HAD AJMAL KASAB NOT BEEN CAPTURED ALIVE...

Minorities Minister AR Antulay's dramatic and baseless allegation suggesting that ATS chief Hemant Karkare was not killed by Pakistani terrorists who attacked Mumbai on December 26,2008, but was the victim of an inside job, is not a wild shot in the dark. 24 hours before he aired his views even as the Parliament was united in clearing the NIA and UAPA bills, he had told CNN-IBN that he apprehended that these laws would be used to harass minorities. Was it appropriate, to say the least, on part of such a senior leader to echo the allegation that Pakistan had started making before it was established that the terrorists were Pakistanis? What led him to make a connection between two completely unrelated issues and embarrass not just the government but the whole nation in such an unbecoming manner? It may be recalled that when reports of the terror attack on Mumbai started hitting the headlines, there were voices saying that this was an attack by Hindu terrorists. A little later, when the picture of one of the terrorists wearing a sacred Hindu thread around his wrist was flashed on all channels, such voices became even louder. Around the same time, an email was sent around the country by an almost fundamentalist, left-leaning outfit called "Awami Bharat" alleging that the the RSS was behind the attacks. "...This terror attack in our analysis has been planned and orchestrated by the Sangh Parivar and its allies within the security apparatus to counter the investigation of the ATS led by Hemant Karkare...", was how the email began. the This was followed by a text message that the terrorists who had entered the Cama Hospital were speaking in Marathi and that these Marathi-speaking people were responsible for killing Karkare. It was only after Ajmal Kasab was unexpectedly captured alive and there was simply no way left to deny that he was a Pakistani, that these and other nonsensical theories were dropped. The Pakistani terrorists who came in from the sea were not just wearing Hindu threads around their wrists. They also had fake identity cards and credit cards with Hindu names. The game plan of their Pakistani masters was straightforward: those who did not die while executing their merciless and ruthless slaughter of innocent Indians would just merge into the sea of humanity and escape; those who got killed would throw investigators off track by appearing to be Hindus. Thus, not only would Pakistan would not get exposed, there would be no credible/conclusive needle of suspicion on Indian Muslims too. Ajmal Kasab's capture is the first ever of a Pakistani terrorist. On previous occasions, Pakistani terrorists have either been killed or have got away, making presentation of 'credible' evidence of Pakistan's involvement virtually impossible. Kasab has, for the first ever time, not only exposed the duplicity of Pakistan but has laid bare its complicity in the terror attacks being launched from that country against India. So rattled is Pakistan by his capture that it is still not willing to accept that he is a Pakistani, even when his own father and his relatives living in Faridkot, Pakistan, have publicly confirmed his identity. What would have happened had Kasab not been captured alive? The media would have gone berserk showing visuals of the Hindu thread and the fake Hindu identity cards repeatedly, and making wild allegations that this was yet another Hindu terror attack. India's commies, supported by the likes of Laloo Yadav and Mulayam Yadav, would have shouted from every possible forum that the only terrorists in India were the BJP and the Sangh parivar, and that Hindu terrorism had become far too dangerous too be ignored any longer. Even subsequently when it would have become reasonably clear that these terrorists were not Hindus, there would have been strident voices questioning that deduction. And India's politicians would have been irreconcilably divided on predictable lines about who was to blame for the attack. Secular leaders blatantly soliciting Muslim votes would have simply refused to give any credence to all the evidence absolving Hindu terrorists and would have continued to blame them for the attack. Pakistan would, as a result, not even have come into the frame. Even among those who believed that the terrorists were indeed Muslims, many would have been echoing Pakistani propaganda that the attack was a justified reaction against injustice and discrimination that Muslims were facing in India. The Sachar Committee report would have again been flogged to obliquely justify attacks on innocent citizens. The net upshot would have been that, like always, the government would have done nothing till now. Shivraj Patil would still be Home Minister and Deshmukh Maharashtra's Chief Minister. There would have been no NIA and no UAPA, the new anti-terror law. There would also have been no debate in Parliament which would have been adjourned every day after chaotic scenes with the the NDA and UPA trading charges as if they belonged to two different countries which were at war. By now, the endless debates in TV studios by the same half a dozen faces trying to hijack national opinion and agenda, would have also given way to the next story. The BJP, unsettled by the onslaught, would have sounded very defensive, making smart analysts jump to the conclusion that this proved its involvement. AR Antulay would not have been asked to make the preposterous charge that he has made now, despite total evidence to the contrary. The media and their favoured analysts would have done that job for him long back by joining hands with a very truthful and trustworthy Pakistan, to 'conclusively' prove that Karkare had indeed been killed by a lying and untrustworthy Sangh Parivar. Powerful elements in Pakistan would be strutting around with pride for a job well done and laughing loudly at the collective brainlessness of Indians, the incompetence of India's intelligence agencies and the continuing dishonesty of its petty politicians. Spurred by the dramatic success of 11/26, they would have started making preparations for even bigger and more dramatic attacks, knowing that despite all evidence implicating them time and again, they would again get away by denying that they had anything to do with the attacks, thanks in no small measure to the help of their disconnected and blind Indian friends. Last but not the least, the Indian cricket team would have been asked by the government to ignore the security threat to the lives its players and tour Pakistan as per original plans. The Foreign Minister would be saying on TV today that, as a good neighbour, India had to demonstrate its solidarity with Pakistan which actually was the real victim of terrorism... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Readers may also like to read: 1. Understanding and defeating the ideology of terror 2. Mumbai 11/26: Wake up to Islamic terror, this is just the beginning 3. India's Osama and Al Qaida found; banish them! 4. Hindu terror at last. Thank God!