Author: Sonia Trikha
Publication: Indian Express
Date: October 31, 2001
URL: http://www.indian-express.com/ie20011031/ed4.html
THIS may come as a surprise to Ariel
Sharon but Indian air force base at Avantipora is used to hide Israeli
planes in Srinagar. The Lashkar-e-Taiba certainly thinks so and in an account
that reads like an incomprehensible mix of Harry Potter and Commander comics,
it has posted a part fantasy, part fiction story of its attack in Avantipora
on October 22. To allow them their glory, the LeT in its wishful mode is
only trying to make itself sound like the LTTE in Colombo airport earlier
this year.
According to LeT ''8 Indian troops''
were killed in Avantipora IAF airbase attack. Never mind if only one jawan's
death has been accounted for. The Lashkar fidayeen, according to newsreports
never made it beyond the gates of the air base, not for the want of trying
by the brave men, but just that they didn't. Yet, they claim that the attack
damaged ''several Indian IAF planes''.
All this talk skims the realm of
fiction but just to make the whole ''storming'' look real, the site adds
that ''four LT fidayeen embraced martyrdom in the gun battle''. For some
reason they are all called Abu: Abu Umar, Abu Soban, Abu Shaheedain, and
Abu Hamad. What follows is fantastic, the Indian forces then moved to shift
''Israeli planes from the air base and declared emergency in the area''.
Meaning to say that after allowing
Indian planes to be destroyed, the Indian troops were protecting ''several''
Israeli planes. Apart from being untrue, there is a want of logic in that
argument. India may be cosying up to Tel Aviv but guarding Israeli arsenal
while allowing terrorists to blow up their own is something that the most
zealous zionist officer would not attempt. And ''declared emergency''?
We thought that was the norm in the Valley. There's more, the Let accuses
the IAF and BSF personnel of trying ''their utmost'' to capture the fidayeen
alive but failed. Most critics of the forces say they always look to kill.
There's something in the language
on the site that gives you the sense that the fidayeen are energetically
active. They ''lob'' hand grenades at security guards, never just throw
them. They ''explode with a big bang'', the hand grenades in this case,
not the fidayeen.
No surprise there. The fidayeen
don't walk anywhere, always ''dash'' into the air base. You would think
''indiscriminate firing'' is something that characterises bad aim but not
in the heroic LeT fidayeen who used the tactic to force the troops to retreat.
Then they always ''shatter'' security arrangements, just merely breaking
them is not violence enough. Time is stretched too, the LeT thinks that
they ''controlled the air base for about three hours''.
The story doesn't end with the death
of the attackers. It continues beyond to when ''hundreds'' and then ''thousands''
of people ''thronged'' to receive the bodies of the fidayeen. Never mind
that the average Kashmiri was hiding to save himself from being implicated
in the attack.
This is a sample from a Taiba account
of a specific attack and it is the sort of thing that would fit in every
one of their accounts: ''The grenades exploded with a big bang and as soon
as the convoy came to a halt, the fidayeen came upon it from all directions,
opening fire with machine guns. The troops returned the fire. Traffic on
the national highway remained suspended for seven hours.'' Reads like a
lesson in the art of stating the obvious or the script of a fight scene
from Bollywood.
The LeT's creativity is not limited
to fight scenes only. They also do accounts of diplomacy. For instance,
Chief of the Markaz Ad Dawa Wal Irshad, Prof. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, who
may know the scriptures rather well but is certainly no Henry Kissinger,
writes that America is ''instigating India to intensify its pressure on
Islamabad in the current situation''.
This will come as a surprise to
most Indians who think the Americans are actually favouring their key ally
Pakistan in the subcontinental diplomatic tussle.
Why do we read this? For the same
reason that people read Commander comics to tell how far the truth is from
the fantasy that Lashkar sells to its cadre. Or maybe it's as addictive
as Harry Potter, but for real J.K. Rowling appeal they've got to make it
more believable.
