If Mohd Afzal is pardoned in the name of mercy and saved from the gallows, it would be the beginning of surrender to the Islamic Jihad which is going on in India on a massive scale for the last two decades. It would be a symbolic measurement as to how much writ of Islamic Jihad runs in the sovereign India.

It is notable that after Sessions and High Courts' judgments, the Supreme Court too found Mohd. Afzal, a Pakistan-trained militant, guilty of being fully involved in the conspiracy. The court said that the attack by terrorists on the "supreme seat of democracy" fell in the category of rarest of the rare "crime committed with enormous severity" and upheld award of death sentence to Mohd Afzal.

Further, it must be remembered that Afzal does not come in the category of an ordinary criminal who committed the crime in a fit of rage but a person who has waged a war against the nation and state of India. It must be remembered that once he had surrendered and again gone back to terrorism. In order to understand the nature of Afzal's crime and his mental makeup, one has to look at the very source of his inspiration.

Although jihadi wars have always been guided by Quran, when the previous military dictator of Pakistan Zi-ul-Haq thought of a strategic book titled Quranic Concept of War, the task of writing that book came to Brigadier SK Malik who did it dutifully. Zia prescribed this book as a must-read for every soldier of Pakistan. In the chapter on 'Strategy For War' terror tactics have been described as follows:

"Only a strategy that aims at striking terror into the hearts of enemy from the preparation stage can produce direct results and turn Liddell Hart's dream into a reality. During peace time our 'will' must find its expression through 'preparation'. Terror struck into the hearts of the enemies is not only a means, it is the end in itself. Once a condition of terror into the opponent's heart is obtained, hardly anything is left to be achieved. The Quranic military strategy thus enjoins us to prepare ourselves for war to the utmost in order to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies, known or hidden, while guarding ourselves from being terror stricken by the enemy.

"Jihad is a continuous and never-ending struggle waged on all fronts including political, economic, social, psychological, domestic, moral and spiritual to attain the object of policy. It aims at attaining the overall mission assigned to the Islamic state, and military strategy is one of the means available to do so. It is waged at individual as well as collective level; and at internal as well as external front."

In the current phase of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, terrorists first killed two civilians and one jawan and saw the response. Then they caused double digit and triple digit casualties and saw the response. Changing the gear, they targeted temples and read the barometer. They ambushed Army camps and tested the repercussions. They carried out serial bomb blasts in the financial Capital of India to unnerve it. Thereafter, they targeted technological Capital - Bangalore. Now, they are testing Afzal's death sentence and watching the vitality of Muslim vote bank against the state power led by Manmohan Singh, controlled by Sonia Gandhi and her loyalists. They would then chalk out the strategy for next phase of jihad and its ultimate success.

I recall the condemnations galore for weeks by the whole political spectrum world over against the treacherous attack on Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001 by the jihadists. Muslim Organisations and their leaders' denouncements of the dastardly attack were even louder. Now when the mastermind of that operation is to be put to death, they have changed colours. I can understand filing of mercy petition by the family members but I am shocked to learn that J&K Chief Minister Gulam Nabi Azad, the Man Friday of the Congress party as also of Sonia has come down to Delhi to plead mercy for Mohd. Afzal. A General Secretary of the Congress party cited the constitutional provision of appeal to the President.

Former Chief Ministers of J&K Farukh Abdullah, Mufti Mohd Sayeed have joined the chorus. All pseudo-secular parties are keeping quiet because of their vote bank consideration. Their silence is as eloquent as was their condemnation on the day of attack exposing their duplicity.

The civil rights industry is mixing up the debate on abolition of death sentence with terrorism, thereby subverting the judiciary and in the process the very integrity of the country. By bowing to protests in Kashmir and elsewhere, don't allow a great victory for terrorists.

Courtesy: dailypioneer.com, Ocober 08, 2006