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November 12, 2006
India: Man Killed Five People At Mosque For $20
On Friday in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, a man threw a grenade into a mosque compound in the village of Tahab, in Pulwama district, south Kashmir. Several hundred mosque worshippers had gathered for Friday morning prayers. Four people died instantly, and another died while being transported to the hospital at Srinigar, 25 miles away. 55 people were injured, some seriously.
Among the dead were four girls. Later there was another explosion at a high street market in Hari SIngh, Srinigar, which injured six people. This attack too was caused by a hand grenade being lobbed. Three of those injured in the market blast were security officials.
The man who threw the grenade at the mosque in Tahab village was pursued and captured by the congregation. He was handed over to Indian security. Reuters via the Daily Times and Rediff.com report that the man has confessed to the bombing. What is sad about this is how cheap human life was to this man - he said that he agreed to throw the grenade for a mere 1,000 rupees ($20). The lives of his victims were effectively worth $4 each.
The man, Ghulam Nabi Mir was a member of Hizbul Mujahideen, one of the twenty or so groups which seek to have Jammu & Kashmir state seceded from India and either become a Muslim state or another province of Pakistan.
Mir was brought before a press conference, where he said: "Forgive my mistake. I wouldn't make such a mistake again."
The Inspector General of Police for Kashmir, S. M. Sahai, said that the man that the Hizbul Mujahideen wished to target was the preacher Maulana Abdul Rashid Dawoodi, who is of the Barelvi sect. The preacher was among the 55 people who were injured.
The Barelvi strand of Sunni Islam was founded by Ahmad Raza Khan (1856-1921) of Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh state, India. Like the ultra-othodox Deoband strand of Islam (that followed by the Afghanistan Taliban), Barelvi belongs to the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence. Where the two differ markedly is in the emphasis given by the Barelvi to the Prophet Mohammed, imparting to him supernatural powers - and claiming that his essence still remains on earth. The Barelvi incorporate Sufi beliefs into their ideology, and consider some forms of music to be spiritually enlightening. The extremists of Deoband frown upon music and art.
The grenade attack on the Tahab mosque was officially condemned by the Hizbul Mujahideen, though denial is a tactic of many of the Kashmir-based militants. When 59 people were killed by Lashkar-e-Taiba in Delhi on October 29 last year, the militant group denied its involvement, and even sympathized with the victims' families.
On Saturday (November 11) an army convoy was attacked by militants using grenades and automatic weapons in Qazigund, south Kashmir. Here, Lashkar-e-Taiba did claim responsibility for their actions. A soldier and a pedestrian were injured in the attack.
Lashkar-e-Taiba ("Army of the Pure") was founded by Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, who is now the head of the group Jamaat ut-Dawa, which was placed on a US list of designated terrorist entities on April 28 this year. Jamat-ud Dawa has been involved with kidnapping Christian children who are then sold to begging gangs, but the Pakistani authorities refuse to outlaw the group.
Today's edition of the Pakistan Daily Times reports that a co-founder of Jamat-ud-Dawa and a close associate of Hafiz Mohammed Saeed was shot dead yesterday. Abdullah Mujahid was returning home from morning prayers at a mosque in Taj Bagh near Lahore in Punjab province, Pakistan.
Police claim that the co-founder of Jamat-ud-Dawah (which has its headquarters at Mudrieke near Lahore) was attacked in killed in an attempted robbery. The Jamaat ud-Dawa has released a statement, claiming that Mujahid was killed by three "terrorists". One of the three men who had attacked Mujahid, a man named Safdar, died after being shot.
Keywords: Jamat-ud-Dawah Jamaat ut-Dawa, Jama'at-ud Da'awah, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Lashkar-e-Toyba, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at November 12, 2006 5:05 AM
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