You have to stand guard over the development and maintenance of democracy, social justice and the equality of mankind in your own native soil. [Mohammed Ali Jinnah]

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Mumbai bloodbath, apparent winners and loosers.

Sometime after 9/11 I had the honor of traveling with Prakash Singh, a cloth merchant and resident of Kashmore, Sindh. In our discussions during the train journey from Sukkur to Lahore, 9/11 attacks came up naturally. He gave me a simple anecdote, “ just wait and see who benefits from it the most ? one who does, has more probability of being behind it than anyone else! “

If I take myself back to 27th November, and try to weigh the events in light of Prakash's anecdote, I find myself seeing these events in a different perspective.

Victims and their families are no doubt the ones who suffered the most. Victims include the public and security forces personnel. Close to 200 deaths and 400 injured is a huge toll. Multiply that with the same number of families and extended families, you end up with a number running into thousands.

Mumbaikars in general, have lost a lot. Mumbai just like Karachi, is a place where most things at the end get measured as good for business or not good for business. Theses events have certainly affected livelihood of the residents of Mumbai, currently the world’s most populous metropolis.

Indo-Pak relations are the most hit in the bigger picture. A decade’s worth of efforts and CBM’s from both sides have been undone in a matter of 59 hours. I suspect that now there will be quite some time before No I wont work in hate films will be the headline of Bollywood celebrity magazines, and Friendship Cup cricket series will be held. Already I see people getting back to pre-Kargil frame of mind with regards to the people on the other side of the border are concerned.

President-elect Obama had given a clear signal that India & Pakistan need to resolve differences on Kashmir issue, it was the word in grapevine that Pakistani Foreign Minister’s visit to India & Pakistani presidents’ Kashmir belongs to the people of Kashmir video conference with the Indian journalists a few days back, was part of that chain. Now I think we can safely assume, this whole initiative will be thrown out of the window.

Ironically, the investigation team, probing into the Samjhota Express arson incident was killed in Mumbai railway station attack, which was probing into Indian Army‘s involvement in the incident. The attackers fled without a scratch. This has already led to many Pakistani’s belief that the attacks were totally or in part staged to get rid of the investigators, as it would have brought ill-fame to the mighty Indian Army. An event similar to what we are very much used to here in Pakistan.

Keeping in mind that Mumbai is the commercial capital of India, and the attacks have struck the business elite of the city, the ramification for Indian economy might be ten-fold. A visiting head of a business corporate from Japan, representatives of a European business delegation, people close to film industry have been killed in attacks. In this time of global economic recession, the problems for India might be multiplied.

The right-wingers from both the India & Pakistan are the ones who will make the most out of it. Already people like Mr. Modi, CM Gujrat have spun into action, and are in spotlight with exchange of heated comments regarding the neighboring country. The fingers have been raised on banned outfits that is lashkars & jaish in Pakistan, it will certainly help them ramp up their public acceptance once again and they might be operating & recruiting out in the open.

ISI & RAW are once again back in the action. The two agencies have been pretty busy in the past half a century scroing points against each other. Sometimes it was ISI training and sending people to East Punjab & Kashimr, other times it was RAW with its training camps in Bhoj sending trained people to disrupt life in Karachi and activities in Afghan consulates. Both of them had to shun their activities, surprisingly so during early 2000’s when there was a military government here in Pakistan and BJP was ruling in Indai. Now, I guess the ball is back in the Intelligence agency’s court, rather than being in Parliaments or Presidencies.

At the end, the biggest looser is the average person, living in India or Pakistan . With Pakistan spending a hefty amount, more than it can afford to, on the military, the needs of an average person are usually ignored. India on the other hand having a fair portion of the soon to be biggest population in the world living far below poverty line, had to invest in its nuclear arsenal and spend billions of dollars annually to buy arms from France & Russia to provide for its army. The amount both the countries have spent on their respective military machines over the post-colonial erra is huge, and is often the very reason that they could not address and provide for the needs of the poor of the region.

Mumbai Attacks and Indian Stupidity

Fahad Fazl sent a message to the members of Pakistan Tehreek i insaf on Facebook.

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Subject: Mumbai terror Attacks

First of all i will strongly condemn these brutal attacks on mumbai.

Recently an indian Army officer is found guilty of planning terror attacks on a train in india, the train name is Samjhota express which operate between india and Pakistan. In this train attack mostly Pakistanies were killed on indian side of region. And some army officers who are having some connections with hindu extremist organizations are found guilty.

Currently there are seperatest movements going on throughout india. India has around 600 districts out of which more than 200 districts have their sepratist movements. Every year thousand of people die in india in result of clashes between these movements and indian government. None of these movement has any link to PAkistan.

The point which i am trying to make is that india has so much terrorist movements in their homeland and still they are blamming on Pakistan without having any evidence.

On the otherside if we will see Pakistan's, they never pointed fingur towards india even after having very solid evidence of indian involvement in Balochistan and NWFP. It also doesnot make sense that why india has opened more than 25 offices in afghanistan along the pakistani border, it clearly shows that india is sending insurgents from Afghanistan side into the Pakistan who are de-stabilizing the tribal region of Pakistan and also inside Pakistan. There is a large increase in suicide attacks inside PAkistan, which is all due to that insurgency from Afghanistan side. But even having so many casualties in these suicide attacks for example the suicide attack of Marriot hotel destroyed whole hotel and killed alot of innocent people, Pakistan never blamed india because Pakistan want good diplomatic relations with India. But on the other side india never wants some good relations and always tried to invoke Pakistan by putting more and more terrorist inside Pakistan. These terrosit make
an excuse for USA to do more drone attacks inside Pakistan and US also want Pakistan to do military operations in tribal regions to kill alot of innocent civilians and at the end Pakistan suffers from all sides.

I was listening to BBC most of the time and i saw one common thing in Indian and International media that they all are pointing their fingures towards Pakistan without having any evidence.
So it looks similar to 9/11 when american media started blaming Alqaida and Taliban immediately and then whole international media did the same and then they wage a war against Afghanistan.
I think this mumbai attacks are also similar kind of practice and they want to build a case against Pakistan to wage war might be from western borders in tribal region or might be from eastern borders.

At this very moment Pakistanies should get ready for any kind of Indian stupidity and this time India will not be alone, all the western (US and NATO) will be along with india. So what i see unfortunately it seems that Pakistan is once again going to have some hard time. But inshAllah we will manage to get out of it. Be United, be faithful to your country and be desciplined thats all we need.

For people from other countries i just want to show the real ground truth and real situation to all of you. I hope you will not close your eyes and will not believe only on the media which is always biased. I hope you will look into all details and then will decide who is right and who is wrong. Unfortunately all the international media is always following a guideline given to them and they never do critical analysis of the situation.

Thanks for spending time to read this article
GOD BLESS U
Long Live Pakistan