At least 68 people have died in the gruesome act of terror on the Samjhauta Express. The terrorists struck a day before Pakistani foreign minister was to arrive in Delhi for talks and a week before the 5th anniversary of the Godhra carnage. The security is so lax on this train (supposedly one of the most secure trains of India) that one can board from Old Delhi and the baggages would not be checked till the train reaches Atari.
There are powerful cliques on both sides of the border wanting to scuttle the peace process. Praveen Swami writes an insightful article in ‘The Hindu’ on the opposition of the India-Pakistan peace process from extremists in Pakistan.
Islamists have, in recent weeks, repeatedly argued that the peace process poses a threat to both Pakistan’s economic survival and its ideological raison d’etre. Growing interaction at the level of ordinary people, Islamists have claimed, is working to soften the hatred they believe is necessary to protect their nation.
There has been resistance from certain Hindu extremist groups to the recent bonhomie between Indian and Pakistan but whether any outfit would go to the extent of bombing a train is yet to be seen.
The average man on the street, as is always the case with train accidents in India, did his bit in rescue and relief operations. However, I was appalled to see the absolute lack of empathy on the part of ‘educated’ Indians at the CNN-IBN news-item reporting this attack.
I mean what sort of people would rate this gruesome act as 8.7 on a scale of 10. It seems that some people are actually happy that this happened. Is it because most of the victims were Muslims and Pakistanis on top of that?
Acorn writes about the bomb attack here and Adil Najam provides a Pakistani perspective on the tragedy.
It is not clear to me why peace should hurt Pakistan’s economy! Or are they talking only of the big arms dealers and politians?
Well to be frank I am not even surprised at the rating ‘educated’ Indians gave. Did you read the comments? I advice not to if someone is a heart patient! Its just that the cover of anonymity brings out the inner most feeling dormant for long!!
Having seen the CNN IBN discussion live on the ‘Samjhauta’ carnage and the response by G Parthasarathy, the ex RAW chief and Mushahid Husain, a federal Minister of Pakistan with Mr Javed Akhtar and Ms Teesta Setalvad, what I have to say is that our biased and partial treatment of what happened at Jama Masjid, Samjhauta or Babri Masjid and many more mosques in Rajastan and Nander, Purna and Malegaon, the treatment meted out to Gujarati Pogrom Victims and actions by the security agencies after Bombay Local blasts, arrests of innocent Kashmirs in Karnataka and no-action in case of the Orange birgades involving in Nander-Poorna leaves me with no uncertain conviction that this country is of Bniyas and mind it they’ll convert to any religion, eat cows and pork, provided they get money. Unfortunately this is becoming true for the ‘Secularist’ like Kuldip Nayyar and the Muslims too. May I ask Mr Javed Akhtar what happend to him when he questioned the ‘baba’ of Art of Living. The title itself shows that this country (read Hindus) requied an Art to live, what they have been doing for last 5000 years. I am fortunate to be castigated not so ‘nationalist’ for being not a Hindu, becuase it is better to be a quasi-India so that we can have solace in the cause of hating what is being branded ‘National’.
My hearty feelings go to all the human who perished in the disaster. May I not distinuish these hapless victims from the ranting criminals who died in Godhra (please feel offended if you want, this is meant for this very purpose) and the investigation pre-cluded the findings.
Please do not set aside the idea of involvment of Hindu Criminals in this cowardly act (this is for human beings)
At last and the least I want to declare that I am a Muslim and a reader of the Holy Qur’and the 109th chapter says that “be human and to you your religion to me mine”. Do the Bushes, Blairs and Modis have something so HUMAN with them? Be human only and mind it if you say I am human, and even a cow claims so, no muslim will eat that particular cow because Human flesh is Haraam(forbidden).
If this is moderated (edited) the very purpose of the ‘freedom of thoughts is defeated’!
@ kaatib
When you make such incendiary generalizations about a community, mock their beliefs, demean their dead then it really doesn’t matters that the points you are making are pertinent or not.
oh, iwas amazed after seeing tht indian muslims are also thinking tht these bomb blasts are also the handiwork of pakistan based so called militants. I am sure tht this is not the work of pakistan based outfits but i am 100% sure tht this is the work of Bajrang Dal, earlier also they have planned bombs in Jama Masjid and yet not forgotton Malegaon Bomb Blasts. Actually i am not able to understand why indian media and people are blaming pakistan based outfits for all this ugly acts, why they are not blaming Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena, and RSS, they r openly declaring war aganist Islam, i am sure and i want all brothers and sisters of India to openly revolt against all these communal organisations.
dont u understand english or are u just plain stupid? the IBN rating is for the article and does not rate the event. Rating the article is based on the coverage of the event, while rating the event is an entire different issue. and the rating has not nothing whatso ever to do with who died. even the mumbai blast coverage got a similar rating, does this mean the people are sadists? no its just mean they liked IBNs coverage.
@ Mujtaba Sherwani
Based upon the information that is available to the public, I don’t think anyone can say for sure which organization(s) are behind the attack.
@ Vatsan
Yes, English is my second language and no single person can claim exclusive rights to stupidity, so I have my own fair share. However, that wouldn’t answer your concern.
I understand that the rating is for the article and not for the event. But based upon my previous experiences at IBN website, I think that the quality of content and the extent of coverage are not the only factors people have in mind while rating. For instance, consider this article which says that it is unlikely that President’s rule would be imposed in UP. You would agree that people are not only responding to the article, which is your typical news-item and can be found anywhere, but also to the event. May be that explains why it has perfect 10 rating. That might also explain why this article about the lack of proof of LeT hand in the Samjhauta attack gets a rating of 3.3 out of 10 even though it such an ‘important’ news.
Mohib!
Either you are living in fools paradise or you are not Mohib!You are not a sensitive person and I am not a fool to use language which will not cut ice with criminals. It is our history that we never started a quarrel. See I have many, many, many examples. 1. Palestine and you’ll say that Palestinians should be exemplary and they are terrorists! You agree? Why not Iran should have its own nuclear feul which is guanranteed under NPT. You feel they should also beg to the NSG for feul supply as Indians are doing with cash and political price paid in advance. Do not ask me what political price Indians are paying! What is terrorism and who analyses the events. In the Tuesday issue of the Hindu (a day after Samjhauta carnage) Parween Swamy wrote a “Very balanced article” which the readers of the Hindu did not like. He has been writing as an expert on Kashmeer. What this ‘desi’ Daneil Pearl makes to write like this is not very unknown. Indians want to align with the west with the poltical price like ” We can not afford another nuclear Islamic state in Iran”. Who told this? The Palestinian and Iranian problems are two of the many examples which do not matter to me just because the countries involved are Muslim but because it is matter of principle. If you say no, what about the Bosnian ethnic cleaning and North Korea. Recently Inder Malhotra wrote about Russia, China and India being victim of Islamic terror. Now, come on how, we know how Russians treated the Muslim population in Russia and Central Asia where their name and languages have be changed to suit Russian and churched continued to be working during communism too. Does not the ethnic non-Huns have same rights which we advocate for Tibetans. If not, then aren’t the Tibetans in India terrorist or want to be one? What about this conuntry India? How the different accidents treated by the administration. India is yet to call bomb blast at Jama Masjid a terrorist act while the attack at the rag tag temple built at the ruins of Babari Masjid was called so by the administration. What is the locus standii of Indian government. We can not blame media for use of this type of reporting because we know whose pay-roll are on.
Sufficient, you dud. One must not be a chicken licker!