HOTAN HIJACKING BID INDICATES LAX AIRPORT SECURITY IN CHINA

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO.753

B.RAMAN

More details have become available of the unsuccessful attempt to hijack a plane flying from Hotan to Urumqi in Xinjiang by six Uighurs last Friday (June 29,2012). These details have been gathered from two official accounts carried  by the Chinese Communist Party owned “Global Times” and from accounts disseminated by Chinese micro-bloggers. One of the micro-bloggers has claimed that one of his relatives was on board the flight and carried pictures of one of the hijackers being overpowered.

2. The details available so far indicate that the hijackers used a crutch, normally used by physically-handicapped persons, and explosives to seize control of the plane 10 minutes after it had taken off from the Hotan airport. It is not clear whether one of the hijackers was really a physically-handicapped person or posed as one in order to carry the crutch on board.

3. It is also not clear how they managed to evade security checks and carry the explosives on board and where they had concealed the explosives. After the attempt, the Ministry of Public Security, which is in charge of internal security, has asked all airport security personnel to make passengers  remove their shoes and belts and check them for explosives.

4. Another point that is not clear is whether the hijackers managed to cause an explosion on board. The “Global Times” account says that two of the hijackers died in hospital and two others. “who reportedly mutilated themselves”, are being treated in hospital. This would indicate that there was probably an attempt to activate an explosive device before the hijackers were overpowered.

5. According to the “Global Times”, the six hijackers, who were between 20 and 36 years of age, were from the city of Kashi, Hou Hanmin. It quoted some passengers as saying that the men were quickly subdued as they tried to break into the airplane's cockpit with a crutch, and their attempt to ignite explosives was foiled. The flight had 92 passengers and nine crew members, 10 of whom were injured. The passengers included six police officers. ( 2-7-12)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate, Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com . Twitter: @SORBONNE75 )

THE YOUNGER GENERATION:THEN & NOW

B.RAMAN

My father died when I was hardly five years old. He died young. Didn’t leave much savings for our mother. She had to bring up four young kids---two sons and two daughters. I was the youngest. She had to see we got at least some nutritious food, we were well educated and got a good job in life.

2.We lived in a three-room apartment, with a separate bath room, but with a common toilet which we had to share with two other families. From a young age, we were conscious of our poverty. We were never ashamed of it. We took our poverty in our stride.

3. I started going to school after our father’s death. My mother did not have to spend a single rupee on my primary and secondary education. I studied for nine years in the Ramakrishna Mission School on a merit scholarship.

4. I did not do very well in the school final examination. I got only about 70 per cent of the total marks. Despite this, I managed to get admission in the prestigious Loyola College, but I could not get a merit scholarship. My mother had to spend money from her savings for my college education.

5.To spare extra expenses for her on my college education, I used to walk to college every morning (about five kms).In the evenings, sometimes I used to come back home walking, sometimes by bus. I never spent much money on my clothes. I wore whatever my mother gave me---- which was just three dhotis and three shirts.

6.  I never felt ashamed of having to wear the same kind of dhoti and shirt every day. There were a few rich students in the college with me---- they used to come in their cars or motor-bikes and wear fancy dresses.

7. I never suffered from any complex. I moved on equal terms with them. They moved on equal terms with me. I did not notice their affluence. They did not notice my poverty. They would come to our house without any hesitation and eat with me the austere meals that my mother used to cook for us. I would go to their house without any complexes and eat the kind of food they ate.

8. They never flaunted their riches. I never fought shy of admitting our poverty.

9. I did not do too well in the college. I did a one-year journalism diploma course after leaving college and got a job in “The Indian Express” on a salary of Rs.100 per month. I managed to save enough money to study for the UPSC competitive examinations, sat for them and was selected for the Indian Police Service.

10. I was quite successful in my career and achieved all I wanted to achieve. It was not only because I was a good professional, but also because I was a balanced individual. Our poor mother and our poverty gave all of us a sense of balance and a determination  not to let our poverty come in the way of our achieving whatever we wanted to achieve. All of us did well in life.

11. I compare ourselves with the children of today from both poor and affluent families. What complexes they have! How ashamed they are of their inadequate economic circumstances! How they keep comparing themselves with children of affluent families and hold it against their parents for not being able to afford for them the same quality of life and education that affluent parents are able to afford for their children!

12. It becomes a matter of mental torture for the parents at the time of admission to universities. What drama in the house! What tantrums! What rude words to parents the like of which we never used to our parents!

13.Whose fault is this? Or is it a fault at all? We blame the universities and colleges. Rightly so. I will equally blame the parents and other elder members of the families for not inculcating in the children a realistic attitude to life----devoid of exaggerated expectations---- and a feeling  that not getting what they wanted is not a tragedy.

14. It is good to get admissions to prestigious and glamorous institutions. If they don’t, that will not be the end of the world. They can still move forward in life and achieve whatever they want to achieve with a right sense of balance and the right determination ( 1-7-12)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate, Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com . Twitter: @SORBONNE75 )

MY TAKE ON SAUDI COUNTER-TERRORISM CO-OPERATION WITH INDIA

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO. 752

B.RAMAN

One should avoid over-playing  the so-called geo-strategic significance of Saudi counter-terrorism co-operation with India in the wake of the arrest of Zabiuddin Ansari aka Abu Jundal aka Abu Jindal aka Abu Hamza by the Saudi authorities and his transfer to Indian custody to face interrogation and prosecution in connection with his suspected role as one of the main co-conspirators of the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai by the Pakistani Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET).

2. The transfer of Ansari by the Saudi authorities to Indian custody despite his posing as a Pakistani national and despite reported objection from the Pakistani authorities is a significant turning point in Saudi counter-terrorism co-operation with India despite risks of its impact on its relations with Pakistan and unhappiness in the Indian Muslim community.

3. It would be wishful-thinking to attribute this to the self-assumed increasing geo-strategic importance of India and the role that India could play vis-à-vis Iran.

4. Despite the Saudi authorities taking a step that could displease Pakistan, the arrest and transfer to India of Ansari do not mean a dilution of Pakistan’s geo-strategic importance for Saudi Arabia. Pakistan continues to be as important to Saudi Arabia as before.

5. Pakistan holds the Sunni A-bomb which Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Sunni world might need if Iran acquires a Shia bomb. In times of trouble, the Saudi royal family has depended  on the Pakistan Army for its protection. What Pakistan can do to protect Saudi nationals and interests, either against Iran or against terrorism, India can never do. To nurse illusions of a geo-strategic estrangement between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia would be unwise.

6.What the arrest and transfer of Ansari indicates is a change in the Saudi attitude to the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and not to Pakistan as a State. Hafiz Mohammad Sayeed, the Amir of the LET, has  maintained good relations with the Saudi royal family. He used to describe Saudi Arabia as the best Islamic State though not an ideal Islamic State. While supporting the activities of Al Qaeda in the Af-Pak region, he had refrained from supporting its activities in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

7. In return for this, Saudi Arabia had allowed the LET to maintain an office in Saudi territory since the early 1990s. This office used to recruit Indian Muslims  from among the pilgrims going to Saudi Arabia. The members of the Muslim Defence Force of Tamil Nadu unearthed by the Tamil Nadu Police in 2002 had been won over and motivated by a representative of the LET based in Saudi Arabia. The LET had also played an active role in helping the Saudi intelligence in recruiting, training  and sending jihadi volunteers to  Bosnia to fight against the Serb security forces.

8.Till the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai, the Saudi attitude to the LET was relaxed and co-operative somewhat to the detriment of India. The capability for spectacular acts of mass casualty terrorism demonstrated by the LET in Mumbai and subsequent reports in the US of the LET emerging as a collaborator and clone of Al Qaeda have caused concerns in Saudi Arabia over the dangers of the LET acting as the Trojan Horse of Al Qaeda at a time when the Saudi authorities have succeeded in crushing Al Qaeda in their territory.

9. The welcome Saudi co-operation with India also reflects their concerns over the radicalisation of the Indian and Pakistani communities  working and living in  Saudi Arabia by the LET. The Saudi counter-terrorism co-operation with India indicates their concern over the LET presence in their territory, but this would not have any significant impact on their State-to-State relations with Pakistan, which is the third largest Sunni country of the world.

10. Unless Saudi Arabia develops its own independent nuclear capability, Pakistan’s Sunni bomb would be indispensable for it to deter Iran’s Shia nuclear adventurism. Let there be no wishful-thinking about it in Indian policy-making circles and public opinion.

11. While Saudi Arabia has evidently started marking its distance from the LET, it has not shown any signs of marking its distance from the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which has an independent presence in Saudi territory, reportedly motivated by C.A.M.Basheer, the Muslim from Kerala who was the founding-president of the SIMI. While action against Pakistan-motivated LET cadres might not  cause much unhappiness in the Indian Muslim community, action against SIMI activists with no evidence of links with Pakistan might. This should explain the seeming Saudi ambivalence towards the SIMI.

12. In the Ansari case, one sees the beginning of a convergence of counter-terrorism concerns between the intelligence and security agencies of India and Saudi Arabia with possible US blessing because of the US interest in acting against the LET terrorists who killed six US nationals in Mumbai. New Delhi should welcome and hail this without embarrassing the Saudi authorities and causing them discomfiture in the eyes of the Muslim world and the Indian Muslims.

13. We must understand the Saudi ambivalence towards the SIMI and avoid irritating them on this issue. Let the co-operation develop at the present pace, at a pace that is comfortable to the Saudi authorities. ( 1-7-12)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate, Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com . Twitter: @SORBONNE75 )

MALEGAON BLAST OF 2008: NEED FOR INDEPENDENT ENQUIRY

B.RAMAN

The investigation into the Malegaon blast of 2008 is getting murkier and murkier.

2. From the available reports of the investigation made so far, two things are clear. Firstly, the blast was not carried out by any jihadi organisation. It was carried out by some Hindus who wanted to teach a lesson to the Muslim community for the involvement of some Muslims in acts of terrorism in different parts of India. Secondly, the suspected Hindus belonged to a Hindu organisation called Abhinav Bharat.

3.One aspect that  has remained unclear and is becoming murkier and murkier is the role of Lt.Col.Prasad Purohit, described in sections of the media as a serving officer of the Military Intelligence. It is not clear whether he  was serving at the time of his arrest in the Directorate-General of Military Intelligence (DGMI), which comes under the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) or in the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), which comes under the chief of the Integrated Defence Staff.

4.Lt.Col.Purohit was arrested  by the anti-Terrorism Squad of the Mumbai Police as a fellow-conspirator and accomplice of the arrested Hindus of the Abhinav Bharat. One was under the impression that the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which has reportedly taken over the investigation on the orders of the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Government of India, has been enquiring into the suspected role of Lt.Col.Purohit as a fellow-conspirator and accomplice of the suspects from the Abhinav Bharat. There has reportedly  been a separate in-house enquiry by the Army not into the facts of the blast, but into the facts of the role of Purohit in the blast.

5. According to a report disseminated by the NDTV on June 29,2012, Purohit has denied before the in-house enquiry that he was a fellow-conspirator or accomplice. He has reportedly claimed that, in his capacity as a military intelligence officer, he was trying to penetrate the Abhinav Bharat to collect intelligence about its activities with the knowledge of his bosses in the military intelligence whom he had kept informed.

6. The NDTV has also carried on its web site a detailed report on this subject written by its correspondent Shri Nitin Gokhale.A copy of his report as carried by the NDTV web site is annexed.

7. Shri Gokhale has stated as follows in his report:

“Many (during the in-house probe) said that he (Purohit) was actually an infiltrator and not a conspirator, who had been assigned to collect evidence and details of right-wing terror groups.

“From the very beginning, Lt Col Purohit has claimed that he had kept his bosses informed of his activities which included attending meetings of the Abhinav Bharat.

“But if the officer was operating on behalf of the military, the Army has to figure out why his tip-offs on rising right-wing extremism in areas like Nashik, Malegaon were not shared with other agencies.”

8. If what Shri Gokhale has reported is correct, it becomes evident that the military intelligence ---whether it is the DGMI or the DIA--- has been collecting intelligence about the activities of Indian citizens belonging to certain organisations in Indian territory not affected by insurgency of any kind by penetrating their organisations.

9. The military intelligence is authorised to collect tactical intelligence through human and technical means in areas where the Army has a counter-insurgency role as in Jammu & Kashmir and the North-East. In areas where it has no counter-insurgency role, it is not permissible for the military intelligence to collect intelligence through any means---particularly through the penetration of Indian organisations run by Indian citizens.

10. Only the Intelligence Bureau of the Government of India and the intelligence wings of the State Police are authorised to run such operations . Even the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) is not empowered to do so. I do not know whether such powers have been given to the NIA under its charter.

11. It appears to me that the military intelligence has so far avoided coming to the defence of Purohit in the case under investigation previously by the Mumbai Police and now by the NIA due to worries that if it did so, it could amount to its admitting its illegal actions in mounting intelligence operations against Indian citizens by penetrating Indian organisations.

12. We face very serious internal security threats due to insurgency and terrorism and Pakistan’s role in them. One of the reasons for our not being able to deal with them effectively is inadequate intelligence. There is a need for strengthening  our intelligence capabilities.

13. At the same time, certain legal limits to intelligence collection have to be laid down. If everybody starts collecting intelligence inside the country we will become no different from authoritarian countries.

14.If what Purohit claims is correct, it is evident that the military intelligence has been unauthorisedly running clandestine penetration operations against Indian citizens in Indian territory. This matter needs to be enquired into in detail and such rogue operations, if proved to be correct, need to be stopped. The Government should clearly reiterate the charters of different intelligence agencies and make it clear that strong action would be taken against agencies that undertake unauthorised operations against Indian citizens. ( 30-6-12)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate, Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com . Twitter: @SORBONNE75 )

ANNEXURE:NITIN GOKHALE’S REPORT

New Delhi: The Indian Army appears to be caught in the cross-hairs of a big new controversy - in 2008, it may have acted too quickly in accepting that a serving military intelligence officer, Lt Col Prasad Purohit, was linked to a right-wing terror group.

In 2008, a bomb exploded on a Friday evening near a mosque in the town of Malegaon, killing six people. One month later, the Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) in Maharashtra said a group of Hindu right-wing radicals was to blame. Lt Col Purohit, who was posted in Pachmarhi in Madhya Pradesh, and was undergoing an Arabic Language course, was accused and arrested. 

The Army, without conducting an immediate court of inquiry, handed him over to the ATS. Later, it did order a court of inquiry but did not allow Lt Col Purohit to cross-examine witnesses.

Two years later, under orders from the Armed Forces Tribunal, the Army restarted the court of Inquiry.

Now, more than 50 army personnel have testified that the Army may have wrongly handed over Lt Col Purohit to the Anti-Terror Squad without conducting its own investigation. Lt Col Purohit, who has been in a jail in Taloja in Mumbai, was allowed to cross-examine witnesses in Mumbai.

Many said that he was actually an infiltrator and not a conspirator, who had been assigned to collect evidence and details of right-wing terror groups.

From the very beginning, Lt Col Purohit has claimed that he had kept his bosses informed of his activities which included attending meetings of the Abhinav Bharat.

But if the officer was operating on behalf of the military, the Army has to figure out why his tip-offs on rising right-wing extremism in areas like Nashik, Malegaon were not shared with other agencies.

There's also the issue of why the Army or civil agencies like the ATS did not hold its own investigation.

Lt Col Purohit has also accused a colonel in Military Intelligence of colluding with civilian intelligence agencies to detain him without any arrest warrant and torture him. The Colonel, Purohit says, wanted to score brownie points and earn award etc.

The Army, however, says the Colonel in question was officially deputed to liaise with civil agencies.

CHINA CLAIMS TO HAVE FOILED HIJACKING BID BY UIGHURS

B.RAMAN

The State-controlled Xinhua news agency of China has disseminated the following report at 2-30 PM Indian Standard Time on June 29,2012:

“Flight GS7554, which took off at 12：25 from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region's Hotan Airport to Urumqi, was hijacked ten minutes after its departure, according to news from the public security department of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Six scoundrels were controlled by flight crew and passengers. During the fight with scoundrels, some passengers and flight crew received minor injuries. The plane returned to Hotan Airport immediately after the hijack. The case is under investigation.”

2.The Agence France Presse (AFP) has quoted a spokesperson of the Xinjiang Government as alleging that the six persons who made the unsuccessful hijack attempt were Uighurs. She added: "For the moment, we don't know the purpose of the hijack. It's still under investigation. At least seven crew members and passengers were injured in the incident.”

3. The hijack attempt seems to have been made despite tightened security alerts in the Xinjiang province and particularly in the Capital Urumqi and in Hotan as a precaution against possible incidents on the occasion of the third anniversary of the July 5,2009, violent riots between Han Chinese and Uighurs that led to the death of an estimated 200 persons belonging to both the communities.

4. As part of the security alert, the authorities of the Public Security Bureau have been undertaking searches of houses of Uighurs for hidden anti-Government leaflets and weapons. They have also set up road barricades to search motor vehicles and to make identity checks. Despite this, the six Uighurs appear to have made their way to the airport and got into the aircraft.

5. It is not clear whether they carried any weapons or tried to overcome the crew physically without any weapons

6. There have recently reports of fresh anger in Xinjiang following action taken by the authorities to stop what the authorities describe as illegal Koran classes without the prior permission of the authorities. Twelve Muslim children were injured in Hotan when the police raided a premises where illegal Koran classes were allegedly being held.

7. While the Uighurs have been reduced to a minority by Han colonisation in the capital city of Urumqi, in the smaller towns the Uighurs are still in a majority. In Hotan, they  constitute about 97 per cent of the population.  (29-6-12)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate, Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com . Twitter: @SORBONNE75 )