Abu Jindal’s deportation to India from Saudi Arabia was firmly resisted by the Pakistanis. This is a measure of the importance that Islamabad attaches to key terrorist operatives.
The arrest of Indian Mujahideen kingpin Yasin Bhatkal along with a prominent accomplice on Thursday marks the stage for the potential disruption of the most important outfit run by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence on Indian territory. The work of the country’s intelligence establishment and its successful coordination with the Bihar police are to be lauded in this regard.
We are dealing with slippery customers who are highly trained sabotage and terrorist operatives of a foreign government. The IM co-founder, who was picked up after painstaking work in the India-Nepal border area, has given the Indian authorities the slip on more than one occasion. This has to be guarded against.
A quick trial and appropriate punishment for high-profile terrorist incidents suggests itself. But more, on the basis of the information gleaned from the captured terrorists, we need to take the logical next step of ensuring the disintegration of the IM and similar outfits.
In June we were able to persuade Saudi Arabia to deport Abu Jindal to India to face trial after furnishing firm evidence. This Indian national was living on a fake Pakistani passport in that country, and his transfer to India was firmly resisted by the Pakistanis. This is a measure of the importance that Islamabad attaches to key terrorist operatives. Only a few days earlier, we netted Abdul Karim Tunda, another Indian who had been living in Pakistan for years and had reached command levels of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. And now the authorities have succeeded in capturing the commander of all IM operations in India.
All of the above are the outcome of diligent and creative discharge of duty by our intelligence and security personnel. The good work should be continued. It is a pity that petty bickering among our political parties scuttled the effort of the Centre to bring sensible and practical legislation that would have made for seamless coordination as between Central and state agencies, as well as between state governments, in dealing with terrorists and criminals whose actions feed into terrorism.
We hope that this matter will be put right in the not too distant future, especially after seeing the result of fruitful cooperation between Central agencies such as RAW, IB, SSB and NIA and the Bihar police. Seeing the profile of the dangerous persons captured, we can only hope that amateur human rights activists do not go out in search of flimsy alibis for the accused and put the judicial system under undue pressure.
The larger perspective is that the spurt in extremism and terrorism in recent years in India is also linked to the playing out of communal politics and the violence spawned by it. As a people, we need to guard firmly against this.
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