens and shrug off your shoulder saying: your people conspired, you bombed, your people died, your people were injured and your people were caught and your people are convicted.
It was inevitable that this would not work in India. We are a different democracy than either the US in the stranglehold of the Zionists, or Israelis pampered and sustained by the US.
This resurfaced in the first week of June 2010 as the deputy prime minister and foreign minister of Israel Avigdor Lieberman told the UN General Secretary that the international community ignored 500 people killed in the last one month of May in Thailand, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Iraq. Nobody bothered about that. But Israel is condemned for “unmistakably defensive action” in which nine died in Israeli raid on the aid to Gaza flotilla. Israeli ambassador Mark Sofer tried to salvage the situation saying Israeil doe not see India in the same light as it does its enemies. (AA June 3, 2010). This shows how far we have strayed from the earlier era.
Nonetheless there are individuals sans constraints of diplomacy. There was a boy Adam David Foley from Washington in Malegaon who saw the bomb blasts on September 8, 2008 and found it similar to 9/11 in devastation and casualties. Similarly there are individuals in India even in uniform who viewed the matters differently. Maeker PI, Vijay Salaskar and other officers of ATS at the Kurla ATS office were glued to the TV as it switched on to blasts scenes from Malegaon cemetery shortly after the prayer. Instantaneously they clapped hands, expressed great happiness, congratulated each other, and shook hands with each other. There was a prisoner Mohammad Ali Sheikh whom the PI addressed: “look! Our activists of Bajrang Dal have avenged the 1993 serial bomb blasts of Bombay!”(Inquilab August 17, 2008). Worthy of note here is the participation of Vijay Salaskar who fell as a victim of terrorism on 26/11 at Cama hospital. It raises question whether we can fight terrorism in the same stereotyped fashion as we have been fighting communal riots?
Advani would like to. He even asked the prime minister to change the investigation team of Karkare who was doing the right job. Bal Thackeray would do so for he was ready to publish the names of the investigation officers who were allegedly handling roughly the Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur.
Malegaon blasts has implications across the seas as the people were watching live television coverage.
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