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Kashmir : Suicide attack disrupts Ramzan calm

	October 09, 2006

Terrorists allegedly belonging to the Al Mansoorian outfit mounted a fidayeen (suicide) attack on a CRPF formation at Budshah Chowk, in the heart of Srinagar on Wednesday, October 4, breaking the Ramzan calm in the capital city. The CRPF foiled the militants’ attempt to storm the camp. The terrorists barricaded themselves in a nearby hotel and were killed after a 24-hour encounter. In all ten people died in the incident including five policemen, two CRPF men and one civilian apart from the two militants. Seventeen persons were injured in the exchange of fire.



Director General of Police Gopal Sharma said that the operation against the militants took time as “it was a congested area and we took extra caution.”



The encounter started at 11.20 a.m. on Wednesday when militants made an abortive attempt to storm the CRPF picket inside Akhara Building, which houses the holy mace of Lord Shiva.



Police and the CRPF launched a joint operation against the militants. Three policemen were killed and five injured in militant firing on Wednesday. Four civilians were also injured. The militants also shot dead two policemen, who were inside the hotel. The security forces stopped the operation during the night and resumed it on Thursday morning.



“One of the terrorists jumped out of the window of the hotel in an attempt to escape. He was shot dead,” said an officer involved in the encounter. The body of another militant was found inside the hotel after the firing stopped, he said.



Al Mansoorian, which claimed responsibility for the attack, identified the slain militants as Tariq Bhat and Mohammad Mushtaq. A spokesperson of the outfit said that another militant Abu Hamza, who was commanding the attack, managed to escape.



As the police mopped up the area, officers indicated the bloodshed could have been prevented. Sources said intelligence agencies had already informed security forces about terrorists’ movement in Srinagar city.



“The terrorists had conducted a survey of the area around 15 days ago and also identified the Hotel New Standard, where they later took shelter, after they failed to enter into the CRPF camp,” an intelligence officer said.



Asked why the security forces didn’t act on intelligence inputs, a senior police officer said it was difficult to zero in on a terrorist from the civilian population.



“Some residents of Maisuma may have provided logistical support to the fidayeen,” the officer added.



Srinagar SSP Syed Abdul Mujtaba said, “Security agencies, especially the police and the CRPF, have devised a common strategy to keep the terrorists under pressure to abort their attempts in future.”





Parliament attack case : Hanging of prime convict deferred



A decision on the hanging of the Parliament attack case convict, Mohd. Afzal, has been postponed effectively for months, in view of President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam forwarding the mercy petition filed on his behalf to the Union Home Ministry.



Afzal was to be hanged on October 20 for his role in the December 2001 Parliament attack. On Tuesday, Oct. 3, his wife, Tabassum, filed a mercy plea which the President forwarded to the Union Home Ministry. The Home Ministry, in turn, forwarded the petition to the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi and the Union Law Ministry to ascertain their views before giving its advice to the President.



There are three major points referred to the Law Ministry whether his confessional statement, which Afzal now says he has no knowledge of, was manipulated by the police, forms the basis of a pardon. The second point is that the Supreme Court itself, while confirming the death sentence, had stated that Afzal was “evidently not aware” of the contents of his confessional statement. And, thirdly, whether under Article 20(3) of the Constitution, Afzal’s statement could be construed to constitute an evidence against himself.



Lawyers say that according to the jail manual, an execution is “automatically stayed” as long as the petition remains pending with the President.



Speaking to the media after the family met Afzal in Tihar Jail, his wife Tabassum said, “He still does not want to move a petition seeking clemency. He said he had lost faith in the system.” She said the family had on its own submitted the petition to the President.



Family members of Afzal met President Kalam last week and sought clemency for him. Afzal’s wife Tabassum, his mother Ayesha Begum, and his seven year old son, Ghalib met the President for 25 minutes along with lawyers Nandita Haksar and N.D. Pancholi.



“The President assured us that he will go through our petition seeking clemency for Afzal,” Tabassum told newspersons after the meeting at Rashtrapati Bhavan.



“We informed the President that it was one-sided justice and the trial was not fair. We have met the President with the hope that justice would be done and my husband pardoned,” she said.



Meanwhile, protests continued in Srinagar last week against the death penalty awarded to Mohammad Afzal. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets demanding that the order to hang him be revoked.



Former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah said he would meet President Abdul Kalam to seek pardon for Mohammad Afzal. He said he agreed with those who feared that Afzal’s hanging would affect Indo-Pak relations.



In New Delhi, some political leaders, social activists and writers staged a sit-in demonstration at Jantar Mantar on October 4 demanding that Afzal’s death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment.



On the other hand, the BJP has warned the Government of public outrage if Mohd. Afzal’s death sentence is commuted. It has demanded an apology from Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad over his call for showing mercy to the convict.



The Congress appears to be divided over the death sentence for Afzal. While Ghulam Nabi Azad has called for commuting Afzal’s death sentence, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh on Thursday, October 5, categorically opposed pardon for the terrorist. He told media persons, “Afzal has been found guilty by the Supreme Court for attack on Parliament in 2001 which is a serious matter and he should be given the sternest punishment.” Pressed by reporters to clarify the party’s stand on Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister’s mercy plea, Digvijay Singh said, “There is no room for leniency in such cases.” Sources say that the statement follows the Congress concern at the opposition charge of the party being soft on terror.





Pakistan admits instigating Kashmir insurgency



Pakistan has admitted that it might have helped insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir some time in the past. But Islamabad claimed that it is now trying its best to prevent infiltration of militants into India. Pakistan Ambassador to the United States Mahmud Ali Durrani said this in Washington last week.”



“Jihadi insurgency or whatever you want to call it in Kashmir....Yes, Pakistan may have helped the jihad at some time, but it was not started by us and now we are trying our best to stop people from crossing.”



He was delivering a lecture at the South Asia Programme of the School of Advanced International Studies of John Hopkins University when he was asked what Pakistan was doing to stop terrorist outfits like the Lashkar-e-Taiba from crossing into India.



“To the best of my knowledge Lashkar-e-Taiba is a banned organisation,. They are no more in Pakistan,” Durrani said. However, even two years ago, the LeT had money collection boxes in the markets of Rawalpindi, he said.





Probe ordered into Army killings



The Army has ordered an inquiry into the death of a brother and a sister at the hands of troops in Kokernag on October 3. The Army has regretted the incident. The siblings were killed when the Rashtriya Rifles opened fire at them when they were returning home from the fields mistaking them for militants. The Army has called it a case of mistaken identity.



The security scenario in Jammu and Kashmir and the internal security situation in the country are among the key issues expected to dominate the six-day Army Commanders’ conference starting in New Delhi on October 12. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be given an overall picture of the internal security situation and external strategic environment at the end of the conclave to be attended by Commanders of all the three Services.





NGO building houses for quake-hit



A group of volunteers from Tamil Nadu is giving a new start to the lives of a number of people whose houses in Dachi, in Uri, were flattened in last year’s earthquake.



A 65-member team of engineers and other workers from the Madurai-based NGO, Help a Child of India, is all set to hand over the possession of seismic-proof concrete houses to scores of families in this remote village near the Line of Control. The technology being used by them is a new addition to the traditional and existing structure of houses in the region.



The NGO, according to its Construction Manager R. Radhakrishnan, has identified 310 houses in Dachi village and 90 in Nowpora, the worst-hit villages in the region. Both the manpower and the machinery has been transported from the South.



Departing from the traditional use of stone and mud, the NGO is using full block bricks which are considered quake-proof. These are made of sand and cement and are being laid by a machine from Coimbatore. Cement is being transported from Kathua in Jammu.









ISI trade mark on Mumbai blasts



Investigations by the Mumbai police have brought out clearly that Pakistan-based terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba was linked with the Mumbai train bomb blasts. Mumbai Police Commissioner A.N. Roy, and Chief of the Anti-Terrorism Squad, K.P. Raghuvanshi met Union Home Secretary V.K. Duggal on Wednesday, October 4, to hand over the evidence of Pakistan’s connection with the 7/11 terror attacks. The Mumbai police methodical investigation traces the conspiracy to Pakistan-based Lashkar Commander Azam Cheema and his fellow terrorists.



The Mumbai cops are learnt to have told Duggal that the evidence was based on the accused persons’ movements, intercepts of their cell phone conversations, the proof of their participation in Lashkar-e-Taiba camps run by Azam Cheema at the behest of ISI in Pakistan, receipt of funds via hawala transactions and detection of RDX at the residence of one of the accused.



The Home Secretary was assured that the ATS had sufficient evidence to prove that the arrested persons were actually trained in Pakistan by ISI, said sources.



Roy, who along with Raghuvanshi also met Intelligence Bureau chief E S L Narasimhan, told reporters that all the evidence against the accused would be produced in court.



Shortly after his meeting with Mumbai police officers, Duggal discussed the issue with Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon.



Duggal and Menon are likely to meet again shortly to discuss the modalities of turning over the evidence to Pakistan.



The visit of Roy and Raghuvanshi to the Capital followed Pakistan’s brushing aside their findings about the involvement of Cheema, and its refusal to hand over the Lashkar commander or any of the 7/11 blast suspects.



India has already said that Pakistan’s response to evidence of Bahawalpur dimension - where Cheema is holed up - of the 7/11 conspiracy would be the litmus test of whether it wants to live up to its promise to help with anti-terrorist measures.



The modality of evidence sharing, however, is yet to be determined, though authorities may use the existing working group, at the Home Secretary-level, for the purpose.



Maharashtra’s Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) on Oct. 3 arrested Asif Khan Bashir Khan alias Junaid alias Abdullah from Belgaum in Karnataka, calling it their “biggest catch” in the July 11 Mumbai train blasts.



ATS officials, who had been camping in Bangalore, claimed that Asif was the man who masterminded the blasts and that police and intelligence agencies had been looking for him for more than three months.



Investigators said they had learnt that it was Asif who provided Cheema with the idea of carrying out such a strike. He was then entrusted with the task of identifying youth who could be trained for the purpose.



Once Asif achieved this through Ehtesham Siddiqui, Mohammed Sajid and a few other locals, he provided Cheema with the blue-print of the plot, ATS claims. Detainee Tanvir Ansari told the police that he met Asif when he was at a training camp in Bahawalpur in Pakistan.



Officials say that they strongly suspect that it was Asif’s idea to prepare the improvised explosive devices at two different places as too much movement and presence of outsiders at one place would have led to suspicion.



The documented evidence compiled by the Anti-terrorist Squad and Mumbai police’s Crime Branch names at least 11 Pakistanis as conspirators and executioners of the terrorist attacks. The terrorists were given courses in handling of weapons and explosives at a training camp near Bahawalpur where Cheema resides. That the ISI plotted the blasts with the help of LeT and SIMI is the main conclusion drawn by the police. The operation was financed by Cheema who routed money via Dubai and Saudi Arabia.





BJP demands end to peace process with Pakistan



The BJP has said that the India-Pakistan joint mechanism for cooperation against terrorism has become a dead letter with Islamabad’s refusal to hand over the terrorists suspected to have been involved in the Mumbai blasts. Party spokesman Prakash Javadekar said on Tuesday, Oct. 3, Pakistan’s refusal has proved how Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was wrong in assessing what he called the “real design and intent of Islamabad” for the continuation of bilateral talks.



Earlier, BJP president Rajnath Singh said in Chandigarh on October 1 that the Centre should break off the peace process with Pakistan and reconsider continuation of diplomatic relations with that country. He said it was high time the Centre launched a diplomatic offensive against Pakistan and its terror machine, the inter-services intelligence (ISI).



The BJP president accused the Centre of not taking the Opposition and Parliament into confidence on any issue related to national security.





Verdict 1993 : More convictions pronounced



The designated TADA court in Mumbai has convicted Pakistan- trained Niyaz Ahmed Shaikh for being a part of the 1993 Mumbai blasts conspiracy and having abetted the terror acts. It acquitted another accused Rukhsana Zariwala of the charge of aiding and abetting terror acts in the blasts case.



On the 14th day of judgments in the 1993 blasts case, Judge P.D. Kode held Niyaz Shaikh guilty of the charges of undergoing training in handling sophisticated arms and explosives and attending conspiracy meetings at the residence of co-accused Nazir Ahmed.



The judge also found Niyaz Shaikh guilty of having undertaken a survey of a potential terror target, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), along with prime conspirator of the blasts Tiger Memon, Muhammad Usman Jam Khan and Javed Chikna, in the run-up to the March 12, 1993 blasts.



Niyaz Shaikh is the 26th accused to have been convicted so far in the blasts case.



On October 5, the court convicted Nasir Abdul Qadir and Mohammad Rafiq Usman for being involved in the 1993 serial blasts but acquitted Mohammad Ahmed Yasmin Mansur, alleged to be a close aide of key conspirators Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon.



The court found enough evidence against Qadir and Usman to convict them. Qadir was alleged to have gone to Pakistan for arms training, facilitating the Shekhadi landing and transportation of arms and explosives, attending pre-blast meetings at the residence of Nasir Ahmed alias Bablu and ferrying RDX that was planted across a dozen locations in Mumbai.



Usman was found guilty of going to Pakistan via Dubai for arms training and taking part in a pre-blast meeting at Bablu’s house.