From a cricket-loving boy to a hardened jehadi

Rahul Chhabra / TNN / Nov 1, 2005, 02:23 IST

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Ashfaq Ahmad, mastermind behind the LeT attack on Red Fort in December 2000, has been handed a death penalty by a city court.

From a cricket-loving boy to a hardened jehadi

NEW DELHI: Ashfaq Ahmad, the mastermind behind the LeT attack on Red Fort in December 2000, has been handed a death penalty by a city court. Two soldiers and a civilian were killed in the attack.
Ashfaq was a normal, fun-loving Pakistani college boy till a decade ago. He bunked classes to see his favourite Hindi films in Karachi. But all this ended in 1994 when he came under the influence of LeT.
Almost overnight, the graduate from Post Graduate College, Ebtabad, turned into a jehadi. His life changed irrevocably, the happy-go-lucky days of college ended and his belief in what he thought was 'true Islam' deepened.
Like most people from the sub-continent, his heart lay in playing cricket. But after joining the LeT he believes cricket is against the ideals of Islam. "Playing cricket is just a waste of time," he says.

His love for ghazals, however, has dampened after five years of custody in a foreign land and also because of the influence of zealot ideology. "Hamid Ali Khan and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan were my favourite artistes," says the cable operator from Ebtabad, who later took to teaching at a Lashkar school before joining the subversive groups.
But music stopped being his weakness ever since he joined the ranks of LeT. "My religion, however, prohibits self-entertainment," he had told The Times of India in an interview earlier.
This 33-year-old man from Pakistan misses dal makhani in Dal Walah hotel in mohalla Tubewell Number 1 back home in Ebtabad in Karachi. And chances are, he will never get to savour his favourite dal makhani again.
His mission to India has been an eye-opener about the state of Muslims here. "We were told Muslims were being oppressed and wronged in India. But this is not so. There are enough Muslims in India to counter the so-called oppression, jehadis from across the border are not needed at all," he says.

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