Law student behind threat mail to Advani
Indo-Asian News Service
Friday, September 26, 2008, (Shillong)Mominul Haq, a law student in Shillong, has confessed to sending the e-mail threatening to assassinate Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate L K Advani during his visit to the Meghalaya capital next week, officials said on Friday.
“Mominul Haq broke down after hours of interrogation and confessed to sending an e-mail in the name of the Indian Mujahideen to kill Advani. He said he did so because he felt that Muslims were being persecuted in the country,” a police official said.
An e-mail in the name of the Indian Mujahideen was sent to journalists in Shillong. It threatened to kill Advani using suicide bombers during his scheduled visit to Shillong September 29.
“We have also detained about seven to eight more other suspects and are now trying to verify if these people have any links with the Indian Mujahideen or other Islamist terror outfits or radical fundamentalist groups,” the police official said.
The e-mail was sent from a cyber caf in the Laban area of Shillong, a locality dominated by Muslims.
“We have vowed to kill Advani on his visit to Shillong on Sep 29. We have already convened a meeting of field commanders to decide as to how revenge could be taken,” the e-mail said.
The statement e-mailed to local journalists and newspaper offices in Meghalaya was received from a mail ID alihussainbadr@rediffmail.com and claimed to be from Ali Hussain Badr, field commander of the Indian Mujahideen in the northeast.
Advani is due to arrive in Assam’s main city of Guwahati September 28 and then visit Meghalaya’s capital Shillong September 29.
The BJP leader is arriving in the northeast on a three-day visit as part of the party’s Sankalp Rally – a country wide campaign pledging to win the next general elections.
“Our main objective is to blow Advani into pieces. Our suicide bombers are ready for this prestigious assignment,” the statement said.
The statement accused Advani and the BJP for the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 and the recent attacks on churches across India.
“Advani’s Hindutva demand seems to push India into a fascist mould and as is well known, the proclaimed and identified main enemies of the architects of Hindutva are the Muslims and the Christians,” it added.
Although the police has cracked the terror plot to kill Advani, the Meghalaya government is not taking any chances.
“We will continue to have tight security even though we have been able to arrest the person behind the e-mail,” Meghalaya Chief Minister Donkupar Roy said.
Terror email asks Christians to stay away from Advani rally
26 Sep 2008, 0030 hrs IST,TNN
SHILLONG/NEW DELHI: The email threat to kill L K Advani request “Christian brothers” to stay away from the leader’s sankalp yatra to be flagged off next Monday.
While claiming that it wants to avoid civilian casualties, the “IM” email uses violent language against Advani, stating “our main objective is to blow Advani into pieces…our suicide bombers are ready for this prestigious assignment…this will be history in the making when our suicide bombers rock Shillong.”
The BJP responded to the email by stating that the Leader of Opposition’s programme would not be altered. “Advani will address the rally as scheduled and the police will manage the security,” said state BJP organizing secretary Dipankar Chakravarty.
The attack on Advani for harming India’s “cultural plularism” is a departure from the hate-India invective in IM emails even though the authors are careful to single out other minorities as allies who have nothing to fear from the bombers. “Advani’s Hindutva demand seems to push India into a fascist mould and its main enemy are Muslims and Christians.
Apart from Babri masjid demolition and Gujarat massacre, there are recent attacks on churches in Orissa and Karnataka and some parts of Madhya Pradesh,” it says.
These references are intriguing as IM, with its jihadi moorings, has never shown any concern for other communities nor sought to build a common front against “majoritarian” oppressors as its philosophy sees all non-believers in the same light. In the IM’s world view, at least so far, there are just two points of view – the righteous path as defined by it and the rest who are classified as “enemies”. Police investigations could yield more information on this while it cannot be ruled out that the email was authored by people of a different denomination.
IG (special branch) S B Singh said, “The email was not a hoax. Investigation is on the right lines and some breakthroughs have been achieved. Certain facts have to be corroborated and correlated before making anything public.” He added that the police was conducting checks at various places across the city and while some people had been identified, the cyber cafe had also been traced.
The police is not ruling out the presence of IM in the north-east and chief minister Donkupar Roy said his government would ensure that Advani’s visit passed off peacefully.
Islamic Terrorism in India 