C O V E R STORY

THE MEMONS

INDIA'S MOSTWANTED FAMILYBy SHEKHAR GUPTA with M. RAHMAN and RAHUL PATHAK

IN the usually staid and tight-lipped intelligence commu-nity it has already been labelled the Mother of all Investiga-tions. The shock-waves of the March 12 serial bombings in

Bombay are still rocking not just New Delhi and Bombay buthave even affected Pakistan and West Asia, and the fall-out isan increased threat for Pakistan of being declared a terroriststate by the US. Intelligence sources say that non-govern-mental fundamentalist Islamic groups seem to be emerging asprime movers in the conspiracy with the assistance ofPakistan's isi. The international dimension also becameclearer last week with the Lebanese Coast Guard's capture of aship laden with explosives heading for India.

It's clearly the most complicated and most comprehensiveinvestigation of its kind being handled by the Indian intelli-gence establishment encompassing international terrorism,smuggling, the domestic mafia, money-laundering and drugsyndicates. The search for Bombay's 12-member Memon

family, which escaped to Dubai on an Emirates flight betweenMarch 1 and 12, directly involves nearly 600 investigators,top officials of all the intelligence agencies, the Home, Defenceand External Affairs Ministries and nearly a dozen embassies,besides Interpol and terrorism experts in Washington, D.C.,and London. Even Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif hasassured Narasimha Rao that he has ordered an "unprece-dented man-hunt" for the Memons who, if found, would bereturned to India "gift-wrapped". Riaz Hussain Khokhar, thePakistan High Commissioner in New Delhi, told INDIA TODAYthat the Memons could indeed have entered Pakistan thoughnot necessarily with their own names and passports. He saidthe Memons had not been issued any Pakistani visas in India.South Block is sceptical but the fact is that Islamabad findsitself under unprecedented pressure over the issue (see box).

With the police working on three crucial leads—thechassis numbers of the car involved in the Air India-buildingblast, the key of the scooter with the bomb that did not explode,and the abandoned maroon Maruti van containing AK-56

40

rifles and grenades—all traced to the Memons—the familyhas emerged as the nucleus of the diabolical internationalconspiracy of which the March 12 blasts were merely thebeginning. Unprecedented rioting was to follow in Bombay.

THE country's top investigators have now been climbingup the pan-stained stairs of the seven-storey Al Hussainbuilding near Mahim police station where the Memons

lived, looking for clues to the whereabouts of the large, low-profile, but generally dreaded joint family occupying apart-ment numbers 21, 22, 23, 26 and 27 on the fifth and sixthfloors. The family consists of father Abdul Razzak, 65, his wifeHanifa, and six sons—Arif alias Suleman, 34; Ibrahim aliasMushtaq alias Tiger, 33; Yakub, 31; Ayub, 29; Anjum aliasEssa, 24; and Yusuf, 22. The Memons are Sunnis from theKutch region.

Despite the Memon sect's traditional trading skills, AbdulRazzak never found much success in business. The familystarted life in a Bhendi Bazaar building and when thatcollapsed in 1980, they moved to a transit flat in Mahim'sMachimar Nagar, finally moving to Al Hussain in 1988. Hiseldest son Arif became an income tax officer but quit andbegan working in Saudi Arabia.

Yakub, mild-mannered and debonair, passed his char-tered accountancy exam five years ago and opened a firm,C.C. Mehta and Memon Associates, along with schoolmateChetan Mehta. Though the partnership did not last, Mehtastill remembers him as a gentle person and finds it difficult tobelieve he could be involved in the bombings. Yakub also setup a meat export firm, Tejarath International.

Abdul Razzak's second son, Ibrahim, took to business,but of the illegal variety, smuggling precious metals.

renades and AK-56swere distributedw as riots were

expected to^ follow the

blasts;

The Memons at the wedding ofYakub and Ayub: (from left)

Rubina (Arif s wife), Arif, Shabana(Tiger's wife), Tiger, Yakub, Rahin

(Yakub's wife), Reshma (Ayub'swife), Ayub, Hanifa (the mother),

Abdul Razzak (the father), Anjum,and Yusuf: the occasion provided avaluable photo album to the police.

(below): the Al Hussain building

He becamea terror in theNagpada, Pyd-honie, Agripadaand Dongri areas. Tomost he was simply Tiger.Neighbours steered clear ofthe flamboyant and arrogantTiger though harbouring a sneak-ing admiration for him. "He was thefirst in our area to acquire a Maruti 1000,a blazing red one with the number G JI3 73 7,"recalls a resident.

Tiger, a commerce graduate, started out as abank clerk, and surfaced in police records when hefired at a customs party in 1985. The incident created anaura around him in the underworld. He thrived as a 'landingagent' for Dubai smuggling syndicates and soon became asmuggler in his own right, rubbing shoulders with better-known underworld figures such as the Dossa brothers—Mohammed and Mustafa (alias Majnu), Iqbal Mirchi andSalim Sarang alias Talwar.

He was arrested again in 1989 for carrying an unlicensed32 revolver and yet again a year later and charged with

rioting during the 1990 Assembly elections. Recalls AssistantCommissioner of Police Madhukar Zende, who becamenationally famous for arresting Charles Sobhraj:' 'Tiger was avery aggressive fellow and not many tangled with him."

In April 1989, on the notorious Shuklaji Street of centralBombay, a customs party raided the first floor of a building andfound eight gold bars belonging to Tiger's associate, Moham-med Dossa. While three customs officers were concluding the

search, Tiger arrived and announceddramatically: "I'm Tiger, and you darenot remove the gold." He then bangedhis forehead into Customs OfficerRoshan Neogi's face. Neogi washospitalised with a broken nose. Tigermanaged to escape.

Tiger has been on the wanted list ofBombay Customs since 1989. In 1990, aCOFEPOSA order was passed against himlisting two major gold smuggling of-fences—300 gold bars worth Rs 2 crorein one case and 4,520 gold bars worthRs28 crore in another. A penalty of Rs 75lakh was also slapped on him. Alongwith notoriety, Tiger acquired a vastfortune. An underworld source puts thevalue of the family's fortune at Rs 15-20crore which includes several businessesand real estate.

Two years ago, Yakub and Ayubwere married at a glittering joint wed-ding at the Islam Gymkhana on MarineDrive, an occasion which provided aninvaluable photo album to the police.Some prominent film personalities andsocial celebrities attended the wedding.Besides money, the Memon family waskeen on Hindi cinema and cricket.Yakub, in fact, was the captain of a localcricket team.

Besides the home and offices inMahim and a flat in Bandra occupied byTiger's mistress nicknamed Baya, the

FAWZAN HUSAIN

C O V E R S T O R Y

SIMILAR STRIKES

World TradeCentre in New York

The targetedBSE building

Investigators point out strik-ing similarities between theblast at New York's WorldTrade Centre and those inBombay. Notably:

• Czech RDX and Semtex, abranded type of RDX, wereused in both explosions.

• A major financial centrewas the target in both cases.

• Car bombs were plantedin basements of buildings.

• Blasts took place at lunch-hour on Fridays, an impor-tant prayer time of the weekfor the devout, suggesting afundamentalist connection.

• Amateur bombers boughtcars carelessly enough forthem to be traced back.

family owned shops and residences in the Mohammad AliRoad area, and land in Santa Cruz, on which they planned todevelop shops in Manish Market (a smuggled goods centre).Tiger was said to be involved in a dispute over a shop withinfluential bullion dealers in the glittering Zaveri Bazaar.Police say this could be one reason (the other being strongfinancial support to the Hindutva movement by Zaveri Bazaarbusinessmen) why Tiger placed three scooter bombs in thecrowded market.

To help in the business, Arif had resigned his Saudi job andgone to Dubai, where he was joined by Ayub. Underworldsources say while Tiger controlled smuggling, his brotherslaundered money. Anj um assisted Yakub in Bombay. Only thesomewhat retarded Yusuf remained idle.

Yakub was planning to enter two new areas—real estatedevelopment and politics. Said an acquaintance: "He wasshowing interest in local issues.'' But the recent riots changedall that. The Memons' offices on Lady Jamshedji Road wereransacked and burnt. Riot victims from Wadala flocked to theorphanage next to their home with stories of savage killings.Recalls Yakub's mother-in-law Maimoona, who lives on AlHussain's first floor: "We used to hear shrieks of women whoseemed to have gone crazy, having lost sons and husbands."

It is impossible to know if the riots persuaded the Memonsto make the transition from being part of Bombay's prosperousunderworld to becoming its first home-grown urban terror-ists. Or, whether the motive was a combination of communalvengeance and mercenary gain, along with the destruction oftheir smuggling and havala business by lifting of importcontrols on gold and silver and rupee convertibility. Policesay Tiger, who had turned very religious in the last twoyears and sported a long beard, returned to Bombay fromDubai in the third week of January after finalising theconspiracy with the mafia bosses in Dubai. Dawood Ibrahim is

being mentioned as a suspect (see box).After relentless questioning of suspected carriers and the

Memons' henchmen, investigators are now able to piecetogether at least that part of the jigsaw. On February 8, a hugeconsignment of nearly 2,000 kg of RDX, mixed with othermaterial and shaped like extra large soap cakes, was off-loadedfrom a boat at Shekhadi village south of Shrivardhan onMaharashtra's picturesque Konkan coast (see box). Unusu-ally, Tiger personally went to Shekhadi with his bodyguardAnwar Theiba to supervise the landing, which was organisedby the area's biggest landing agent, Dadabhai Parkar. Theexplosive was packed in cardboard cartons, some of whichhad the -marking Packnie Packaging Ltd, Lahore. If it wasindeed a Pakistani intelligence operation it seems odd that theisi would leave these markings on the boxes. This is one of thefactors that persuades intelligence officials to believe that theprime movers of the operation were pan-Islamic funda-mentalist groups working outside state control. Incidentally,the markings of the AK-56 rifles had been erased on a lathe.The entire cargo was loaded into four Mahindra jeeps and twoTempo vans. The vehicles left Shekhadi for Bombay at30-minute intervals.

A CCORDING to Bombay Police's reconstruction of the plot/-V based on interrogation reports, once the consignment

JL JL was safely stored, Tiger began organising the trainingof about 20 specially chosen men. Between February 12 and20, these men were flown in groups of two or three to Dubai,from where they were taken on a PIA flight to Karachi. Eachperson received basic training for 12 days in handling AK-56rifles, hand grenades, detonators and explosives. The instruc-tors were dressed in plain clothes and the training took place ata spot about two hours' drive from Karachi. In the group wasGul Mohammed, 20, owner of a Vile Parle marble shop, whoresided in the Behrampada shanty-town, the scene of sus-tained violence during the January riots. He is now inpolice custody. According to the underworld grapevine,Tiger was paid Rs 20 crore for the whole operation besidesexpenses.

The last group of trained terrorists returned in the firstweek of March. D-Day was at hand. On March 11, a day beforethe bombing, about 300 kg of the explosive was moved fromthe New Bombay godown to the parking garage owned by theMemons on the ground floor of Al Hussain. The vehicles andscooters were loaded and ready with their deadly packages by2 a.m. and the garage was thoroughly washed.

Tiger left for Sahar Airport to catch the Emirates EK 501flight which took off at 4.31 a.m. on March 12, leaving the finalphase in the safe hands of three of his most trusted lieuten-ants—Anwar Theiba, Javed Chikna and Shaft. The blastsbegan, as planned at 1.26 p.m.

The morning after the blasts, unaware that the police werealready hot on their trail, Yakub telephoned a Bombaychartered accountant from Dubai and asked him to releasecheques worth Rs 60 lakh to three creditors. So by the time thepolice began attaching the Memon properties, this cash hadalready been taken out.

Yet the Memons failed to anticipate the speed with whichthe Bombay Police cracked open the case, zeroing in on theirflat on the night of the explosions and picking up several oftheir associates in the first week itself. True, the find of theMemons' maroon Maruti van, with seven AK-56 rifles andfour hand-grenades in Worli, barely three hours after theblast, was a lucky break. But police claim the men in the vanwere unnerved by the heavy police bandobast and theexplosion of a pencil detonator inside the vehicle unhinged

42

them. Police Commissioner Amarjeet Singh Samra says Tigerhad boasted to his men that each detonator cost Rs 5 lakh andcould blow up a building on its own.

Explosives experts rummaging through the debris at theAir India building were able to find a precious piece of twistedmetal giving the chassis number of the Ambassador car usedin the bombing. To cut red-tape, the Bombay Police contactedCBI chief S.K. Dutta in New Delhi who personally calledHindustan Motors in Calcutta to track down the dealer towhom the car had been supplied. The breach was made andled to the arrest of the duo, Farid Bhai and Asghar Ali Taher AHMasalawala, who supplied the three new Bajaj scooters, andthe dealer, Sulaiman Lakdawala, who sold the three jeeps, oneAmbassador and two Maruti vans. Some of the vehicles weremodified in Lakdawala's Byculla garage to create a cavity toaccommodate the explosives.

FINALLY, the police, reacting to a tip-off received by DCPArup Patnaik also seized nearly 1,500 kg of RDX fromMumbra on the outskirts of Bombay. For a moment the

raiding party as well as the ace sniffer dog Zanjeer were fooledsince the godown only smelled of fish. The conspirators hadtaken the precaution of wrapping the RDX in 800 yards ofgunny used to wrap fish. But once a few layers of the gunnywere removed Zanjeer went berserk and Bombay Policeheaved a sigh of relief.

Police say an utterly horrifying scenario is emerging fromtheir investigations into the conspiracy. The powers control-ling the conspirators had expected the blasts to lead to amassive communal backlash. By this time the AK-56 rifles

he prime moverswere Peshawar-

based fanaticalorganisations

trained bythe ISI.

and gre-nades were tobe located incommunally sensi-tive localities so thatthe mobs attacking themcould be confronted withautomatic fire and explosions.This would have simply pushedBombay over the edge.

"Two things failed the perpetrators ofthe crime in this objective: their over-confi-dence, the maturity of the people of Bombay inkeeping calm, and the Bombay Police's quickreaction,'' a senior investigator says. In fact, investiga-tors believe that one cause for the over-confidence was thebelief that large-scale riots were bound to follow theexplosions, sucking in the police force, thus giving theconspirators the time and opportunity to make good theirescape. This is why their escape plans were so clumsy.

In retrospect, the police are also tracing a new pattern inthe January riots. The round of widespread stabbings, mainlyof Hindus, on January 6 and 7, after a maha arti turned violentin the Muslim-dominated Null Bazaar area, is now beingtraced to gangsters like Salim Talwar who were close to TigerMemon. This, Bombay Police believe, should make them viewthe January riots in a different light as the stabbing waspossibly a deliberate tactic to provoke riots employed by thesame saboteurs who now once again wanted to destroyBombay. The logic was that if some stabbings in January

DAWOOD IBRAHIM

Suspect RoleFOR nearly a decade Dawood Ibra-

him has been the most formidable namein the pantheon of Indian smuggling. Lastfortnight he shot into the limelight againas India put his name no. 13 in the list ofwanted persons given to the UAE Gov-ernment along with the Memons. High-profile but utterly media-shy, the don,now underpressure and palpably shaken,broke his silence in a rare interview withSenior Copy Editor SHEELA BHATT on thephone from Dubai. Excerpts:

Q. Are you involved in the Bom-bay bombings?

A. When God has already givenme so much, why would I do such athing? I have flourishing businesses inIndia. You all know about them. Whywould I jeopardise them? Also, have Iever, in my life, done anything againstmy country? Look at my record.Have I ever harmed a Govern-ment servant? The Memons mayhave fled. But my family is still inIndia. The police visit them everyday. Would I do such a thingwhile my family is in India?

Q. But the police in India

have named you as a suspect?A. Let them complete the investi-

gations and come up with evidenceagainst me and I will present myselffor interrogation by the CBI or RAW, ifthe Bombay police are not involved.The police have named me because Iam a good alibi. They can't getDawood, so name him. They know

"I am a victim of media publicity.If RAW and CBI hold the inquiry inDelhi without involving the Bombay

Police, I will return to India."

who has done this but facing facts ismore inconvenient than namingsomebody who is not there.

Q. Then who was invo!ved?Didn 'tyou know the Memons?

A. Where is the need for me to saywho is involved when the police haveall the names in their files? Knowingsomebody is not a crime.

Q. But obviously the police can'thave any enmity with you?

A. That's the way they behave.They can't find a better name thanmine. Even the press, when it knows Iam innocent, is scared of saying sobecause people will say Dawood nekharid liya. (Dawood has boughtthem). For the police it is not a ques-tion of enmity. They don't have thecourage to admit facts.

Q. Isn't it true that for once thepressure on you is intense?

A. There is no pressure from thepolice or the Government. I am notworried about that. But adverse

media publicity causes me per-sonal anguish. The truth willcome out and it cannot be hid-den. Whoever did such a das-tardly act, killing innocent peo-ple, will not survive. He will becalled to account. That is also myfervent wish.

^_

akistan admitsthe Memons mayhave come toKarachi but ^denies itshand.

resultingin 30-odd

deaths couldcreate such riots,

serial blasts of thiskind were bound to cre-

ate unmanageable may-hem. "We are dealing with a

most diabolical brain behind thehand that belongs to mercenary who

would do just about anything formoney though in this case even a motiva-

tion of communal revenge may have beenthere," said a senior police officer.Such thinking and planning, intelligence

sources say, usually comes from a state and not a fewindividuals. But in this case, despite the natural tempta-

tion to blame Pakistan and the isi, an entirely newdimension is emerging. The dominant view among intelli-gence agencies now is that while the isi was a bashfulabettor in the crime, the prime movers were some well-known Islamic fundamentalist organisations funded in theMiddle East linked to fundamentalist groups which sproutedin Peshawar during the Afghan struggle.

The intelligence officials feel the Government has erredin blaming only Pakistan even before the investigations arecomplete "because it will make us look biased". Theconspiracy, they feel, stretches far beyond Pakistan.

Intelligences sources say the isitrained the bombers and used its con-tacts with the smuggling syndicates totransport the explosives. But they areconvinced the plan was mastermindedby one of the fundamentalist organisa-tions based in Peshawar and drawingsustenance from ultra-right winggroups in West Asia which espousepan-Islamic causes and mostly func-tion outside the ambit of state power.This network of militant fundamental-ists has taken upon itself the task of

mi ARDX haul being weighed; (right)detonators seized in Bombay

righting the preceived wrongs done to Islam and is financedby fundamentalists across the Muslim world.

It is with this network that the US investigators arelinking the World Trade Centre bombing in New York. TheAmericans are also establishing if the network has linkswith Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rehman, the blind preacher fromNewjersey who, though not charged, is said to be close to 33-year-old Mahmoud Abouhalima. Abouhalima was arrestedin Egypt on March 25 for his involvement in the World TradeCentre blast.

As soon as Bombay erupted, two US investigators wereon the flight to India. They concluded that even if thesignatures across the blasts in Bombay and New York werenot scribbled by the same hand, the same ideals guided them(see box). Says a top MEA official: "The Americans have toldus that they find it significant that the 'dynamics oftargeting' in both cases is the same."

Some pieces started falling in place. People beinginterrogated in the US for the New York explosion seemedaware that a decision had been taken to 'punish' theperpetrators of the Bombay riots. They did not know thespecifics of the plan, but that is only natural because theorganisation does not sully its hands in actual operations.Indian intelligence sources say the fundamentalist networkheld a conference at Colombo on December 2 7 where the US,India and Egypt were marked out for punishment ascountries victimising Muslims. None of the three took muchnotice as such dire warnings have been routine at such

CRUCIAL LAPSES• Though the Bombay Po-lice informed MEA about theMemons' escape on March15, only imprecise nameswere given. Indian missionsin the Gulf could not proceedwith incomplete names.

• The full names, sent to theCabinet Secretariat on March15, were sent to MEA only onMarch 17.

• The Centre got the pass-port details on March 21, fourdays after the Memons hadfled Dubai. Impounding pass-ports now was useless.

• The Pakistan High Com-mission was given the detailsin an informal note on March2 3, six days after the Memonssneaked into Karachi.

• Foreign experts wereshocked to see debris fromblast sites cleared so fast. Al-though crucial clues were stillfound, this should not be doneas the spread of debris is animportant factor.

C O V E R STORY

meetings. But this time around, it was not empty rhetoric.There have already been bombing incidents in all the threecountries.

Foreign investigators have reported that OperationBombay was given holy sanction by the network at themeeting. By the last week of January, affiliates of theorganisation from Saudi Arabia, Iran and the UAE hadraised at least $50 million for the mission. Western sourcesput the figure at $100 million.

i i ;

This iswhere Paki-stan stepped in.With the threat ofbeing declared a ter-rorist state looming overit, Pakistan did not want theisi to indulge in a unilateralventure that could be nailed at its

awaz Sharif saysthe Memons will bei returned "gift-

v wrapped"toIndia if

caught.

s " -: H x ,:,- I :.. i;.^- ' BB I | I

Maharashtra's Konkan region. Untillast fortnight Suddenly, this ob-scure little tillage was pushed intothe national spotlight because of thenews that 59 boxes, each about one-and-a-half feet long with 30 to 35 kgofexploswe

Not that smuggling is new to theShrlvardhan coast Silver consign-ments have been landing inShekhadi regularly, But its 'salehaven* status has now been de-stroyed after 13 persons, includingRahim Laundrywala, one of thethree landing agents arrested, werepicked up from here in connectionwith

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and Mhasla—which wereexposed after a local strongman,Sharif alias Dardabhai Parkar, wasarrested in Bombay recently—aremom prosperous than other areas inMaharashtra. "They are happy withthe money that big-time smugglerslike *Ttger'Memon brought in," saysa police official.

But the bomb blasts and thediscovery of the smuggling rackethave, changed life. Villagers are un-witthig to talk and insist their actt vi-ttes only extend to fishing and farm-ing, "No landtags takeplaee. Wedon'tallow outsiders to fish in our waters,"says a priest torn Bharadkhol. But thefacts beg to differ.

—UBKHA RATT-WANT in Shrkha.11

APRIL 15, 1993 » INDIA TODAY 49

C O V E R STORY

PAKISTAN

Pushed on tothe DefensiveNawaz takes action to pacify the US

UNDER virtual siege as the threat of being declared aterrorist state by the US loomed large, Pakistan lastweek launched a major diplomatic initiative. Siddique

Khan Kanju, minister of state for foreign affairs, announceda number of steps to pacify the US which has put Pakistan on

to counter terrorism in the country and liaise with similarinternational organisations. It is also proposed to postobservers to monitor movement across the Line of Control.

The move came on the eve of Prime Minister NawazSharif s visit to Germany and Britain. Senior diplomatsbelieve Kanju's statement was largely aimed at mobilisingopinion in favour of Pakistan in these two importantmembers of the prosperous G-7 group and to assureWashington that Islamabad would not be sponsoringterrorism. Sharif also despatched his special assistant,Federal Minister for Petroleum Chaudhary Nisar Ali, toWashington to pave the way for his scheduled summer visit.However, these measures do not seem to be sufficient to lessenthe pressure from the US as its threats are clearly motivated byits growing concern over the nuclear issue. "The Americansare likely to keep the pressure on until Pakistan is willing toroll back its nuclear programme," says a senior official.

the 'watchlist' of states suspected of sponsoring terrorism.Being on the list means international ostracism and thecutting-off of bilateral and multilateral aid and loans.

Pakistan narrowly avoided being listed along with Iran,North Korea, Cuba, Libya and Syria last December, but it hasnot been let off the hook. The US has placed Pakistan on a six-month trial till June toundertake measures toensure that terrorists re-ceived no assistance fromit. That explains the alac-rity with which the Paki-stan Government reactedto the Indian charge thatthe Memons, who allegedly masterminded the Bombayblasts, had fled to Karachi.

Kanju invited the international community, includingIndia, to visit and inspect areas of Kashmir under Pakistanicontrol and the Indo-Pakistan border along Punjab to see forthemselves whether the charges against Pakistan have anybasis. He announced the establishment of an anti-terrorist cell

Nawaz has ordered the closure of the offices ofArab fundamentalist groups and the expulsion of

Arab militants living in Peshawar,

Members of the JKLF armed wing inRawalpindi (left); Nawaz Sharif

Pakistan, whicii was first warnedabout being declared a terrorist state in1991, found itself in trouble last Decem-

ber when the Bush Administration decided to act upon thewarning. The decision was deferred only when Pakistanagreed to prove that all aid to Kashmiri militants from itsterritory had stopped. After the Democrats returned to theWhite House this year, there are clear signs of hardening ofthe US position on terrorism and the nuclear issue. With less

than three months left forthe expiry of the US dead-line, Pakistan has steppedup diplomatic efforts toconvince the Clinton Ad-ministration that its sup-port to the Kashmiri mili-tants is just moral and

political. However, the US alleges that Pakistan has merely'privatised' aid to the Kashmiris by continuing to support theJamaat-i-Islami which is running a camp for the militants'

Western intelligence agencies are reportedly watchingthe Jamaat-i-Islami which is closely associated with theAfghan fundamentalist group led by Gulbadin Hekmatyarand is also known to be providing training to Islamic

50 I N D I A TODAY * APRIL 15. 1993

militants in some 30 countries. Afghan PresidentBurhanuddin Rabbani is said to have complained to Paki-stan about Jamaat activists participating in the Afghan civilwar. The Jamaat is also accused of helping the TadzhikIslamic forces. Jamaat leaders justify their support toKashmiri militants on the grounds of religion. The SharifGovernment, however, denies funding the Jamaat to runtraining camps for Kashmiri militants. "Pakistan condemnsterrorism in all its forms and manifestations. We believe thatany political cause, however just, would be tarnished byrecourse to acts of terrorism," says Kanju.

The killing'of two senior CIA officials by a Pakistaniimmigrant, Mir Amal Kansi, in Virginia on January 25, andthe involvement of Peshawar-based Arab fundamentalistsin terrorist activities in Egypt and Algeria are likely to be usedto recommend the ex-communication of Pakistan from theinternational community. The cause of the shooting has notyet been established, but Kansi's flat-mate, Zahid Mir,reportedly told the court that he was upset at the US' anti-Muslim policies. Kansi, who fled to Quetta in Pakistan'swestern province of Baluchistan, has not been tracked downdespite a massive man-hunt. He is believed to have crossedthe border into either Iran or Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Kansi is being hailed as a hero in Quetta, hishometown. "The CIA is our enemy and by killing its agentsKansi has served the cause of Islam," says Rehmat Khan, abusinessman. "No one can arrest him here. Every one of uswill willingly provide him protection," asserts Atlas Khan, alocal arms dealer.

The presence on Pakistani soil of a large number of Arabmilitants associated with fundamentalist organisations inthe Middle East, is a cause for worry for Pakistan facingcharges of abetting international terrorism. Thousands of/w<ib warriors started trickling into Pakistan from morethan 20 countries during the '80s to fight with the Afghanmujahedin in the jehad against the Soviet forces. Most ofthem were activists belonging to the militant Islamic partieswhich are at war with the secular governments of Egypt,Syria, Jordan and Algeria. While some of these battle-hardened Arabs have returned to their homeland, a largenumber continue to operate from Peshawar. The role ofthese Arabs, veterans of the Afghan war, in the Islamicmovement came to light in 1991 with reports that theyformed an important part of the Islamic Salvation Front inAlgeria. The activities of the Pakistan-based Arabs drewinternational attention when Egyptian authorities discov-ered that a message threatening to step up terrorist activitiesin Egypt was faxed from Peshawar.

Failing to monitor their activities, last month the SharifGovernment ordered the closure of all offices of the organisa-tion run by Arabs and the expulsion of those living inPeshawar without proper documents. However, officialsadmit that it would be difficult to expel them all as theGovernment does not have any record about most of them,especially those linked with the Afghan mujahedin.

Pakistani officials believe that the issue concerningactivities of the Peshawar-based Arabs is likely to figurewhen the Clinton Administration deliberates on whetherPakistan should be put on the terrorist list.

Unlike Iran and Libya, Pakistan at this stage can hardlyafford to cut itself off economically from the western world.There are clear signs of desperation in the Pakistan Govern-ment. In Pakistan, June is a dreaded deadline.

—ZAHID HUSSAIN in Karachi

an-lslamic militancyis a nasty fact of life

which India, likethe west, will

havetolivewith.

doorstep.But this was aperfect opportu-nity. In one stroke, icould harm India andidentify with a larger Is-lamic cause. Also, since ithad not funded the project therewas a good chance of getting awayuntainted. It agreed to train the sabo-teurs in the rudiments of planting a bomb.

In terms of explosives technology, the'hands' that devastated Bombay were ratheramateurish. They used pencil timers which areamong the crudest and simplest time devices to use.Instead of going through the delicate adjustment of awatch dial, in this case the bomber places a metal pencil withthree compartments against the RDX explosive. The steadyflow of acid from the first compartment (released when thepencil top is pressed to break the glass acid ampule inside)results in a tension wire snapping and firing a bullet from thesecond compartment to the third, which contains a smallexplosive charge, detonating the entire explosive.

The amateurism was also evident in the manner in which theybought the cars from a dealer who knew them. Incidentally, bothMemon and Salameh, who planted the New York bomb, weretraced through the chassis numbers that survived the blasts.

But for now, the policy-makers are nervous about takingon the Islamic fundamentalists. It is easier to train their gunson Pakistan. India has been trying to get Pakistan declared aterrorist state for some time. Now it feels it can exert pressureby superimposing new skeletons over old ones. The Memons,when the noose tightened around them, booked tickets toKarachi, to India's undisguised glee.

It is at the top political and bureaucratic levels that India hasshown lack of purpose. The US and UK sent top terrorism expertswho stayed on despite being irritated that the police revealedtheir hotel room numbers to journalists. The US is also helpingtrace the origin of the captured grenades, many of which haveAustrian markings. Western sources confirm these were sold byan Austrian firm to a West Asian country and some even toAlgeria. Algeria, has seen several major thefts from statearmouries by fundamentalist groups and several persons haveeven been executed for this. But the Government has bungled intracing the Memons in Dubai and then Pakistan. The processwas marred by unforgivable delays (see box).

But back in Bombay, the serial bombings have broughtanother realisation: whoever is targeting India has now foundthe soft underbelly of a soft state. And while Bombay Policeembarks on a Rs 25-crore modernisation programme toreplace its 19th century muskets with self-loading rifles andcarbines and buys bullet-proof jeeps, the crucial question is,would even the most diabolical of foreign brains have beenable to do such damage if the communal divide had not forcedmembers of a sullen and bitter community into a corner?

As the conspiracy unravels, involving predominantly theMuslim Bombay underworld, the BJP and its ilk will use it to makefamiliar noises about alleged Muslim criminality. But this is notime to score debating points. Pan-Islamic militancy is a fact oflife. The West is already paranoid about it. The last thing India,with the second largest Muslim population in the world, shoulddo is to push its Muslims into a corner where they becomevulnerable fundamentalists who sanctify violence. Bombay'sBlack Friday could indeed be a mere warning of much worse tocome unless communal tensions are reduced at home.

-with ARUN KATIYAR, LEKHA RATTANANI and HARINDER BAWEJA