Political environment is the real culprit

It speaks poorly of our intelligence apparatus that jihadi outfits abducted 4,000 girls over the last several years.

The allegation that Muslim ‘boys’ entice Hindu girls into marriage for reasons other than love, and as a part of an Islamic conspiracy, is usually dismissed as a part of insidious Sangh Parivar communal propaganda. But a recent chance investigation by Kerala Police has brought out the ugly details of this sickening stratagem.

The August 31 issue of a Malayalam newspaper Malayala Manorama, carried an extensive report on how a Pakistan-based terrorist organisation is planning, abetting and financing the enticing of college girls from different communities to become cannon fodder for its programmes in India. The report terms such girls ‘Love Bombs’.

The modus operandi is clever. Muslim boys in Kerala are employed by the terror organisations to entice college girls. Handsome and dashing boys are selected and financed to have cars, motorbikes, most expensive clothing and a lot of cash. Their job is to move in groups, select their prey and then entice it to elope with them on the promise of marriage and a great life abroad.

After days of pretended love making, the girls easily begin to believe that they have got their ‘Prince Charming’. Once they elope, a marriage is registered before a notary and then the girl is whisked from place to place. The victim begins to believe that she has to undergo this to evade her parents who would be searching for her.

Hideouts include places that have a heavy Muslim concentration. No outside contact is allowed to the victim. All the time she is subject to propaganda videos that eulogise terrorism, jihad and the ultimate victory of the religion. Though the racket had been going on for quite some years and several complaints of missing girls were lodged with Kerala Police, the latter ignored it saying that the girls had eloped and they could not do anything.

The racket came to light only when one of the victims happened 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 parent in the second case approached the high court with a habeas corpus petition and the court ordered the police to produce the victim in court. The plea that the girl had eloped on her own and that she was now legally married did not convince the court and it ordered that the girl be allowed to stay with her parents for a week before it again examined the situation.

After a week with her parents, the girl told the court the truth. Now the Kerala police have hit pay dirt and found that a kidnap gang has been at work for getting recruits to Pakistani terror outfits. Investigations show that all over India some 4,000 girls have been recruited as potential terror hands and suicide bombers in this manner (against their will). In Kerala alone police suspect that over 500 have become victims.  

The full modus operandi is available in the statement that a Thiruvananthapuram victim gave before Justice R Basant of the High Court of Kerala. It reveals how in Kerala these gangs have been freely going about their job without the police or intelligence agencies getting even a sniff of it.

If the jihadi outfits in Pakistan could abduct and train as many as 4,000 Indian girls over the last several years, it speaks poorly of our intelligence apparatus. Perhaps it is not fair to blame the police and intelligence. The prevailing political environment that treats the perpetrators of violent jihad with kid gloves is the real culprit.

A report from Hyderabad in the Indian Express on August 28 says that Mujeeb Ahmed, sentenced to life in 1994 for intending to wage war against the country and shooting an ASP was released under a special remission scheme in 2004. Mujeeb went underground. He became an active member of the Hizbul-Mujahideen and ISI and was part of the first terror cell in Andhra Pradesh, according to the IB and CID dossier on him.

It was the Rajasthan Police’s finding of rifles, detonators and explosive material in a truck in Ajmer that finally led the trail to this activist. He was charged for procuring arms from Pakistan to launch terror attacks in Hyderabad. The Hyderabad court has now convicted this jihadi for sedition.

Though this man went back to terror after his first release on compassionate grounds, the Andhra Pradesh government is planning to release some 984 life convicts, many of whom are in for similar crimes. The Indian Express report quotes police officers as saying that the state government has neither consulted the IB nor the police before the release list was drawn up. ‘Like in the case of Mujeeb a person arrested a decade back while trying to launch a terror attack will go back to crime once released. It is fortunate that he was arrested before he could strike’ a second time, says the report.

How the jihadi cancer is eating into the vitals of the country is now becoming evident day-by-day. The central government makes all the correct noises in unearthing the cancer but when it comes to deterrent action, it backs out. We should watch for the Centre’s reaction to the exposure of abduction of thousands of girls for terror training. And where are all the ‘women’s rights activists’ who painted the entire country red following the attack on a pub in Mangalore by the self-styled Ram Sene? Of course, through this exposure Malayala Manorama has done a great national service as a newspaper.

punjbk@gmail.com

Related Stories

No stories found.
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com