Sonia and UPA are the friends of terrorists

When Congress president Sonia Gandhi visited terror-hit Jaipur on May 15, she repeated the stale phrase, "it is a crime against humanity". Standing by her side, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil repeated the equally stock rhetoric of "zero tolerance" of terror! Thus ended, with the traditional ex-pression of compassion and pity for the victims, the ritual of the battle cry.

Islamic terror hit Jaipur on May 13, 2008. But, after the UPA government came to power in May 2004, there have been nine other major terror attacks, including temples in Varanasi and Ayodhya, in Mumbai and Malageon, in which hundreds died and thousands were injured. In every one of them, the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) was found involved. The story here shows how considerate the UPA and Sonia Gandhi have been of SIMI,which perpetrated such "crimes against humanity". But, before that, a short brief on SIMI.

SIMI has a long history of preaching hatred against Hindus and India, and of practising terror against both. A click of the mouse yields tons of information about SIMI through Google. It hates the very notion of India, vows to terminate the "sin" of idol worship and remains in a perpetual state of jihad. It glorifies no one other than Prophet Mohammed, respects no one other than Osama bin Laden, praises none other than Maulana Masood Asher, the founder of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM),which wages war against India, and the hijackers of the Indian Airlines flight IC814 to Kandahar.

It trivialises Mahatma Gandhi and trashes Pandit Nehru and Indira Gandhi. It is the Indian arm of JeM, Lashker-e-Toiba (LeT) and Harkat-ul-Jihad Islam (HuJI) ­ the leading terror merchants of Pakistan and Bangladesh. It is globally linked to Islamic outfits like the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (Riyadh), the International Islamic Federation of Students Organisations (Kuwait), the Consultative Committee of Indian Muslims [Chicago] and the various students wings of the Jamait in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal.

Formed in 1977, and generously funded by the Islamic world, SIMI was the most potential indigenous terror factory by the early 1990s. The Intelligence Bureau had a huge dossier on SIMI as the year 2000 turned. As early as 2001, the Delhi police described SIMI as "the most potential enemy within". The Kanpur police went further. It was not just potential, but "a clear and present danger" to national security. (see India Today 2.4.2001). In his interview to the weekly, its secretary general openly expressed hate for India, Gandhi, Nehru, and Indira; declared love for bin Laden and professed respect for the Jamait chief of Pakistan. By early 2001 no one had any doubt about its character.

In end-September 2001, the NDA government outlawed SIMI and convened a joint session of Parliament in early 2002 to pass the Prevention Of Terrorism Act (POTA) How did Sonia Gandhi and her party respond? "Lopsided", "ill-timed", "not in national interest"­this was how Sonia's trusted party general secretary Ambika Soni described the ban on SIMI. Prakash Jaiswal, the president of her party in Uttar Pradesh then, said: "The Vishwa Hindu Parishad is a greater threat to national security than SIMI".

Inside Parliament, Sonia Gandhi opposed both POTA and the ban. But, her party's chief ministers having pleaded for such a law, her party had to do a U-turn. When asked about the somersault, the party spokesman simply replied, "The official view is that no such national law is needed and this is binding on all chief ministers." So the final was that the ban on SIMI was wrong and that the POTA was against minorities. This was in the NDA years, 2001 and 2002.

Now come to UPA rule. Between May 2004 and May 2008, SIMI has struck some 10 times, killing hundreds and injuring thousands. Yet the UPA government allowed the ban on SIMI to expire in September 2005, and legalised ­ yes legalised ­ its activities. What about Sonia? On May 31, 2004, she became chairperson of the National Advisory Council (NAC),whose main function was to oversee the implementation of the UPA's Common Minimum Programme (CMP).

On national security, the CMP had said there would be no compromise in the fight against terror. During the 20 months of its existence, the NAC held 22 meetings, produced 63 concept papers, addressed over 30 communications to the government, but the only subjects that NAC totally forgot ­ yes forgot ­ were "national security and terror"! Not a word on the Varanasi or Ayodhya attacks. What then were the other concerns of the NAC ­ that is, Sonia? Read the list. Right to Information Act, National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, National Rural Roads Project, Midday Meal Scheme, Universal Primary Education, Integrated Child Development Scheme,Watershed Development, Tribal Development and the like ­ all populist, to add value to her image.

As SIMI is identified with the Muslim vote bank, NAC and Sonia were deafeningly silent on the subject. It is no accident. Even in her personal website, www.soniagandhi. org,which has over 430 pages of discourse on a variety of subjects, the only subjects she forgets are, coincidentally again, national security and terrorism.

What about the Prime Minister? He claimed that he spent a sleepless night when Muhammed Hanif, whose brother Shakeel was a suspect in the attempted terror attack on Heathrow airport in London, was detained in Australia. Obviously, he had no such problems when SIMI tore up India repeatedly and maimed and killed thousands under his nose.

Now fast forward to 2008. Prakash Jaiswal, the same gentleman who as UPCC president certified in 2001 that SIMI was not as anti-national as the VHP, told Parliament on April 21 ­ this time as Union Minister of State for Home ­ that SIMI, which has links with LeT, was indeed a threat to national security! He also added that over 180 SIMI activists had been arrested since the ban and that raids yielded arms, ammunitions, and hate literature. The Congress and Sonia were forced to eat their words on SIMI as the UPA government had to re-impose the ban on SIMI in February 2006, but not before allowing it to grow as the most powerful indigenous Islamic terror outfit.

Leave SIMI, take the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Even before she defended SIMI, Sonia sought a pardon for the killers of her husband and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. He was leader of the Opposition when he was assassinated by the LTTE. So the victim of LTTE terror was not just Sonia but also India as a nation and the Congress as a party.

Yet she saw it as her personal prerogative to seek a pardon. Recently, her daughter Priyanka Vadra even made a mysterious visit to Vellore jail to meet one of the killers of Rajiv Gandhi to declare the family's compassion for the killers.

If Sonia could pardon the terrorists who killed Rajiv Gandhi, the human rights industry asks now, why not pardon Mohammed Afsal, who nearly blew up Parliament, even though the Supreme Court has decided that "he is a menace to the society whose life shoud be extinct to satisfy the collective conscience of the society".

QED: It is pardon and compassion for the terrorists and sympathy and pity for the victims that marks the UPA government policy to tackle terror.

Courtesy: www.newindpress.com, May 20, 2008