UNGC meeting of 2021 after the Taliban take over, August 15th, is remarkable in the vibes it created. Both in the crucial neighborhoods of Afghanistan-India-Pakistan and far away in the US. Words of appreciation that PM Imran Khan yearned for was the climax of gratitude that the Americans never offered for all that Pakistan did from facilitating the door that opened China for the first time to Kissinger/Nixon to bearing the burden of letting its soil for use against the Russian hegemonic rule and the exodus of al Qaida into its homeland giving the rise of the dilemma of terrorism.
Tandem with this was the ominous phenomenon of terrorism that continued into targeting Hafiz Saeed’s house in Lahore and more.
Read more: UN must call out India on its state-sponsored terrorism in Pakistan
The beginning of terror activities
In the first decade of the new century came a series of bomb blasts that Indore module of Sunil Joshi carried out which India attributed to Pakistan. This began within a week of Narendra Modi blaming Pakistan and what is more Islamic scripture that advocates terrorism? Then came the stigma of thousand wounds that would cause India to what kind of death remains unspecified till today. Wounding and bleeding by a thousand cuts?
Battling a Thousand Cuts is a chapter heading in Rakesh Maria’s book “Let me say it now” 2020. In this series the first ‘cut’ came on 27th January 2003 after Republic Day when PM Vajpayee was scheduled to visit Mumbai, a bomb exploded in Vile Parle. The second came on March 13 in Mulund railway station. Following it on 15 March the police traced it to the Saquib Nachan group behind it. Then on 28th came the blast in the Ghatkoper bus. For all these deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Chaggan Bhujbad claimed he had warned the police. Shiv Sena and VHP wanted to take out a protest march.
There were other modules at work says Maria determined “to bleed India with a thousand cuts, in the words of the ex-ISI Chief Lt. Gen. (retd) Hamid Gul. In a conventional war Pakistan cannot simply hope to match India. The only way they could hurt India was by terrorizing our common man, hitting at our economy, destabilizing our commercial capital, hurting our tourism and deterring our foreign investors.” “And Pakistan made no bones about it.”
(p, 205)” This last sentence of assertion leaves one wondering as to who is assuring whom. Who is not hesitating and assuming Pakistan or the home minister?
Read more: India is fomenting terrorism in Pakistan: DG ISPR
Thereafter surprise: the DG of Police Subhash Malhotra said to Maria “We want to take up the detection of this case, Rakesh”. Except self-aggrandizing what else is this? This affects police morale.
A personal investigation
What great changes Maria brought about are doubtful because he started with hobnobbing with police informants. “Activating informants was the most important priority. If we stood any chance of busting the module. I immediately began working on several leads, coordinating the hunt day and night and dispatching teams to different places like Assam, Bangalore and Ahmedabad”. He compares the exhilarating of the police teams that played games with him which transformed into ‘sinister and sapping cat and mouse games to counter masterminds of terror.” (207).
His discovery of finding terror as the work of SIMI was the fiction of his imagination because SIMI was there but not their involvement in terror as it would prove convincingly in LtCol Prasad Purohit using SIMI in the blasts of Malegaon two times (September 8 2006) (September 29 2008) and not one! The Gateway of India blast no doubt happened but the lawyer Shahid Azmi had found out that Maria was wrong and he could easily get the accused out on bail. But Shahid Azmi was shot dead in his office when at work. Amazing that Maria quotes Kabir in a blast where no one was killed: “Jako rakhe Saiyan, maar sakey na koy/Baal na banko kar sakey, jo jag bairi hoy” but no words on how Shahid was removed.
One informant even traced the letter that had come from Gujarat Muslim Revenge Force in Minara Masjid in Memonwada of Pydhoni, Bombay. A letter there in the mosque was asking people to forgive the GMRF for the injury and death of Muslims killed in the attack in the Gateway of India!! And the incredulous assurance that in future the Force will give 30 minutes notice to the Muslim get out of the area of attack!
The revenge force is as a fig leaf of a sick mind to hide terror as GD Vanzara team carrying out the official government dictate to kill Muslims in fake encounters. The arrest of Ashrat was what Maria denies choreographed. Shahid Azmi had met ATS chief Hemant Karkare who had told him that the Muslims were not involved in the killing of the lawyer. He would have bailed them out. He was stopped from that.
This failed to prove that there was any jihadi module in Mumbai. He failed and “felt that it was some kind of a bubble she seemed to be living on.”
Instead of going after the Sunil Joshi module that was so busy with exploding bombs, Maria was hunting a chimera. There was no GMRF.
Read more: Are military operations the only way to counter terrorism in Pakistan?
“And who were these sleeper cells sharpening their skills, with every passing moment, to a thousand cuts to bleed our dear Mumbai? …there was no breakthrough in sight.”
Mustafa Khan holds a Ph.D. on Mark Twain. He lives in Malegaon Maharashtra, India. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Global Village Space.