On 1st July 2016, seven armed jihadis stormed into
the Holey Artisan bakery in the upmarket Gulshan area of Dhaka, taking more
than 30 people hostage. In a throwback to the Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall
siege of 2013 by Al Shabaab miltants,
only the ones who could recite Koran verses were spared. The rest were tortured
brutally and butchered with machetes (not shot, because of the religious duty
to kill kafirs by slitting the throat). The jihadis held the security forces
for more than 12 hours, and when finally the siege ended, six of the seven
jihadis lay dead, along with nine Italians, two Bangaldeshi origin
Americans, seven Japanese, one Indian
and two Dhaka policemen. The seventh jihadi is being interrogated.
Islamic state claimed
responsibility of the attack, and the perpetrators of it were all Bangladeshi
nationals of Jamyetul Mujahideen Bangladesh. That group has been banned for
more than a decade in Bangladesh, but its ties to Islamic State are known. All
the seven jihadis were from affluent families, with a good educational
background, none from a madrassa.IS posted the pictures of five of them online
stating “Let the crusader countries know that there is no safety for them as
long as their aircraft are killing Muslims”. This looks to be aimed at US and
Britain bombing Syria and Iraq, but how is Italy and Japan or even India
involved in this? The Italian victims were understood to be fashion houses
employees buying fabric from Bangladesh, the Japanese ones from NGOS. So,
effectively the country’s economy can be dealt a huge blow if homegrown terror
is not kept in check.
Bangladesh PM Shaikh Haseena
remarked what kind of Muslims are these who kill innocents during Ramzaan (So
is it ok to kill them after Ramzan, as per verse 9:5?) And lets not even talk
about “These terrorists were not Muslims, terror has no religion” from news
traders, overrated intellectuals, celebrities or leaders. This reaction is not
just shameless, its infuriating.
There is nothing surprising about
an attack of this kind taking place in Dhaka. It was long due. For quite some
time now, Bangladesh has been a growing hotbed of Islamic terror. Rape and
murder of the Hindu minority is daily news there. An untold number of secular
bloggers, dissidents and even LGBT activists have been butchered in broad
daylight , and the toll has increased in the last two years. Bangladesh might have
been separated from Pakistan in 1971, but its foolishness to believe that it
has no fertile ground for jihad. Already, it is a strong base for Pakistan’s
ISI, a safe haven for separatist outfits like ULFA and NSCN factions, and now
rising IS base. Why do we forget that the idea of Pakistan did not originate in
Lahore or Karachi, but in the likes of Dhaka, Aligadh and Kolkata. Muslim
League’s bulk votes and leaders/cadre came from central provinces and undivided
Bengal .
An old interview published in Islamic
State’s online propaganda site Dabiq, has surfaced, for which India should be
concerned. Shaykh Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif, the 'Amir of Khilafah's soldiers in
Bengal' in an interview to the magazine elaborated upon the group's plans. In
unambiguous terms, he mentioned how Bangladesh would be used by the group to
launch raids into India from the eastern periphery. This move would be timed
with attacks launched from the 'Wilayat Khurasan located on India's western
side'. "Thus having a strong jihad base in Bengal will facilitate
performing guerilla attacks inside India simultaneously from both sides,"
it was mentioned. The eventual plan it was said was to launch conventional army
raid to 'liberate the region' after first getting rid of the 'Pakistani and
Afghani regimes'. The jihad in Bengal was also a 'stepping-stone for jihad in
Burma'. The uncontrolled Bangladeshi
infiltration in north eastern India is a life threatening problem, not
addressed due to vote bank or plain apathy. When you add the growing threat of
jihad to it, you have a ticking time bomb at hand.
Bangladeshi infiltration has
changed the demography of many areas in India, especially in states like Assam.
East Bengal’s attraction for goes back more than a century. Even during the
proposed partition of Bengal in 1905, the Muslim League had demanded
Bange-Islam, on the targets of which was to flood sparsely populated Assam with
Bengali Muslims. During the second world war, Md Sadaudaula the then premier of
Assam , gave a big influx to this infiltration. Mujib ur Rehman, the former
Muslim league gangster who became the first prime minister of Bangladesh and
who is the "secular" doyen according to the secular intelligentsia
,had always coveted the mineral rich wealth of Assam (“Eastern Pakistan must include Assam to
be financially and economically strong.”). He had remarked that
very slowly, but surely the Bengali Muslims through the demographic growth
would overwhelm Assam one day. He would be pleased to know had he been alive
today that successive secular governments (you know which party) in India have
not only aided the infiltration, but also given citizenship to the
infiltrators. Dev Kant Barua (one who said India is Indira and Indira is India)
had famously remarked that the party would be in power as long as the Alis
(Bangladeshi migrants) and Coolies (tea garden labourers) are there. Even in
Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura the Bangladeshis
have changed the demographics alarmingly. Islamic state will be rubbing its
hands with glee when it finds out that it needs to spend little in men and
material to create a launchpad to the east of India for Ghazwa e Hind, and to
carve out a third islamic nation from the easternmost part of India when the
time is ripe.
The number of people being
recruited for Islamic State from countries like India, Britain, France,
Pakistan, Bangladesh has grown dangerously, and none of them are poor or
illiterate or unemployed as the liberal bleeding hearts tell us (sorry Malala),
but from relatively affluent
backgrounds. Our intelligence agencies have to be commended for tracking all
these cases meticulously, but even one recruit that escapes the radar can spell
disaster, because any terrorist attack in a crowded city in India will result
in atleast a hundred casualties before the security forces can respond. And the
terrorists are now targeting the affluent and middle class, because they are
the soft spot, sheltered, easily rattled by violence, and willing to bend to
any extent to keep the status quo. Paris
attacks, Brussels and Istanbul bombing and now this. And it wont get any
easier. Two of the brutally butchered people in Dhaka were two young
Bangladeshi origin students studying in USA. It did not matter to the
terrorists that they were Muslims, all that mattered was that they had gone
‘’astray’’ and had to be killed. If
jihadis can do this to their own children, imagine what will it do to yours.
The revival of jihad machinery
via petrodollars which started during CIA’s funding of Afghan mujahideen has
grown into a huge monster, and it wants
to swallow everything in its path. Its no longer confined to the rocky hills of
Afghanistan or gullies of Karachi and no longer are the have nots its only
victims. It can hit you as hard in your gated communities, or while you are
enjoying your dom perignon in a swanky restaurant. Stop whitewashing the crimes
of barbarians just because it serves your purpose or just because you think you
are way beyond the reach of the violence. You are now, but you soon won’t be.
Calling all Muslims as terrorists is as immature as it is short sighted. It is
true that its just a small minority among them which is doing it, but that small
minority is huge enough to destroy our way of life irrevocably. And the
deafening silence of the majority of Muslims makes it more lethal, who fail to
understand that they will be its first victims, just as Muslims themselves were
mutilated or killed for diverting from Shariah during Taliban rule and now in
Islamic State ruled areas.
All right, I’m off now to
memorise some Quran verses in English. After all, I want to make sure that my
next meal in a restaurant isn’t my last.
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