Terror attack: The twain did meet

All terror attacks bring rival political parties together for a moment, but soon these become convenient tools for electioneering. However, 12 years on, as it draws to a close, the 2007 Samjhauta Express twin blasts case seems to have become an exception. Both the Congress and BJP agree that there never was anything like ‘saffron terror’ in India.


For the Congress, it’s quite a departure since 2013 when two successive Union home ministers during the UPA rule had talked of ‘saffron terror’. Today, the party is unwilling to touch the term even with a 10-foot-long pole. Congress national spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil told TOI, “Party considers terrorism an enemy of the public. It has no colour, caste, creed or religion. My party has never officially used the ‘saffron terror’ term.”

In his assertion he sounds eerily similar to RSS ideologue Indresh Kumar, who was once named in saffron terror cases, though not officially. “There never was anything like saffron terror,” he told TOI. “They (the Congress) tried hard, but could not include my name even in an FIR in any of the cases. The Congress was trying to take revenge.”

“Today, they are bowing down to sants wearing saffron and displaying ‘janau’. This way the Congress is trying to show that they are repentant,” Kumar says, adding that people “falsely accused” in the four saffron terror cases —

Malegaon

, Mecca Masjid, Ajmer Sharif, and Samjhauta Express — were slowly getting justice in the form of acquittals and bails.

“It is the duty of whichever party is in power to ensure independent probe is carried put and cases taken to conclusion,” Gohil says talking about the legal proceedings.

The obvious change since 2007-2013 to 2019 is not just that BJP has replaced the Congress at the Centre. The way politics around ‘Hindutva’ has shaped up in last few years has made the Congress wary of the narrative too. Even as the cases close, the questions remain unanswered — was there ever anything like saffron/Hindu extremism?

Union home ministers P Chidambaram and Shushil Kumar Shinde had minced no words about the role of Hindu extremists in the blasts. Shinde went to the extent of warning about RSS and BJP roles in spreading the menace. He later apologised.

However, within days, the then home secretary R K Singh came on record saying, “We have names of at least 10 persons involved in Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid and Dargah Sharif blasts who were associated with RSS.” He is now a minister in the NDA government.

Predecessor of Chidambaram and Shinde, Shivraj Patil had refused to give religious colour to the terror plots. It took couple of years before the Congress government moved from accusing Safdar Nagori of SIMI, Arif Qasmani and Lashkar-e-Taiba to Abhinav Bharat and “misguided” officers of Indian Army. But once it started, the party went on doggedly.

Common Thread
At one point, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had outlined the common ‘Hindu terrorism’ link in blasts in Malegaon, Mecca Masjid, Ajmer Sharif, and Samjhauta Express. Over 90 people have died in these terror attacks, 68 of them, mostly Pakistanis, in the twin-blasts in Samjhauta Express train alone.

Here is the latest in other cases: Earlier this month, the Bombay high court pulled up NIA for employing ‘delay tactics’ in Malegaon blast case trial. In April 2018, a special anti-terror court acquitted right-wing activist Swami

Aseemanand

and four others in the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast case. Bhavesh Patel, a convict in Ajmer dargah blast case, was released on bail by the Rajasthan high court in September 2018 and, a week later, he was given a hero’s welcome in Bharuch of Gujarat.

International Implications

While India looks for a surgical strike (Uri attack) type of response again for Pulwama attack, it has been asking Pakistan to prosecute those behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks. This is where the Samjhauta blasts case has come as a sort of balancer for the neighbouring country. Whenever India seeks action in the 2008 case, Pakistan asks that it should punish those behind Samjhauta blasts as most of those killed were its citizens. Pakistan has also called these blasts “mainstreaming of terrorism in India”.