Author: Manoj Mitta
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: February 8, 2002
How he fed and grew on jehadi network
The hunt for Omar Sheikh by Pak
authorities could become a test case for the seriousness with which President
Pervez Musharraf is cracking down on terrorism. For Sheikh's resume, as
jehad's poster boy, flaunts countless references to Pakistan including
the safe passage and sustained support he got there.
Now that his mentor Maulana Masood
Azhar is in ''detention,'' there will be several red faces in Pakistan
not just because he roams free although he's a member of the banned Jaish.
But also because of the wealth of evidence in his prison diaries that reveals
his nexus with the Pak-sponsored jehadi network.
In jail for the kidnapping of three
British tourists and an American, Sheikh, a British national, outlined
his introduction to the jehad and move to Pakistan as early as 1992 when
as a student at the London School of Economics, he watched a movie on Bosnia
called Destruction of a Nation.
In April 1993, he writes, he went
to Croatia where he met one Abdul Rauf who suggested he should instead
work on Kashmir. Rauf even gave him a ''recommendation letter'' for the
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, the forerunner of the Jaish-e-Mohammad.
Beginning with this, Sheikh's diaries
have several references to his Pak connection:
. Dropping out of LSE, Sheikh went
to Pakistan in July 1993 and established contact with Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
in Lahore.
. In September 1993, he enrolled
for a Jundula in a training camp near Khost in Afghanistan. Sheikh described
Jundula as a ''four-month course only given to those dedicating their lives
to Jehad.''
. Included in the instructors were
two ex-members of the Pakistan's Special Service Group (SSG), Saleem and
Abdul Hafeez who ''come and teach on special arrangements.''
. These ''SSG guys'' taught Sheikh
''formations, raid and ambush tactics, repelling, blasting, intelligence
tactics, survival, etc.''
. In June 1994, while Sheikh was
working as a Jehadi instructor in Afghanistan, Maulana Abdullah, a leader
of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, broached the idea of kidnapping foreigners to
free ''our comrades'' in Kashmir.
. In July 1994, Abdullah introduced
Sheikh in Islamabad to a Pakistani national called Shah Saab, who it was
said would lead the kidnapping mission in India.
Sheikh spent a few days with his
relatives in Lahore before flying to New Delhi on July 26 by Pakistan International
Airlines.
. The following month, Shah Saab
entered India and led the kidnapping operations over the next few weeks
receiving instructions from Pakistan. Though their ''first priority'' was
to get an American hostage, they got one only after Sheikh lured three
British tourists.
. On October 21, 1994, the morning
after they abducted Nuss, Shah Saab told Sheikh that ''he had contacted
Pakistan and had asked for money to be sent before the declaration was
made so that if things got rough, we wouldn't have to start needing to
look for money before we made our escape.''
. After the ransom notes were sent,
according to Sheikh's diary, ''each morning Shah Saab went off and came
back saying that he had phoned Pakistan and comrades were still not freed.''
