Author: Shabnam Minwalla
Publication: The Times of India
Date: September 16, 2001
In a tiny hotel room in Mumbai,
Liyaqat Ali stares unblinkingly as the television replays the now familiar
sequence of devastation. As the aircraft hurtles to its fiery fate, a sinister
soundtrack unspools in his head. "Jag jawana Musalmana ... Nabke rakh Amrikanu..."
"I remember a Punjabi song we learnt
while training in Afghanistan which urged Muslim youth to grab control
of America," says Ali, seduced in his teens by the glamour of the gun.
"The Arab-run camps, especially, saw America as the ultimate enemy. But
in 1991, we were merely trained to handled Kalashnikovs and conduct ambushes.
What we see today is a full-fledged war conducted by an international network."
Ali was among the first militants
to switch allegiance and assist the Indian army. Today, he explains the
conviction which transformed college students into killers. "Militancy
in Kashmir gained ground in 1989." While Kashmiris had always had ambiguous
feelings about accession to India, the rigged elections of 1987 generated
unprecedented rage. "We were never kattar Muslims. But as the sense of
political frustration grew, outfits like the JKLF sprang up, those who
joined were considered heroes."
He enrolled and spent a year carrying
coded messages and making arrangements for the big boys with guns. He eventually
undertook a terrifying, treacherous three-day-long trek into PoK. "What
drove us on?" muses Ali, agreeing that the same emotions probably motivated
those in the kamikaze operations last week. "Anger against India, and the
sense that we were performing our religious duty motivated us. It was dinned
into our heads that martyrdom was a noble goal. "
In Pakistan, Ali discovered two
types of training camps - those run by the ISI and conducted by retired
armymen, and the more rough-and-ready joints in Afghanistan. "There were
thousands of Kashmiris waiting to enter the ISI camps, so we opted for
Afghanistan," says Ali. Besides information about mines and raids, they
were given a stiff dose of religious indoctrination. Nevertheless, a few
doubts began to assail Ali. A casual dekho at college textbooks in PoK,
for example, revealed that standards of education were abysmal. For the
first time, he began to wonder where militancy would take his homeland.
Despite doubts, he worked with the Ikhwan-al-Muslimi till 1994. Around
this time, the pro-Pakistan Hizbul-Mujahadeen began to eliminate those
groups talking in terms of autonomy for Kashmir, rather than accession
to Pakistan. "I was picked up twice and told I should either promise loyalty
to Pakistan or get out." He says he still bears the marks of those encounters
on his back.
"During my months in hiding, I began
to yearn for normalcy." So when the army sent feelers, Ali and his comrades-in-arms
decided to help. "We played a big role in flushing out militants and creating
an atmosphere in which elections, in 1995 and 1996, could be conducted."
Even today he carries a price of Rs 20 lakh on his head.
Ali has a message for India. Militancy
flourishes amidst corruption and political intrigues. Of course religious
fanaticism plays a part. "At the moment, it just doesn't pay for a Kashmiri
Muslim to be pro-Indian. Till the government is able to send out a more
positive message, militancy will flourish in the Valley."
