64 dead in Samjhauta Express : Terror Attack ?

**subba** · 25 Feb 07,, 11:45

It is US citizens who are the terrorist prone as just 46 % percent of US Citizens hold the view that attacks on civilians are never justified whereas Pakistani Citizens are not terrorist prone as 86 % of Pakistanis claim that attacks on civilians are never justified

Hari sir, i'm sure if you polled the Hezbollah they'd have said 'attacks on civilians are never justified'.

There are 2 ways of looking at this. One Islamic and the other Kafir. Kafir Armies normally don't hide behind civilians. So when Hez/ Iraqi militants pursued by Israeli/ US forces land up in a house with some civilians are on the verge of escaping, it's a decision that Israeli/ US Officers have to make..that of allowing the militants to escape and plan an attack that could kill 50 innocents more, or get 10 SF men to barge into the house and suffer certain casualities, or smartbomb the place. The option employed by US/ Israeli's is usually the latter. The Indian Army employs the middle option. So the Hez/ LeT, LeJ operatives, sympathizers will obviously hate civilian casualities in that context more than what the US or Israeli forces will. But they are looking at it from 2 diiferent angles.

The next will prove the above point..

Suicide attacks are un-Islamic: clerics

Actually what they said is not that...interpretation.

EDITORIAL: Our clerics favour suicide-bombing!

In a case of “wrong or misleading heading”, a survey on suicide-bombing by a Karachi Urdu newspaper has confused the press. It has wrongly concluded that our leading ulema have renounced suicide-bombing. This is what an online academic magazine has concluded: “Clerics from all schools of thought have declared suicide attacks un-Islamic and forbidden them under the Sharia; they said killing a non-Muslim without a legitimate cause was against the Islamic way of life”.

But the truth is that the meaning of what these clerics said is quite different from that which has been attributed to them. For instance, Maulana Amir Hamza of Jamaatud Dawa is quoted as saying that a suicide attack is an act of terrorism and that someone who kills himself to kill others also accounts for the sins of those killed. But he also added (found on website) that “no suicide attack is justified in a country which has Islam as the state religion, ruled by a Muslim ruler and is not under occupation by infidels”. This means that Iraq is excluded from this definition because it is occupied by infidels. In other words, Maulana Hamza would justify suicide bombing in Iraq against the occupying infidel.

This also means that suicide-bombing is not okay in Pakistan — because Islam is the state religion, the country is not occupied by infidels and General Musharraf is a Muslim ruler — but okay in a non-Muslim country like the United Kingdom, for instance. The scholar is clearly worried about Muslim suicide-bombers killing innocent Muslims. But what may become moot at any time is whether even Pakistan can qualify as an Islamic state and whether General Musharraf can be denounced as a bad Muslim for allying with an infidel like the USA.

The second cleric included in the survey is Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, formerly of the JUI, who actually allows suicide-bombing while alluding to Palestine!

Then there is a former minister and Sunni cleric, Dr Mehmood Ahmad Ghazi, who says that suicide-bombing is wrong but he too imposes the condition of the Islamic state, implying that it may be okay to kill innocent people in a non-Muslim state. Dr Anis of Jama’at-e Islami says he can’t be sure if suicide-bombing is wrong, but he too refers to Palestine without noting that Al Fatah condemns suicide-bombing while Hamas actually does it.

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

**Ray** · 25 Feb 07,, 18:23

God Bless the Mullahs.

They are ever so kind.

They bring great respect (sic!) to the religion!

These Mullahs are letting the Moslems down!

**subba** · 25 Feb 07,, 18:59

These Mullahs are letting the Moslems down!

Not really Ray sir. They are just doing their job. And they are doing it right. They can't be blamed for interpreting the book correctly.

joey2 · 25 Feb 07,, 19:25

subba check your pm.

**~~saambaarblast~~** · 26 Feb 07,, 14:04

Rogue ISI Footprints : outlookindia.com

Rogue ISI Footprints

The New Enemy
Rogue ISI elements, operating beyond their official brief, planned the attack

Their aim: to derail the peace process and people-to-people contact

Bombs planted by local operatives at the Old Delhi Railway Station

The suitcase bombs were not crude. Their sophisticated circuitry indicates a high degree of training, planning

British intelligence willing to share data on fringe elements within the ISI

A baptism by fire for the joint Indo-Pak anti-terror mechanism, you could say. Four days after the Samjhauta Express blasts, a tetchy Pakistan virtually expressed its lack of confidence in India's investigations by airlifting all the injured recuperating at Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital, including key witnesses, on a special C-130 flight back to Pakistan late on Thursday—granting them, at least for now, immunity against interrogation. And, simultaneously, for intelligence agencies in India trying to get a fix on the identity of the mastermind, the needle of suspicion is veering towards rogue elements within Pakistan's ISI, and not a stray fidayeen unit as it seemed at first. Intelligence officials told Outlook recent reports forwarded to the National Security Advisor had warned of the "emerging threat" from a band of "fringe" ISI officers operating beyond their brief.

Intelligence officials say the February 18 attack near Panipat—which killed 68 people, mostly Pakistanis—was a carefully planned attempt to destabilise the ongoing Indo-Pak peace process and people-to-people contact. The two explosive-laden suitcases recovered from the train hold clues that justify such a line of reasoning. "The sophisticated circuitry in the bombs indicate the involvement of people who have access to resources, who work for a state-run organisation like the ISI. It was not a simple petrol bomb as is commonly perceived," an intelligence official says. The physical planting of the bombs on the train may have been carried out by locals, but the planning speaks of people who have a more than amateurish degree of training in assembling explosives and carrying out terrorist operations.

The bombs were designed to use a minimal—but optimal—amount of explosives to ignite seven litres of fuel in each of the five suitcases. There was also a minimal use of metal, so that the bombers could walk through security checks at the Old Delhi railway station. As it turned out, the metal detectors were not functional on February 18.

The investigators have also noted that instead of using RDX, the bombers used other plastic explosives with extra detonators that could be switched off if they wished to abort their mission. The timers of the two suitcase bombs that did not go off were connected to their central locking systems and were meant to trigger blasts in the early hours of Monday just before the train reached Ambala, where it has an operational halt. The bombers, for some reason, switched it off, aborting the original plan of setting fire to some more coaches.

Unlike in the 1993 Bombay blasts, where timers and detonators could be clearly traced back to the Pakistani military, this attack left no trail. But officials say the sophistication of the circuits and detonators is beyond the known capabilities of ordinary terror operatives.Intelligence officials also rule out fidayeen involvement. "We feel the bombers planted the bombs and then got off the train at Old Delhi," says a source.

The timing had purpose writ large over it. The blast came days before the Indo-Pak joint commission on terror met. Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri was to make a tone-setting visit to India. Kasuri had plans—to give impetus to the peace process, he had proposed to bring together Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, Yasin Malik and Syed Ali Shah Geelani with a plan on Kashmir acceptable to both India and Pakistan. This, say sources, further enraged hardline elements within the ISI. The attack was designed to anger Pakistani citizens and limit further concessions on Kashmir.

The suspected hand of 'rogue ISI' will figure prominently in the talks between RAW chief Ashok Chaturvedi and his British counterpart John Scarlett, now in India. Sources say Scarlett will share information about an ISI group unofficially helping the Taliban in Afghanistan. The British are said to have offered greater access to intelligence on the ISI to help the investigations into the Samjhauta Express blasts.

Whether by proxy or direct involvement, the needle of suspision points to ISI anyway.

**nitinjindal83** · 01 Mar 07,, 22:13

INDIA TODAY - The most widely read newsweekly in South Asia.
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IN BRIEF

WHERE THEY FAILED

Terror slipped past them undetected. Lulled into complacency by the apparently safe train, here's how the railway police missed it all.

AT OLD DELHI RAILWAY STATION

No frisking of luggage

The most crucial lapse which allowed the bombers to place the explosives in the train. Only three of the six entry points to the platform were guarded. There was no access control, and anyone could approach the train.

No CCTVs covering platform 18

As in the London train bombings of July 2005, footage from the cameras could have helped investigators identify the four bombers as they boarded the train in Old Delhi with their deadly briefcases.

Tickets issued without checking passports

Though it is mandatory to check passports and note details before passengers board the train, ticket clerks sold at least five tickets without checking passports.

EN ROUTE TO ATTARI

Only 5 RPF personnel on the train

Insufficient to guard the 16-coach train. Well-trained and equipped personnel could have detected the bombers while they attempted to escape after planting explosives.

Two suspects allowed to get off

A Pakistani passenger Usman says at least four persons got off the train before the blasts. RPF personnel detained and then allowed two other persons, now suspected to be the bombers, to alight minutes before the blasts.

IN DETAIL

Shocking Lapses

Terrorists exploit criminally lax security to firebomb the Samjhauta Express, killing 68 passengers in an attempt to disrupt the peace process between India and Pakistan

By Sandeep Unnithan and Ramesh Vinayak

The bright, brick-red Old Delhi railway station in the heart of the Capital represents the almost endemic nature of train travel in India. The station is filthy and overcrowded and security is primitive to the point of being non-existent. It is also the starting point for the Samjhauta Express, symbolically the subcontinent's most important train. But you wouldn't know it from platform No 18, where the train departs for Lahore every Sunday and Wednesday. The station is monitored by 20 close-circuit TV cameras but there are none to watch over this sensitive platform where the train departs twice a week, at 10.50 p.m., for its 400-km journey to Attari on the India-Pakistan border before it crosses over to reach Lahore at 6.30 p.m. the next day, after a 20-hour journey. There are not even any sniffer dogs to warn of potential explosives that might be stuffed in luggage.

The platform has six access points but only three are guarded by Railway Protection Force (RPF) constables. Passengers, mainly Pakistanis going back home after visiting their relatives in India, are supposed to show their passports before obtaining a ticket, but you can get one anyway. No surprise then that at least four terrorists slipped in to plant four incendiary bombs, each in a different coach of the train, before it departed on February 18.

Less than an hour later, the sum of this security bungling exploded in two fire balls as the train sped down with 600 passengers towards Panipat in Haryana at 90 kmph. The two local bombs turned 68 passengers and two coaches of the 16-coach train into crisp toast. Investigating agencies which suspect a Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) hand, say the modus operandi-four Molotov cocktails packed in innocuous suitcases-was almost as old as the terrorists' choice of target, a passenger train. The intent was to torch four coaches of the train and cause mass casualties while the passengers were asleep. It was a small consolation that two of the briefcases packed with 14 kerosene-filled plastic bottles, which were to be triggered by detonators attached to timers, did not go off. The unexploded bombs, one of them flung out by a passenger minutes before it exploded, have given the investigating agencies their first leads.

"We did not have the machines to check inside the bags," said Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav. Not frisking bags even physically was only the first in a series of criminal lapses. Half an hour before the explosion, RPF personnel on board detected two illegal travellers who said they were bound for Ahmedabad and had got onboard by mistake. They were allowed to get off a few kilometres before the train approached Diwana station, where the bombs went off. Police now believe they were among the group of at least four bombers, but it didn't occur to the RPF personnel-two of them were killed in the blast-that the train only halted once near Ambala. The terrorists, who had obviously studied the route of the train, including the places where it slowed down, knew where to get off.

The bungling continued even a day after the attack, at the Bhimsain Sachar hospital in Panipat, 10 km from the spot where police officials and hospital staff sifted through the belongings retrieved from the charred bodies in an attempt to identify them. Only three bodies could be identified by face. There was no passenger manifest from the Railways yet, and no phone numbers of next-of-kin who could be contacted. The only way for the police to identify the bodies placed in the makeshift morgue was to dial the numbers listed in the burnt and soggy phone diaries of the victims in the hope of getting through to a relative or a friend, or simply to allow the swelling mass of relatives to physically verify the identity of their near and dear ones.

One of them was Mohammed Maqbool Qureishi, 58, who fought to hold back his tears after identifying the body of his 50-year-old wife Yasmeen. "She was going to see our three children, who have married and settled down in Rawalpindi. She seemed so happy when I had dropped her off at the Old Delhi station last night," says Qureishi, who runs a tyre repair shop in Srinagar.

Was this horrific act a rerun of the Godhra incident? But why would Pakistan-sponsored terrorists attack a train carrying their own people? A statement by Pakistan's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Khusro Bakhtiar in the National Assembly the day after the attack said 49 of the 68 victims had been identified-27 were Hindus and 22 Muslims. Thirteen of the Muslims who died were Mohajirs-eight were from Karachi and five from Hyderabad, Sindh. Was the train attacked because it had Pakistani Hindus, returning home to Sindh after visiting their relatives in India? These are the questions that will point to the motives behind the attacks.

Samjhauta Express never figured in the threat perception reports of the state or Central intelligence agencies possibly for the worst reason ever-it was never attacked in the past 31 years, not even at the height of Punjab terrorism. "We never thought it could be targeted by terror groups," admits Punjab Additional Director General of Police J.P. Birdi.

The train was also on the wrong side of the socio-economic divide-it ferried lower middle-class Indians and Pakistanis who found the price of its tickets well within their means. The incident, which ostensibly demonstrated India's failure to protect Pakistani nationals on Indian soil, has given Pakistan a diplomatic stick to beat its opponents with. In sharp contrast, the Delhi-Lahore bus service, 'Sada-e-Sarhad', which carries passengers who are well off, enjoys far better security. It is accompanied by a pilot and an escort vehicle comprising a dozen-odd security personnel and is protected throughout by police forces from Delhi, Haryana and Punjab.

Can this laxity be explained by the fact that the contraband-laden Samjhauta Express was a gravy train for the RPF and a host of agencies including the intelligence, customs, immigration and security staff at Attari? For the RPF personnel accompanying the train, frisking only means fleecing the passengers-many of them are agents of 'swari' operators, who have established a well-organised cross-border smuggling network. The security of the train begins and ends with the bolting of the compartment doors after it chugs out of Delhi on its overnight journey. The personnel only ensure that no one boards or disembarks the train during any unscheduled stop. Much of their nightly duty comprises nudging groggy passengers to probe the content of their mostly unwieldy luggage consisting of stuff like paan, fabric and even pressure cookers, which would fetch them a premium in the Lahore market. The excessive luggage carried by the passengers is the perfect ruse for cops to make a fast buck. No one even bothers to verify if passengers carry a genuinely-stamped visa.

What, however, has been ringing alarm bells for intelligence agencies is the increasing use of the Samjhauta Express to smuggle narcotics and fake currency on its journey from Pakistan to India. That said, the security of the train was never an issue with intelligence and security agencies on both sides of the border. The bomb blasts have completely caught them off-guard. "It's the duty of the governments of Punjab and Haryana to protect the train," says Yadav, conveniently forgetting that the RPF had long taken over as the security agency solely responsible for guarding it. "We have nothing to do with guarding the Samjhauta Express," says G.S. Grewal, IG, General Railway Police, which protects only a few trains passing through Punjab. It is not just a question of protecting the 'Mohabbat ki gaadi' (train of love), but also that of setting right the other security lapses the terrorists have already spotted.