Experts doubt Al Qaeda link in Mumbai attacks...

The men came wearing black hoods, firing automatic weapons and throwing grenades, taking hostages, attacking two hotels, a cinema, a café, a train station and other popular and undefended "soft targets."

An e-mail message to Indian media outlets that claimed responsibility for the bloody attacks in Mumbai on Wednesday night said the militants were from the Deccan Mujahideen.

Global terrorism experts said Thursday they had never heard of the group. And based on its tactics, they said, it was probably not a cell or group linked to Al Qaeda.

"It's even unclear whether it's a real group or not," said Bruce Hoffman, a professor at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and the author of the book "Inside Terrorism." "It could be a cover name for another group, or a name adopted just for this particular incident."

Chrtistine Fair, senior political scientist and a South Asia expert at the RAND Corporation, was careful to say that the identity of the terrorists could not yet be known. But she insisted the style of the attacks and the targets in Mumbai suggested that the militants were likely to be Indian Muslims - and not linked to Al Qaeda or the violent South Asian terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

"There's absolutely nothing Al Qaeda-like about it," she said of the attack. "Did you see any suicide bombers? And there are no fingerprints of Lashkar. They don't do hostage taking, and they don't do grenades."

Hoffman agreed that the assault was "not exactly Al Qaeda's modus operandi, which is suicide attacks." But he said the timed attacks, which he called "tactical, sophisticated and coordinated," perhaps pointed to a broader organization behind the perpetrators. Fair also noted that the fact the group had not proclaimed its ideology in a manifesto was "not at all unusual."
"You don't see these types of terrorist operations very often, if at all," Hoffman said. "These aren't just a bunch of radical guys coming together to cause mayhem.

"This takes a different skill set. It doesn't take much skill to make a bomb. This is not just pressing a button as a suicide bomber and dying. You don't learn this over the Internet."
The word Deccan describes the middle and south of India, which is dominated by the Deccan Plateau. Mujahideen, of course, is the commonly used Arabic word for holy fighters. The very name - if it is a real group - suggests a domestic agenda.

"It's maybe not so much a group as a cell that will take on a name for a specific operation," said Fair. "In India you hear these unusual names."
Fair did not agree that the attacks on Wednesday necessarily required deep planning and training.

"This wasn't something that required a logistical mastermind," she said. "These were not hardened targets. A huge train station with zero security. Two hotels with no security, both owned by Indians. Leopold's Café. How hard is it, really? It's not rocket science."
Fair believes the attacks could be "yet another manifestation of domestic terrorism" that has its genesis in a longstanding institutional discrimination against Muslims.

"There are a lot of very, very angry Muslims in India," she said, "The economic disparities are startling, and India has been very slow to publicly embrace its rising Muslim problem. You cannot put lipstick on this pig. This is a major domestic political challenge for India."
The CIA puts the population of India at 1.15 billion, with Hindus making up about 80 percent of the total and Muslims 13.4 percent.

Fair said one incident - "a watershed event" - that continues to anger Muslims were the riots that swept nearby Gujarat State in 2002. The violence killed between 1,000 and 2,000 people, most of them Muslims.

"The public political face of India says, 'Our Muslims have not been radicalized.' But the Indian intelligence apparatus knows that's not true. India's Muslim communities are being sucked into the global landscape of Islamist jihad.

"Indians will have a strong incentive to link this to Al Qaeda. 'Al Qaeda's in your toilet!' But this is a domestic issue. This is not India's 9/11."

For Hoffman, who has studied terrorism for more than 30 years, the Mumbai attacks are "alarming on a number of levels."

"It's not often that things in terrorism alarm me. So much is a repeat of what we see almost every day, like suicide bombings. There's no real innovation in terrorism, which is why 9/11 was so terrifying, because it was so innovative and heinously clever.

"But these attacks show how a handful of men, basically using weapons off the shelf, can paralyze a city and frustrate highly trained security forces. These attacks were calculated to spread alarm and anxiety - to put it quite frankly, to unhinge things - and that's exactly what they've done."

MUSLIMS... the most easy scapegoat in India!!

Every time a bomb goes off in some part of India, the needle of suspicion invariably turns to a “Muslim outfit’s terror network” (stressing on the Muslim part of the terror network) which, interestingly, always has a link with the Intelligence agency of Pakistan, whether it is the historical event of attack on the Indian parliament or the blast in Samjhuta Express or the Godhra train incident. But the truth behind this home-grown terror storm is actually revealed with the arrest of a serving Lt. Colonel and a retired Major in connection with Malegaon and Modasa blast. The Mumbai police and central security agencies are probing the role of some more members of the armed forces, including another high-ranking official, for funding the incident.

The Maharashtra police are said to have cracked the September 29 bomb blasts in Malegaon and Modasa town in neighbouring Gujarat saying these were allegedly carried out by the Hindu Jagran Manch, an Indore-based Hindu extremist group known to have links to the BJP’s student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) whereas, Interestingly, The BJP had condemned both the blasts... now that’s called real diplomacy!

Police say Lt-Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit of Army Education Corps is accused of providing logistical support for Hindu militants to make bombs. Purohit was working with the Army Liaison Cell, a front of Military Intelligence, and was learning Chinese and Arabic in Panchmari in Madhya Pradesh. At least nine other people - including a retired army major, Ramesh Upadhyay - have already been detained in the case.

Both bombs were placed on motorcycles parked in crowded areas days before Eid and set off after Muslims had broken their Ramzan fast on a Monday evening. Investigators (as usual) initially suspected Islamist groups such as SIMI or the Indian Mujahideen to be behind the near-simultaneous attacks, ignoring the fact that most of the population in Malegaon is Muslim.

So far, Anti-Terrorist Squad have arrested three persons including a ’sadhvi’ (Pragnya Singh ) in connection with the blast. Pragnya is a ’sadhvi’ who had taken ’sanyas’ (leaving the world for god) in 2007. The motorcycle that was used in the bomb blast, guised with an Islamic sticker, also belonged to Pragna.

Few months earlier, two members of a Hindu organization were found involved in making of low-intensity bombs, but involvement of a woman in the bomb blasts is the most shocking development. It is the new face of the Hindu terror where women are being utilized as a shield by these fanatics. Pragnya is a former member of Durga Vahini, the women wing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).

VHP along with some other Hindu organizations always try to project themselves as ‘patriotic’ groups but always remain in search of appropriate time to target the minority communities probably to prove their religious patriotism.

Interestingly, Sources said it was believed that some of the money from the funds, meant for operational purposes of Military Intelligence, had been allegedly siphoned off by Purohit for setting up the Abhinav Bharat, a little known saffron group, how convenient…!
Now this is called Intelligence with a Big capital “I” … where no body knew so far from where the funds are coming and where they are going.. and yet they have a courage to blame all their ills on Pakistan... Bravo!!

Why attacks on Christians in India???

History is evident that political Hinduism was always an eternal part of Secular India, and to be more precise - the inseparable part. Although the Indian post-Independence history is tagged by discrimination and violence against Muslims but the rise of anti-Christian sentiment is a more recent phenomenon. Initially appearing as isolated incidents of violence against minorities, the aggression against Christians has now intensified both in its frequency and severity. Latest in the series is the communal madness shown by the VHP goons that started in Orissa and was then extended to other states and districts of India. The magnitude of damage that Sangh Parivar has caused to the minority society is beyond describing in words. Analyzing the situation, the question remains why are the Christians under attack in India? What is the motivation behind this naked, shameful orgy of violence against a minority in a secular state?
The answer lies in the growing communalization of Indian politics that has now crept into the society as well. The ideology of Sangh Parivar aims to unite the Hindus and strengthen the Hindu cultural foundations. Being a Hindu extremist organization, it insists that ‘nationhood’ must be founded on Hindutva dogma. Putting it simple it’s like – although India is a democracy (as it claims) but as Hindu constitutes the majority of population so India should become an acknowledged Hindu state - where these minorities are proving to be the basic obstacle (curse) in their way of success.
The Human Rights Watch report on violence against Christians in India agrees to the maintained fact as it says, “India’s inter-religious violence now extends to the Christians, and its underlying causes are the same as those promoting violence against Muslims, Dalits and other marginalized groups in the country. Political and economic power struggles linked rhetorically to the creation of a Hindu nation.” The report further says that there are numerous compilations of atrocities perpetrated upon Christians, and they suggest an alarming pattern of violence.
Both Muslim and Christian communities have faced repeated attacks from Hindu activists in the past. The history suggests, as the Hindutva ideology has grown more powerful over the years, Hindutva activists have coddled in organized pogroms to eliminate minority communities.

Kashmir - Glory turned a Nightmare

THE destiny of Kashmir as written by the “Shining” India is a total dismay and bloodshed spread over a huge period of time. Over 700,000 of Indian army residing in the Indian held Kashmir (IHK) has done a colossal damage to the Kashmir valley that was once regarded as heaven on earth. The insurgency which was amplified in 1989 is continued till today. Ever since then, innumerable Kashmiris have lost their lives in this violence. Hundreds of thousand people went missing and numerous are being brutally tortured in jails. Thousands of young children made orphans and their mothers widowed. Infinite number of women is molested by the so-called care takers of the valley. Countless houses and shops burnt and destroyed with a number of unnamed graves lying down in the valley. This is Kashmir - under the Indian occupation. Sadly the heaven on earth has been gradually changed in the land of crimson red.Since 1989, the wails of family members mourning their dead have been persistent to life in Jammu state.

A US based watchdog, Human Rights Watch, says in a report: "The Indian army and paramilitary forces are responsible for innumerable and serious violations of human rights in Kashmir. Extrajudicial executions are widespread in Kashmir. The alleged militants (majority of which are turned to be innocent local people later) taken into custody are often executed instead of being brought to trail. Most of those summarily executed are falsely reported to have died during the armed clashes between the army and the militants". India might claims to be the world’s largest democracy but the fact remains that this country is rewarding its men with more money, power and commendations for killing innocent people in Kashmir. Its security forces are accountable for disappearance of countless people in Jammu and Kashmir since 1989 and staged encounter killings by fabricating claims that those killed were militants. These innocents are killed for the promotions and awards promised in return of their evil courage by the Indian government. Recently, Srinagar court has issued non-bailable warrants against five army personnel, including a colonel, who were accused of killing a mosque priest in a fake encounter in 2006 and passing him off as a militant to achieve awards. How distressful that the concerned men have never appeared in any session of the court.

For sure, fake encounters were never uncommon in Kashmir but gradually the situation is getting worse. It is all due to the impunity enjoyed by the Indian troops and officials which is fueling the conflict. Kashmiri human rights defenders say that thousands of people have disappeared since the conflict began, where most were last seen in the custody of Indian troops. Jammu State Human Rights Commission in its annual report for the year 2006-07 has registered a double increase in custodial killings and disappearances, where Human Rights groups noted that police officials often refused to turn over bodies in cases of suspected staged encounters. The bodies were often cremated even before their families could view them. Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, Mr. Brad Adams said in a report “This epidemic of fake “encounter killings” by the Indian security forces has plagued Kashmir for too long”. Still the world is turning deaf ear towards the woes of Kashmiris. It is high time when the International community should condemn the unforgiving violations of human rights by the Indian security forces. Indian government has always side tracked the issue of Kashmir to cover up its occupation of Kashmiri land through brutal force. Now the international community must urge India to come to the negotiation table to decide the fate of Kashmir jointly with Pakistan and according to the wishes and aspirations of the Kashmiris people. If India is really sincere in resolving the issue (as it claims) then it should stop repression in Kashmir now.