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August 15, 2006
India: Islamist Terrorists "Were Employed" In Prime Minister's Security
After Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was shot dead by her own bodyguards on October 31, 1984, the following news is set to cause alarm. The Press Trust of India, via Hindustan Times reveals that three Islamic terrorists had been employed to guard the residence of the current Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh.
The three were said to be members of Hizbul Mujahideen, who had enrolled in the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and had been placed on duty at Singh's official residence at Race Course Road, New Delhi.
Hizbul Mujahideen is a terror group which wants the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir to secede from India. It is led by Syed Salahuddin, who is currently residing in Pakistan. Indian diplomats and Manmohan SIngh have asked Pakistan to hand him over, following the Mumbai train blasts of June 11. Only last Monday (Aug 7), Salahuddin (the fat one pictured right) was boasting: "Nobody can hand me over to India. Pakistan should provide Kashmiris substantial support. The entire world knows what substantial support is. It does not require an explanation. It should be in addition to diplomatic, political and moral support - to make this movement meaningful."
The three terrorists from Salahuddin's group were named by a news TV channel this evening as: Gulzar Ahmad Lone, Mansur Ahmed and Mehrajuddin. They were trained in Pakistani Kashmir, and had surrendered to authorities in 1990. They have been employed by CRPF for some time.
In 2004, a carbine went missing from the prime minister's residence, and a FIR (police report) was filed by head constable Rak Kumar. The channel said that while Kumar was compulsorily retired, the three men, whose identity had become known, were allowed to continue working.
The director of CRPF, Heneral JK Sinha, dismissed the story as "totally baseless and distorted".
A spokesman for the paramilitary force, which has 165,000 personnel in 70 battalions (including two women's battalions) said that one of the men was recruited in 1998, when terrorism was not happening in Jammu & Kashmir, and the other two were recruited in 1995 and 1996.
The spokesman said that the three had been questioned in 2004 after the carbine was discovered to be missing, and all had been given a clean sheet. The spokesman said that now, the three men were fighting insurgents in Dibrugargh in Assam state, northeast India. The spokesman did say that their histories would be subjected again to review.
The insurgents they are fighting belong to ULFA, the United liberation Front of Assam.
Hizbul Mujahideen was founded in 1989, and is regarded as the militant wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami party (headed in Pakistan by Qazi Hussain Ahmad). MIPT Terrorism Knowledgebase states that it is the largest of the Kashmir liberation terror groups. Its targets are mainly Indian politicians and security forces in Jammu & Kashmir. Many of its bases in Kashmir were destroyed by the October 8 earthquake.
Perhaps because of its links with the Jamaat-e-Islami and Qazi Hussain Ahmed, who is head of the multi party opposition alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Ama (MMA), there are political reasons for President Musharraf not to extradite Syed Salahuddin to India. Qazi Ahmad mounted violent protests in February and is always making threats of violent revolution. The MMA has control of the provincial Assembly in North-West Frontier Province.
Syed Salahuddin came originally from Ameer Kadal, a village near Srinagar, northern India, Salahuddin trained with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb -e-Islami training camps in Khost, Afghanistan. He left his wife and children behind in Jammu and Kashmir, India, living mainly in Pakistan for the last 18 years and has been based at Azad Kashmir.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at August 15, 2006 9:09 PM
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