Islamic terrorists strike Varanasi

Terror strikes Varanasi

HT Correspondent, Hindustan Times

Varanasi, December 08, 2010

Terror struck the holy town of Varanasi on Tuesday — a day after the 18th anniversary of Babri Masjid demolition — as an explosive device killed a one-year-old child and injured at least 20 people. The blast

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took place at 6.35 pm at the old Dashashwamedh ghat on the banks of the Ganga where one of the main tourist attractions, Ganga Aarati, was being performed.

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Indian Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the blast in an e-mail traced to Malad in Mumbai. It said, “Indian Mujahideen attribute (sic) this attack to the 6th of December that will haunt your nation of world’s ‘Greatest DemoNcracy (sic)’.” The mail also warned of more attacks.

The five-page IM email referred to the Allahabad High Court judgment on Ayodhya and the “manhandling and heckling of the Kashmiri leadership in Indian cities”.

Condemning the blast, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said it was an attempt to “weaken” India’s resolve to fight the “evil forces of terrorism” and that the “terrorists will not succeed”.

The blast took place near the railing of an elevated platform. The explosion destroyed the railings and the stone stairs of the ghat and bloodstains could be seen all around the place.

“It was a powerful blast that shook buildings up to 500 metres away. We saw dismembered limbs being thrown about,” said Kishori Raman Dubey who organises the show at the ghat.

The PM asked the union home ministry for a report on the incident. In fact, the home ministry had recently alerted the UP government against possible terrorist attacks around the time of the Babri demolition day.

Varanasi police chief RP Singh confirmed the death of one-year-old Swastika Sharma and injury to more than 20 people.

A local trader, Kuldip Beri, told HT that no policeman was present at the spot when the blast took place and there was total chaos for at least 15 minutes before the cops arrived.

The Hindu victims of Varanasi terrorist bombings

2006 Varanasi Bombings

Hindus torn by bomb attacks
5:00AM Friday Mar 10, 2006
By Justin Huggler, The New Zealand Herald

VARANASI – Surender Agarwal had just got married when the Varanasi bombs went off. He and his wife were coming to the end of their ceremony in the courtyard of one of the city’s Hindu temples when a bomb exploded metres away.

The priest who was officiating was killed, as were two of the family members. Now Agarwal and his new wife, Manju, are lying side by side in hospital beds.

The bride, in her twenties, has bad shrapnel injuries in her legs, and is spending her honeymoon in agony.

“Whoever did this is a traitor,” says Agarwal. The newlyweds are a long way from home. Agarwal’s wife is a Nepali, from Kathmandu; she met her husband on a visit to his home city of Bombay. They agreed to marry in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi on the recommendation of a priest who was an old family friend, who said it would bring blessings – but he is now dead, killed in the bomb blast.

Their story is typical of a city that is close to the hearts of every Hindu.

At least 20 people are believed to have been killed in bombings at a temple and a railway station on Tuesday. But it is being seen as an attack on all Hindus in the same way September 11 in New York was seen as an attack on all Americans.

Down at the ghats, the banks of the holy river of the Ganges, where pilgrims come to immerse themselves and the dead are cremated over pyres of sandalwood, the people are in shock.

The Western backpackers are still there: young men with John Lennon haircuts and glasses wearing lungis, the Indian version of a sarong; alongside women in striped ethnic trousers.

But it is uncomfortably quiet. Usually, this is a place where a foreigner cannot move 10 paces without being offered a neck massage and a boat ride, and acquiring a new guide who can’t be shaken off. Yesterday, the locals seemed to have lost heart.

Dinesh Chaubey ran away from his village as a child to come and work for the poor in Varanasi. Everybody knows him on the ghats. But now he was grieving.

“When I heard about the bomb, I rushed to the temple to help,” he says. “But when I got there I saw bodies that were just pieces of meat. They had no arms or legs, their heads were lying on the other side of the courtyard.

I picked up one young girl and carried her out. She had lost her legs, she was so far gone she couldn’t feel any pain, and she looked right into my eyes. Today, I keep seeing her in my arms again, and I am in pain.”

People come to Varanasi from all over the world because it is seen as a spiritual city. Mirabai Nicholson-McKellan, an Australian, has felt impelled to return to India every year since her first visit, to come back to Varanasi. Elderly Hindus come here to live out their last days, because it’s believed to be auspicious to die here. But Varanasi is now a city of conflict.

“The Muslims have done this. Always the Muslims kill Hindus,” said Ashok Patel, one of an angry crowd at the Shankar Mochan temple that was hit in the bombings.

“We have had it up to here. It’s time we Hindus did the same to them.”

Behind Varanasi’s spiritual facade is a city seething with religious tensions. Everybody blames Islamic militants for the bombings. In a city with a mixed Hindu and Muslim population and a history of violent clashes, it’s a dangerous atmosphere.

“Yes, I’m scared something may happen,” said Naseem Ahmed, an elderly Muslim. “Some bad people have done this to create trouble between the Hindus and the Muslims.”

Last week, four people were killed when Muslims protesting against a visit by US President George W. Bush clashed with Hindus in the nearby state capital, Lucknow.

A Muslim minister in the state Government recently offered a multimillion-dollar reward to anyone who beheaded the Danish cartoonist who drew the Prophet Muhammad.

Hindu extremists riposted by offering the same sum for the head of MF Hussain, a Muslim painter, after he painted Hindu goddesses as nudes.

Varanasi is rife with rumour. Everyone here believes far more than 20 people died in the bombs. They believe an explosion some six months ago on the ghats, in which several people died, was not caused by a faulty gas cylinder as the police said.

Meanwhile police yesterday killed two alleged Islamic militants from the group Lashkar-e Toiba in Delhi, and a third in a separate raid in Lucknow.

Although police did not link the raids to the Varanasi bombings, everyone here believes they were.

“It’s time for us Hindus to stop being defensive, we should attack our enemies,” said Kaushan Kishor Choudhry, who was injured in the temple blast, from his hospital bed. “I mean we should attack Pakistan.”

Lashkar-e Toiba was once backed by Pakistani intelligence. Many people here insist the group still is.

They say Pakistan was not happy after Bush offered India a strategic alliance in last week’s visit.

The US is increasingly talking of India not in the same breath as Pakistan, but as a counterweight to China.

But it seems many here are not ready to give up old ways of thinking.

– INDEPENDENT

Indian Muslim caught in Batla House encounter admits to bombing Varanasi, Hinduism’s holiest city

Batla House accused admits link to Varanasi blasts: cops

Manish Sahu, Jan 31, 2009

Lucknow: Alleged Indian Mujahideen activist Mohammad Saif, who was arrested in Delhi after the Batla House encounter on September 19, has disclosed that he and his dead colleague Atif Ameen were reportedly involved in Varanasi blasts in which 21 people were killed on March 7, 2006.

One blast took place at Sankatmochan Mandir and another at the Varanasi Cantt Railway Station. A third bomb, which was planted in Godaulia locality, did not explode. All bombs were made by packing explosives in pressure cookers.

Saif has reportedly confessed that he, along with Atif Ameen, planted the bomb at Godaulia. Youths from Azamgarh were involved in planting the other two bombs. There were two more men whose identity Saif did not know.

The Varanasi police brought Saif from Delhi and produced him before a local court on Friday. The court sent him in 14-day judicial remand. Since he has to be produced in a Delhi court on February 2, the Delhi Police took him away.

This is the first time the police have claimed that IM men were involved in the Varanasi blasts. The police had earlier arrested alleged Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami activist Walliullah and filed a chargesheet against him in the case. Three unidentified Bangladeshi accomplices of Waliullah were shown absconding.

Following protests by local lawyers, the case was transferred from Varanasi to Ghaziabad. Waliullah’s lawyer Iliyas Chowdhary said, “The case is presently on trial. There is no direct evidence against Waliullah.” However, Waliullah has been convicted under the Unlawful Activities Act and sentenced to 10-year imprisonment.

Investigating officer Ashutosh Mishra said they had sent a police team to Delhi for questioning Saif. “He confessed that he had planted the bomb at Godaulia along with Atif Ameen who was killed in the Batla House encounter in Delhi.”

Mishra said Saif disclosed that Atif, who knew how to fit and set timers, had made the bomb at home with a white powder. He did not know who made the other two bombs and where. Also, only Atif knew from where the explosives and other material came and at whose asking the bombs were made and planted.

While the bomb at Sankatmochan Mandir was planted by Mirza Shadab Beg, Asadullah Akhtar alias Asadullah Khan and an unidentified man, the one at the railway station was planted by Ariz Khan alias Junaid and an unidentified man, Saif told the police. Except the two unidentified men, all were from Azamgarh and are absconding.

Varanasi blasts: 10-years jail for Muslim terrorist

Varanasi blasts: 10-yr term for mastermind
27 Aug 2008, 0448 hrs IST,TNN

LUCKNOW: A Fast Track Court (FTC) in Lucknow on Tuesday sentenced Waliullah, hardline cleric and a key operative of terrorist outfit HuJI, to 10 years in jail, marking a partial success for the law-enforcement authorities who are seeking his proseuction also for plotting the Varanasi blasts.

Waliullah, Imam of a village mosque near Phoolpur town in Allahabad district of Uttar Pradesh, whom the police has identified as the mastermind of the twin terror attacks on Varanasi in 2006, has also been fined Rs 1 lakh.

However, the court which held the Imam guilty of acquiring arms and explosives like RDX for engaging in terrorism and subversive activities, acquitted him of the charge of sedition saying that the prosecution had failed to provide sufficient evidence on that count.

While this appeared to take away a lot from the success of the UP police in securing the sentence, the prosecution refused to treat the mixed verdict as a setback.

It maintained that it, as part of a conscious strategy, had not pressed for Varanasi blasts and sedition case since the matter was being tried as part of another case before a Ghaziabad court.

Also see Varanasi Blasts

Islamic Terror’s new face Babu Bhai sits in UP jail, joins dots from Dhaka to Hyderabad via Delhi

Terror’s new face Babu Bhai sits in UP jail, joins dots from Dhaka to Hyderabad via Delhi

August 28, 2007
Shishir Gupta

Shahid Bilal, prime accused in Saturday’s blasts, worked with this man who claims he delivered RDX nationwide, even dropped 20 kg of it in Delhi weeks before the Sarojini Nagar blasts; for 3 months, security agencies have been sitting on this startling confession of Indian national Babu Bhai linked to Bangladesh’s Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami. Now Andhra police are waking up

HYDERABAD, LUCKNOW, AUGUST 27: Forty eight hours after the twin blasts in Hyderabad, investigators are looking at questioning a 40-year-old born in a village in West Bengal, who is now sitting in a Lucknow jail. Going by his startling interrogation statement after he was arrested this June by the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF), a copy of which has been obtained by The Indian Express, Jalaluddin Mullah, alias Babu Bhai, has admitted to being a key piece in a jigsaw of terror that stretches from Bangladesh to Pakistan, goes via terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, touches New Delhi, Mumbai, Varanasi, Bijnore and Unnao in UP and now even Hyderabad.
Not only has Babu Bhai confessed to making several deliveries of explosives, including RDX, across the country since 2004, he has claimed, according to his interrogation, of having delivered 20 kg of RDX to an operative in New Delhi barely weeks before the Sarojini Nagar blasts that killed 59 people.

A key member of the Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami (HUJI), Babu Bhai’s claims have so far been gathering dust but now are the subject of renewed investigation. Top Andhra police officials have confirmed to The Indian Express that a police team is expected to land in Lucknow this week to take Babu Bhai into custody.

If the police want him to help them join the dots, they could start with his 17-page statement itself. For, the fact is that both Babu Bhai and Shahid Bilal, the prime accused in Hyderabad’s twin blasts, were working for Munir-ul-Islam alias Assadullah, a HUJI commander in Dhaka and who runs a madrasa there. Significantly, Assadullah’s name also figures in the interrogation of Waliullah, a Phoolpur cleric with HUJI linkages, one of the main accused in the March 2006 Sankatmochan blasts in Varanasi.

Says Ajit Doval, former Director, Intelligence Bureau: “The assault from the east and entrenchment in the hinterland are two disturbing trends on the terrorist front. What is lesser known and more serious is HUJI’s intimate and old Al-Qaeda linkages. Now that Al Qaeda the world over is in the business of outsourcing terror through franchise, this organisation should figure high on the security radar.”

Consider the following revelations Babu Bhai made about his “deliveries” of explosives and training of terrorists:

l 40 kg of RDX in Varanasi in early 2004: He carried this on board Jammu Tawi Express from Howrah to Varanasi and gave it to one “Raju” the next day outside the station. STF verified his claim that he stayed in the name of Amanullah Mandal (name on his fake driving licence) in Hotel Sagar at Gowdhulia chowk.

Investigators now believe that this RDX may have been used in the February 2005 blasts at Dashashwamegha Ghat, which killed nine people.

• 40 kg of RDX in Mumbai in June-July 2004: Babu Bhai claims he delivered this to one “Ravi” outside the Victoria Terminus station. Although Babu Bhai has described “Ravi”, he is untraced. Agencies are not clear whether this explosive was used in Mumbai train blasts of 2006.

• 20 kg of explosives in Delhi in August-September 2005, weeks before the Sarojini Nagar blasts: The timing is critical as this was weeks before October 29, 2005 blasts in Delhi. Babu Bhai’s report says that 10 days before the beginning of Ramzaan (August-September 2005) he delivered 20 kg of RDX to one “Guru alias Rocky” outside Jama Masjid Gate No 1. He adds he stayed with his friend Qadir in Turkman gate for two days before returning to Kolkata.

• He sent at least 23 youths, from Bijnore, Unnao and 24 Parganas in West Bengal, for arms and explosive training to Pakistan via Bangladesh.

Babu Bhai claims he received weapons and explosive training in Kotli in PoK in April-May 2001 along with jihadis from Malaysia, Thailand, South Africa and Pakistan.

His interrogation report reveals that Babu Bhai was inducted into terror by Asif Raza Khan, the main accused in Partho Burman kidnapping case in Kolkata and later killed by Gujarat police in 2001. Before the UP STF picked him, Babu Bhai was being handled by his younger brother Amir Raza Khan, who is now in Pakistan; Qamar, a Bihari settled in Dhaka’s Mirpur Colony, and the younger brother of a Bangladesh minister by the name of Miraj.

What this shows, experts say, is a new network of terror where the brains trust may have links across the border, in Pakistan and Bangaldesh, but where locals are increasingly being used to plan, plot and conduct the strikes.