By Mohammad Jamil
Many analysts believed that the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) had engineered the attack on Indian Parliament to defame Pakistan as well as Kashmiris who were waging a legitimate struggle against Indian occupation. Not only analysts but also India watchers, who knew about India’s false flag operations, had reached the conclusion that it was insiders’ job, as no outsider could reach the most protected area. On July 14, 2013 a former under-secretary of India’s Ministry of Home Affairs R.V.S. Mani had signed the affidavits that were submitted in the court during proceedings of the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case. Mani, who was not an ordinary government functionary, but held important position, stated: “Satish Verma, until recently a part of the CBI-SIT probe team, told him that both the terror attacks were set up with the objective of strengthening the counter-terror legislation.”
He went on to say that Verma had narrated to him that the 13th December 2001(attack on Parliament) was followed by Pota (Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act) and 26th November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai was followed by amendment to the UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act). Both these incidents, which India alleged that Pakistan was responsible, had almost led the two nuclear armed neighbors to the brink of a major regional conflict, which could have resulted in a nuclear war. Anyhow, it was first time that such an attack was launched on the heavily guarded parliamentary complex. Earlier, Sikh separatists had assassinated prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1984. And a Tamil suicide bomber killed her son Rajiv Gandhi, who also served as a prime minister in 1991. It is, therefore, wrong to say that Pakistan is involved in every terrorist act in India.
According to reports, on 13th December 2001, five armed men drove through the gates of the Indian parliament in a car fitted with a bomb. When challenged they jumped out of the car and opened fire, killing eight security personnel and a gardener. In the exchange of fire that followed, all five attackers were killed. L.K. Advani, then home minister in the BJP government had said that they looked like Pakistanis. Within 24 hours, the Delhi Police Special Cell (notorious for its fake “encounter” killings suspected terrorists were targeted in extrajudicial attacks) claimed it had cracked the case. On 15th December it arrested, what they called, the “mastermind”, Professor S.A.R. Geelani, in Delhi, Showkat Guru and his cousin Afzal Guru in Srinagar, Kashmir. Subsequently, they arrested Afsan Guru, Showkat’s wife, but the high court had acquitted them and the supreme court had upheld the acquittal.
But in its 5th August 2005 judgment, the court gave Afzal Guru three life sentences and a double death sentence. The two most incriminating pieces of evidence against Guru were a cell phone and a laptop, which were not sealed as evidence, whereas it should have been sealed. During the trial it emerged that the hard disk of the laptop had been accessed after the arrest. It only contained the fake home ministry passes and the fake identity cards that the terrorists used to access parliament – and a Zee TV video clip of parliament house. However, the laptop was tampered to get Afzal Guru indicted. The police witness said he sold the crucial sim that connected all the accused in the case to one another to Guru on 4 December 2001. But the prosecution’s own call records showed the sim was actually operational from 6th November 2001.
There is a clear evidence of Indian Military Intelligence and Indian Army hierarchy’s involvement in planning and execution of such state sponsored acts of terrorism. As stated above, the former under-Secretary of the India’s Ministry of Home Affairs also stated in front of India’s highest court that such actions were also a routine in other state intelligence agencies as well. Such false flag operations by Indian state-run intelligence agencies raise many serious concerns. Perhaps, India is under the impression that whatever India says against Pakistan with regard to acts of terrorism, the world perceives it to be true. India does not even hesitate to perpetrate such acts of state terrorism against its own people as the veritable arm and extension of India’s foreign policy objectives. However, there is a redeeming feature that the world has started understanding the machinations of Indian leadership.