Author: M K Tayal
Publication: Mid-Day
Date: January 12, 2004
The Andhra Pradesh unit of the Bharatiya
Janata Party has directly blamed its National Democratic Alliance partner
at the Centre and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu's government
for going "soft" on Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) operatives
in Hyderabad.
According to the BJP, the Naidu
government has deliberately downplayed ISI-related incidents in its anxiety
to demonstrate that everything was normal in the state.
The main grouse of the BJP is that
the 30 MLAs of the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) "are feared more
than the ministers of the state government" and the state government does
not deal seriously enough with incidents in which ISI operatives have a
hand.
The BJP, in a publication says,
ISI activities in and around Hyderabad and places in the region are second
only to Jammu and Kashmir.
The BJP squarely blames the MIM
for communally inciting the Muslims, which the ISI finds easy to cash in
on.
In 2003, nearly 15 ISI operatives
were involved in anti-national activities. Of thee, Asgar Ali of Hyderabad
was involved in the Haren Pandya assassination and Mohammad Shafi fired
at VHP leader Jagdish Tiwari in Ahmedabad. In addition, Zubair Shareef
and Aziz Hussain, arrested in April were ISI operatives trained in Pakistan.
The BJP also alleges that the state
government did not seriously pursue a raid on a Balaji temple by jehadis
with rifles on January 16, 2003.
In 2002, the LeT was involved in
six activities which include the Bangalore Express sabotage on December
12, 2002 at Pendekal which killed 19 and injured 87.
The BJP has accused the state government
of not pursuing investigations seriously.
"The region has a large concentration
of Muslims who were communally incited due to MIM politics. Naturally,
the ISI anticipates that it would not be difficult to find any number of
youth willing to act on its behalf," says the BJP's report on ISI in Andhra
Pradesh.
The BJP ha also said that Hyderabadi
youth are being lured y the ISI in Saudi Arabia when they go to that region
seeking jobs.
Meanwhile, according to a special
branch police official, there are around 360 operatives in the region.
But he said the AP government was
countering it effectively.