Author: Subhash Mishra
Publication: India Today
Date: December 4, 2006
Introduction: Terrorism is spreading its tentacles
far and wide in Uttar Pradesh. It is slowly making inroads in newer areas,
relatively underdeveloped and nondescript, even as big cities remain prime
targets in the state.
"Since the Pakistani education system
could not accommodate the refugees, the Government let religious schools serve
as a cost-free alternative, that over time, produced large numbers of half-educated
men with no marketable skills but with deeply held Islamic views."-National
Commission on 9/11 Terrorist Attacks in the US, referring to the Deoband School
as a source of Islamic fundamentalism.
The Uttar Pradesh Police has known for many
years what the Americans have just discovered. The Special Task Force (STF)
has found that out of 45 terrorists arrested/killed in the past two years,
nine had studied in Darul Uloom Deoband. Even Afghanistan's Taliban regime
had a substantial presence of Deoband pass-outs. However, Deoband is not the
only place in Uttar Pradesh to have drawn the attention of investigating agencies
in India and abroad.
Terrorism in the state is dangerously making
inroads in newer areas, relatively underdeveloped and nondescript, with over
half a dozen outlawed organisations spreading their tentacles among the locals.
In the past two years alone, terrorists have claimed 30 lives and injured
over 100 in separate terror attacks in Varanasi and Jaunpur districts. Another
major strike by the terrorist was attempted at Ayodhya last year to blow up
the Ram Lala temple. Surprisingly, most of the arrests made in connection
with the attacks have led to smaller nondescript places in the state. It is
an indication that the terrorists, while identifying their targets in a bigger
city, are carving out hide-outs in adjoining smaller towns. When they struck
in Sankatmochan temple in Varanasi in March this year, they had camped in
Phulpur in Allahabad and when they attacked the Ram Lala temple in Ayodhya
in July last year, they were staying and planning their operation from Ambedkar
Nagar in eastern Uttar Pradesh. Until recently, Aligarh, Kanpur and Lucknow
used to be on the "sensitive" list of the state police and intelligence
agencies, but of late newer places like Pratapgarh, Faizabad, Varanasi, Azamgarh,
Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Saharanpur, Amroha, Allahabad and Moradabad have become
conspicuous for militant activities. "The way terrorists are getting
foothold in newer places in the state is really disturbing us," says
a senior STF officer.
Over half a dozen terrorist outfits, particularly
Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (HUJI), Hizbul
Mujahideen and the Students' Islamic Movement of India are well entrenched
in western Uttar Pradesh. They have also developed sleeper modules in districts
like Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Baghpat and Amroha in western Uttar Pradesh
as also in certain districts in the eastern region, where they remain dormant
until further orders from across the border. "The arms and the executors
reach the target only at the time of assault," says S.K. Bhagat, SSP,
STF.
Investigations into the March 7 blasts in
Varanasi that claimed 16 lives have revealed that some of the local youth
had actively participated in the attack. Similarly, in Jaunpur and Ayodhya
incidents, the police have arrested locals for helping terrorists. Of the
45 terrorists arrested, 20 were from Uttar Pradesh hailing from places like
Lucknow, Allahabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Sitapur, Faizabad and Saharanpur.
Similarly, the police and the STF arrested 50 ISI operatives in the state,
of which 40 were natives in possession of classified documents and maps. "The
terrorist organisations that train the youth create a heroic image of Osama
bin Laden and instil in them intense hatred for the US", says Rajesh
Pandey, ASP, STF.
Fundamentalist background, poverty and joblessness
are some of the reasons that make youth easy pickings for terror outfits.
Also, religious schools imparting fundamentalist education have become recruiting
grounds for militants. Mehboob Ali Mandal, one of the arrested militants who
had joined the Deoband institute, confessed in his statement to the police
that at Deoband he was motivated by a Maulvi to undergo arms training in Pakistan
and "sacrifice" himself for the Muslim cause. To achieve this, he
went to Bangladesh four times and once to Karachi in Pakistan for training.
Mandal revealed how terrorists, after being trained in HUJI camps on the India-Bangladesh
border, are dispatched to the ISI-run training camps in Karachi. He also revealed
that in his brief interaction with other trainees in Bangladesh and Pakistan,
he met with many boys from various small towns in Uttar Pradesh.
The police has stepped up surveillance in
the face of increasing number of calls from the state to Bangladesh. It has
also improved security in and around Ayodhya which is among top targets of
terrorists. But despite best efforts, the state forces are overburdened to
tackle the growing problem of militancy in the state. It is time the state
Government constituted an anti-terrorist squad on the lines of those in Maharashtra
and Delhi.
