Pakistan unfazed over U.S. “raid plan”

By ANITA JOSHUA

Pakistan on Tuesday remained outwardly unfazed by a New York Times report suggesting senior American military commanders in Afghanistan were pushing for an expansion of Special Operations ground raids across the border into Pakistan's tribal areas.

Without commenting on the veracity of the report, Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said: "The U.S. knows our position and redlines. We do not expect the U.S. to complicate matters involving counter-terrorism." Maintaining that Pakistani security forces were capable of handling terrorists and militants, he said, "There is no question of allowing foreign troops inside Pakistan".

As for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan trying to extend its operations to Pakistan, Mr. Basit said it had no such mandate. "We will not accept violation of our sovereignty."

Part of the reason for Pakistan's quiet response to the report is the way it made NATO sweat in October after a couple of ISAF helicopters intruded Pakistani airspace and killed Frontier Corps personnel positioned along the Afghanistan border. Islamabad closed its border with Afghanistan for ISAF supply trucks resulting in a blockade and an apology from NATO and the U.S. Pakistan is a major supply route for non-military cargo for ISAF. Having successfully communicated its position to NATO in that instance, Islamabad appears confident ISAF will not attempt another such misadventure in a hurry however desperate the U.S. may be to begin troop withdrawal from Afghanistan from July 2011.

The U.S. wants Pakistan to begin operations in North Waziristan as sanitising this "safe haven" of terrorists is seen as crucial to the success of the Global War on Terror. But on-record briefings by the American civil and military leadership in recent days suggest Washington has accepted Islamabad's contention that it will do so at a time of its choosing.

While the Pakistan government has till now maintained that a final decision on when to launch operations in North Waziristan would be taken by the military, Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani was recently quoted by the media as saying the last call would be of the civilian administration.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported from Kabul that NATO had denied the NYT report. U.S. Rear-Admiral Gregory Smith, NATO's deputy chief of communications, was quoted saying ISAF and its Afghan partners had developed a strong working relationship with the Pakistani military to address shared security issues. "This coordination recognises the sovereignty of Afghanistan and Pakistan to pursue insurgents and terrorists operative in respective border areas."

Cause for thought

Anwer Mooraj

Another dreary year is coming to an end. And the future of this country looks as bleak as ever. Mr Faisal Subzwari, who is high up in the pecking order of the MQM, announced earlier this week that members of his party were resigning from 'impotent' ministries. Perhaps he meant 'inept' ministries because when it comes to spending money, they are unusually fertile. The resignation was not at all unexpected, what with the ongoing verbal sparring with the Sindh home minister. But what did take the city's resident cynic by surprise was the rather terse news item published a fortnight ago about a delegation from the MQM calling on Pir Pagara to discuss - amazing as it may seem - the situation in the country!

Was the visit fired by an irresistible urge to ferret out the conservative mind, or a mawkish, let's cock-a-snook intrusion into a camp that represents the quintessence of political retrogression? Or was it just an attempt to secure an ally against an intrepid foe? The pir radiates influence saturated with instant punditry. He is also the spiritual head of the Hurr tribe and is regarded as a fountain of wisdom by politicians of every persuasion. But as he represents the crystallised thinking of the feudal aristocracy, he can't possibly speak for the poor peasants as the MQM purports to do.

This writer is not privy to what was discussed in the meeting, but it is most unlikely that the two parties touched on the real issues afflicting the country. These were identified in an excellent editorial which appeared in one of the country's newspapers, bits and pieces of which are being reproduced from memory.

"Does a man who cannot feed his wife and children really care whether or not Mr Pervez Musharraf is tried for treason? Is a mother whose child has died of gastroenteritis likely to give much thought to the fact that American drones are killing civilians in Waziristan ?… Food inflation is forcing parents to pull their children out of school…Street crime is rampant in a country where human life is worth less than the cost of a cell phone. Yet our political leaders appear oblivious to the misery that is everywhere. They seem to have no perspective, no grip on reality…They are more concerned with political alliances than the welfare of the people."

If the late Deng Hsaio Ping, architect of modern China, or Mr Lee Kwan Yew, father of modern Singapore, had written the editorial, they would most certainly have added that the economy in Pakistan is also up the spout. A glance at recent State Bank reports will indicate that, except for remittances from abroad, there is hardly any indicator that is showing signs of improvement. So far, there doesn't appear to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

The writer served as executive director of the Pakistan American Cultural Center from 1990-2004 anwer.mooraj@tribune.com.pk

Policy on Afghanistan: Pakistan should not follow US diktats

Pakistan needs to develop an indigenous narrative keeping in view its legitimate interests and not just follow the diktats through the US strategic policy reviews for Afghanistan.

This was stated by experts, analysts and subject-specialists at a seminar on US security, policy in Afghanistan and its implication for Pakistan, organised by PILDAT. The seminar aimed at covering two issues: how the US Congress influences security/defence policies and, to understand what implications does the new NATO/Lisbon agreement and recent US strategy review in Afghanistan have for the civil-military relations in Pakistan.

Ziad Haider former Foreign Policy Adviser to US Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Vice Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Dr Hasan Askari-Rizvi defence and policy analyst Dr Riffat Hussain, Chairman Department of Defence and Strategic Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) spoke on the occasion.

Mr Haider briefed the gathering on how US Congress shapes Pakistan specific policies, the working of the US Congress especially in the contest of Kerry-Lugar-Berman law highlighting the inherent stresses in the US legislative and executive branches.

While foreign policy remains the domain of the executive in the US, there are instances where Congress has guided policy such as through the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act.

He said to think that the US speaks with one voice on Pakistan would not be true as different interests, varying levels of understanding a host of players are at play.

This provides an opportunity to Pakistan to better influence and shape policies on the Capitol Hill and at the White House. He pointed out that like legislatures the world around, Congress too has sliding public approval rating of about 13 per cent but its power of the purse makes it a formidable institution.

He said that the American public is weary of the longest wars of the US, Afghanistan but Obama may find the strangest of allies in the Republicans for support of the war.

Presenting an overview of the "Lisbon Summit Declaration and US Strategy Review and Implications for Civil-Military Relations in Pakistan," Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi said US is in a difficult transition regarding the policy of Afghanistan and has had goal adjustments in Afghanistan and the objective is no longer total military victory. It is pursuing what can be termed as the policy of gradual withdrawal but has no clear framework for talks and reconciliation with Taliban either. It has not had any significant success in 2010 despite the surge in troops.

He said while Pakistan and the US may have goal-sharing at some level to fight extremism, it is the strategizing where the two sides differ. He said while Pakistan military has continued to gain political power and the civilian government has totally conceded foreign policy to the military, the military will continue to require civilian political support in days to come for counter-insurgency operations.

Speaking on the occasion Dr Riffat Hussain said that Pakistan needs to critically examine the latest US strategic review of Afghanistan and pointed out areas where the US vowed to focus, including more drone attacks inside Pakistan and a greater pressure on Pakistan to do more. He was of the opinion that the army chief has continued to take the civilian administration on board on key issues.

Aasiya Riaz, Join Director PILDAT, emphasized the need for the parliament and parliamentary parties to take initiative and proactive approach in critically analyzing Pakistan's own stakes in the war and lead a narrative with institutional input of the military.

She said that strategic scapegoating of Pakistan by the US, in a war in which it has not achieved success in 10 years, seems to be the only dominant narrative internationally to the ire of the Pakistani citizens which needs to be factually countered by Pakistan.

The civil and military components of the state need to develop coherent and interest-based policies of not just during the time of US and NATO military presence in Afghanistan but beyond it as well.

Quick exit: Foreign relief workers given marching orders

Pakistan last week asked all foreigners, including US nationals, engaged in flood relief activities to leave the country by December 30 at the latest, official sources told The Express Tribune.

The government order will be applicable on all foreigners working in different parts of the country in their individual capacities, the source said.

All concerned persons have been told that their visas will not be extended after December 30, sources added.

Islamabad had sent letters to the Federal Investigation Agency's (FIA) provincial officials to ensure that all foreigners, particularly US nationals, leave Pakistan within the stipulated time.


"Inform the FIA headquarters in case any of them try to prolong their stay under any pretext," the letter directed the officials in the provinces. "They will have to leave Pakistan by December 30 as their jobs have been completed," it added.

A senior official of the FIA, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) when contacted by The Express Tribune, confirmed having received the letter last weekend. He refused to explain the reason behind the federal government's decision. "Yes we have received a letter to that effect," he said, requesting anonymity.

Another source in the special branch of police, Peshawar, told The Express Tribune that a security concern may be the reason for the issue at hand.

Meanwhile, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) chief has asked all foreign relief agencies involved in flood relief operations, including the UN aid workers, to discontinue their activities by January 30, 2011.

The NDMA chairman (retd) Lt Gen Nadeem Ahmed has sent letters to all foreign NGOs and relief agencies asking them to pack up by the said deadline. In a letter faxed to the UN humanitarian coordinator the NDMA chairman said, "The national disaster management authority highly appreciates the support by the entire humanitarian community, including the UN and their lead coordination agencies during the relief operation for one of the worst natural disasters ever faced by a nation."

"Keeping in view the magnitude of the disaster, it would not have been possible for the Government of Pakistan to manage the situation so effectively on its own, without help from the humanitarian community in delivering relief."

"Currently, nearly five months later, we feel satisfied to note that the situation is approaching a stable stage very fast."

"The government had decided to conduct relief activities till the end of January 2011, hence the humanitarian community, UN agencies and concerned clusters are advised to shut down their relief operations in the affected areas by January 31, with the exception of some areas of Sindh and Balochistan where water is still standing and people are unable to return to their homes."

Details of the areas in question will be intimated to all concerned sections by the end of December, the letter concluded.

Mossad, CIA Supporting Terrorists against Iran, Pakistan

FNA

TEHRAN - Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar underlined that the US and Israeli spy agencies equip the anti-Iran terrorist cells based in Pakistan.

Speaking to reporters here in Tehran on Tuesday, Najjar said that a group of terrorists who are based in Pakistan and commute across the border to stage terrorist operations against Iran "are equipped by Mossad and the CIA".

"Iran has asked the Pakistani government to rapidly extradite these criminals (to Iran) and stop their activities on Pakistan's soil," Najjar noted.

"We hope that the Pakistani government fulfills its pledges and hands them over to Iran," the Iranian minister stated.

Elsewhere, Najjar announced that Iranian security forces have already arrested a number of elements behind the recent bombing in Iran's Southeastern port city of Chabahar, and underlined that the country would punish the main terrorists behind the attack soon.

At least 38 people, including women and children, were killed and 95 others were wounded in a suicide bomb blast in Chabahar on December 15.

The attack took place outside Imam Hossein Mosque in the port city of Chabahar, in Sistan and Balouchestan province, near the border with Pakistan.

The Pakistani-based Jundollah terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Jundollah group has claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist attacks in Iran. The group has carried out mass murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, acts of sabotage and bombings. They have targeted civilians and government officials as well as all ranks of Iran's military.

In one of the worst cases, the terrorist group killed 22 citizens and abducted 7 more in the Tasouki region on a road linking the southeastern city of Zahedan to another provincial town.

In 2007, Jundollah kidnapped 30 people in the Sistan and Balouchestan province and took them to the neighboring Pakistan.

Jundollah claimed responsibility the same year for an attack on an Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) bus in which 11 IRGC personnel were killed.

In another crime in October 2009, the Pakistan-based terrorist Jundollah group claimed responsibility for a deadly attack in the Sistan and Balouchestan province, which killed 42 people among them a group of senior military commanders, including Lieutenant Commander of the IRGC Ground Force Brigadier General Nourali Shoushtari.

Pentagon notifies Congress of potential chopper sale to India

PTI

With India inviting proposals from foreign suppliers, the Pentagon has notified the US Congress about the possible sale of 22 Apache helicopters and that of AGM-84L Harpoon Block II missiles to the country at a potential cost of USD 1.6 billion.

The US Defense Department said India has requested proposals from several foreign suppliers, including the US, to provide the next generation attack helicopter for the Indian Air Force.

In this competition, India has yet to select the Boeing-United States Army proposal.

"This notification is being made in advance so that, in the event that the Boeing-US Army proposal is selected, the United States might move as quickly as possible to implement the sale," it said.

The two potential sales, notified to the Congress separately are worth USD 1.6 billion.

The largest sale worth USD 1.4 billion is that of AH-64D Block III Apache helicopters which includes engines, equipment, weapons, training, parts and logistical support.

The second sale of USD 200 million is the package of 21 AGM-84L HARPOON Block II Missiles and associated equipment, parts and logistical support.

"This proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to strengthen the US-India strategic relationship and to improve the security of an important partner which continues to be an important force for political stability, peace, and economic progress in South Asia," said the Defense Security Cooperation Agency in a statement.

"The proposed sale in support of AH-64D helicopters will improve India's capability to strengthen its homeland defense and deter regional threats.

"This support for the AH-64D will provide an incremental increase in India's defensive capability to counter ground-armoured threats and modernise its armed forces," it said.


"India will have no difficulty absorbing this helicopter support into its armed forces," it said.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency informed the Congress that India intends to use the missiles on its Indian Navy P-8I Neptune maritime patrol aircraft which will provide enhanced capabilities in effective defense of critical sea lines of communication.

India has already purchased HARPOON Block II missiles for integration on the Indian Air Force Jaguar aircraft and will have no difficulty absorbing these weapons into its armed forces, it said.

New Delhi, We Have a Problem: India's Space Program Hits Turbulence

If the history of modern rocketry teaches anything, it's that sooner or later, stuff will blow up. When you pour thousands of gallons of combustible fuel into 15-story machines and then ignite the whole stack, the occasional explosion is simply going to be the cost of doing business. What you have to hope is that no one gets hurt, and if at all possible, no one's watching.


The spectacular Christmas-day explosion of India's new Geo-Synchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV) - a gleaming 167-ft. (51m) tower of rocket - spared the country the deaths that sometimes accompany space disasters, but the public humiliation was another matter. Crowds swarmed the Satish Sahwan Space Center in Andhra Pradesh in anticipation of the launch and millions more watched live on TV as the GSLV's engines were lit at 4:04 PM. Forty-seven seconds later, engineers on the ground lost control of the vehicle. Sixteen seconds after that, they blew the haywire rocket up. A booster that was supposed to carry a critical telecommunications satellite into high-Earth orbit instead met its end just eight miles (13 km) over the Bay of Bengal.

More was lost in the GSLV disaster than a $39 million (1.75 billion rupee) rocket and its satellite payload. Also badly damaged was India's long-pursued rep as a major player in the commercial rocket game. This is not the first GSLV that has failed to fly; the booster has a record of four disasters in seven tries over the past 10 years - the most recent just last April.


"The GSLV has had only a 50% success rate," says Ajey Lele, space expert at the Institute of Defense and Security Analysis in New Delhi. "India has wanted to have the technology and the facility [to launch heavy payloads] on its own soil. Now that will not happen in the near future." But with China, Japan, the U.S. and other countries all chasing the same global business with their own fleet of rockets, the near future may be all the time the Indian program has.

India has had a big - if unheralded - presence in the space community for a long time. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) - essentially India's NASA - was established in 1969 with the mission of focusing exclusively on launching communications and Earth observation satellites, programs that have immediate benefits for people on the ground and were seen as the only legitimate business a country as poor as India had in space.

ISRO did well with its limited portfolio, but things changed in 1999, when the country - puffed up after a series of successful nuclear tests the year before - decided to aim higher, planning for unmanned missions to the moon and manned missions into Earth orbit. In 2008, the Chandrayaan-1 lunar spacecraft made good on part of that promise, not only successfully orbiting the moon, but making a significant - indeed, landmark- discovery about the surprising quantity of water mixed in with the lunar soil. Meantime, the smaller predecessor of the GSLV was making a name for itself as a reliable commercial launcher, with a string of 16 successful launches against no failures. The GSLV was seen as the next logical step in a rapidly advancing program: a three-stage, heavy-lift rocket suitable for bigger payloads and crews.

But the ambitious design of the rocket may be its undoing. The problem that led to the explosion occurred in the first stage - a giant liquid-fueled engine surrounded by four, strap-on solid fuel rockets. Strap-ons, as designers know, are a great way to add oomph to a booster; the more power you need, the more solids you attach. But multiple engines mean increased complexity - not to mention the need to coordinate the exact amount of thrust each motor is producing, the exact moment ignition takes place and the tricky acoustical business of controlling vibrations. The fact that it's that stage that failed this time was not surprising but it was disappointing, since in the April launch it worked perfectly; it was the second, simpler stage that failed that time. Another former ISRO chief called the nature of this most recent accident nothing short of "a national setback."

For the moment it's unclear whether it's a setback the space agency can recover from in time. Sorting out multiple glitches in multiple stages is a time-consuming business, and even one more failure could irreparably destroy the GSLV's image. Ultimately, the global market for heavy-lift flight could simply leave India behind. Uncertain too will be the scheduled 2015 launch of the Chandrayaan II, a joint Indian-Russian moon mission that's intended to carry both a lunar satellite and a rover and was slated to be launched on a GSLV. Even less certain is the launch of the first Indian astronauts - or vyomanauts - a mission that did not yet even have a target date and is less likely than ever to get one until the big booster proves itself.


India's economic and technological growth have been extraordinary over the past ten years, but as the U.S. and Russia learned over the previous fifty, there is nothing that challenges a country's scientific and industrial base like trying to take those first steps into space. The GSLV may yet recover, and vyomanauts may yet ride it to glory, but the path won't be easy. It never, ever is.

Court martial finds Colonel guilty of abusing subordinate, asking another to strip

A Colonel has been "severely reprimanded" by the Army after a General Court Martial (GCM) found him guilty of abusing one of his subordinates and asking another to strip.

Colonel Vikramjeet Singh, the then Commandant of 39 Assam Rifles, was deployed in the North-East at the time of the incident where he allegedly asked one of his unit's Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs) to strip for not producing an official document.

The GCM had also levelled two other charges against him including that of hurling abuses at the Subedar Major of the Unit and of stripping another Naib Subedar naked but the officer was acquitted of the last charge.

Contending that he was "falsely framed up", Singh has approached the Armed Forces Tribunal urging it to quash the GCM, which awarded him a sentence of forfeiture of two years past service for the purpose of pension and to be severely reprimanded. The Army action will also adversely impact on his promotions.

"Sentence of GCM should be quashed and set aside with it being legally unsustainable on the point of evidence, with heavy compensation for the harassment, humiliation and loss of prestige in the Army," Singh's counsel Major K Ramesh said here.

He claimed that Singh was a strict Commanding Officer and the personnel of Assam Rifles could not digest this work under stress and strain and a handful of disgruntled men even allegedly used criminal force one day against him in his office and thus committed an offence of mutiny.

"Instead of taking cognizance of this serious offence against the JCO the Army authorities heard their sob story and made out offences allegedly committed 2-3 years ago against Singh," Ramesh added.

He said even in the GCM, Singh has been cleared off the charge of stripping the JCO naked, which was the most serious allegation against him.

Benazir Bhutto’s assassination: PPP lawmaker points finger at security establishment

A lawmaker from the ruling PPP has pointed a finger at the country's security establishment for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto as the government promised it will make public an investigation report into the high-profile murder.

"Those who prepared mujahideen for the sake of American dollars and then nurtured another generation of terrorists for more dollars are behind her (Bhutto) murder," said MNA Nadeem Afzal Gondal in the National Assembly.

Though the statement carried a not-so-veiled reference to the country's top spy agency, Gondal preferred not to name an individual or institution.

He also said that as the head of a parliamentary committee that probed the murder of a Baloch youth, he found out that a serving colonel of the Pakistan Army killed the youth. "The killers of Benazir Bhutto are the same," he said.

Another PPP lawmaker, Nawab Yousaf Talpur said the government would present a report into Benazir's murder to the party's Central Executive Committee (CEC). That will also be made public, he added.

Earlier, several members from the opposition asked the government to explain why it had failed to punish Benazir's murderers despite being in power for almost three years.


Drone strikes

The ruling PPP appeared to be backing calls from the opposition for a review of the national anti-terror policy that envisages putting an end to drone strikes inside the tribal regions.


PPP Information Secretary Fauzia Wahab said the government supported demands for holding a debate in parliament on Pakistan's role in the global war on terror but rejected a call to convene an all parties' conference for this purpose.

"The debate should be here (in parliament) … it is the most appropriate forum for that," Fauzia told the house after opposition MPs said that the government must overhaul what they called a flawed security and foreign policy.

But Fauzia urged the parliamentarians to also debate rising trends of militancy and extremism in the country and suggest a way out.

Muttahida Qaumi Move­ment's (MQM) Wasim Akhtar demanded an all parties' conference to also discuss what he called rising corruption in the government departments.


Disfiguring women's face

Women lawmakers from across the house voiced support for enhancing punishment for those involved in throwing acid on women's faces or disfiguring parts of their bodies.


But a bill on domestic violence that PPP's Justice (retd) Fakhrunnisa wanted the house to pass was deferred till next week to incorporate suggestions from other members in an attempt to make it comprehensive.

Terrorists in the making: In the name of ‘martyrdom’

Iftikhar Firdous

PESHAWAR: "You will go to heaven before any of us, if you blow up yourself the way I tell you," Meena Gul recounted the persuasive promise of her brother, a Taliban commander.

The twelve-year-old girl was apprehended by security personnel from the Munda area on the boundary of Dir district and Bajaur Agency in January.

Meena Gul managed to escape from the clutches of the Taliban in Charmang when militants' hideouts were reduced to ashes in the bombardment. Her story, distressful in itself, was overshadowed by an ominous revelation of a women's wing of the Taliban across the border to carry out suicide attacks.

"My sister-in-law, Zainab, was responsible for their training. She escorted eight women from our village to Afghanistan," Gul told The Express Tribune. Zainab battled Pakistani forces dressed as a man.

"My younger sister blew herself up in a suicide attack in Afghanistan. I, however, managed to escape. I was too scared," Gul confessed.

A police officer burst into laughter on that cold winter morning at the DPO's office in Lower Dir at the incredible disclosure. "Has the child lost her mind?" He exclaimed. "She cannot be taken seriously," added another.

Gul's words proved to be true when a burqa-clad suicide bomber detonated explosives, killing some 47 people and injuring over a hundred, 11 months later.

Meena Gul was a resident of Afghanistan. At the time, the police record showed her family had travelled across the country, residing in Karachi, Lahore and refugee camps in Peshawar.

The last suicide attack by a woman was in December 2007; she blew up herself at a checkpoint in the heart of Peshawar. It was also the first. The woman in her thirties, enveloped in a burqa, was the only casualty.

She was also identified by the authorities as an Afghan. But at the time they insisted she was more of a carrier than a bomber.

"The perpetrators of the Bajaur bombing were from Afghanistan," said Corps Commander Peshawar, Asif Yasin Malik, on his visit to Bajaur Agency.

He condoled with the tribesmen, promising them that those involved in the massacre of innocent people will be brought to justice.

"People in the tribal belt are being influenced from across the border," he stated.

The TTP has always acknowledged their women's wing. They have been mentioned in the FM broadcasts of Maulvi Faqir Muhammad in Bajaur and the absconding chief of the TTP chapter in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah.

Enforcing greater gender equality in security checks implies stepping on a minefield of cultural constraints.

Searching women is considered taboo in Pakistan's more conservative Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Fata.

If women are seated in a vehicle, it is typically not checked by security personnel.

The threat of terrorism is so pervasive that the centuries-old tradition of automatically excluding women from being suspect in crimes against humanity may have to be revised.

"Like all other cultural values distorted by the ongoing war, it is the sanctity of women that is now at stake," concludes Sabir Shah, a resident of Peshawar.

Yvonne Ridley slams US moral selectivity

By Yvonne Ridley

I wonder if Hillary Clinton really believes in the pompous invective that shoots from her lips with the rapidity of machine gun fire.

We had a classic example of it just the other day when she let rip in her grating, robotic monotones over a Moscow court's decision to jail an oil tycoon.

To be fair to Clinton, she was not alone. There was a whole gaggle of disapproving foreign ministers who poured forth their ridiculous brand of Western arrogance which has poisoned the international atmosphere for far too long.

The US Secretary of State said Mikhail Khodorkovsky's conviction raised "serious questions about selective prosecution and about the rule of law being overshadowed by political considerations".

Although Khodorkovsky, 47, and his business partner, Platon Lebedev, 54, were found guilty of theft and money laundering by a Moscow court, critics like Clinton say the trial constitutes revenge for the tycoon's questioning of a state monopoly on oil pipelines and propping up political parties that oppose the Kremlin.

Clinton's censure was echoed by politicians in Britain and Germany, and Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, urged Moscow to "respect its international commitments in the field of human rights and the rule of law".

Now while it may appear to be quite touching to see all these Western leaders express their outrage over a trial involving the one-time richest and most powerful man in Russia's oil and gas industry, you have to ask where were these moral guardians when other unjust legal decisions were being made in US courts, for example?

So why have the Americans and Europeans rushed to make very public and official statements so quickly on a matter of oil and gas, in another country? Okay, so it is a rhetorical question!

But shouldn't Clinton put a sock in it? The USA is still squatting in Cuba overseeing the continuing festering mess caused by one of the biggest boil's on the face of human rights - yes, Guantanamo is approaching a decade of incarcerating men without charge or trial. At least Khodorkovsky had his day in an open court and can appeal.

Instead of sticking her nose in to other country's courts, perhaps the US Secretary of State would care to look into her own backyard and tell us why one of her soldiers was given a mere nine month sentence earlier this month after shooting unarmed civilians in Afghanistan?

And after he's served his sentence US army medic Robert Stevens can still remain in the army, ruled the military hearing. His defence was that he and other soldiers were purely acting on orders from a squad leader during a patrol in March in Kandahar.

Five of the 12 soldiers named in the case are accused of premeditated murder in the most serious prosecution of atrocities by US military personnel since the war began in late 2001. Some even collected severed fingers and other human remains from the Afghan dead as war trophies before taking photos with the corpses.

By comparison, just a few months earlier, Dr Aafia Siddiqui, was given 86 years for attempting to shoot US soldiers … the alleged incident happened while she was in US custody, in Afghanistan. She didn't shoot anyone although she WAS shot at point blank range by the soldiers. The critically injured Pakistani citizen was then renditioned for a trial in New York. The hearing was judged to be illegal and out of US jurisdiction by many international lawyers.

Did Clinton have anything to say about that? Did any of the foreign ministers in the West raise these issues on any public platform anywhere in the world? Again, it's a rhetorical question.

Of course a few poorly trained US Army grunts, scores of innocent Afghans, nearly 200 Arab men in Cuba and one female academic from Pakistan are pretty small fry compared to an oil rich tycoon who doesn't like Vladamir Putin.

But being poor is not a crime.

Exactly how would the Obama Administration have reacted if Russian President Dmitry Medvedev criticized the lack of even handedness in the US judicial system and demanded Dr Aafia Siddiqui be repatriated? What would be the response if Medvedev called an international press conference and demanded to know why 174 men are still being held in Guantanamo without charge or trial?

Just for the record the US judicial system imposes life sentences for serious tax avoidance and laundering of criminally-received income - crimes for which the Russian tycoon has been found guilty. Sentencing will not take place until Moscow trial judge, Viktor Danilkin, finishes reading his 250-page verdict, which could take several days.

In her comments Clinton said the case had a "negative impact on Russia's reputation for fulfilling its international human rights obligations and improving its investment climate".

How on earth can anyone treat the US Secretary of State seriously when she comes out with this sort of pot, kettle, black rhetoric? This from a nation which is morally and financially bankrupt, a country which introduced words like rendition and water-boarding into common day usage.

My advice to Clinton is do not lecture anyone about human rights and legal issues until you clean up your own backyard. In fact the next time she decides to open her mouth perhaps one of her aides can do us all a favour and ram in a slice of humble pie.

British journalist Yvonne Ridley is the European President of the International Muslim Women's Union as well as being a patron of Cageprisoners.

If Obama Could Keep America First!

The headline is not meant to imply that I think he will. As things are he can't because of the stranglehold on American policy for Israel/Palestine of the Zionist lobby and its stooges in Congress, the mainstream media and many institutions of state including the Pentagon and intelligence agencies. My purpose is only to offer an answer to this question: What could happen if President Obama was able to put America's own real interests first?

The answer has to begin with the statement (echoed by Mearsheimer and Walt and a growing number of respected and influential others) that unconditional support for the Zionist state of Israel right or wrong is not in America's own best interests because it's a prime cause of Arab and other Muslim hurt and humiliation, which is being transformed into a rising tide of anti-Americanism. To that can be added a related truth. America doesn't have to have 1.5 billion Muslims (nearly one quarter of humankind) as enemies. Most Muslims do not hate America or Americans. What they do hate is the double-standard of American (and all Western) foreign policy, in particular its refusal to call and hold Israel to account for its crimes.

To put anti-Americanism into its true Arab perspective, I offered this thought in the Introduction to The False Messiah, Volume One of the American edition of my book, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews .

If it had been possible for an American President to wave a magic wand and have Israel back behind more or less its borders as they were on the eve of the 1967 war, with a Palestinian state in existence on the Arab land from which Israel had withdrawn as required by UN Security Council Resolution 242, and with Jerusalem an open, undivided city the capital of two states, the U.S. would have had, overnight, with one wave of that magic wand,the respect, friendship and support of not less than 95 per cent of all Arabs and very probably that of almost all Muslims everywhere. And if the President had also pressed the Arab regimes to be serious about democratizing their countries, the U.S. would have become the champion of the Arab masses, truly admired by them as it was when President Woodrow Wilson was in the White House.

In passing I'll add that since I first wrote those words, I have addressed Arab and other Muslim audiences up and down the UK, in America and Canada and as far afield as India. On each and every platform I asked audiences if I was naïve for believing that an American president who did whatever was necessary to secure justice for the Palestinians would be rewarded with the respect, friendship and support of almost all Arabs and other Muslims. The answer was always the same. My figure of 95 per cent was almost certainly an under-estimate.

But since that response was conveyed to me things have got much worse. With his abject surrender to Netanyahu and the Zionist lobby, Obama has not only drawn public attention to America's complicity in Israel's defiance of international law, he is out-doing President George "Dubya" Bush in the business of targeted assassinations with drones over Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan. The death toll of innocents killed is rising rapidly. Islam's men of violence in that part of our world could not have a more effective recruiting sergeant.

What's happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan (not to mention Iraq) underlines the fact that a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict on terms acceptable to the vast majority of Palestinians and most other Arabs and Muslims everywhere would not be enough to extinguish the fire of anti-Americanism, but it would make containing it a much more manageable proposition.

There are, in fact, firemen waiting to assist Obama (or his successor) to put it out completely. They are the leaders of Iran, Hizbollah, Hamas and the Taliban. America's own real interests would be best served by Obama himself (or his successor) seriously engaging with them, taking full account of their concerns and fears.

There is no evidence (only Zionist assertion) that Iran's divided ruling mullahs have any intention of developing nuclear weapons, but it would not be surprising if elements in Iran - the Revolutionary Guard? - are making a case for nuclear weaponization for the purpose of deterrence.

What Iran's leaders and also those of Hizbollah, Hamas and the Taliban want most of all is an end to American exceptionalism, for which read imperialism, and all the arrogance, bullying and interference, as well as the killing, maiming and destruction, that comes with it.

On Israel-Palestine real positions (as opposed to Zionist assertions about them) are clear. Hamas is explicitly on the record with the statement that while it will not formally recognise Israel's right to exist, it is pragmatically prepared to accept Israel's actual existence inside its 1967 (pre-war) borders and to live in peace with it. And though they don't say so openly, Iran and Hizbollah have a common pragmatic position. They will accept, reluctantly no doubt, whatever the Palestinians accept.

An American president who was free to put the best interests of his own nation and people first would now give priority to talking constructively to "the enemy". With the assistance of the leaders of Iran, Hizbollah and Hamas, Obama (possibly at the risk of assassination) could create a whole new Middle East, one in which justice for the Palestinians and peace and security for all could flourish. (I'm sure that most of us would welcome a return to the days when we could check into an airport without being treated as a possible or probable terrorist).


It is, of course, true that there are powerful vested interests in the U.S. (Jewish and non-Jewish) which actually believe that unconditional support for Israel right or wrong is in America's best interests. Because they are not completely stupid, they know this policy is not cost free. The presumption has to be that they also believe the cost in terms of American blood and treasure is a price worth paying. Hopefully the time is coming when enough Americans will say to them: "Stop this madness! You're wrong. It's not a price worth paying."

For the neo-cons and their associates who marshal and deliver support for Israel right or wrong, and who by so doing subvert what passes for democracy in America, I have a New Year message. Learn the lesson of America's costly and catastrophic adventure in Vietnam. It doesn't matter how powerful you are militarily, you cannot destroy ideas with bullets and bombs, especially ideas rooted in the need for self-determination, justice and human and political rights.

I have no expectation that Zionism can learn this lesson. I believe it, Zionism, to be congenitally incapable of doing so. But one day most if not all Americans will learn it - won't they…?


Footnote

It was in Vietnam as a very young correspondent for ITN (Independent Television News), when I was observing the U.S. spending six million dollars a minute on a war it could not win and should not have waged, that I first started to ask myself questions about why things are as they are in the world. Some years later the notion that America could not have won the war in Vietnam was challenged by Senator Barry Goldwater in private conversation with me. In 1964 this five-term senator from Arizona was the Republican Party's nominee for president. He didn't make it to the White House in part because President Johnson branded him as an extremist who might plunge America into a nuclear war. When I was on assignment for the BBC's Panorama programme, Goldwater said to me in his Senate office: "We could have won the war in Vietnam. We should have nuked the North. What's the point in spending so much money on developing nuclear weapons if you're not prepared to use them?" (With Iran and North Korea on their minds, I imagine that some of today's neo-con nuts agree with that. And I note that after he failed to secure a second term, perhaps because he offended the Zionist lobby too much by wanting to be serious about peacemaking in the Middle East, former President Bush the First said that his dream was of a "winnable nuclear war").

Return of the stone rage in Kashmir (2010 in Retrospect)

sify news

Srinagar: Over 110 people dead in firing by security forces on protesters, four months of crucial academic session washed out due to frequent curfews and shutdowns, business worth an estimated Rs.14,000 crore ($3 billion) lost -- 2010 was indeed haunting for the Kashmir Valley that witnessed another season of intifada, the stone throwers' uprising.

At the beginning of 2010 spring, as peace was dawning on a state battling years of armed insurgency, the scenic valley was preparing to welcome tourists with hopes to revive an economy in shambles. But that was not to be.

Most of the tourist season was lost to stones - volleys of them flying in the air every day almost all over the valley. And security forces countered them with tear gas shells, non-lethal weapons and even bullets.

As soon as the tourist season began to peak - some 400,000 tourists had come to Kashmir by June, the death of a teenager, Tufail Ahmed Mattoo, in firing by security forces June 11 set off a vicious cycle of stone-pelting agitations and killings.

Mattoo's death triggered widespread agitation against human rights violations in the valley. Separatist leaders capitalised on the anti-government anger by giving frequent calls for shutdowns and asking people to hold protest marches.

In nearly five months of the uprising, 111 more civilians were killed - painting the valley blood red.

The agitation, which revived the separatist campaign, kept the valley closed for most of the five months due to repeated shutdowns and curfews.

President of a business lobby, Shakeel Qalandar, said each day of the shutdown or curfew cost Kashmir around Rs.100 crore ($22 million). The valley remained closed for about 140 days in the unrest period.

'Our economic losses have mounted to Rs.14,000 crore ($3 billion),' Qalandar told IANS.

He said some 100,000 people also lost their jobs in the tourism, manufacturing and retail sectors in the 2010 unrest.

The valley has witnessed frequent closures in the last 20 years of separatist war. As many as 1,950 days have been lost to shutdowns and curfews since 1990.

'Conservative estimates put the losses at around Rs.2 lakh crore ($44 billion) during the last two decades,' according to Qalandar.

Education was only a collateral damage in the cycle of protests - at the heart of which was the Hurriyat Conference led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

When schools and colleges remained closed for about 115 days, the adverse effect on education can be anybody's guess.

However, in all this maddening cycle of violence, the valley peacefully hosted the annual Amarnath pilgrimage - the way it has been doing since ages. Thousands of Hindu pilgrims from all over the country travelled to the cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas.

As the year began to close and winter chill seeped in, a sort of agitation fatigue led to a somewhat deceptive calm in the valley. The common sarcastic slogan doing the rounds is - 'Khoon ka badla June main lenge' [We will avenge the killings - of 2010 - next June).

The central government also took some steps to resolve the political problems in the state. In September, it approved an eight-point plan for Jammu and Kashmir and released Rs.100 crore ($22 million) for grants to schools and colleges.

Three interlocutors - journalist Dileep Padgaonkar, economist M.M. Ansari and academician Radha Kumar - were tasked to hold 'sustained and uninterrupted dialogue with all sections of the people' in the state.

During a visit by the interlocutors to frontier district of Kupwara Dec 22, thousands of people pledged not to throw stones at security forces - not a bad idea to end the year full of violence.

But the pledge came with riders. The security forces should not stop peaceful protesters and the government should take 'solid and concrete steps' for resolving the Kashmir issue, they held.

This is the third successive year Kashmir has witnessed a politically hot summer. In 2008, prolonged agitations, including stone pelting, was witnessed over land allotment to the Amarnath shrine board and in 2009, the Shopian alleged rape-murder of two women triggered widespread angry protests. But the 2010 protests were prolonged and furious.

(Sarwar Kashani can be contacted at s.kashani@ians.in)

India’s Anti-Maoist Operations: Where are the Special Forces?

By Bibhu Prasad Routray

Synopsis

Poor standards among its police force and the lack of specialised units within its para-military is hampering India's counter-Maoist efforts. The objective of neutralising the military might of the extremists looks, for the moment, an unrealisable goal.

Commentary

ANDHRA PRADESH, the only Indian state which was successful in defeating the left-wing extremists (Maoists), did so using its specialised counter-insurgency force, the Greyhounds. Raised in the late 1980s, the ability of the Greyhounds to take the fight into the Maoist stronghold areas was crucial in draining the extremist strength. By 2005, the Maoists had little option after losing hundreds of their cadres, but to flee Andhra Pradesh into the safety of the neighbouring states, where security operations have been far less intensive. Since then, the Greyhounds experiment of raising special force units to counter Maoists has been replicated in different states and also within the para-military Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) -- but unsuccessfully.

Lack of Sustained efforts

With the constant prodding of the government in New Delhi, some states like Maharashtra and Orissa have raised special counter-Maoist units. Some others like West Bengal are still 'in the process of' raising them. States like Bihar are managing by re-employing former Army personnel within its Special Auxiliary Police units. States like Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have tended to manage their anti-Maoist operations with their regular police personnel, renamed as 'special task force', who have undergone training in the counter-insurgency and guerrilla warfare schools. Twenty such schools, in addition to the one currently operational in Chhattisgarh, are being raised by the government.

The ineffectiveness of such specialised or semi-specialised units is clearly rooted in the continuing dependence of the states on the central paramilitary forces. Over 70 battalions of such forces are currently deployed in various states as part of the anti-Maoist 'Operation Green Hunt'. The easy availability of these central forces for the states, at almost a nominal deployment and maintenance cost, is creating an unenviable situation -- the states are paying inadequate attention to modernise their own police forces. In addition, states have regularly defaulted in paying for the deployment of such forces.

Same rot within the paramilitary

The paramilitary CRPF, raised with a mandate to manage normal law and order situations, has the experience of countering militants and insurgents in Kashmir and the northeastern states. But the Maoists are proving to be a different and difficult challenge.

Following the 1999 Kargil conflict in Kashmir between India and Pakistan, New Delhi's Task Force on Internal Security had recommended modelling the CRPF as the primary strike force for counter-insurgency (CI) operations.. This recommendation had been accepted in 2000 by the then National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. Since then, enormous funds have been made available to the CRPF to augment its size as well as its capacities. However, former CRPF officers, including a former chief of the force, accept that a plan to achieve the objective is yet to be formulated. There is no indication that the CRPF, which has grown to 210 battalions after continuing expansions, is anywhere close to being a specialised CI force.

A series of setbacks suffered by the CRPF in Maoist attacks has compelled the force not only to go on the defensive, but also to centralise its operations. As a result, local commanders' capacity to innovate and launch swift counter-attacks, which are critical in counter-insurgency operations, have been put on hold.

Clearance from the CRPF regional headquarters in Kolkata, which takes at least a day to receive, has been made mandatory before the personnel embark on any CI operation acting on intelligence leads. Maoists have been extremely mobile in their approach. A day's delay in obtaining clearance has virtually turned the CRPF into an inspecting unit rather than a combat force.

In 2008, the government set up a 10 battalion specialised counter-Maoist unit within the CRPF. The unit was fashionably named Combat Battalion for Resolute Action (COBRA). Home Minister P Chidambaram did not like the acronym. But the name stuck. The personnel underwent a year-long specialised training in the counter-insurgency and guerrilla warfare schools and were deployed in phases in the Maoist-affected states. Actual achievements of the COBRA are operational secrets. However, by any standard, this is too small a unit to make any impact on the Maoists who have spread out over a vast territory. In addition, in the absence of adequate support from the state police forces, the actual capacity of the COBRA forces, has been marginalised.

Stress from continuous engagement could also be growing within the COBRA. Recently, a COBRA personnel deployed in Chhattisgarh fled the force after killing a civilian, disfiguring his face and planting his official identity card on the dead body to fake his own death. Separately, another COBRA personnel was arrested for alleged involvement in a series of crimes perpetrated by a criminal gang.

No Intelligence, No Capacity

The CRPF's setbacks are partly linked to the weak or non-existent human intelligence apparatus within the state police forces and also to the poor operational camaraderie the two forces share. Attempt to set up CRPF's own intelligence unit has been a long- pending ambition. Frequent verbal duels have been reported between the CRPF and the police authorities. In August, New Delhi transferred a top CRPF officer overseeing Operation Green Hunt after his spat with the top police officer of Chhattisgarh State. Frequent changes in the CRPF's leadership have disrupted continuity of policies and programmes for augmenting the capacity of the force.

The government aims to turn the course of the war with the Maoists within the next few years. However, with the security forces receiving regular setbacks and the country still struggling to raise specialised counter-Maoist force units, such an objective appears far too difficult to achieve.

Bibhu Prasad Routray is a Visiting Research Fellow in the South Asia Programme of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He previously served as a Deputy Director in the National Security Council Secretariat, Prime Minister's Office, New Delhi.

Shiv Sena bandh turns violent in Pune

A Shiv Sena-BJP sponsored Pune bandh called to protest the removal of the statue of Dadoji Kondadev, considered the mentor of Shivaji, began on a violent note on Tuesday as agitators pelted stones at buses. Some Sena workers have been detained by police as a preventive measure. The saffron alliance had given a call for the bandh after the NCP-Congress ruled Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) removed the statue of Dadoji from the sculpture at Lal Mahal on Monday, pursuant to a resolution passed by the civic body to that effect.


The decision followed a persistent demand for a pro-Maratha outfit Sambhaji Brigade.

The agitators also tried to disrupt rail traffic at Lonavala on Mumbai-Pune section of the central railway, sources said.

PMC authorities on Monday removed the statue which had become a bone of contention following persistent demand by pro-Maratha outfit Sambhaji Brigade opposing its presence at the Mahal, along with sculptures of Jijabai, mother of Chhatrapati Shivaji and young age image of the Maratha warrior king.

The Brigade had alleged that after publication of the controversial book written by American author James Laine, which supposedly contained defamatory references to Shivaji's parentage, it was necessary to remove the statue of Dadoji, considered mentor of Shivaji, and replace it with Shahaji Raje, his father.

Remembering Benazir Bhutto: 'Our PPP is in power but we haven’t arrested her killers'

"Whenever I visit Bibi's grave, I feel she is asking me, 'Why are my killers still at large?'" said a devout Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) follower Nazir Shaikh.

"I often visit Garhi Khuda Bakhsh and while offering fateha I feel this irrepressible guilt," another PPP supporter, Ghulam Ali Mirani confided. "Our party is in power today but we are still so helpless that we have not been able to arrest the murderers." When asked what he thought of the UN inquiry report, he said, "I don't know about the UN and its report. But I do want her killers arrested."

"Her murder has become a mystery, which remains unsolved even three years later," added Shaikh.

Meerani and Shaikh left for Garhi Khuda Bakhsh on Monday along with a host of companions. Thousands of PPP supporters reached Garhi Khuda Bakhsh to pay homage to Benazir Bhutto on her third death anniversary. Buses, wagons, Suzuki vans and private cars were arranged for the workers by local PPP leaders. PPP MPA Dr Nasrullah Baloch led a big convoy from Lab-e-Mehran Sukkur, while the federal minister for labour, manpower and religious affairs, Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah, who according to the programme was to lead the convoy, left on his own in a hurry. Similar convoys were also arranged from other cities in upper Sindh, including Ghotki, Jacobabad, Shikarpur and Kashmore.

In Sukkur, the gathering point for the PPP supporters was Lab-e-Mehran, where a Quran khwani and Fateha was held for Benazir. After the ceremony, the workers milled about waiting for the labour minister to lead their convoy. However, the minister zoomed out of Circuit House, Sukkur, in a sleek Land Cruiser without a number plate and left Sukkur city without a glance at the surprised workers.

The programme might have been ruffled but morale remained high and shouting their love for Benazir, the crowd moved to their many vehicles and left for Garhi Khuda Bakhsh on their own. Shouts of "Zinda hai Bibi zinda hai", "Jab tak suraj chand rahe ga, Bhutto tera naam rahe ga" [As long as there is the sun and moon, there will be your name] and "Jeay Bhutto" [Long, live Bhutto] accompanied the procession, which included MPA Nasrullah Baloch, Sukkur district president Mushtaq Surhio and general-secretary Dr Arshad Mughal.


Emotions ran high on Monday, with tears giving way to anger and hopelessness.

Elderly Niaz Ali, who was wearing a black shalwar kameez, was sure that Benazir's murderers would be caught. "No matter how powerful they [assassins] might be, one day they will be brought to justice and on that day I will be able to breathe again," he said.

He felt that had Benazir been alive, things would have been much better. "Her only fault was that she wanted to help the poor," he said.

Rafi Mirani reiterated this. "We would not have been in this poor condition had Bibi been alive. I'm going to her grave with a heavy heart," he said in a choked voice.

"Sometimes we still can't believe she is not among us any more," said Mohammad Bakhsh, who was holding onto a PPP flag. "Time is passing by so quickly, it's already her third anniversary." For Akram Shaikh, who claimed to be a diehard worker of the PPP, "Bibi's murder was the murder of the PPP". These were the only words he uttered stonily before walking off.

Another high-strung worker, Ali Murad, said if he could get his hands on Bibi's murderers, he would kill them. "Because we have not just lost a leader but we have lost a loving mother and a caring sister."


Many of the supporters were of the view that the reconciliatory policy was good to some extent, but Benazir's murderers should not be spared at any cost.

Sindh Revenue Minister Jam Mehtab Dahar led a big convoy of PPP supporters from Ubauro, Daharki and Mirpur Mathelo, while Kashmore district president PPP Mukhtiar Sorhiani and general-secretary Noor Ahmed Dayo led workers from Kandhkot and Kashmore. Jacobabad district president Mohammad Pannah Odho and others led supporters from Jacobabad and Thull to Garhi Khuda Bakhsh.

Boom! Indian space launch fails

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

This is the dramatic moment when India's ambitious space programme suffered one of its biggest setback when an advanced communication satellite exploded within a minute after its launch.

A stunned Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) did not give the reason for the blast in the sky but an officer told IANS that there was a fault in the second stage of the launch.

'The rocket's first stage seemed to have performed normally. The problem seems to have cropped up in the second stage as the rocket didn't get sufficient thrust,' he said.

The Indian GSLV (Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle), carrying the GSAT-5P satellite as payload, is seen moments after it exploded above Sriharikota

But another official insisted that even the first stage was a failure.

The multi-million pound 310 kg GSAT-5P satellite, was to serve the needs of the telecommunication sector and the weather department.

It was at 4.04 p.m. that ISRO launched the rocket, with the satellite, in clear sky from the Sriharikota space centre, about 80 km from Chennai.

In a chilling reminder of the Challenger Space Shuttle Crash of 1986, the Indian rocket rose into the sky with a deep roar, emitting thick orange flame at its tail. And suddenly it exploded -- and disintegrated.

Ready for lift-off: The Indian GSLV-F06 rocket prior to its ill-fated launch. The Indian GSLV, carrying the GSAT-5P satellite as payload, lifts off from the launchpad during its ill-fated flight at Sriharikota

Fortunately this space vessel was unmanned. Challenger's seven crew members perished.

The failure plunged the scientific community into gloom.

Today's launch was originally scheduled for 20th November but was aborted a day earlier after a leak was detected in one of the valves of the Russian-made cryogenic engine.

Later, tests ensured the stability of the valve. The ISRO gave the go-ahead for a Christmas day launch.

The Russians had supplied seven cryogenic engines long back, and India has used six of them till date.

The GSAT-5P satellite was supposed to have a life span of over 13 years. It had 36 transponders - automatic receivers and transmitters for communication and broadcast of signals.

Its successful launch would have taken ISRO's transponder capacity to about 235, from the 200 currently in the orbit.

The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) exploded in the first stage of the flight, leaving a trail of smoke and fire

Devastating: The Challenger shuttle rocket exploding in 1986

Ground-based defence: Navy tests surface-to-air missiles

Pakistan Navy successfully test fired a combination of surface-to-air missiles in Somiani on Monday.

The demonstration was witnessed by Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Noman Bashir along with Vice-Admiral Tayyab Ali Dogar, the air defence commander, stated a press release issued here. The SAMs provided Pakistan Navy operational flexibility. The commander marines, said that the induction of such state-of-the-art equipment would add to the Navy's ground-based air defence capabilities against hi-tech aircraft and incoming missiles. press release

Indians in tears over skyrocketing onion prices

Neighbor Pakistan steps in with emergency shipments as a shortage causes prices of the humble staple to more than double. Politicians scramble to contain the damage.

By Mark Magnier


Los Angeles Times

A woman collects rotten onions thrown out of a wholesale market in Chennai for resale. Wholesale rates fell as the government banned exports and boosted supplies, but retail prices were still about 90 cents a pound, spurring charges of price gouging. (Nathan G., EPA / December 22, 2010)

Reporting from New Delhi - There is much that divides India and its traditional rival Pakistan: families long separated by partition, divided Kashmir, fear of a fourth war between the nuclear adversaries. But when it comes to the Great Onion Crisis of 2010, grateful India has found a friend across the border.

Onion prices across India have more than doubled to as much as 90 cents a pound this month, sending shock waves through vegetable market and kitchen alike in a country where many subsist on $1 a day. Some have taken to the streets in protest bedecked in onion garlands.

"Ever Had Biriyani Without Onions?" screamed a headline in the Mid Day tabloid.

So important is the humble onion that state governments in Delhi and Rajasthan fell in 1998 over rising onion prices and the "onion factor" helped overthrow the central government in 1980.

After initially ignoring the looming shortage, the government quickly banned exports, promised to release strategic "onion reserves," eliminated import duties and doubled the number of rail carriages devoted to the vital vegetable.

That's where Pakistan comes in. For most of the last week, it delivered on average about 50 trucks each carrying 10 tons of onions daily.

Little moved on Christmas, an Indian holiday, or Sunday, with shipments expected to resume Monday. Some Indian traders complain that the quality of bulbs from Pakistan's Sindh province was inferior to domestic production from Rajasthan or Gujarat states.

Some Middle East nations also are competing with India for Pakistan's onions even as the added demand drives up domestic onion prices in Pakistan. And India, the world's second-largest onion producer, is considering importing about 50,000 tons from the world's largest producer, China.

Indian officials have given various explanations for the shortage, including weather, hoarding and price gouging.

"The Great Onion Robbery," declared the Times of India, which alleged in a back-of-the-envelope calculation that Delhi wholesalers charged a 135% markup last week, fleecing consumers of nearly $1 million in a single day.

But there's opportunity in every crisis. Satmar Singh Gambhir, in eastern Jharkhand state, announced he would give away 2 pounds of onions for every pair of truck tires sold, a pound per pair of car tires. Sales boomed.

"The phone's been ringing off the hook," he said.

Comedian Jaspal Bhatti suggested that onions were a better Christmas gift than chocolate, and added that he and his wife were conferring about putting a few extra onions in their safety deposit box.

Behind the humor is some serious social pain. India's roaring economy, bottlenecks and structural deficiencies have pushed up food prices this year by 12%.

Experts reportedly warned government officials in November of a looming shortages but were ignored, planners have done little to spur agricultural reform, and the nation remains woefully short of decent roads, refrigerated trucks and warehouses. By some measures, 7 out of every 10 vegetables rot before reaching cities.

The lowly onion has a storied history in India. The first mention is about 2,500 years ago in the ancient medical text Charaka-Samhita, which celebrated the vegetable's curative powers.

Four centuries later, it was mentioned in religious texts as a despised food anathema to a life of meditation and austerity. It remained something of a medical and sensual sideshow for centuries, judging from the accounts of Chinese traveler Xuanzang, who visited India in the seventh century.

"Onions and garlic are little known and few people eat them," he wrote. "If anyone uses them for food, they are expelled beyond the walls of the town."

India's infatuation with the onion is credited to the Mughal rulers, who used them liberally in their meat and rice dishes.

Since this month's crisis hit, several chefs have offered substitute recipes for several of India's beloved curries that use cabbage, mustard, yogurt, tomatoes and other ingredients. One problem, however, tomato prices along with most other fruits and vegetables are going up too.

Maria Asunta, 59, a charity worker buying onions and tomatoes at the Indira Market in South Delhi, isn't taking advice from fancy chefs; she's going by instinct. She's buying much fewer onions, she said, and substituting whatever other vegetables are cheap that day. But she still can't live without them.

"My family loves onions," she said. "If I don't cook with them, no one eats my food."

mark.magnier@latimes.com

Hindutva Terror Tapes

The Malegaon blast probe threw up 37 audiotapes in which ultra-Hindu groups plot terror attacks. These tapes expose a shocking nexus between Military Intelligence men and the outfits. Two years later, why is this still unexplored, asks RANA AYYUB

Lt Col Shrikant Purohit


Military Intelligence officer

The man who procured the RDX that was used for the Malegaon blast. He is the first serving officer to be arrested in a terror case

HATE IS one of the obvious and evident yields of the Hindutva worldview. But few had imagined it could spawn a terror network until investigations into the 2008 Malegaon blast led to a series of startling arrests that included Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and Lt Col Shrikant Purohit of Abhinav Bharat, an ultra-right Hindu group. Since then, the issue of 'saffron terror' has entered national discourse as a fractious and heated debate.

Last week, the issue erupted once again, triggering livid responses across the political spectrum. First, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh claimed that Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) chief Hemant Karkare - who had been investigating the Malegaon blast - had called him hours before he died on the fateful night of 26/11, saying he was being threatened by those opposed to his probes. Singh was speaking at the launch of a book by Aziz Burney, controversially titled 26/11 - A RSS Controversy? and both sections of his own party and the BJP were dismayed that his "irresponsible" remarks would play into Pakistan's hands.

A few days later, in its ongoing exposé, WikiLeaks released a cable in which US Ambassador Timothy Roemer claimed that Rahul Gandhi had told him that ultra-Hindu terror was probably a greater threat to national security than Islamist terror. In all the furious exchanges that have followed, a crucial issue was overlooked. With the capture of Ajmal Kasab, it is undoubtedly an absurd stretch of imagination to believe 26/11 was engineered by ultra-Hindu groups, but the truth is the 'saffron terror' story is indeed far from being a closed book.

Maj (retd) Ramesh Upadhyay


Military Intelligence officer

He is suspected of training those who assembled the bomb that went off in Malegaon. He also headed BJP's ex-servicemen cell

TEHELKA has found that, in the two years since the Malegaon blast, investigators have left many leads unexplored. Most alarmingly, they have failed to pin down eight Indian Army officers allegedly involved with the terror network. Why haven't they been questioned by the army or sufficiently tracked? How far has the network penetrated sections of the army? To understand the full implication of this, it is important to recall the whole story.

IT WAS a low-intensity bomb fitted in a motorbike, but its impact was powerful. It exploded in the small town of Malegaon in Nashik district, Maharashtra, on 29 September 2008, leaving six dead and several injured. The only clue was a mangled number-plate. Forensic lab officials used a 25 MP camera for a magnified view of the number-plate. They managed to get three sets of possible numbers. Then the ATS began the chase. The first combination took them to Badayun, Uttar Pradesh, where the vehicle bearing the number still existed. The second was tracked down to Gujarat. Here too the vehicle was still in use. In October 2008, the last number-plate took them to the bike owner, a self-styled godwoman called Sadhvi Pragya Thakur

Sadhvi Pragya Thakur


Self-styled godwoman

Her cell phone call records proved to be a minefield of information about those involved in the Malegaon blast

Pragya's interrogation and call information from her cell phone opened a pandora's box. Shamlal Sahu, 42, a commerce graduate, was first to be arrested on charges of planting the bomb. Shivnarayan Kalangasara Singh, 36, a science graduate, was arrested for setting a timer device in the bomb. Another science graduate, Sameer Kulkarni, 32, was arrested for his role in procuring chemicals for the bomb.

But the story did not end with these arrests. Five days after Pragya's arrest, the ATS caught a major fish: Maj (retd) Ramesh Upadhyay, 64, a resident of Pune. He had worked in the Indian Army's Military Intelligence (MI) unit and was suspected of training those who had assembled the bombs. He had also headed the BJP's ex-servicemen's cell in Mumbai.

On 2 November 2008, three more arrests were made - Ajay Rahirkar, 39, for raising funds for Abhinav Bharat; Rakesh Dhawde, 35, a weapon consultant in the movie The Rising; and Jagdish Mhatre, 40, who had paid money to Dhawde for buying weapons. All these men were from either Nashik or Pune. Then came the biggest arrest. On 5 November, the first ever serving army officer, Lt Col Purohit, 37, was arrested for procuring the RDX used in the blast. The MI officer was posted at the Army Education Corps Training Centre and College in Pachmarhi, Madhya Pradesh, where he was studying Arabic at the time of his arrest.

Purohit's role as a prime conspirator became clearer with the arrest of selfstyled seer Swami Dayanand Pandey alias Shankar Acharya alias Shukhakar Dwivedi, 40, on 14 November. Pandey had a habit of recording all his conversations with his co-conspirators on his laptop.

Terror on board The Samjhauta Express blast in 2007 killed 68 people

The ATS retrieved three videos and 37 audiotapes. These proved to be an unprecedented source of information. On 21 November, Karkare questioned Pune's RSS leader Shyam Apte, named in the tapes.

Purohit himself wasn't an easy case to crack. During his interrogation, he asserted that his job as an MI spy included interacting with both Hindu and Muslim extremists. At first, the army seemed to rally behind him. Soon after his arrest, the army spokesman claimed he had only been detained, not arrested. Pragya, however, disclosed that she had met Purohit in Pachmarhi, where Purohit had told her that he had executed two blasts in the past. The ATS officials suspected Purohit was hinting at the Samjhauta Express and Ajmer Sharif blasts, but this was not made public because of its diplomatic implications.

Cycle of violence The Malegaon blast in 2008 left six people dead

THE AUDIOTAPES revealed a chilling landscape. A godwoman, a seer, political bigwigs and retired and serving army officers all seemed part of the conspiracy. They spilled vitriolic hate for Muslims and even Hindus who did not subscribe to their ultra right-wing communal vision. They had set up Abhinav Bharat with the intention of infiltrating and subverting every institution in the country. This, for instance, is an excerpt of what Purohit says on the tapes about the nation they dreamed of creating:

"We must aim for militarisation of the organisation (Abhinav Bharat). Every member at all levels must have a basic knowledge of weapons. We haven't done it so far. We should indoctrinate them with our ideology. We should establish an academy for ideological indoctrination. At the end of the course, each member will be tested and only those who pass will be finally admitted to the organisation. The level of testing is when he will be tried in 'action'. Then our organisation will propagate establishment of all-India Hindu rashtra called Abhinav Bharat. There will be a uniform code of conduct irrespective of any caste. Reporting channels like those in the armed forces will be established. This will ensure the smooth flow of information and passing of orders. An Honour Court Committee will exist at all levels. This will ensure strict adherence to moral and ethical behaviour as decided by the core group by all the members based on our Vedas."

The conversations were alarming. The then Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil was briefed by senior ATS officials. Other national agencies like the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and, later, the National Investigating Agency (NIA)were brought in. Initial investigations suggested that Purohit was an aberration. The investigators found it odd that despite their mentors in the army, the attackers behaved like novices. "They were so dumb they used their own motorcycle to plant the bomb. It took us just a month to catch all of them. The police have never taken such a short time to arrest terrorists," says a senior home ministry official, requesting anonymity. How could anyone take them seriously? he asks.

Ground zero Fourteen people died in the 2007 Mecca Masjid bombing

So the sleuths deemed the Malegaon blast to be a freak incident. Over the next two years, however, a larger pattern began to emerge. First Malegaon. Then Mecca Masjid and Ajmer Sharif. The Abhinav Bharat cell was found to have a hand in all these blasts. It obviously had deeper roots.

After Purohit's arrest, there was a lot of pressure to downplay the role of the army, reveals an ATS officer

TEHELKA first scooped and wrote about the tapes in 2008. Subsequently, a few other media organisations accessed and published parts of the tapes. However, through all this, at no point has there been sufficient focus on the army officers who figure on the tapes. They remain the big unturned stone in the investigation.

There are a total of eight army officers, retired and serving, named in the tapes. At least four of them have an MI background. Apart from Lt Col Purohit and Maj Upadhyay, who are now in jail, topping the list is Col (retd) Hasmukh Patel. A JNU graduate, Patel was commissioned into the Infantry Jat Regiment and later detailed with the MI. After 25 years in service, he retired in 2007 and joined Reliance. His LinkedIn profile says he is a specialist in threat analysis, background checks, physical- electronic-aviation security, vigilance, investigations, disaster management, negotiation and loss prevention. The NIA is understood to have questioned him recently but let him off under surveillance.

Col Shailesh Raikar is a retired commandant. He is said to be a brilliant officer who belonged to the Maratha Regiment. According to the tapes, Raikar was commander of the Bhosla Military Academy in Nashik. He allegedly provided academy facilities to Purohit and other Abhinav Bharat members for weapons training. He too is under the NIA scanner.

Others named in the tapes are Col Aditya Bappaditya Dhar (Parachute Regiment, now retired); Brig Mathur (full name not known, but he was apparently posted at Deolali Cantonment near Nashik); Maj Nitin Joshi and Maj Prayag Modak (in both cases, regiment not known).

The NIA has reportedly established contact with Col Dhar; it is yet to initiate investigations against the rest. Apart from these men, there is a Brig Lajpat Prajwal, apparently posted with the Nepal Army. According to the tapes, Purohit and he had trained together at IMA and that Purohit was in constant touch with Prajwal for logistic support. In one of his conversations with Col Purohit on the tapes, Col Dhar asks: Did you see one of my messages?

LT COL PUROHIT: Yes... About how this country should be taken over by the army?


COL DHAR: Yes, yes. I have written three lakh letters... I distributed three lakh letters among the jawans... It is not a political stunt... And I distributed 20,000 maps of Akhand Bharat among the jawans on 26 January... It is my humble attempt to sow the seeds.

Given these alarming ambitions and self-confessed acts of sedition, why haven't their roles been probed more seriously yet? Why has the army itself not acted on them?

Maharashtra ATS chief KP Raghuvanshi, who was accused of going slow on the Malegaon probe, says: "We acted on the basis of evidence. The case against these armymen was not watertight. We did call some of them in, including Col Dhar, for questioning but there was nothing on the basis of which we could detain or arrest them."

Interestingly, Raghuvanshi admits to a major handicap while interrogating the officers. "A MI official was always around monitoring our questioning. In the beginning, in fact, it was difficult to get hold of Lt Col Purohit because even though we presented a dossier of evidence against him the army insisted it's their internal matter and they'd look into it themselves," he says.

'I gave 20,000 maps of Akhand Bharat to the jawans. It is my humble bid to sow the seeds,' says Col Dhar

Finally, pressure from the home ministry worked and Purohit wa arrested. The army, however, has still not initiated action against its officials and court martial proceedings against Lt Col Purohit are yet to take off. Sources say the proceedings have been postponed under Section 7 of the Indian Soldiers Litigation Act, 1925. Since Purohit was serving under 'special conditions', the Act says a postponement is necessary in the interests of justice.

ANOTHER ATS official says, "Most of what Purohit says on the tapes about sending people to Nepal and Israel for training wasn't taken seriously. That is the biggest blunder. The job of a MI officer posted along the Jammu & Kashmir border is to spread his net of informers, spies and get crucial information. Imagine what damage Purohit has already done while posted there. The entire truth on Purohit is still not out."

Terror taint RSS' Indresh Kumar was linked to Ajmer blast

That seems a very disturbing probability. The armymen named on the tapes are not mentioned casually. Sample snatches of this conversation between Lt Col Purohit, Maj Ramesh Upadhyay, Col Dhar, Dayanand Pandey, BL Sharma Prem, a twotime BJP MP, and RP Singh, an endocrinologist at Apollo Hospital and president of the World Hindu Federation.

LT COL PUROHIT:We have done two operations which have been successful and I got material support for them. On 24 June 2007, Col Lajpat Prajwal, now a Brigadier, had arranged our meeting with King Gyanendra Nobody in this country will be able to figure who is doing the work. If Major Saheb (Upadhyay) has 20 people, we (read Prajwal) will train them.

RP SINGH: King Gyanendra's close relative sat with us in Gorakhpur... We are constantly in touch with them... Maj Prayag Modak was the one who came to our meeting. There are Col Raikar and Col Hasmukh Patel, who are helping us in the training. Prajwal is from the side of Rani Aishwarya.

Col Dhar enters the room…

LT COL PUROHIT: Namaskar Dharji… (To the others) He has been in the army since 23 years and has been with me. He's with the Parachute Regiment. I was also posted with him. Dhar sahib, let me introduce you to the people here. We are all on the same plane, Hindu rashtra…

LT COL PUROHIT:We also have General JJ Singh, he's from the Maratha Regiment. As you know I have also been part of the Maratha regiment…

PANDEY: Ok…

LT COL PUROHIT: Swamiji, we haven't spoken about certain things, but two operations have been done by us. One of our own captains has visited Israel for training and meeting and there was a very positive response… We demanded four things from Israel - continuous and uninterrupted supply of arms and training, our office with a saffron flag in Tel Aviv, political asylum and support for our cause of a Hindu Nation in the UN. Israel has asked us to show something on the ground and have promised at least a supply of arms and political asylum... I have a state-wise population of Muslims in each state but I have only three AK-47s. We couldn't buy much earlier because we didn't have funds.

MAJ UPADHYAY: AK-47 is available at Cox Bazaar in Gorakhpur, but mostly jihadis sell the weapons…

LT COL PUROHIT: You will get very expensive AKs…

PANDEY: Arrey, you get many AK guns.

LT COL PUROHIT: The Israelis ask us to give them proof of our involvement. What more proof do they need? We have completed two successful operations.

MAJ UPADHYAY: The Hyderabad blasts were executed by our man. Colonel will tell you about that.

PANDEY: What if this organisation is banned?

APTE: We will give it an international aspect... and a covert name. We have to fight. See, if you aren't a Hindu, you are my enemy. I will be unsafe if you are alive…

Obviously, this was not just empty bragging. Purohit goes on to talk of Khetomi Sema, a leader of the banned insurgent group, Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland. Purohit says he had saved his life and Sema has issued a letter to all his generals to support Purohit's cause. "He has promised to give us seven years of logistic support," Purohit tells Pandey.

Purohit's conversations further reveal that he had been using the army machinery to serve Abhinav Bharat. He says he was in the process of indoctrinating like-minded army officers who could serve in Abhinav Bharat. He also admits to catching and killing two Maoists in cold blood in Delhi.

LT COL PUROHIT: "I bought weapons worth Rs. 4 lakh in Assam. A police officer got me the weapons. It costs a lot. I had 3 lakh and I borrowed one more. I kept one pistol with me. I sent some weapons to Nepal. Our study is on… We will soon start action. We have got a list of top 5-6 Maoist financers. We'll kill them first…You know one Assam DIG had informed me about two Maoists who had arrived in Delhi to kill me. We caught them at the Vasant Kunj Civic Centre. We kept them in a place at Munirka through the night. You know we have encroached upon a property in Munirka that has sewer lid inside the house. We got the information out of them, then killed them and threw them in the gutter."

PUROHIT'S CONVERSATIONS also suggest an alarming shared mindset among sections of the army. At one point he tells Pandey, "There was a captain and a major posted in Delhi. I managed to do my work with them over the phone. This work otherwise would have taken more than three months. It happened because I belong to Sangh and he was also from Sangh. I didn't even know him. He was from UP and he did the work in one day. Tapping such people (with Sangh background) is important."

Sample another chat between them:

PANDEY: I have to attend a programme organised by one editor of Organiser, Deepak Rath, in Orissa on 17 February. This is his personal function.

LT COL PUROHIT: Is it in Bhubaneshwar city? Let me know, I will arrange my Orissa commander to receive you…

PANDEY: Do you know Narendra Modi?

LT COL PUROHIT: I have met him once or twice, but I don't know him well.

PANDEY:Will you be interested if I arrange your meeting with him?

LT COL PUROHIT: Why not!

PANDEY: In fact, there is one Swami Aseemanandji....


He has good relations with Narendra Modi… I can arrange your meeting through him.

(Swami Aseemanand, a Kolkata native known as Jatin Chatterjee before he donned his ochre robes, came to the Dangs district of Gujarat to start a campaign to bring Christian converts back into the Hindu fold. A RSS man, he is said to be very close to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Aseemanand was arrested recently but the police have not shared any information gleaned from his interrogation.)

Elsewhere in the tapes, Purohit elaborates on other sinister strategies the Abhinav Bharat group plans on adopting against Muslims - including shooting people under false identities to create mayhem.

"I know that the army and the BSF don't complement each other's action," says Purohit. "Nor there is any coordination between the BSF, CRPF and state police. So if I buy two army vehicles from the scrap and paint them with army colours and send them along with our people in army uniform into Meerut, they can just fire and come out of the situation easily. There is so much confusion in this country."

The conversations on these tapes demand extreme vigilance. These statements were not recorded under police custody or during interrogation. They were voluntarily recorded by Pandey. Therefore, there can be no accusation of coercion or manipulation with regard to them. So the question is, how far did Lt Col Purohit's influence run in the army? How vast was the network he had succeeded in building? Was he only a small link in a bigger, more dangerous, chain within the army?

In the Mecca Masjid blast, which brought the Abhinav Bharat under the scanner, the accused had used a combination of TNT and RDX. An IB official based in Mumbai raises a pertinent question: "Do you think Purohit can smuggle RDX and weapons from Jammu Army depot on his own? Can he alone sponsor sending men for military training to Nepal and Israel?"

This question has even more alarming implications when one recalls that in the narco reports of Nanded blasts accused, Himanshu Panse and Sanjay Bhaurao Chaudhury, first published by TEHELKA in 2006, the men clearly talk of how an army man named Mithun Chakrabarty had trained them to make the IEDs for the blasts at the Sinhagad Fort. The identity of this army man is yet to be established.

A senior ATS Official told this reporter that after Lt Col Purohit's arrest, there was a lot of pressure on them to downplay the role of the army. "We were told we couldn't lower the morale of officers posted in sensitive positions. It could have a backlash. But with more cases involving military intelligence officials coming out, we could be overlooking a dangerous trend."

Going slow? ATS' Raghuvanshi says the army tried to meddle

The MI is a small but important corps, and a relatively new addition to the army structure. It is currently headed by Gen Lumba. MI officers are tasked to track spies and other security threats and, outside the country, are mostly active in China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Japan, USA and Russia. Many MI cadre officers (Lt Col Purohit was one of them) do not wear uniforms and work in conjunction with the IB, BSF ('G' Force) and other intelligence agencies. MI officials work in field formations and report to their respective commanders. Nobody, except the commander, would know they are part of MI.

What makes the story of Lt Col Purohit so dark is that the Indian Army has never been suspected of any communal overtones. But as an IB official says: "There was a time when the army would not think twice about religious identity when they entered the Golden Temple to arrest the terrorists holed inside. But after the 1992 Ayodhya movement, things have changed. The political climate has affected the army too in a big way, especially among officers posted along the border. Look at Lt Col Purohit. His indoctrination happened during his posting in Kashmir."

THE UNMAPPED SCALE of the army connection, however, is not the only missing piece in the ultra-Hindu terror puzzle. In December 2007, Sunil Joshi, an RSS man suspected of a key role in the Ajmer blast and of being a link between several ultra-right groups like Abhinav Bharat, Vande Mataram and other fringe elements was mysteriously murdered. His family said he had been bumped off by his own organisation. Sadhvi Pragya confirmed this. According to her, a man named Mayank had probably killed Joshi. Despite these clues, the MP Police closed the case.

Earlier this week, however, the MP Police finally accepted that Joshi was murdered by his own friends in the RSS. They charged Mayank, Harshad Solanki, Mehul and Mohan from Gujarat, Anand Raj Katare from Indore and Vasudev Parmar from Dewas with Joshi's murder. While Mehul and Mohan are still on the run, Solanki was brought before the Dewas court last week and confessed to the murder. (Solanki is also an accused in the infamous Best Bakery case, Gujarat 2002.) This development validates what TEHELKA had reported back in 2008.

Clued in Hemant Karkare pursued the 'saffron terror' angle

However, even these arrests don't join all the dots. The MP Police have claimed internal rivalry as the motive for the murder. The CBI though believes the real culprits in the RSS behind Joshi's murder are also the men responsible for the blasts. Their hunch is, if Joshi were alive today, most of the masterminds would have been unmasked. Joshi was known to be close to senior RSS leader Indresh Kumar. Their question is why did the two fall out?

The MP Police, Rajasthan ATS and CBI are all looking into the Ajmer, Mecca Masjid and Samjhauta blasts. However, their investigations do not have the same conclusions.

This October, the Rajasthan ATS filed a chargesheet linking Indresh to the Ajmer blasts. They said he attended a secret meeting in Jaipur on October 25, 2005 in which the conspiracy for the Ajmer blast was drawn up. The meeting was allegedly attended by Indresh, Pragya Thakur, Sunil Joshi, Ramji Kalsangra, Devendra Gupta, Lokesh Sharma and Sandeep Dange. The chargesheet hinted the same people were responsible for the Samjhauta blast. The chargesheet, however, did not list Indresh as an accused. And Dange and Kalsangra are still on the run.

The CBI, which is also probing the case, blames the Rajasthan ATS for not making sufficient headway in pinning down the role of the RSS. "They have helped RSS men like Indresh create an alibi by alerting them with witness statements that are not credible evidence in the court of law. This has allowed him time to concoct documents to prove he was not physically present at various places," says an investigating official.

Confusingly, however, Lt Col Purohit and his co-conspirators on the tapes also curse Indresh as a sell-out and wish they could kill him.

Where, then, does the truth lie? And how far does the network sprawl? Less heated debate and more ground work might provide some real answers.

rana@tehelka.com