Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman (wrongly identified earlier as Kamaal and Kasav) began his journey to Mumbai on September 15, 2008. He was part of a group of ten men who had spent months training in marine combat and navigation skills in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Punjab.
It is improbable that Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman’s family has seen the photograph that has made his face known across the world. Hours before he began firing at commuters waiting at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) last week, Iman, one of ten Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists, was caught on closed-circuit camera.
After he and his partner, Mohammad Ismail, had killed 55 commuters at CST and three senior police officers, including Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Chief Hemant Karkare, Iman was injured and captured — and the story he has since been telling Mumbai police investigators casts new light on how the feared terror group preys on the most vulnerable in Pakistani society to further its agenda of hate.
The man in the photo was born on July 13, 1987 at Faridkot village in Dipalpur tehsil of Okara district in Pakistan’s Punjab province. His family belongs to the underprivileged Qasai caste. His father, Mohammad Amir Iman, runs a dahi-puri snack cart. His mother, Noori Tai, is a homemaker. Iman is the third of the family’s five children. His 25-year-old brother, Afzal, lives near the Yadgar Minar in Lahore. His sister, Rukaiyya Husain, 22, is married locally. Iman’s younger siblings, 14-year-old Suraiyya and 11-year-old Munir, live at home.
Iman’s desperately poor family could not afford to keep their second son, an indifferent student, at the Government Primary School in Faridkot past the fourth grade. He was pulled out of school in 2000, at the age of 13, and went to live with his older brother in Lahore. Afzal, who lives in a tenement near the Yadgar Minar in Lahore, eked out a living on a labourer’s wages, and could barely afford to look after his brother. For the next several years, Iman shuttled between the homes of his brother and parents.
After a row with his parents in 2005, Iman left home, determined never to return. No longer welcome in Afzal’s home, he stayed at the shrine of the saint Syed Ali Hajveri until he could pick up some work. He began working as a labourer and by 2007 his work brought in Rs. 200 a day. Iman, however, found the work degrading. He soon began spending time with small-time criminals in Lahore. Along with a friend, a one-time Attock resident named Muzaffar Lal Khan, Iman decided to launch a new career in armed robbery.
On Bakr Eid day in 2007, Iman has told the Mumbai Police, the two men made their way to the Raja bazaar in Rawalpindi, hoping to purchase weapons. In the market, they saw activists for the Jamaat-ud-Dawa — the parent political organisation of the Lashkar-e-Taiba — handing out pamphlets and posters about the organisation and its activities. After a discussion lasting a few minutes, Iman claims, both men decided to join — not because of their Islamist convictions but in the hope that the jihad training they would receive would further their future life in crime.
But at the Lashkar’s base camp, Markaz Taiba, Iman’s world view began to change. Films on India’s purported atrocities in Kashmir, and fiery lectures by preachers, including Lashkar chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, led him to believe that the Lashkar’s cause — the greater glory of Islam, as the organisation presented it — was worth giving his life to. It is possible, an official involved in the interrogation suggested, that the atmosphere of the camp gave him the sense of family he had lacked for much of his life.
When he returned home for a two-month break after his indoctrination at the Lashkar base camp, he found a respectability within his community and family that had eluded him most of his life. Where Iman had earlier been seen as a burden, he was now self-sufficient — and bore the halo of religious piety.
Later that year, Iman was chosen for the Lashkar’s basic combat course, the Daura Aam. He performed well and was among a small group of 32 men selected to undergo advanced training at a camp near Manshera, a course the organisation calls the Daura Khaas. Finally, he was among an even smaller group selected for specialised marine commando and navigation training given to the fidayeen unit selected to target Mumbai.
According to Iman, Lashkar military commander Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi promised that his family would be rewarded with Rs. 1.5 lakh for his sacrifice.
If these terrorists, who carry out their terrorist acts by killing innocent civilians, believe that they are doing such acts for the greater glory of Islam and that cause is worth giving their life to, then is it not Islamic Terrorism & are they not Islamic Terrorists? If not, then who are they?
Howsoever the psudo-secularists try to paint a rosy(?) picture and want the world to believe that terrorism has no religion, the stark reality is, unfortunately, quite opposite and Islamic Terrorism is a reality today. That is why, Super PM Sonia & her goons are trying their level best to paint Hindus also as terrorists by fabricating evidences & foisting cases against people who have not done any terrorist act.
For this purpose they have been mis-using a state agency, Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Maharashtra, which was mandated to quickly fix some Hindus & Hindu organisations as Terrorists so that the BJP can not accuse Sonia Congress of pampering Muslims & Islamic Terrorism at the cost of the nation's security. But, in the process of doing its master's job, the ATS could not focus on its actual job - that of nabbing the real terrorists. And due to this grave lapse, Mumbai & the nation is now presented with the latest terrorist tragedy - The Mumbai Siege.
So, it is the responsibility of all right thinking citizens of this country to remember that it is Sonia Congress and its UPA allies, who are responsible for this ghastly tragedy & they have to be punished for their crime when the next Lok Sabha elections come.
6 comments:
Arun, A very gud post, once again.
If u see some of the web sites, TV channels and newspapers like Indian express, they never use the word 'terrorists'. They call them Islamic 'militants'.U must have been gobsmacked to read and hear this.No religion preaches killing of innocent lives.Just to show how many dysfunctional people are living in this crazy world.
With a sad heart for those who lost their lives in the Mumbai massacre.
Prashanth
All the countries which produces arms must sit together and say that they will sell arms only to the govt of each country and not to any other organization/ terrorists/ militants. If any govt supplies these arms to be used on their neighboring country then the country which is the victim will have the moral right to declare war on that rouge state.
pradeep's suggestion seems to be a good one.
kppradeep said...
All the countries which produces arms must sit together and say that they will sell arms only to the govt of each country and not to any other organization/ terrorists/ militants. If any govt supplies these arms to be used on their neighboring country then the country which is the victim will have the moral right to declare war on that rouge state.
----------------------------------
Pradeep, ippadi ellam solla aarambichaa, inga irukkara KALLA THONI GAJA-vukku ellam GALLAA eppadi kattum????
I truly agree with the author of the blog. He is really great.
Our PM is more knowledge and capable, but he is puppet. Many other chamchas are surrounded to empress.
C is widespreading in the rurals and tribals with the influence of money and not in reality. Slowly the people are living in that.
C is forced in some of the places by some of the people who are in the job roles of P's.
As you said, we need a good party who can work for the nation and not for their kitties.
Rich is becoming richer and richer and poor remains the same. I recollect reading some where that top 20 indian billionaries hold money equals to whole of poor of India... which is a not good equation. The rich are not taxed heavily and are taxed on par with the middle income and lower middle income group.
I read in one of the article recently that India is standing in the 5th place for corruption. I am not sure after listening to this, I did not see anything our so called Government acting on this as it was famous for it.
We all should vote people JP Narayan (ex-IAS officer)'s party or Abdul Kalam or TN Seshan. Who are really really GREAT people and wanted to help the country.
Hope everyone agrees.
Thanks for reading.
I truly agree with the author of the blog. He is really great.
Our PM is more knowledge and capable, but he is puppet. Many other chamchas are surrounded to empress.
C is widespreading in the rurals and tribals with the influence of money and not in reality. Slowly the people are living in that.
C is forced in some of the places by some of the people who are in the job roles of P's.
As you said, we need a good party who can work for the nation and not for their kitties.
Rich is becoming richer and richer and poor remains the same. I recollect reading some where that top 20 indian billionaries hold money equals to whole of poor of India... which is a not good equation. The rich are not taxed heavily and are taxed on par with the middle income and lower middle income group.
I read in one of the article recently that India is standing in the 5th place for corruption. I am not sure after listening to this, I did not see anything our so called Government acting on this as it was famous for it.
We all should vote people JP Narayan (ex-IAS officer)'s party or Abdul Kalam or TN Seshan. Who are really really GREAT people and wanted to help the country.
Hope everyone agrees.
Thanks for reading.
Post a Comment