Terrorism knows no religion

It was a lazy Sunday morning in Melbourne. I woke up a bit late and looked out side the window. I noticed bright sunshine. “It is going to be a beautiful day”, I said to myself. Seldom had I known at that point of time that this feeling would be changed a couple of hours later.

Later I had been to a friend’s house for lunch along with a colleague of mine. Mood was good. Suddenly my friend inquired “hey there were a couple of blasts in your Hyderabad last evening”, I was stunned. Immediately I hooked to the internet and was going through the news websites to know more details. My mind went blank for a while. The blasts took place at the famous Gokul Chat eat out in central Hyderabad in Koti and at Lumbini Park. The two most frequented places by most of the Hyderabadis on a week end. 42 innocent people dead and 80 injured. Why Hyderabad again? That too within three months of Mecca Masjid blasts. If the target was only Hindu community then Mecca Masjid blast shouldn’t have occurred. Hyderabad is though sensitive area is secular. People live there in harmony. All the communal rites happened in the past were due to political reasons and nothing to do with the people of any community. Hyderabad is fastest growing city attracting investments in IT and ITeS related sectors. It is now a more prosperous city. The lifestyle of the people improved. For that matter even Chennai, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Mallapuram and Cochin they are all developing cities in the south. These cities have got sizable Muslim population and are growing at a faster pace than the northern cities. Hence a natural target for the terrorists. They are not keen on small towns or villages. Their aim is to incite communal violence and hinder the development and thus break the back bone of the Indian economy.

On Saturday, hours before the blasts, the city police seized Rupees 2.36 crore in counterfeit notes that they now say was smuggled into Hyderabad by an ISI-sponsored group linked to Dawood Ibrahim. “It has originated from Pakistan and via Dubai it has been brought to India,” says Hyderabad Police Commissioner. This indicates that the drug mafia and terror networks have merged. I believe terrorists who call themselves as Jihadis are not fighting for any cause. If they are then bomb blast at prayer halls of Islam would have never occurred in Hyderabad, Pakistan, Iraq, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Are they into some kind of business by terrorising Nations and get some mileage out of it? Everybody knew this including the government, police and intelligence agencies. Then why couldn’t they limit these incidents? Now politicians issue different statement blaming each other and the intelligence agencies. Why can’t they do something instead of blaming the intelligence? Can’t they be more responsible? They had definite inputs from these agencies on the impending attacks. Nobody can predict when and where such incidents can occur. These terrorists are striking at their will. Only if there is a sensible government who doesn’t care about their minority vote bank and acted tough aftermath of Mecca Masjid blasts may be this could have been prevented.

Muslims are not terrorists. Terrorists don’t follow a religion but majority of them are from Muslim community and that too from south Asia or third world countries. Entire South Asian region is bleeding because of terrorism. Is it because many people from this community are poor and illiterates and still depends on daily wages. Then what about Dr. Haneef’s cousins from Bangalore who are well educated one is a doctor and another is an aeronautical engineer. Why most of the communal rites involving Muslims happened on Friday after afternoon prayers? Certain elements are trying to manipulate the religious sentiments of this community and exploit their socio-economic status through madarasas. All over the world it is the Politics of Injustice that is creating the Unrest among the people and not the religion.

One of the possible answers lies in educating the people, to do something to improve their livelihood. This still doesn’t guarantee any results as long as certain religious fanatics like Imam Bhukhari exist. Just making mere issuing statements and providing some reservations in education and jobs for the community doesn’t help. We need to take some concrete steps than indulging vote bank politics. Until then we need to empower intelligence agencies with latest technology, should monitor all IM conversations, epower the intelligence agencies, give them a bit more freedom etc. We should take their cues seriously. Police should act fast. And moreover governments should use intelligence agencies for the security of the country and not against their political rivalries and should not indulge in their activities, should bring more stringent laws against organised crimes and against terrorism. There should be a National anti terrorism task force. All the terrorism cases needs to be handled by this cell and local police should assist it.