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POSTED BY Buzz
ON Jun 26, 2012 AT 22:26 IST
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Edited At: Jun 26, 2012 22:26 IST
The intercepts of the chilling conversations that the 26/11 "handler" 'Abu Jindal' had with the terrorists were widely heard around the world and documented in various excellent documentaries and there is a renewed interest in these intercepts now with the arrest of Zabiuddin Ansari aka Abu Jindal aka Abu Jundal aka Abu Hamza, a co-conspirator of the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai, who is alleged to be the handler whose voice has been identified with one of those voices on the intercepts. A quick recap from our blogs:
Intercepts of the Phonecalls with Handlers
Excerpts from the transcript of conversation between "Abu Jindal" and one of the terrorists at Chabad House:
Handler: Remember that every one person you kill there is like taking 50 lives.... Handler: Listen
TerrorisTerrorist: Yes, yes
Handler: Get rid of these people. Kill them
Terrorist: By Allah's wish it is all quiet. There is no movement
Handler: No, no wait. Shoot. If firing starts, you won't know the timing, direction and intensity
Terrorist: I've run out of grenades
Handler: Do it
Terrorist: What? Shoot them?
Handler: Yes. Make them sit up and shoot them in the backs of their heads
... [After some time]
Handler: Have you done the job or not?
Terrorist: No, I will do it in front of you. I was waiting for you
Handler: Do it in the name of Allah. (Woman screams: Please don't kill me!)
Handler: You killed one?
Terrorist: Both together
Terrorist: Allah willing, today is Friday. Today will be the final fight
Handler: Use all of your might. Do it. Shoot them. Get them
Terrorist: Intense fire has started. Firing has started in our room
Handler: Take cover
(A little later)
Handler: Yes, what happened?
Terrorist: I've been hit
Handler: Where?
Terrorist: On my side and leg
Handler: May Allah protect you
Terrorist: Pray for me, so that I attain martyrdom
For more context, some of the documentaries:
Channel 4's Dispatches: Terror in Mumbai:
CNN-IBN: 60 Hours:
Pro Publica: A Perfect Terrorist
Watch A Perfect Terrorist on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.
AlJazeera 101 East: Terror in Mumbai Part I
AlJazeera 101 East: Terror in Mumbai Part II
Also See: Jason MotlagHandler: Sixty Hours Of Terror
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POSTED BY Buzz
ON Jun 26, 2012 AT 22:26 IST, Edited At: Jun 26, 2012 22:26 IST
POSTED BY Omar
ON Apr 24, 2012 AT 23:59 IST
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Edited At: Apr 25, 2012 02:59 IST
Pakistan is in the throes of an existential crisis. Pakistan has always been in the throes of an existential crisis. Pakistan’s interminable existential crisis is, in fact, getting to be a bore. But while faraway peoples can indeed get away from this topic and on to something more interesting, Pakistanis have little choice in this matter; and it may be that neither do Indians.
The partition of British India was different things to different people, but we can all agree on some things: it was a confused mess, it was accompanied by remarkable violence and viciousness, and it has led to endless trouble. The Paknationalist narrative built on that foundation has Jihadized the Pakistani state, and defanging that myth is now the most critical historic task of the Pakistani bourgeoisie.
Well, OK. We don’t actually all admit any of those things, but all those are things I have written in the past. Today I hope to shed my inhibitions and go further. 
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POSTED BY Omar
ON Apr 24, 2012 AT 23:59 IST, Edited At: Apr 25, 2012 02:59 IST
POSTED BY Omar
ON Oct 12, 2011 AT 03:05 IST
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Edited At: Oct 12, 2011 03:05 IST
 Pakistan’s predicament continues to draw comment from all over the world; in the Western (and Westoxicated Eastern) Left, the narrative remains straightforward (to such a degree that one is tempted to share an essay by Trotsky that Tariq Ali may have missed): US imperialism is to blame. In this story, US imperialism “used” poor helpless clueless Pakistan for its own evil ends, then “abandoned” them (it’s very bad when the imperialists go into a third world country, it’s also very bad when they leave) and they have now returned to finish off the job. I have written in the past about my disagreements with this Euro- centric and softly racist narrative and have little to add to it. In any case, no one in authority in either the imperialist powers or Pakistan is paying too much attention to the Guardian or the further reaches of the Left. But even among those who matter (for better and for worse), there seems to be no agreement about what is going on and what comes next. Everyone has their theories, ranging from “let's attack Pakistan” to “let’s throw more money at them” and everything in between. I don’t know what comes next either, but I have been thinking for a few days about an outcome that many in the Pakistani pro-military webring think is around the corner: What if we win?
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POSTED BY Omar
ON Oct 12, 2011 AT 03:05 IST, Edited At: Oct 12, 2011 03:05 IST
POSTED BY Buzz
ON Jul 30, 2011 AT 23:34 IST
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Edited At: Jul 30, 2011 23:34 IST
Declan Walsh in the Guardian:
Rarely has a Birkin brought so much attention. When Pakistan's new foreign minister, 34-year-old Hina Rabbani Khar, landed in India for talks this week, a media frenzy erupted around her style: the pearl necklaces, elegant costumes, Cavalli sunglasses and a stylish Hermes-made Birkin bag worth at least $9,000 (£5,500)...
On a flight to Islamabad on Friday, Khar flicked through a stack of newspapers filled with her picture. "You don't want the attention to focus on the frivolous," she said. "A guy in my place would never get such attention; nobody would be talking about his suit. I refuse to be apologetic about it; I will continue to be who I am."
Vir Sanghvi on his blog:
According to reports emanating from Pakistan, the country’s Foreign Minister is upset that she was treated as a style icon in India. I’m sorry that the lady should feel this way so let me try and make her feel better by telling her what we all know: Relax! Nobody thinks you are a style icon. We just think you sport very expensive accessories. And that’s not the same thing at all.
In other words, we think you are extravagant. But you ain’t no icon...
...the fact that the Pakistani Foreign Minister should think that kitty-party style dressing is appropriate for a bilateral summit meeting tells us something about how far apart our two countries have traveled since 1947. No Indian minister would dress like that. And yet, Pakistanis seem to think it is entirely normal.
So, are we really “just the same people” as the peaceniks claim?
Or does the distance in attitudes grow with each passing year?
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POSTED BY Buzz
ON Jul 30, 2011 AT 23:34 IST, Edited At: Jul 30, 2011 23:34 IST
POSTED BY Sundeep
ON Mar 29, 2011 AT 21:06 IST
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Edited At: Mar 29, 2011 21:06 IST
Mukul Kesavan in the Economic Times:
There's nothing good about a one-day international between India and Pakistan. Make that an ODI that's also a World Cup semi-final, and the awfulness scales up an order of magnitude. Growing up in the late sixties and seventies, I used to hear hipsters say without self-consciousness or shame, that this or that person or thing gave off bad vibes.
Well, an India- Pakistan limited-overs match is a giant tuning fork that makes the subcontinent's air thrum with malign vibrations.
One of the best things that ever happened to Indo-Pak cricket was the death of the Sharjah one-day tamasha. It was sport only in the sense that cock-fighting or bull-baiting or the Roman circus were sporting contests: it was blood sport without the blood, and it was sustained by an excitement born of desperation and fear and loathing.
Mihir Sharma in the Indian Express:
One of the most read posts on Twitter was from the tennis player Sania Mirza, who caused a similar, if smaller, stir last year when she married Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik. @Mirzasania wrote: “I support India and @realshoaibmalik will support Pakistan as usual!!the war is on..lol..hahah”, which was perhaps, after discounting punctuation, on the cheerfully harmless side, war metaphor or not.
The most amusing SMS around, though, combined pitch-perfect geo-location with just enough menace: “If Pakistan wins the semis, they go on to play the Shiv Sena in Mumbai for the finals.”
Rahul Bhattacharya in the Hindustan Times
Sport has a way of delivering these scripts. One might argue that the perfect end would have been a title fight at the Wankhede on Saturday. But just as well for that. Much better for this game to be hosted by Punjabis, whose sentimentality in the matter of Pakistan may balm some of the hysterical jingoism going around.
In Mumbai, the site of 26/11, home of the Senas, the game might have been swallowed by threats and fears and a nasty nationalism. It is the last thing that two limited but thrilling sides deserve in a surprising cricket World Cup. I hope Shoaib plays and Sachin takes first strike.
So perhaps fitting to end with what Mukul Kesavan on Twitter described as "the sharpest piece of writing this tournament has produced", Imran Yusuf on espncricinfo: India v Pakistan: a fantasy, published just before the India-Australia match:
When other men talk there is always a dark, primal subtext: Who does better with the ladies? Who's got more money? Who would win in a fight? Who's read Proust? When the Pakistani and the Indian talked, the unspoken subtext was always the next match. The last match. All the matches from the past and into the eternal future.
To their compatriots and their wives, they would mouth off at will.
The Pakistani would say Shoaib had Sachin's number and the number was first ball. The Indian would say Sachin had Shoaib's number and the number was six six six. The Indian would say Pakistan had never beaten them in a World Cup. The Pakistani would say Pakistan has the better of India in Test and ODI wins. Both would imply in Hindi or Urdu that the other side had incestuous relations with their sisters.
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POSTED BY Sundeep
ON Mar 29, 2011 AT 21:06 IST, Edited At: Mar 29, 2011 21:06 IST
POSTED BY Sundeep
ON Dec 09, 2010 AT 23:12 IST
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Edited At: Dec 09, 2010 23:12 IST
Continuing with the "It-Happens-Only-In-Pakistan" Deptt, to add to yesterday's blogpost which mentioned how only Pakistani newspapers were quoting some "exclusive" WikiLeaks about former Indian Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor being "an incompetent combat leader and rather a geek" and the current chief is "an egotist, self-obsessed, petulant and idiosyncratic General, a braggadocio and a show-off"
First, from Cafe Pyala:
I think where my incredulity reached a tipping point was when the cables claimed well regarded Indian policeman Hemant Karkare - who had been following leads about the involvement of Indian right-wing Hindutva organizations in the Samjhota Express bombing and about whose death there has already been plenty of controversy within India - was "eliminated in a pre-planned ambush during the Mumbai attacks", the implication being 'by the covert operatives of the Indian army.' According to the report in The News:
"The cable suggested that Hemant Karkare held a secret meeting with a senior US diplomat in New Delhi during the national day reception of a friendly country and briefed him about the gravity and the growing depth of the nexus between top Indian Army leadership and the militant Hindu fanatic groups. Karkare sought security for him and his family from the said American diplomat as he feared that the army and establishment would eliminate him as he intended to move further to expose the network. He had further briefed the said US diplomat that a former commander-in-chief of the Central Command of the Indian army, Lt Gen PN Hoon, was heading the militancy wing of the Hindu extremists and was getting full tactical, logistic and financial support from senior army officers. The day, Karkare was eliminated in a pre-planned ambush during the Mumbai attacks, a cable sent to the US read “we have lost an important link and a vital evidence”."
And, then the Guardian: Pakistani media publish fake WikiLeaks cables attacking India:
An extensive search of the WikiLeaks database by the Guardian by date, name and keyword failed to locate any of the incendiary allegations. It suggests this is the first case of WikiLeaks being exploited for propaganda purposes.
The controversial claims, published in four Pakistani national papers, were credited to the Online Agency, an Islamabad-based news service that has frequently run pro-army stories in the past. No journalist is bylined.
Shaheen Sehbai, group editor at the News, described the story as "agencies' copy" and said he would investigate its origins.
The incident fits in with the wider Pakistani reaction to WikiLeaks since the first cables emerged.
The Guardian report also concludes by quoting the Pakistani blog Cafe Pyala quoted above:
Noting that the story was bylined to "agencies" – a term that in Pakistan means both a news agency and a spy outfit – the blogger Cafe Pyala asked: "How stupid do the 'Agencies' really think Pakistanis are?"
Post Script:
It does not end there. The Express Tribune of December 10 even carrieas an op-ed by Zafar Hilaly:
Ironically, if the cables are a concoction, as our conspiracy theorists aver, then, logically the latest disclosures about Indian brutalities against Muslims that the cables from the American Embassy in New Delhi reveal, would also be false. In fact, the horrors perpetrated on Muslims by the Indian Army led by generals, in the mould of the war criminal Milosevic, are precisely what our intelligence reports relay. Are we then lying to ourselves?
And for some weekend levity, you could perhaps check out: #WhatAgenciesWantLeaked
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POSTED BY Sundeep
ON Dec 09, 2010 AT 23:12 IST, Edited At: Dec 09, 2010 23:12 IST
POSTED BY NewsEd
ON Oct 05, 2010 AT 22:43 IST
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Edited At: Oct 05, 2010 22:43 IST
General Pervez Musharraf in his much-talked about interview to Spiegel:
Musharraf: The West blames Pakistan for everything. Nobody asks the Indian prime minister, Why did you arm your country with a nuclear weapon? Why are you killing innocent civilians in Kashmir? Nobody was bothered that Pakistan got split in 1971 because of India's military backing for Bangladesh (which declared independence from Pakistan that year). The United States and Germany gave statements, but they didn't mean anything. Everybody is interested in strategic deals with India, but Pakistan is always seen as the rogue.
SPIEGEL: Why did you form militant underground groups to fight India in Kashmir?
Musharraf: They were indeed formed. The government turned a blind eye because they wanted India to discuss Kashmir.
SPIEGEL: It was the Pakistani security forces that trained them.
Musharraf: The West was ignoring the resolution of the Kashmir issue, which is the core issue of Pakistan. We expected the West -- especially the United States and important countries like Germany -- to resolve the Kashmir issue. Has Germany done that?
SPIEGEL: Does that give Pakistan the right to train underground fighters?
Musharraf: Yes, it is the right of any country to promote its own interests when India is not prepared to discuss Kashmir at the United Nations and is not prepared to resolve the dispute in a peaceful manner.
Read on at Spiegel
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POSTED BY NewsEd
ON Oct 05, 2010 AT 22:43 IST, Edited At: Oct 05, 2010 22:43 IST
POSTED BY Sundeep
ON Aug 23, 2010 AT 23:38 IST
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Edited At: Aug 24, 2010 23:38 IST
G. Parthasarathy, former high commissioner of India to Pakistan in the Asian Age: ‘Aid won’t change hostility towards India’
In the same newspaper, 81-year-old Abdul Sattar Edhi, Magsaysay Award winner, and founder of Edhi Foundation, the country’s largest social welfare network, points out: ‘Needy can’t tell if medicines are Indian or American’.
Vir Sanghvi explained the Indian and Pakistan reactions in the New Indian Express:
... the fate of the earthquake relief some years ago may explain many things. The Pakistanis did not use our relief materials. The only gifts that were distributed were the blankets we sent over. And even there, Pakistan deputed people to handle each blanket individually and to scissor out the label that read ‘made in India.’
This time around, New Delhi was not sure how the offer of aid would be received (with justification, as it turns out) and so took slightly longer than it should have to decide whether or not to offer aid. It does not suggest callousness on our part, quite the opposite. We were just worried about being snubbed. (As indeed we were when we did offer the money).
Read on at the New Indian Express
MJ Akbar added:
Dr Manmohan Singh’s response to this gratuitous insult was a testament to his faith: he offered more. The best answer to visceral animosity is surely a civilised handshake, even if one may have to count one’s fingers after the hand has been shaken.
A caveat is essential. We must not confuse the Pakistani people with the Pakistan government. The government was playing politics with a crisis. The starving have no time for cynicism. The true victims of any such calamity are the poor, for the rich live above water. No poll has indicated that Pakistan’s flood-displaced would rather go hungry and roofless than eat wheat or take shelter under a tent purchased with India’s dollars.
Read on here
In the Sunday Times of India, Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar had, typically, the most novel suggestion after cautioning that "the Indian government should not offer more than a modest amount of food and financial aid":
...recipients are rarely grateful for alms: they resent being supplicants, and suspect the motives of the donors: The US saved India from mass starvation after the twin droughts of 1965 and 1966 by giving record food aid. But this won the US very few friends and stoked resentment from many who felt India's independence was being compromised. The US will once again be the chief donor to Pakistan, but will gain virtually no popularity or gratitude.
If food and financial aid will not help much, how can India best help Pakistan? The best way will be for the Indian Army to unilaterally withdraw from the border in Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat.
Read more: Aid flooded Pak by withdrawing Army
And from Pakistan, of course, there have been usual conspiracy theories and other such usual suspects blaming India, but among the most evocative and powerful pieces for me, so far has been Mohammed Hanif writing for the BBC:
....a journalist colleague of mine, chasing the flood, arrived in southern Punjab and reported back that the bridge over the river Cehnab resembled a giant set that might have been erected for a film about Partition, when India and Pakistan were prised apart.
A Partition set in Noah's time, I thought.
...
These areas are of no strategic interest to anyone because they have neither exported terrorism nor do they have the ambition to join a fight against it.
Their only export to the world outside is onions, tomatoes, sugar cane, wheat and mangoes.
The word terrorism does not even exist in Seraiki and Sindhi, the languages of the majority of the people who have been rendered homeless.
They belong to that forgotten part of humanity that has quietly tilled the land for centuries, the small farmers, the peasants, the farmhands, generations of people who are born and work and die on the same small piece of land.
And this time there are 20 million of them.
Read the full piece at the BBC
Postscript:
Also a must read, Manan Ahmed's heart-felt response to the above, joining issue with what he described as using "a cow as a crassly evocative narrative device", protesting against the denial of agency to the flood-victims, treating all of them as potential recruits to terrorism:
What is the point then? I cannot tell you anything that can change your mind. He is poor. He is easily bought by Wahabi or Opium money. He works hard for his meager food. He will swallow whole the dialectic of revolution or of Khilafa. He is traditional in his outlook, in his customs. He is a fundamentalist and a sectarian. He spent some time in the Gulf doing labor. He was indoctrinated with Wahabi ideology. He can recite Bulleh Shah or listen to the Heer for days. He what? He is a human being with a past, a present, a culture, a society, a vision of the good life, a sense of community, a method of belonging, a routine of daily practices, a collection of stories for his children, a corpus of songs for his friends, a set of possessions, a love for radio or tv, a daily grind and an early night. He is waiting to attack us in New York.
You see his suffering through your security, your strategy, your politics. You don’t see him as a human. Just as you don’t see me as more than cattle. You don’t know who he is, so he must be your worst nightmare. If you saw him as human, if you granted him agency, thought, you wouldn’t be so afraid. You would want to help him. Not because he might become Taliban, but because he is your kind, and he needs your help. [Read the full piece here: I Am A Bhains]
And, in between, some more of Pakistan's literary voices:
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POSTED BY Sundeep
ON Aug 23, 2010 AT 23:38 IST, Edited At: Aug 24, 2010 23:38 IST
POSTED BY Buzz
ON Aug 23, 2010 AT 18:55 IST
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Edited At: Aug 23, 2010 18:55 IST
INDUS FLOOD RELIEF
Himal Southasian fund collection drive
in partnership with Standard Chartered Bank Nepal
The floods raging through Pakistan at the moment have affected more people than the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, the 2006 Asian tsunami, and the 2010 Haiti earthquake combined.
Himal Southasian and Standard Chartered Bank Nepal have set up a fund in Kathmandu for people from Southasia and elsewhere seeking to support the ongoing relief efforts in Pakistan. Please avail this facility to send money to the victims of flood along the Indus. No administrative charges will be applied to your support; every paisa will be transferred to trusted organisations in Pakistan for the benefit of the flood victims.
Please send support to:*
Account title: Indus Flood Relief – Himal Southasian/SCB Nepal
Bank: Standard Chartered Bank Nepal Ltd.
Branches Accepting Deposit: Any Branches of SCB Nepal network
SWIFT CODE: SCBLNPKA
(Credit card payments may be made straight to the accounts below at any of the branches of Standard Chartered Bank in Nepal.)
Account number for Rupees (from India and Nepal): 01-1859293-02
Account number for USD (from elsewhere): 01-1859293-51
Please refer to the Indus Flood Relief page on www.himalmag.com for details.
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POSTED BY Buzz
ON Aug 23, 2010 AT 18:55 IST, Edited At: Aug 23, 2010 18:55 IST
POSTED BY Sundeep
ON Aug 18, 2010 AT 19:19 IST
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Edited At: Aug 18, 2010 19:19 IST
As the scale of floods in Pakistan sinks in and the Pakistan government dithers over whether or not are caught up, Nitin Pai pointedly asks whether "India" means only the Indian government when it comes to foreign affairs:
Governments are constrained by realpolitik. They follow the grammar of power. Civil society does not have the same constraints. It is free to speak the language of values. ..
...forget about New Delhi's offer and Islamabad's response. Think about the enormous human tragedy that is unfolding across our north-western borders. Then think of the political consequences, not least the real risk that the disaster will end up strengthening the bad guys. Think also of the hapless people in Balochistan, where the Pakistani government has banned international relief agencies from operating. You might find some factors more important than others, depending on your personal values, beliefs and hopes. Then do what you think is appropriate.
Read the full piece at Yahoo
For readers interested in contributing to help victims, NYT's Lede blog has a list of organisations beginning with three United Nations agencies working in Pakistan, with the rider
that The New York Times does not certify the charities’ fund allocations or administrative costs. More information about giving, for this and other causes, is available online from the GuideStar database on nonprofit agencies.)
Manan Ahmed at Chapati Mystery has more links on relief agencies
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POSTED BY Sundeep
ON Aug 18, 2010 AT 19:19 IST, Edited At: Aug 18, 2010 19:19 IST
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