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Alright! Enough euphoria. Mohammad Haneef was not a superstar. He was a terror suspect. The Australian police goofed up. They found a remote link (SIM card) to terrorism but could not find any solid evidence.
However, it is to be noted that just because the Aussies coulndt find any evidence against Haneef, it doesnt mean Haneef is not at all linked to terrorism. To think otherwise is to commit a logical fallacy.
There should be further investigation to establish that this guy is as clean as the media, the Indian govt. and civil liberties groups want him to be.
The question:
What is the Indian govt. going to do when Mohammad Haneef returns to India?
Will Indian police do their own investigation (for they are in a better position to investigate than the Aussies) or will the govt., the media and civil liberties groups just roll out a red carpet and arrange superstar treatment for the terror suspect-turned-celebrity when he returns?
Haneef couldnt be charged by the Aussies because of lack of solid supporting evidence. He was kept in solitary confinement for a few days. Civil liberties groups cried human rights violations. They accused Australian law of being draconian.
Most of them however forget that it is the same apparently draconian Australian law that saved the day for Haneef. The unspoken rule of police anywhere in the universe – if you’re guilty, you’ll be proved guilty; if you’re innocent, you’ll be set free – has been forgotten. Before Haneef was set free, everybody got into judgement. If he was arrested in India or USA, he’d have spent much much longer in a cell.
We are in some obscure building in a dirty and smoky Indian city infested with free roaming criminals and fearless goondas thousands of miles away from Australia where Haneef is being held but we KNOW Haneef is an innocent man! We know everything that even the police in Australia dont know. How? Dont ask. We’re the media, we’re the civil liberties groups, we’re the Indian govt. We just know. Dont ask. Just fuckin’ release Haneef now! Or you’re violating human rights.
Some newspapers in India even accused Australia of racism but couldnt care to attach a minor note for those of us who are less gifted explaining why arresting and taking Haneef into detention was racist.
The threshold of racism has been so lowered by the world media, especially the India media, that if a white man does something bad to a black man, it is racism. Full stop! We need not care to see if the black man has been arrested because of his skin colour or the fact that he’d been found in possession of a SIM card which linked him to terrorists.
The utter perversion of the public discourse in India has reached a dangerous level. Hundreds of poorly paid and poorly equipped police officers, men with families, are killed every year in the jungles and cities of India. They’re never noticed by the media.
A terror suspect, however, gets celebrity status just because he’d been arrested and questioned by a nation which believes in itself, its values, its laws, cares for its citizens and, unlike India, doesnt routinely fail in delivering justice to victims of terrorism, rape, child molestation, murder, rioting and robbery.
The perversion discomforts. It worries. It deludes. It takes us farther away from reason – for example, it makes us commit the logical fallacy of believing that Haneef is innocent just because no evidence had yet been found against him. However, the evidence may be found tomorrow, it may be found in Bangalore or it may be found in London. But we’ve been made to feel that it’ll never be found. That Haneef is innocent no matter what.
Now that we are extremely relieved and even jubilant that Haneef had been cleared of all charges, I’d love to see the same enthusiasm being displayed when we talk of punishing the perpetrators of Varanasi Sankat Mochan, Delhi Oct 2005, IISc Bangalore, Mumbai 7/11 etc.
In case you dont know or forgot, not a single person has been tried in relation to the Mumbai 7/11 blasts. The victims of this atrocity also need some of your high funda, modern, secular, forward looking, civil libertarian attention so that they too get a little share of what you want Haneef to get – justice.
Even if you cant spare as much time for them as you do in fighting for terrorists’ human rights, a little attention, a shoulder to weep on, an employment opportunity for the widowed women, financial support for the orphaned children and medical support for the injured and amputated would more than satisfy them.
And hey, all these are actually innocent victims, as innocent as Haneef seems to be. No SIM cards were found with them to link them with any terrorist nor do they have any cousins who drove flaming jeeps full of explosives into airports with hundreds of innocent people. Let’s fight for justice for them too. Let’s fight for their human rights too.
Well. Shall we?
After the terror attempts in London and Glasgow, India’s PM Manmohan Singh had actually called up British PM and warned him against labelling any community as responsible for the attempts to commit mass murder in Glasgow and London. He said that he had sleepless nights when he saw the wailing mother of one of the suspects in Bangalore. I pointed out in my article Let’s call a spade a spade that the Indian PM shed no tears for the victims and families of July 11 train blasts in Mumbai last year.
B. Raman, a retired Indian intelligence official has written a slam dunk editorial on the attitude of the Indian political class towards violence committed by Muslims.
I quote from his article “Cry, The Beloved Country”:
In India, our so-called secular political class and elite kept away from the observance of the anniversary of the Mumbai tragedy of July 11, 2006.
Forget about flowers.
Not a drop of tear.
Not a word of sorrow.
Not a sign of grief.
Not a single expression of solidarity with the relatives of the victims.
He sees a vast change in the attitude of the Indian political class towards violent acts of terrorism committed by Muslims:
The political leadership of today gives sermons and no leadership. It avoids active monitoring and supervision of the investigation lest the Muslims misunderstand.
I was in service at the height of terrorism in Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir under leaders like Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao.
They never gave sermons.
I had never heard expressions like “stigmatising a community” or “targeting a community” etc coming out of their mouth.
And that changed attitude is being reflected in the approach towards the investigation of Mohammad Haneef:
New Delhi is afraid that any over-enthusiasm by our police and investigative and intelligence agencies in co-operating with the British and Australian investigators making preliminary enquiries about the suspected Indian Muslims might be viewed by the Indian Muslim community as stigmatising them.
So, the message is: Drag your feet in co-operating with the British and Australians.
The sensitivities and feelings of the Muslims are more important than saving innocent civilians–whether in India, the UK or Australia–by exposing the jihadi iceberg and neutralising it before it is too late.
We shed tears for the victims of last year’s Mumbai explosions yesterday.
Let us shed tears for ourselves today for having the misfortune of having a government for which the feelings of the Muslims are more important than saving the lives of innocent civilians from the continued depredations of the jihadi terrorists.
This article does what I feel should be done by India’s intellectuals if they’re serious about contributing towards eradicating Islamic terrorism. B. Raman throws political correctness in the garbage can and writes an article which is frank and unburdened by India’s flawed variety of secularism. This article, I feel, is reflective of the feelings of a vast section of the Indian population, especially of those who feel threatened by Islamic terror because of their religious affiliation. The change in the attitude of the Indian political class towards violent acts committed by Muslims is indeed baffling. It worries. It discomforts. Above all, it sucks!
Which 10 years do you think define 60 yeas of independant India? Vote and make history.
That is the question being put by the CNN-IBN special “60 Defining Moments.” The options are available on this page.
These are my votes. Options are in italics followed by my own comments:
1. India becomes a Republic. January 26, 1950
This is, by far, the most defining moment of the Republic of India. After centuries of foreign rule, economic exploitation, hunger and starvation, humiliation, corruption, superstition and dogma, the people of India now pledged to give to themselves what was long denied to them:
*Equality
*Liberty of thought, belief and expression
*Justice
*Rule of law
*Sovereignty
2. Green Revolution. 1967
During the time period, 1851 to 1901, 28.8 million Indians died in famine alone. Even as late as 1943, a famine in Bengal killed 3 million people (Bipan Chandra, Modern India, NCERT, 2005), called a Holocaust by some writers. Just 25 years after the Great Bengal Famine, India embarked on the most successful Green Revolution project in the world. At the end of the decade 1967-1978, India became one of the largest farm producers in the world.
3. India-Pakistan War, creation of Bangladesh. December 1971
This victory is very important for it proved wrong a theory that made India’s independance in 1947 a bitter experience. It was Allama Iqbal, who began articulating the flawed Two Nation “Theory”, in a speech in 1930. In 1947, the demand for a separate Islamic state of Pakistan was conceded and Pakistan was born in 1947.
By 1971, the belief that Muslims living within an Islamic state would be safer than in a secular state was proved wrong for Muslims turned against Muslims in the “land of the pure” and committed unspeakable atrocities on each other in East Pakistan. Muslim men raped thousands of Muslim women and Muslim men killed thousands of Muslim men as the Pakistan Army tried its best to suppress the freedom movement for a new state – Bangladesh.
India, faced with the prospect of millions of refugees from East Pakistan swamping West Bengal, launched one of the finest military campaigns after World War II. India won a decisive victory and took 90,000 Pakistanis as POW, one of the largest surrenders ever effected. This is the second reason why 1971 is important for it established that India is now a regional power that is capable of using its military to influence peoples’ lives in its neighbourhood. In 1971, India helped Bangladeshis attain freedom and every Indian can feel proud of that.
4. First Nuclear Explosion, Pokhran 1. 1974
No more messing with India, we can strike back with the deadliest of weapons – that was the message India gave to the world in 1974. This event also helped India’s civilian nuclear energy program in a huge way.
5. Emergency’s hard lessons. June 26, 1975
This showed that:
1. Democracy by itself is no protection against totalitarianism.
2. Indira Gandhi’s election defeat in 1977 showed that India’s people could really put their vote to good use.
3. If Indira’s defeat in 1977 showed what Indians armed with votes can do, her return to power in 1980 also showed that the average India voter’s memory is quite short. It also showed that yesterday’s villains can return to be today’s heros – an enduring political reality of the Republic of India.
6. SLV-3 satellite launcher succeeds. July 18, 1980
India, the land of elephants, snake charmers, bullock carts, funny accents, smelly people, now launched its own satellite. This event began India’s journey to the elite club of space powers to which it belongs today. India now has satellite/spacecraft recovery capability, geosynchronous launch capability, cryogenic propulsion (coming soon), 1 metre resolution imagery and is also planning a mission to the moon – all in a gap of about three decades. ISRO’s commercial arm, Antrix, is involved in launching foreign satellites.
This achievement is particularly dear to my heart. One of Jawaharlal Nehru’s wishes was to see all Indians develop a spirit of scientific inquiry. We have a very long way to go on this but space and satellite programs contribute a lot. As a kid, I used to feel proud (and still do) every time India launched a satellite successfully. I’m waiting for the day when an Indian spacecraft would land on the moon.
7. India wins the World Cup. June 25, 1983
This is one of the most memorable events in independant India’s history. I wasnt yet born in 1983 but I can imagine the scale of celebrations in India after India won the final. For once, it made Indians, underachievers for centuries, feel on top of the world.
8. Economic liberalisation. June 1991
Before the British consolidated their hold on India, India controlled a quarter of the world’s trade under Akbar The Great. For many times before, India was at the top of the list of countries by GDP. This had declined to a miniscule percentage by the time the British left India.
According to a study done by Angus Madison, an economic historian, “India had the world’s largest economy in the 1st century and 11th century, with a 32.9% share of world GDP in the 1st century and 28.9% in 1000 CE.”
After the British marauders left India, it was the turn of another set of marauders to loot India – India’s political and bureaucratic class. The nation’s founding fathers, in their belief in socialism (good in intentions mind you), laid down the infrastructure to facilitate the continuation of the Great Loot of India. By 1991, it was apparent that this infrastructure wasnt delivering what it intended to and was partially dismantled.
The “end of the license raj” (it by no means ended) came in 1991 as India liberalised its economy and made the consumer, not the politician-bureaucrat-JNU economist-businessman nexus, the ultimate king of the Indian economy. The Great Loot still continues but its ability to suppress economic activity is now greatly reduced.
If all the predictions are true, India’s enterprising and intelligent citizens may slowly climb to the position of being leading players in world trade.
9. Telecom revolution. 1995
I remember the black telephone, in my childhood, with a dial on it and the funny sound the dial used to make as you turned it with your finger. The telephone was a special object. Not everybody got to touch it. Calls should be made only when absolutely necessary. STD calls were few and quick. The telephone was out of reach of much of the middle class, leave alone the poor.
All that has changed dramatically. You can now make a landline call on AirTel from Delhi to Hyderabad at Rs. 1 per minute. Local calls and SMS also come very cheap. All you need is Rs. 700 to get a sleek colour screen Reliance mobile.
The telecom revolution in India is a spectacular success. It has succeeded in bringing basic communication within the reach of the common man. Not just this but telecom also acts as a “force multiplier” for all kinds of businesses, big and small. The telecom revolution has accelerated economic activity.
10. RTI Act. June 15, 2005
When you pay taxes and charges, wouldnt you like to know how they are being used and for what? The Right to Information should have been a part of Art. 19(1) in 1950 itself. With the RTI Act, atleast now every Indian has a right to demand information from ministries and bureaucrats though there are many obstacles to its implementation from vested interests.
We have made a lot of achievements in the past 60 years but I’m sure these will be dwarfed by what we are going to achieve in the future. Long way to go. No complacency, only action.
Atlantean made a point on NDTV a few days back:
Yet again. A few days back, Naxals warned tribal villagers to stop all farming activities in the Bastar region. When Santosh Poriyami dared to ask them to lay off, they beat him up in front of the villagers.
More social justice was delivered. Two farmers were killed. This, I’m sure, is going to free the poor from state oppression and bring about a paradise in which everybody would be equal.
The Indian Express reports:
Maoists killed two farmers in insurgency-affected Bijapur district late Sunday night. Police sources said Maoist cadres attacked Chintagufa village in the district late last night and took the two farmers hostage.
“The farmers were picked up and taken to a nearby forest for defying the Naxalites’ diktat against cultivation,” said a senior police officer. Two farmers, Kalmu Dulla, 50, and Marwi Mura, 40, were first beaten up by Naxalites and later hacked to death. “The bodies of the two farmers were recovered on Monday from a nearby forest,” the senior police officer said.
(Previous examples of social justice – naxalite style: 1, 2)
Our distinguished Prime Minister, whose distinguished record as the head of the Indian government is marked by such distinguished achievements as the abolishment of POTA and failure to crack a single terrorism case from Varanasi Sankat Mochan to Mumbai 7/11 among other things, has had sleepless nights over what he calls “labelling of people as Muslim or non-Muslim.”
We dont know whether he lost sleep over the hundreds of innocents who were killed, hundreds who were injured in recent terror attacks and many more who were maimed but in the absence of any statement to express if he did, we can assume that he didnt. In fact, we know that when he visited Mumbai after 7/11, bystanders said that he might as well have been taking a walk in the park! The robotic expression on his face did not convey any symptoms of insomnia.
More words of wisdom followed. He stated emphatically, with conviction based on God-knows-what, that “terrorists are terrorists, terrorists have no religion or nationality!” He didnt tell us why.
He called up the British PM and warned against labelling any community as responsible for the attempts to commit mass murder in Glasgow and London. He also made a passing offer to help in the investigations, just in case the British PM doubts his intentions in making the call.
The Indian media, civil society and Muslim groups jumped on the bandwagon and made the statement front page news. The myth “terrorists are terrorists, terrorists have no religion or nationality” is being spread again, this time with Prime Ministerial sanction. Many want us to fall for this myth. Those of us who dont agree are immediately branded Hindutva fascist, right wingers, anti-Muslim bigots etc.
Whenever an Indian wins a business deal overseas or whenever an Indian businessman goes big in the West, we celebrate. We celebrate the fact that Indian students are among the best performing in Western schools and colleges.
Even if it is someone who is merely of Indian origin (and not an Indian citizen), like Sunita Williams, we pray for them and celebrate their successes. We celebrate the fact that we are among the most law abiding minorities in the West.
But when an Indian does something bad abroad, we disown him. We are law abiding but when someone amongst us breaks law, we take away his Indian identity. So there you have it – we are the most law abiding because those who break the law are not Indians. Simple!
This is sheer hypocrisy. We want to claim the good things as ours and disown the bad things with politically correct nonsense like “terrorists have no religion or nationality.” When a PIO does a space walk, her nationality becomes Indian but when an Indian citizen attempts mass murder on foreign soil he becomes a mythical “terrorist who has no religion or nationality.”
The fact is an Indian who is also a Muslim has attempted to commit mass murder on foreign soil. If you think these guys have no religion, you can go and ask their parents and the local mullahs if they are Muslims are not.
Let’s be bold enough and accept this hard fact instead of denying it and satisfying and deluding ourselves with politically correct bullshit like “terrorists have no religion or nationality.”
How long will this self denial continue? Even Islamofascism apologist and pseudoliberal, Barkha Dutt, has confessed, though she had to apportion the blame to the Indian Right, in case her secular credentials be questioned:
[...]This week, an emotional Prime Minister met some of us at his house and argued that terrorism had no nationality or religion. He warned against the labelling and stereotyping of communities and said that after he had heard the mother of the arrested doctors break down on national television, he lay awake all night.
The Prime Minister’s empathy and liberalism is laudable. But the fact is that if three Indian citizens are actually found guilty in this terror plot, we cannot afford to disown their nationality. For too long now, our instinctive need to protect India’s minorities from the onslaught of the Right has prevented us from looking at this issue honestly. We hesitate to use the word Islam and Terrorism in the same sentence. But we can no longer allow political correctness to obfuscate the debate. It may help to know that even the conservative clerics of the Jama Masjid in Delhi recently took the initiative to debate why radicalism had permeated their religion.
The need of the hour is a frank examination of what led these three to commit mass murder, not flawed political correctness and denial. Such frank examination is long overdue.
I conclude that:
1. Indian Muslim society is also an exporter of terrorism now. Maybe there’s still no Al Qaeda but it doesnt matter.
2. These terrorists are Indian and Muslim. We cant delude ourselves and think otherwise and take away their religion and nationality.
3. A frank examination of what led these three Indian Muslims to murder people thousands of miles away and an open debate on radical Islam in India is needed.
4. Lastly, let us not sacrifice truth at the altar of a flawed political correctness.
One of the most commonly heard things these days is this: “A terrorist is a terrorist. Terrorists have no religion.”
That is a myth of course. Which religion does Osama bin Laden belong to? Is he an atheist? Who’s saying that the terrorists are Muslims and the most Muslim Muslims? Isnt it the terrorists themselves? They strive really hard to let their victims know that they are acting in the name of Islam and on behalf of Muslims worldwide. They say “on behalf of the Muslim brothers killed by imperialist infidel forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kashmir.”
That’s besides the point however. Read the following letter to the editor of the Indian Express (6th July 2007):
TWO doctors of Indian origin have been arrested in connection with the Glasgow bombings. But so far not an iota of evidence has been found to indict them. Even the British authorities have stopped short of coming to any conclusion unless they are able to clinch some strong evidence. But it seems that the television channels here have launched their own private investigation of the bombings and have now decided to convict the persons detained. It was indeed horrendous to discover our channels broadcasting the photographs of the doctors with captions like ‘The face of terror’ when absolutely nothing has been proved against them so far. Who has given these channels the authority to convict a person who has only been detained for questioning? All this will translate into building up negative propaganda against the Muslim community and should be condemned by all right thinking people in the strongest possible terms. As for the channels which indulge in this kind of journalism, they ought to issue an unconditional apology to the community.
— Mohd. Salahuddin, Mumbai
The most common response of the Muslim community to acts of terrorism committed in the name of their religion is – “Terrorists are terrorists. Terrorists have no religion. Islam is a religion of peace.”
Yet, whenever a terrorist (or a suspect) who happens to be a Muslim is taken into custody, Muslims grieve that they are being unfairly targetted. They claim that such things give rise to Islamophobia, which will radicalize peaceful Muslims and lead to terrorism.
Take for example Mohd. Salahuddin’s claim that media coverage on Mohammad Haneef, Kafeel Ahmed, Khalif Ahmed will “translate into building up negative propaganda against the Muslim community.” I’m completely with him on his opinion that, in the absence of conclusive evidence, “the television channels here have launched their own private investigation of the bombings and have now decided to convict the persons detained.”
But I find his other claim, that such media trials amounts to negative propaganda against the Muslim community, absolutely ridiculous. Muslims claim that terrorists have no religion. If that is so, then it must follow that Mohammad Haneef, Kafeel Ahmed and Khalif Ahmed have no religion. They must be non-Muslims. Then why do media trials on these three non-Muslims amount to negative propaganda against the Muslim community!
M. R. Venkatesh begins his article with this quote:
‘It is not that the Communists do not know the truth. It is only that the Communists cannot bear the truth. Truth is the Communists’ deadly enemy.’ — Jayaprakash Narayan
So true. The communists thrive on falsehood, beginning with their ideology, which is one of the greatest intellectual frauds of the 20th century. You might have experienced the communists’ selfrighteousness while debating with them. You might have noticed that a communist will never agree with you, howsoever well reasoned and substantiated your argument is. It is futile to think “Why is this guy repeating the same old nonsense? Am I not communicating properly to him? Am I wrong?” because what is wrong or what is correct or what is true or what is false is immaterial to a communist as long as it doesnt fall in line with communist theory. Truth is truth only as long as it satisfies communist theory.
M. R. Venkatesh writes in the concluding paragraphs of his article:
Thanks to the support they still enjoy in some quarters within the country, they have been systematically successful in shutting out the ‘other point of view’ from the general public. Naturally, it follows their ability to derail discourses and prevent people from learning the truth.
And the truth is that they are wielding enormous power, far disproportionate to their strength. Crucially, they carry veto power on virtually everything — from the Presidential poll to foreign policy to the policy on FDI and, in the process, fashioning every policy. All this has come without any responsibility. This turns the very definition of democracy on its head. And that is the biggest danger the nation is facing today.
Take the case of the UPA Presidential candidate Pratibha Patil. It is well known that she was not the first choice of her own party — the Congress. It was only following the intransigence of the Communists over the candidature of others that Patil was finally declared the UPA candidate. With uncomfortable accusations against her tumbling about, the Communists seem to be enjoying the UPA’s discomfiture.
What is amusing is that the onerous task of defending Patil lies with Congress. And at every inconvenient turn, the Communists seem to selectively distancing themselves from inconvenient accusations against Patil.
In the great Indian tradition, while the Communists continue with their perfidy with absolute nonchalance, the task of cleaning up the mess lies with others — the Congress in the instant case.
The earlier the nation and the political parties realise these facts the better it is for the nation, the electorate and our democracy.
So true.
When the Indian PM agreed to setup a counterterrorism mechanism with Pakistan at the NAM Summit in Cuba, he was faced with a lot of criticism in India. He defended his decision by claiming that “Pakistan is also a victim of terrorism.” However, speaking at a tea party arranged at his 7, Race Course Road, residence with New Delhi-based Indian women journalists yesterday, he has stated the following and blew my fuses off:
IBN reports:
“Pakistan is seeing terrorism for the first time. What is happening in Pakistan, thinking people have realised fundamentalism is perverse and dangerous to society,” he said. Describing terrorism as a ‘curse’, Singh said: “Terrorism is a common enemy. It is a menace. We are dealing with it. It is a difficult situation. I understand what is happening.”
This man isnt just the weakest prime minister we ever had but also the most confused, after Jawaharlal Nehru.
Yawn! Mullah Manmohan Singh never tires of appeasing Muslims does he? This guy has done nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, to control terrorism in his own country. And he has the audacity to call up his British counterpart and lecture him not to “target Muslims.”
The Indian Express reports:
In the backdrop of detention of two Indians in connection with the failed terror plots in the UK, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke to his British counterpart Gordon Brown and assured him all possible help in investigations.
Disclosing this, Singh cautioned against dubbing anybody or any country as a terrorist, saying if any community is targeted, it would create ‘new sets of grievances’.
“It is wrong to label any community or country. We have to look for solutions,” Singh said in the wake of two Indians being held for their suspected involvement in the failed terror plots of London and Brisbane.
“If a particular community is targeted, it will create a new set of grievances,” the Prime Minister told a group of women journalists during an interaction.
“We should not fix labels like muslims or non- muslims. It won’t help us in understanding the situation or dealing with it. It is very stereotype to classify a person,” he said.
There are a few problems with this stand:
1. Nobody has targetted Muslims specifically so far. So far, the investigating agencies have only followed the leads that they had and if they lead to people who happen to be Muslims, its not their fault at all!
2. The UK Govt. hasnt blamed Muslims for the attack and has been extra careful on that. Why then does the PM consider it so important to emphasize that nobody’s religion or community should be targetted? Is this more important than the urgent need to help the UK Govt. in whatever possible way in the investigation of the London and Glasgow bombing attempts, considering that two of the suspects are Indians? Cant these routine platitudes like “dont target anybody’s religion or community” come later?
3. Labels: The PM is correct in stating that labelling people doesnt help. The only problem with his stand, however, is that it is not non-Muslims who fix labels. It is the Muslim fanatics who fix labels like kuffar on their targets. And the kuffars who are targetted simply speak truth. They simply cant say that that guy who planted bombs in the Sankat Mochan temple at Varanasi was a ghost.
The Prime Minister suggested that even if any one Indian is suspected of terror linkages, all Indians could not be dubbed as terrorists.
“A terrorist is a terrorist and he has no religion or community”, he said.
Except that the terrorists, in the case of Islamic terrorism, are extremely clear on their religion and community and make great efforts to let others know that whatever they are doing, they are doing it in the interests of and with the sanction of a particular religion.
Singh said there are misguided youth in any society and this was not any community specific. “As a Sikh, I understand the trauma (of being labelled),” he said.
The comments came in the backdrop of two doctors hailing from Bangalore — Mohd Haneef and Sabeel Ahmed — being held in connection with the UK terror plot. While Haneef has been detained in Brisbane, Australia, Sabeel was held in Liverpool, UK.
The Prime Minister has been perturbed by the trauma expressed by Haneef’s family and has virtually been sleepless after seeing his mother airing her pain.
Great!
Now, I’d like to know how perturbed and sleepless Mullah Manmohan Singh was upon knowing about the 200 innocent people killed on the 11th of July, 2006 in Mumbai.
I’d like to know what steps he has taken to relieve the trauma of the families of these 200 people, many of who are still having sleepless nights.
I’d like to know what he has done, in his capacity as the prime minster of the nation – the head of the government, armed with the widest executive power – to relieve the citizens of terrorism and naxalism.
I’d like to know what vision he has to present to his people to eradicate Islamic terrorism and naxalism in the country, instead of routine hypotheses of “lack of socioeconomic development” and “economic backwardness.”
Answers please!
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