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INTERVIEW:
ASHFAQ AHMED
"Jehad
Was My Motivation"
Lashkar-e-Toiba
activist arrested in the red fort case
 Sixteen
months ago Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET)'s Ashfaq Ahmed, 28, arrived in India.
His mission: jehad. Two days after his arrest for organising the Red Fort
killings, he spoke to Principal Correspondent Sayantan
Chakravarty.
Q. Did
the police shoot a genuine militant or an innocent Indian?
A.
Abu
Shamaal, the man shot down, was very much a Lashkar militant. He's from
Lahore and entered Delhi on December 19.
Q. What
kind of training did you receive for the operation at Red Fort?
A.
I was funded to the tune of Rs 6 lakh. I received my training in arms
at Muzaffarabad (PoK). I underwent a 21-day Dora-e-Am at the Abdullah
Bin Masood camp in December 1998. From January 1999 I went through the
Dora-e-Khas for 90 days.
Q. What
were you told at camps?
A.
We
were motivated for jehad. We heard religious speeches.
Q. Why
did they select you for the Delhi operation?
A.
Abu Bilal, my area commander in Srinagar, found me the most articulate
and educated in the group sent to India. I am a graduate in civics and
English from Abbotabad in NWFP.
Q. What
was your role in Delhi?
A.
I
was to act as the facilitator for those sent by the let. I rented the
room at Batla House for the others, including Shamaal.
Q. You
were told in Pakistan that Muslims in India are tortured, persecuted.
Has your impression changed?
A.
The situation is better than what we had been told.
Q. Is
Lashkar still recruiting?
A.
When
I came to India in August 1998 there were around 1,750 men in its ranks.
When Shamaal came in December, it had gone up to 2,250.
Q. Why
did you target Red Fort?
A.
It is the symbol of free India, where the tricolour was first unfurled.
The Red Fort is also something that the army guards. We wanted to attack
a symbol like this.
Q. What
were your plans in India?
A.
Lashkar
wanted me to create bases in Jammu or Lucknow. I had other plans though.
Q. Like?
A.
I thought I would start my own general store in Delhi and settle down.
Q. And
never go back?
A.
Well, if I ditched Lashkar there was no way I could return to Pakistan
to my family.
Q. You
left a normal life for the gun. Motivation was the key.
A.
On
October 17, 1997, Abdul Wahid, a priest in Abbotabad, delivered a fiery
speech asking the youth to join the jehad for a free Kashmir. That was
when I decided to join the jehad.
COUNTER
TERRORISM
Neither Policy Nor Law
The dangers
to it are less threatening but the US has had a straightforward counter-terrorism
policy in place for years: make no concessions to terrorists and strike
no deals; bring terrorists to justice; and isolate and apply pressure
on states that sponsor terrorism to make them change.
For India,
terrorism has been "Threat No. 1'' since the early 1980s. But after
two decades there is neither a policy nor a broad outline. In fact, there
aren't adequate laws to deal with the growing menace that former Punjab
director-general of police K.P.S. Gill says is "aimed at undermining
the state".
The archaic
Indian Penal Code does not define a terrorist. It still talks of "thugs"
and "dacoits". Similarly, explosives don't include substances
like RDX. Apart from the Disturbed Areas Act, insurgency-affected states
like Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and Manipur are governed by virtually the
same laws as other states. But as Gurbachan Jagat, former Jammu and Kashmir
DGP and current chief of the BSF, puts it, "The threat is no longer
confined to a few states. The ISI has branched out all over India and
there are no laws to deal with inter-state movements." A police team
from Kashmir, for instance, cannot make arrests in another state unless
the local police cooperates. Similarly, the Intelligence Bureau, often
armed with specific information has to await local cooperation because
it does not have statutory powers to arrest. Moreover, rivalries and one-upmanship
games of different police forces prevent a cohesive anti-terrorist strategy
from emerging. The ISI exploits this fully.
The only
law designed to deal with the terrorist threat-TADA-was repealed in 1996
following an outcry that it was directed against minorities. In early
1999 the Law Commission came up with a draft Prevention of Terrorism Bill
but the Government shied away from enacting it after human rights activists
and some states opposed it for being another version of TADA.
Last September,
the Home Ministry, with inputs from intelligence agencies, proposed a
federal agency investigating terrorist crimes. While a conference of police
chiefs endorsed the idea, it was opposed at the conference of chief ministers.
For lack of political agreement, a fire-fighting approach of pumping in
troops persists. The roots of the problem are rarely addressed. Like how
the administration in Manipur is subverted to the extent where even senior
bureaucrats pay 10 per cent of their salaries as taxes to insurgents.
-Harinder
Baweja
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