Indian Defence Review

1400 years ago, Hazrat Ali, the son-in –law of Prophet Mohammad was killed while offering his Fazr (early morning ) namaz by the Jihadis. On 23 Sep now, a SPO in Kashmir, Nisar was killed even as his father was performing Fazr namaz. On the same day criminals, apparently infected with Mao’s ideology killed a TDP MLA Surveswara Rao in Andhra.

Maoists are, but animals. To victimize children for loving their motherland, to gift children with the slain body of their father on their birthday, are some of the terror tactics that Maoists employ. Women are increasingly seeing employed to practice such ghastly methods. Few days ago, one SSB Jawan, Sikander Yadav, was dragged out of his residence in Jamui district of Bihar and lynched to death by at least 20 Maoists. Among those who lynched him, were also women. All this happened while Sikander was celebrating his son’s birthday with his family members and relatives. He had come home on leave. He was serving the country on Indo-Nepal border.

Women in the Red Corridor have begun to revel in the human blood. When the Congress leader Mahendra Karma was felled by Maoists bullets in Chhattisgarh, women cadres danced around his corpse. The boy who was handling the radio set during this attack was no more than ten years old. The Maoists leaders have transformed the souls of women and children brutal.

Mr RPN Singh, when he was the Minister of State for Home stated that one-third attacks by Maoists are effected by women cadres.

It was part of the government team to carry out an assessment of Maoism. I travelled through the Red Corridor and interacted with the concerned officials. The District Magistrate of Gaya told me that on the eve of Independence Day, the Maoist leader had issued a diktat that schools shall hoist the black flag, instead of national flag. In one of the schools, as this was happening, one girl from the 8th class, unable to bear the sight, pulled down the black flag and hoisted the national flag. The said girl and her family consequently out of fear for life, had to flee their hearth and home.

A similar narrative and environment of fear pervades the Kashmir Valley. How do you call wolves, who drag a father out from his home while he is in attendance for death rites of his son and murder him. Well, the father was a soldier in the Indian Army and his son had died in a road accident. These wolves who murdered the soldier are jihadis, their status the fundamentalists say is sanctified by Islam.

The Indian Army soldier was one Mukhtar Ahmad Malik. He, like the SSB jawan Sikander Yadav had come on leave. The difference being that Mukhtar had come to perform post death ritual (Rasm-e-Chauram) and Sikander had come to celebrate his son’s birthday. One was lynched by jihadis, the other by Maoists. Both jihadis and Maoists do not distinguish between celebration mourning when it comes to spilling human blood.

Jihad too like Maoism has turned women and children into brutal killing machines. Children are being brought up to be stone-pelters. A video, portraying a woman, haranguing her jihadi son, to die rather than surrender has gone viral. The jihadi was trapped by the security forces in Kashmir.

Both Maoism and jihad follow the same murderous philosophy and strategy. Both ideologies revel in blood. The Americans were no fools to pit jihadism against communism in grand finale of Cold War in Afghanistan in 80s. The Americans had researched Islamic literature extensively to realize its potential for violence and irregular warfare. When the jihadi machine was being assembled on the Af-Pak border, the entire corpus of jihadi literature that was used for indoctrination was published and supplied by US and UK. Ironically, soon after the jihadi war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, both the victor ideology Jihadism and defeated ideology Communism began to buffet India hugely and simultaneously.

Both Jihadism and Maoism are against democracy as some recent incidents underscore. On 23 Sep three SPOs i.e. Nisar Ahmed, Firdous Ahmed and Kulwant Singh were killed by jihadis of Hizbul Mujahideen. It is now clear that these killings were at the behest of Pakistan, which is desperate to derail the local body elections. To kill democracy in Kashmir, Pakistan is using Kashmiris to kill Kashmiris. The Pakistan Military –Intelligence establishment wanted kill any possible message to the international environment, that would have generated in favour of the elections by the meeting of Sushma Swaraj and Shah Mahmood Qureshi at the sidelines of UNGA. Imran, a creation of the Army, was playing the duplicitous role. This is a reality India will have to accommodate while dealing with the Imran dispensation.

The killing of the SPOs in Kashmir marks yet another inflection point in the dehumanization of Jihadis in Kashmir. On 23 Sep, in the wee hours of the morning, as Abdul Rashid was offering his fazr namaz in the mosque, shrieks from his daughter-in-law pierced the eerie calm. Stumbling all over, the breathless 74 year old man made it to his home to see his son being dragged by HM beasts. Rukshana, Nisar’s wife ran behind to rescue her husband, but was beaten by the beasts mercilessly. This is the new low of the jihadis.

Rashid, Nisar’s father put his Islamic cap at the feet of the HM beasts. 23 other namazis who had followed him did the same. The HM beasts did not heed and crushed the caps under their boots. This is the love jihadis have for Islam. Another SPO, Firdaus Kuchey’s wife, also Rukshana, says she will not permit her son to join the police because even as her husband fought for Kashmir, the state had abandoned his security.

Hizbul Mujahideen means Group of Holy Warriors, but for the jihadis nothing is sacrosanct—neither namaz, nor Ramzan. The same beasts beheaded Ali during Fazr namaz. The same narrative has persisted for 1400 years. Jihadis maintain that Islam does not concern itself with soul.

Again on 23 September , after a gap of four years, the Maoists killed two TDP politicians i.e. Sarveswara Rao, an incumbent MLA and Siveri Soma, a former MLA in Andhra Pradesh. Significantly, elections coincide with assassination attempts on politicians by Maoists. In 2003, there was an assassination attempt on Chandra Babu Naidu. In 2013 the Maoists murdered 25 people in a Sukma, Chattisgarh, which included Mahendra Karma, a Congress leader. In the instant incident, the SUV carrying the two politicians was stopped by more than 50 Maoists. Subsequently both were killed in cold blood. The majority of assassins were women.

Most jihadis are not illiterate, every Maowadi is not uneducated. The Urban Maoists have spread this fallacy to run their criminal, commercial and political enterprise. Those who are the bulwark of Maoists and Jihadis are professors, lawyers, intellectuals , journalists etc. There are as many murderous woman Urban Maoists. If the the society and judiciary did not have slavish deference for English language, the Urban Maoists and Jihadis would have not survived for so long.