DELHI - New Fears in the Old City
The walled city of shahjahanabad. The Jama Masjid area. It's a little island with many names and an even greater number of stories. Every alley in this northern enclave of the national capital has had its date with history. These days it is keeping its tryst with a somewhat less romantic destiny: terror.
The teeming ghetto opposite the Red Fort is a welter of clogged streets, bustling bazaars and shady hotels. It is also a convenient sanctuary for jehadis. Throughout 2000, agencies ranging from the Delhi Police to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agents, many of them Pakistanis, with strong links in Delhi's Old City.
* In January 2000, the special cell of the Delhi Police arrested Pakistani Abdul Rashid and two associates. They had with them a kilo of RDX, along with timers and detonators. The explosive material was hidden in a consignment of toys brought from Pakistan.
* The same month, Karan Gohar, a resident of Lahore who had been deported on three occasions from India, was arrested with 3 kg of RDX and Rs 8 lakh "worth" of fake Indian currency. He also had 96 litres of acetic anhydride, essential for refining heroin.
* In February, the Special Cell and CBI jointly apprehended Pakistani Hazi Gul Khan and an Afghan accomplice. The two had smuggled in 22 kg of heroin from Pakistan in huge degchis (cooking utensils).
* In September, Mohammed Riyaz, a Pakistani, was arrested while passing on defence documents to an ISI operative.
* In October, Latif Mohammed Bhatt, a Hizbul Mujahideen district commander, was caught in the Jama Masjid area with 5.4 kg of RDX.
The list is far from exhaustive. What is common to every arrested person though is a link or a safe house in the walled city. The Union Home Ministry estimates there are some 11,000 Pakistanis staying illegally in India, of which 85 have disappeared from Delhi. Of course, not all are involved in subversive activities, but a sizeable section of those who seem to find their way to select urban ghettos of the city (see map).
The Jama Masjid area, for instance, has a 95 per cent Muslim population. Pakistani agents-and increasingly even Afghans-find it easy to mingle into the local community. They use Delhi as a base to move into Kashmir and, occasionally, Uttar Pradesh. While most local residents are oblivious of the criminals in their midst, a few become co-conspirators in a game that covers everything from explosives to narcotics to fake currency. If Yamuna Pushta, adjoining Mahatma Gandhi's samadhi, is a Bangladeshi migrant stronghold whose "criminal potential", say the police, "hasn't been fully exploited by the ISI", Okhla and Nizamuddin are full of cheap "guest houses" and one-roomed tenements servicing shades of dubiousness.
Says ACP Rajbir Singh: "These areas are the real challenge." DCP (Central) Uday Sahay, who polices the Jama Masjid region, calls it "a place with a complex variety of crimes".
With local clerics prone to fanning religious passions, Shahjahanabad is always a high-pressure zone. The police have found it difficult to build a network of sources here and, for the moment, is keeping watch on three or four "traders" with a criminal history who, between them, "control 1,000 anti-social elements".
The task is daunting. There are
guest houses in Ballimaran and Churiwalan reserved exclusively for Pakistanis
and Afghans. There are the "Old Money Changers" that are covers for hawala
operators, some with ISI links. And there are the day-trippers to Dubai
who play couriers for crime syndicates. Terrorism has successfully linked
itself to routine criminality. Which is why fighting one is impossible
without confronting the other.