Author: Bharti Jain
Publication: The Economic
Times
Date: July 15, 2000
DEENDAR Anjuman, the
organisation that masterminded the recent blasts in the churches of Karnataka,
Andhra Pradesh and Goa and distributed pamphlets designed to turn the attention
to Hindu outfits, is headed by a Pakistani national.
Zia ul Hassan - chief
of the little-known sect called Deendar Anjuman with bases in Karnataka,
Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra - is the son of Hazrat Maulana Siddique
Deendar alias Chinna Basaveswar who founded the outfit in 1936, according
to sources in the Union home ministry.
Hassan is known to visit
the country once a year for the Urs of his father. In Pakistan, he
has set up the Jamaat Hizbollah Mujahideen with offices in Mardan, Lahore,
Karachi, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi and Sargodha.
That the Anjuman could
be working as part of an ISI-sponsored conspiracy to cause destabilisation
is further corroborated by the involvement of its members in incidents
of desecration of B R Ambedkar's statues in Maharashtra in 1995.
Defiling of the statues had led to tension between Dalits and caste Hindus
in the state.
Another worrisome feature
of the Anjuman is its suspected links with the Lashkar-e-Toiba, one of
the most dreaded terrorist organisations operating in Jammu and Kashmir.
LeT is known for its faith in low-powered explosives, the types of which
were used by Anjuman in the church blasts.
Made of potassium chlorate
or gelatin, the explosives are designed to create terror without causing
heavy casualties which could invite swift retribution from the authorities.
The LeT, suspected by
the MHA of supplying the crude bombs used in the church blasts, is a Sunni
Wahabi organisation wedded to the doctrine of Jehad. It was all set
to be put on the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations but escaped
due to reasons which baffled the MHA no end.
Joint investigations
by the Intelligence Bureau and the police in Karnataka, Goa and Andhra
Pradesh into the church blasts first achieved a breakthrough with the arrest
of Ibrahim following a van blast outside the St Paul and Peter Church in
Bangalore.
The other two occupants
of the Maruti van, Mohammed Fida alias Rehaman Siddique and Zakir, died
on the spot. Zakir had earlier been arrested in August 1995 by the
Maharashtra police for attempting to create caste tension by defiling the
statue of Dr Ambedkar.
Zakir had visited Pakistan
in September 1992 along with seven other Anjuman members. They were
given six weeks' extension of visa in Pakistan and visited Karachi and
other places for which they did not initially have permission.
Confessions by the lone
survivor of the van blast, Ibrahim, revealed that he had visited Goa in
March and May 2000 to purchase the van.
Pamphlets warning the
Christian missionaries to quit India and other anti-Christian literature
was seized from inside the van, the Bangalore residence of Ibrahim and
from the Vijaywada office of Deendar Anjuman.
Interestingly, of the
anti-Christian literature recovered from the Anjuman, a booklet was never
circulated. The booklet denounces Christianity as paganism and defames
Jesus Christ and the Bible.
It has been published
by the Saudi Arabia-based World Assembly of Muslim Youth. This, however,
was kept out of circulation. The accused instead chose to distribute
two pamphlets bearing the inscription `Om'.
The investigators are
convinced that the motive of the Islamic outfit was to turn the attention
to Hindu outfits which have campaigned against conversion by missionaries.
Both the `Om-marked' pamphlets warn that missionaries would be forced to
quit the country if they did not stop converting people to Christianity.
The clear signs of involvement
of a Muslim fundamentalist organisation in the recent church blasts would
come as a respite for the BJP government.
