Indian Politicians: Pakistan’s Proxy Soldiers

BY RSN SINGH

Col. Purohit of the Military Intelligence was implicated for his association with ‘Abhinav Bharat’, an organization labeled by the authorities as progenitor of so-called ‘Hindu Terror’. It is another matter that more than 50 officers of the army in the Court of Inquiry have vouched for the fact that he had kept all the relevant authorities in loop regarding his infiltration into the said organization. The officer also had very successfully infiltrated the Indian Mujahideen (IM) and was regularly invited by the Maharastra ATS to conduct lectures on IM and LeT. A fortnight before 26/11, Col Purohit was arrested. As a consequence the Military Intelligence of India was intimidated and paralyzed. Was it to facilitate the attack on Mumbai by the LeT?

Now there is an attack on the core of internal security, i.e. Intelligence Bureau of India. Its sin being that it provided ‘specific intelligence’ with regard to the plans by an itinerate module comprising four LeT terrorists, two Pakistanis and also an Indian woman Ishrat Jahan to kill the Chief Minister of a state of Union of India. It is another matter that this Chief Minister happens to be Narendra Modi. The dispensation in Delhi seems to convey ‘death to Modi, long live LeT’. The love or fear of LeT has impelled the quarters  to consciously  wreck the internal security apparatus of the country.

Even as the embers of the targeting of the IB fly in and outside the country, an Inspector of Punjab Police, Surjit Singh, has claimed that he has carried out 83 fake encounters at the behest of his bosses during the‘Sikh Freedom Movement’. The timing of the smote on the conscience and the moral churning process of this Inspector clearly indicates the identity of his benefactors. The ISI’s desperate bid to revive militancy in Punjab through its strategic arm LeT has been widely reported in the media. This seems to be yet another attempt by the ISI and LeT to destroy the security apparatus in Punjab so as to make uncontested in-roads.

The targets have been carefully selected i.e the Military Intelligence, the Intelligence Bureau and the state police forces, which includes the Gujarat Police, where nearly a dozen officers have been hounded and intimidated by the Center. The only officer who has found favour of the Center  was  the one demanding a Black Berry phone from a political party to settle political scores.

The common enemy of these agencies is the LeT. It is the same LeT (Markaz-e-Taiba), which has received Rs. 61 million by the Punjab government in Pakistan as grant-in-aid in the current fiscal. The tragedy is that it is not only Pakistan establishment which grovels to the head of LeT, Hafiz Saeed, but the Indian establishment as well.

The love or fear of LeT has impelled the quarters to consciously wreck the internal security apparatus of the country.

Ishrat Jahan, a 19 year old girl from Mumbai was killed with LeT terrorists in Ahmedabad in an encounter on 15 June 2004. The family members in hindsight allege that Ishrat was abducted by the IB. It is queer that once she went missing her family members did not deem it fit to lodge an FIR with the Mumbai Police. Their inaction and silence on the issue can also be construed that the links with LeT run much deeper and wider.

The dispensation by attacking the Special Director of the Intelligence Bureau, Rajendra Kumar, has attacked the core of India’s internal security intelligence. All for whom, but the LeT! Mr Rajendra Kumar’s failing has been his being professional and conscientious. In that he acquired intelligence from ‘sources’, informed the higher-ups in Delhi, which includes his seniors and in-turn the Ministry of Home Affairs. His main failing however was that, in the process, he was not saving a Chief Minister but Narendra Modi. If he had acted in the same manner to save the life of some privileged ‘democratic-monarchs’ of the country, he would have been awarded Padma Vibhushan and in the case of highest monarch a ‘Bharat Ratna.’ After all the same dispensation rewarded Mr Brajesh Mishra with Padma Vibushan for his Boston rescue operation of the ‘Yuvraj’. Readers with little research can know the truth.

Never before in the history of India, an IB or R&AW official was asked to submit before the CBI for interrogation  on professional matters. Is it a ploy to unravel the entire intelligence framework of the country? This author who served with R&AW would have preferred to kill himself rather than submit to the CBI for interrogation of sensitive matters that are vital to Indian security interests. If this author was the head of the IB, the Special Director would have reported to the CBI over his dead body. The CBI has absolutely no competence to interrogate an IB and R&AW official on matters of internal and external security. By sheer level of politicization, the mediocre content of the job of the CBI, it is ill-equipped to deal with IB and R&AW officials.

If the CBI cannot be trusted with Arushi murder case or the Nithari case pertaining to Moninder Singh Pandher, what is its credibility! The whole world knows the truth in these cases sans the CBI. Can the Prime Minister at the current stage of his life cross his heart and vouch that he does not know the truth in these two cases? How has suddenly the CBI become the repository of the national conscience, which includes the IB and the R&AW?

The IB has been pitted against the CBI. In the case of blasts in Malegaon in 2006, the NIA has been pitted against the Maharastra ATS and the CBI. And earlier in Col Purohit’s case the Mahrastra ATS was pitted against the Military Intelligence. The effect of the orchestrated attrition is already beginning to tell.

This systematic destruction of India’s internal security apparatus is not only for vote-bank politics as most commentators are suggesting. Of course the Modi-phobia is a factor but not the sole reason. It has a larger dimension which is evident from the nervousness displayed by the dispensation with regard to ISI, Hafiz Saeed and David Headley. Do they know too much? Were they used to stage 26/11 to counter Jehadi terror argument by creating the specter of ‘Hindu Terror’? How does David Headley have the gumption to abuse Indian interrogators? Are the services of the ISI and LeT being obtained to influence vote-bank politics? Is the LeT and the ISI asking too much in return? These are questions which readers must ponder upon.

While the readers do so, their benchmark should be the fact that if Ajmal Kasab had not developed cold feet and caught alive, all preparations had been made to label 26/11 as act of ‘Hindu Terror’. Books to this effect were pre-written and the choice of the Chief Guest decided. Till today nobody has questioned as to how an unconstitutional authority was indirect communication with then Maharastra ATS Chief Hemant Karkare, and eliciting sensitive security details. If this politician cannot explain this he should be treated like any other terrorist.

For matters of national security the relationship between all the intelligence organizations of the States and the Center is both vertical and horizontal. Flow of intelligence is not only from top to down but in the reverse order too. Moreover, there is lateral sharing as well. The multiplicity of agencies has its benefits in terms of overlap, corroboration and coverage. By targeting the IB, the Military Intelligence, the state security apparatus of Gujarat and the previous Maharastra ATS, the dispensation has intimidated the entire intelligence network of India.  India is now an open and defenseless target. The traitors as of now have prevailed!

No intelligence official now will provide or share information with the same degree of sincerity and patriotism. The  Indian intelligence community is now a scared community. Nationalism and patriotism have become criminal attributes. Things have gone so anti-national that the most sensitive information was being leaked by the CBI pertaining details of Ishrat Jahan case and there were media houses, flaunting documents which should have been only for the consumption of Prime Minister and the Home Minister. The Pakistan or the ISI connection of some of these news channels and journalists is too well known.

Ishrat Jahan and her associates were nothing but tools of proxy war by Pakistan. Anybody with a modicum of understanding of terrorism will understand that the role of Ishrat was to act as suicide-bomber, as revealed by David Headley. There are any number of such modules waiting to strike. Rajiv Gandhi too was eliminated by eliciting the services of one such suicide bomber through the aegis of LTTE. This could not have happened without unsuspecting facilitators within.

Indian should realize that this is an era of proxy wars. A civilized country to retain its civility has to fight with uncivilized ‘proxy soldiers’, the kind of Ishrat Jahan. In this proxy war, which is also referred to as ‘intelligence wars’, the role of intelligence agencies is predominant. In dealing with such adversaries, there are methods, which have been used in the past to bring back civility, whose peace dividends people of India including the politicians, the civil activists and the vocal media continue to enjoy. One such region is the Punjab province of India. The dispensation at the behest and blackmail of external enemies has by design destroyed the entire internal security apparatus assiduously built over the years for the LeT and vote-bank politics.

India now stands exposed. Whenever there is the next blast or terrorist attack don’t expect too much from Indian intelligence framework. It stands intimidated and unraveled. It will be extremely difficult for the Indian security apparatus to recover from this wreck.

The ISI and LeT has won!

(RSN Singh is a former military intelligence officer who later served in the Research & Analysis Wing. The author of two books: Asian Strategic and Military Perspective and Military Factor in Pakistan, he is also a guest blogger for Canary Trap. The views expressed by him are his own and do not reflect the opinions of Canary Trap)