Open Forum
New Delhi, 9 January 2009
Tackling Terror
Attacks
TIME TO SHUN
PARTISAN POLITICS
By Proloy Bagchi
(Former Civil Servant)
Ever since Liela Khaled of Popular Front for Liberation of
Palestine hijacked a TWA flight in 1969, many planes have been hijacked around
the world. India,
too, has had its share. But the one which is never allowed to remain buried in
the sands of history is the hijack on Christmas Eve, 1999 of IC 814, the Indian
Airlines flight from Kathmandu to Delhi.
What distinguished this hijack from the others is that at the end of the
tortuous hard bargaining, the then External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh, travelled
to Kandahar Airport with the three terrorists, the Government agreed to release
in exchange for the freedom of the passengers held hostages.
With 177 passengers and 11 crew members the hijackers forced
the pilot to fly to Kandahar via Amritsar, Lahore and Dubai. The passengers,
one of whom was killed on the way and his body unceremoniously dropped off the
aircraft at Dubai,
became objects for a trade-off against 36 terrorists held in Indian prisons.
Unless that was done, the hijackers threatened, they would blow up the plane.
The lengthy negotiations that ensued eventually ended with the Government
agreeing to release only three, though dreaded terrorists, viz. Mushtaq Ahmed
Zergar, Ahmed Omer Sheikh and Maulana Masood Azhar. While Masood Azhar was
later the mastermind of the attack on Parliament in 2001, Ahmed Omer Sheikh was
widely perceived to be responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Daniel
Pearle, Mumbai correspondent of the Wall Street Journal.
This hijack has been flogged ad nauseam by the Congress
Party to run down and denigrate its opponent, the Bharatiya Janata Party. In
the dog-eat-dog world of Indian politics, politicians cannot let go of an
opportunity to snap at each other. In the last session of Parliament, no sooner
had the leader of the Opposition accused the Congress-led United Progressive
Alliance Government of being soft on terror, Congressman Kapil Sibal harked
back to the 99 hijack. In a classic instance of one-upmanship, he wanted that
the Opposition, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), should apologise to the
people for not only freeing three terrorists, some of whom later perpetrated
even more vicious acts of terror, but also had them shamefully “escorted”
personally by the country’s External Affairs Minister. As is their wont,
regardless of their assurances to the contrary given earlier, politicians
started growling at each other.
Later, claiming firmness in handling of the Mumbai
terrorists, Digvijay Singh, another Congress biggy, a general secretary to
boot, asserted that his party-led Government refused to negotiate with the
Mumbai attackers. He went on to claim that yielding no quarter to the
attackers, the Government had them eliminated. The innuendo was clearly
directed at the NDA. However, the question of any negotiations with the
attackers never arose because they had never made any demand. During his
interrogation the captured terrorist, Ajmal Amir Qasab, has also asserted that
the mandate given to him and others did not include putting forth any demand.
In the highly competitive politics, truth is often the
casualty and bluff and bluster occupy centre stage. That the then fledgling NDA
Government was faced with an extraordinary situation was never so much as
mentioned. The unseemly demonstrations by the relatives of the passengers,
covertly stoked by some of those in the Opposition, sustained right through the
better part of the week asking for total surrender, including ceding of Kashmir
(to Pakistan), and the inexperience of the Government, which had just assumed
power, have never been referred to. Curiously, even Jaswant Singh’s unpleasant
trip, undertaken only because of his keenness to ensure safe release of the
hostages, was also given a malicious twist.
Moreover, the fact that terrorists had been released in
exchange for hostages earlier is conveniently forgotten. In the early 90s, five
terrorists were released from Kashmir jails to
free the abducted Rubaiya Saeed, daughter of the then Home Minster, Mufti
Mohammed Saeed. Sibal (or others of his ilk) have never made a mention of it as
his party until recently not only ran a coalition government with the Mufti’s
party in J&K, but the latter was also one of its allies in the UPA. Sadly,
this is precisely what politics is all about – to obfuscate, dissemble and
misrepresent to keep the opposition down.
In their petty squabbles, politicians tend to forget that
the misfortune that befell the NDA Government can chance upon any regime. Given
our lackadaisical way of functioning, a bomb blast, a terror attack, a high profile
abduction or a hijack are eminently possible. A number of terrorists, including
the one captured alive on 26/11 and another in the death row, continue to
languish in Indian prisons. An attempt to free them is very much on the cards. Recall,
there were several attempts to get Masood Azhar out of the Jammu prison. Their failure led to the IC 814
hijack as we never woke up to the threat his incarceration posed.
Clearly, the Jihadis and their promoters in the Pakistani
establishment do not distinguish between this or that regime. They seem to have
an unqualified antipathy for India,
an entity that they keenly desire to Islamise. India’s multi-culturalism, its
pluralist society and its economic progress despite all its handicaps is what
bugs them. What is more, they simply hate India and could even launch attacks
out of sheer hatred for it. Already a formation for promoting hatred for India has become operational in Pakistan.
If our politicians are really interested in doing good for the
people-- which they keep claiming they do-- they need to shun their narrow
partisan agendas and cooperate with each other in devising ways and means to
achieve what they claim. The need of the hour is ensuring security of life and
property of the people. And, this is precisely what politicians of all shades have
neglected while they bickered all the time. To make itself secure, the country
needs to pull itself by its boot-straps. From plugging the porous land and sea
frontiers to creation of a well-oiled internal security apparatus with all its
concomitant paraphernalia – there is enormous amount of work lying ahead before
the country’s political bosses.
With neighbours on its two flanks harbouring hostile
elements, the country cannot visualise a future without terror and/or devious
attempts to bleed it and retard its progress. Unflinching vigilance is
necessary – a price that has to be paid to ensure to the citizens freedom from
fear and anxiety. It is, therefore, time politicians stopped playing politics
with national security. People want no less, for the 26/11 security disaster
has made them angry – yes, at none other than the politicians. -- INFA
(Copyright, India News and Feature
Alliance)
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