http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/columns/world/10139685.html
Are Indian Muslims immune to terrorism?
By Abdullah Al Madani, Special to Gulf News
Published: July 17, 2007, 00:18
The involvement of three Indian Muslims in the attempted bombings in
London and Glasgow late last month came as a surprise to many because never
before have members of India's Muslim community, the second-largest in the
world after Indonesia's, been involved in such terrorist operations.
In fact, no Indian Muslim figured among those involved in the 1980s
Afghan jihad war or captured fighting in Afghanistan in the post-Taliban rule
years. Moreover, no Indian Muslim is listed among those wanted for
international terrorism or is held at the Guantanamo Bay prison.
Just a single incident, however, does not serve as evidence that Indian
Muslims are no longer immune to the virus of jihad and terrorism.
Unlike its neighbouring Muslim countries, India has the most moderate and
forward-looking Muslims in the world. The overwhelming majority of them are
loyal and law-abiding and have not allowed their grievances or differences with
the Hindus to drive them into the arms of foreign terrorist organisations.
This, according to numerous observers, can be attributed to several
factors, including the nation's deep-rooted concept of tolerance and
non-violence, the country's genuine and well-functioning secular democracy, and
the government's economic development policy.
Records, of course, show that some Indian Muslims have carried out
terrorist attacks in India in recent years, but those attacks must be viewed
within responses to anti-Muslim riots or within the ongoing struggle in Kashmir
rather than affiliation or cooperation with Al Qaida and like-minded criminal
groups.
It is no secret that Al Qaida has always sought to penetrate India's
Muslim community with the aim of polluting Muslims' minds with the notion of
pan-Islamic jihad and rallying their support. But its impact has proven to be
minimal.
Even in troubled Jammu and Kashmir, the only Indian state with a Muslim
majority, most indigenous separatist groups have preferred to keep away from Al
Qaida and its agenda, something that could be interpreted as a policy of
appeasing Washington and encouraging it to put more pressure on New Delhi over
the Kashmir issue.
Interview
In a videotaped interview aired in January 2005, Al Qaida chief Osama Bin
Laden admitted that his organisation had tried to strike India but failed. He
explained that "our methods will not work there because Indians refuse to
believe us when we claim responsibility for strikes and because of the
country's cynicism and corruption".
He added that Al Qaida would not waste its efforts and funds to attack
India because the country "is a land already destroyed by its own leaders".
However, Al Qaida's interest in India seems to be growing rather than
withering away. In a statement issued early last month by Abu Abdul Rahman Al
Ansari, who described himself as the chief of Al Qaida for India, the terrorist
organisation proclaimed its presence in India, declaring Kashmir as the gateway
of jihad against the country for the first time.
Moreover, information collected about the recent bombing attempts in
Britain and on people central to the plot serve as an indication that Al Qaida
or affiliated terrorist groups are very keen to get Indian Muslims involved in
their terrorist operations because the latter, unlike their Arab and Pakistani
counterparts, are less monitored by Western intelligence.
Their plan seems to be aimed at recruiting in particular those Indian
Muslims with excellent careers and degrees in medicine and engineering as
holders of such degrees can normally be granted entry visas to Western
countries without difficulty.
On the other hand, they seem to be concentrating on those Indian Muslims
who have spent their early years in strict Muslim societies in the Middle East.
This probably stems from the perception that such people may carry the seeds of
extremism and, therefore, can easily come under the influence of jihadi groups.
This, in fact, was the case of 28-year-old aeronautical engineer Kafeel
Ahmad, who drove a blazing jeep into the Glasgow airport terminal on June 30,
and his brother Sabeel Ahmad, 26, a doctor who was arrested soon after the
incident.
Both had spent their teen years in Saudi Arabia and Iran where their
parents worked as doctors. Unlike initial claims by the British media that they
became extremists after they moved to the UK, the Ahmad brothers had shown
their extremism years before that.
According to sources in their home town of Bangalore, they had repeatedly
annoyed the Hazrat Tippu Mosque's members by attempting to impose the tenets of
Saudi Wahabism, a hardline stream of Islam, on them.
It is likely that their religious extremism drew the attention of
international terror outfits and was carefully exploited after they moved to
Britain.
This conclusion could be supported by a security report confirming that
Kafeel was in touch with Algerian Abbas Boutrab soon after his arrival in
Belfast to study for a master's degree at Queen's University.
Boutrab, one of Al Qaida's most high-profile bomb makers in Europe and
head of its cell in Ireland, was arrested in 2003 and jailed for six years.
Indian intelligence must, therefore, wake up. Al Qaida may still lack an
Indian arm in the form of a local organisation, but a few individuals polluted
abroad by extremist ideas can do the job.
Dr Abdullah Al Madani is an academic researcher and lecturer on Asian
affairs
