Author: Balbir K Punj
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: September 4, 2009
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/200241/Jihadis-target-Kerala-women.html
The allegation that Muslim men entice Hindu
women into marriage for reasons other than love and as part of an Islamist
conspiracy is usually dismissed as insidious Sangh Parivar communal propaganda.
But a recent chance investigation by Kerala Police has brought out some ugly
details.
The August 31 issue of Kerala's foremost newspaper,
Malayala Manorama, carried an extensive report on how a Pakistan-based terrorist
organisation is planning, abetting and financing the enticement of college
students from different communities in the State to become cannon fodder for
its jihad in India. The report terms such young women as 'love bombs'.
The modus operandi is very clever. Muslim
youth in Kerala are employed by the terrorists to entice these young women.
Handsome and dashing young men are selected and fully financed to have cars,
motorbikes, the most expensive clothes and lots of cash. Their job is to move
in groups, select their prey and then get the women to elope with them on
the promise of marriage and a great life abroad.
After days of romancing, the women begin to
believe that they have found their 'Prince Charming'. Once they elope, a marriage
is registered before a notary and then the woman is whisked away from place
to place. The victim thinks that she has to undergo this to evade her parents
who would be searching for her.
Hide-outs include places like Hyderabad that
have a significant Muslim population. The victim is not allowed contact with
any outsider and is subjected to propaganda videos that eulogise jihad and
promise the ultimate victory of Islam. Though the racket has been going on
for some years and several complaints of missing girls have been lodged with
Kerala Police, the latter has ignored them, saying that the women had actually
eloped out of their free will and, therefore, they could not do anything.
The racket came to light when one of the victims
turned out to be the daughter of a ranking police officer and another somehow
managed to send word to her parents about the reality of her situation. The
parents in the second case approached the High Court with a habeas corpus
petition that led the court to order the police to produce the victim before
it. The plea that the woman had eloped on her own and that she was now legally
married did not convince the court and it ordered that she be allowed to stay
with her parents for a week before it again examined the case. After a week,
the woman told the court the truth.
The police have now discovered a kidnapping
racket to provide recruits to Pakistani terror outfits through 'Love Jihad'.
Further investigations have revealed that all over India some 4,000 young
women have been recruited in this manner to be trained against their will
as terrorists and suicide bombers. In Kerala alone the police suspect that
over 500 women have fallen victim to the 'Love Jihad' racket.
According to the Thiruvananthapuram victim
who gave a statement before Justice R Basant of the Kerala High Court, Islamist
gangs have been freely operating without the police or intelligence agencies
getting even a whiff a their activities. The operation is extremely well organised
with several households and 'safe houses' ready to accommodate the unsuspecting
women and their so-called husbands.
If jihadi outfits in Pakistan have been able
to abduct and train as many as 4,000 Indian women for terror operations over
the last several years, it speaks very poorly of our intelligence apparatus.
The prevailing political environment that treats the perpetrators of jihadi
violence with kid gloves is equally to blame, if not more.
A report from Hyderabad in the Indian Express
on August 28 said that Mujeeb Ahmed, who was sentenced to life imprisonment
in 1994 for waging war against the state and shooting an Assistant Superintendent
of Police, was released under a special remission scheme in 2004. He then
went underground and, as subsequently established by the IB and CID, he became
an active member of the Hizbul Mujahideen and the ISI, and was a member of
the first terror cell in Andhra Pradesh.
It was Rajasthan Police's discovery of rifles,
detonators and explosive material in a truck in Ajmer that led to the arrest
of Mujeeb once again. He was charged with procuring arms from Pakistan to
launch terror attacks in Hyderabad. This jihadi has now been convicted for
sedition and terrorism.
Despite the fact that Mujeeb went back to
being a full-fledged terrorist after his release on compassionate grounds,
the Andhra Pradesh Government is now planning to release some 984 life convicts,
many of whom have been charged with similar crimes as Mujeeb's. The Indian
Express report quotes police officers who have revealed that the State Government
neither consulted the IB nor the State police before the list of convicts
to be released was prepared. Like Mujeeb, a person who was arrested a decade
ago for trying to carry out terror attacks in this country will now easily
go back to being an active jihadi once he is freed.
That the jihadi cancer is widespread and eating
into the vitals of our country is now becoming evident day by day. The Union
Government makes all the right noises in acknowledging this cancer. But when
it comes to taking action, the Government backs out. We should all watch out
for the Centre's reaction to the revelation of the abduction of thousands
of girls for terror-training. And, finally, where are all the women's rights
activists who had painted the country red following the sponsored attack on
an obscure pub in Mangalore by the self-styled Sri Ram Sene?
