Bomb blasts and death sentences

Latest news reports inform us that agencies have reached some major conclusions in their investigation into the July 11 Bombay bomb blasts. The biggest of these is that Pakistan’s intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was the conceptual mastermind of the attacks. Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad, in turn employing the now banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and its modules, planned, coordinated, and executed the explosions.

Needless to say, the denials have come thick and fast from across the border. Baseless, fabricated, and intended to derail the peace process Singh and Musharraf have just managed to resurrect at the NAM summit, so goes the counter-claim. The bluster notwithstanding, it does provide a good first test for the recently formed joint anti-terrorism agency. Though, realistically speaking, little progress will be made. Whatever evidence will be shared will be summarily dismissed, and the war of words will continue. And in both countries the common man will continue to doubt the intentions of the other country’s government, while muttering platitudes that it is not the people but governments that have perpetuated this long impasse.

Other information unearthed included the routes taken by the alleged Pakistani militants to reach India: from Nepal in the north, Bangladesh in the east, and from across the Gujarat border. Interestingly, none came across the LoC in Kashmir. What does this mean, especially in the context of cross border terrorism writ large? In the past few years, the Indian government has, in general, accepted that the number of terrorists crossing over from PoK into India has declined. Indeed, that was fundamental to the ‘peace process’ moving forward. Evidently, that is not the only border to worry about, is it?

In other news, as the scheduled execution of Mohammad Afzal Guru, the purported mastermind behind the December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament, approaches, protests and strikes have been called across J&K state. The Prime Minister and the President have both been approached in the hope of clemency.

At issue is not merely the fundamental debate over capital punishment, but also the potential political fallout. It is these concerns that have prompted political leaders such as Ghulam Nabi Azad and Omar Abdullah to ask for clemency. They fear that the carrying out of the sentence would further alienate Kashmiris, and that the timing—we are in the midst of Ramadan—is also inopportune. NGOs claim, “The issue should not be seen from narrow political ends but from a larger perspective. The fact remains that the world over there is a general consensus against hanging." (http://www.hindu.com/2006/10/01/stories/2006100106071300.htm) But given ‘the where’ as well as ‘the who’ of this particular case, it is naive to expect a purely humanitarian solution.