Dimensions Of Malegaon Blasts: Samjhauta Express
By Mustafa Khan
19 June, 2010
Countercurrents.org
Malegaon blast cases of 2006 and 2008 have many more dimensions than we have been able to see. Soon after the arrest of Lt Col Shrikant Purohit on the night of November 5, 2008 disturbing news started coming out through his interrogation. It is doubtful that such an army official like him or Colonel (retired) SS Raikar commandant of Bhonsla military school would be subjected to third degree torture but reports of Purohit’s arrest suggest that he was tortured. His relative Vilas Anand Dalvi submitted an affidavit describing specific instances of torture: so badly beaten that his left hand was paralyzed, fingers of right hand fractured, knees injured. (Purohit tortured, family tells court Indian Express Fri Nov 14 2008). Raiker like Purohit was in the capacity of liaison officer with the military intelligence before retirement. On November 14, 2008 ADG VN Rai of Haryana police was in Mumbai investigating Samjhauta link. Raikar said that the trail went to Indore and then became cold. DGP Ranjiv Dalal also remarked that Indore was an important link in the plot of Malegaon and Samjhauta train explosions, a town where the Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur and Purohit had met to hatch the conspiracy and from where things were procured.
Because of the intervention of National Security Advisor MK Narayanan in the process of investigation the Indore connection even when very strong was not thoroughly vetted and searched. He felt that it would dramatically change the world opinion that India had created by blaming every terrorist attack within India on Pakistan. India was in a fix. Then followed: the tergiversation. The Haryana police officers were stalled from proceeding further. The whole world was watching and perhaps that would not have been that material had not the Pakistanis been keeping a tab on this matter. For, they raised Samjhauta train blasts issue at every conference to brow beat us. Though 68 Pakistani passengers lost lives and many more were seriously injured in the devastating inferno caused by the two explosions it was also a symbolic terrorism aiming at dismantling the rapprochement between the two South Asian neighbours. The jihadists would not countenance it but there are desi jihadists who not only view Pakistan as enemy but a part of ancient India sawed off through ballot based on religious strength of different communities. They never hide their aspiration to regain the whole of ancient India into one integral land. Purohit’s constitution matches the articles of faith of the RSS.
To cover up one lie man tells many others. This simple human folly was lost on the NSA as well as the Intelligence Bureau and RAW. As a result of this the cooked up lame excuse that in 2006 a Pakistani had a fracas on the train and jumped off it when it was about to start. India gave details of this agent provocateur to Pakistan calling him as one of the two responsible for the twin blasts on the friendship train. As the Pakistanis tried to ascertain who this national of theirs jumping out was when the train would be going into Pakistan soon in the middle of the night they could not find anyone of that name among the passengers on record as well as in their country. There was also no plausible reason why should he be jumping out of the train and why should he be quarreling with fellow Muslims and fellow Pakistanis on a foreign soil that, too, was hostile despite the fact that the special train was maintained as a friendly gesture to improve bilateral relations between India and Pakistan.
Three years ago the Haryana sleuth were doing a commendable work that matched what their counterpart in Hemant Karkare was doing for the Malegaon blast. They found the leads that led to Indore and went cold as in Malegaon 2006 case, too. But then they did the wisest thing people thoroughly professional do: disseminate knowledge (like Kunta Kinte to his daughter in Alex Haley’s epoch making “Roots”). They gave information of what they had found that the bags used for explosion on Samjhauta express were bought from the Abhinandan Bag Centre in Indore’s Kothari Market and they also identified the tailor who sewed the suitcases for that purpose. They even had found out that the other ingredients of the explosives like pipe, Super Saurabh plastic boxes, etc. were procured from there within a radius of a mile and half. The cat was out of the bag but Narayanan and the Madhya Pardesh BJP government put it back into the bag.
How come India could allow this to happen? It must now be history that the US and Israel have become so brazen to defy world opinion that come what may even the most publicized event cannot dent their strategic interest in the middle east or elsewhere. This is particularly true of the Palestinian problem. India has chosen to side with them in the so called ‘war on terrorism’. By closely associating with the Israelis we have also veered to disregarding public misgivings at home and international concern abroad. In the case of Gujarat genocide and Samjhauta express attack we have come a cropper! Even so our newly strategic allies had responded in measure. The US state department had refused to call the attack on the American consulate library in Kokata at the beginning of the 21st century as terrorist attack. It called it revenge mounted by private individuals to settle score with the police for having killed their relatives somewhere in Gujarat. But in the case of Samjhauta express the response and concern is not so candid!
