Mumbai and ISI

DJ feels that targeting ‘Westerners’ ‘is not standard Indian militant or Indo-Pak terrorist activity.’ This has not been the case during the nine years I’ve been living in India.

1) first of all the overwhelming number of victims in the recent attacks were Indian.

2) Several years ago, I happened to be pm a train from Pathancot to Delhi that had originated form Jammu. It was over three hours late arriving and there were Indian troops at our station. Come to find out from a man who shared a taxi with us on arrival in Delhi that he’d been at the Jammu station and it was attacked by men shooting AK47’s and throwing grenade — still the train did depart.

Given that proximity, I followed the press accounts about the attack. The authorities caught remaining members of the terror cell and learned that they were planning attacks on Paranganj — the backpacker cheap-stay place in Delhi favored mainly by tourists — and on the Indira Gandhi International Airport. Some years later, in one of the first incident of simultaneous pipe-bombings around Delhi, several of the bombs were in Paranganj.

However, since then several similar attacks have occurred in Delhi and they have targed ‘western-style’ upscale shopping markets that cater to the wealthier middle and upper classes of India. Actually (at least five years ago) the police foiled an attack by armed gunmen at the first ‘mall’ in Delhi — they had intelligence that led to a shootout with the terrorists in the underground car park. This occurred during Diwali shopping season (Diwali is the Indian equivalent of gift-giving Christmas holiday).

Of course, who can forget the attack by armed gunmen on the U.S. consulate in Calcutta (where only Indian nationals serving as guards and police were killed) in either December 2001 or January 2002.

India has several Maoists insurgencies that are ongoing for years in a few states where only Western fools dare tread. Since as one hears, life is a bit cheap here — as reflected in the obvious lack of a Personal Injury litigation industry and the consequent lack of safety at all levels of daily life in construction or lack of emergency road aid, etc. — the routine nature of terrorist attacks barely causes a ripple a week after the initial news horror. Unfortunately it’s election season now and this was covered quite spectacularly here . . . and maybe ginning up the anti-Pak/anti-Muslim rhetoric will seem like a good idea to some fools.

Also, well over three hundred people were killed in simultaneous bombings on July 11th in Mumbai some years ago and the western media barely paid it any mind. Perhaps the terrorists (who of course are seeking publicity) think it’s a good idea to proclaim they’re hunting Westerners while in fact they slaughter mainly Indians.

Anyone who visits Mumbai [home to the largest slum in the world — that is, home to a huge number of incredibly hard working Indian people who have no place fit for human habitation to reside in — and incredibly conspicuous consumption at, for example, the Oberoi or Taj Hotels] must be struck by that vast panorama’s potentially volatile mix of immoral injustice where the bottom of the Third World lives cheek to jowl with a sliver of the First World elite (unless their eyes are stuck ‘wide shut’).

3 Comments

DJ

Fri, Nov 28, 2008 / 6:28 am Reply

Look at the targets: they included a lot of Jews & Westerners. This is not standard Indian militant or Indo-Pak terrorist activity. Current reports suggest a home-grown group, very young, but Ulitmatejoch is correct: very sophisticated. They may not be Al-Queda, but they think like them and appear to have the same goal– which suggests links. And that goal is bigger than Kashmir.
Bob Morris

Fri, Nov 28, 2008 / 8:26 am Reply

Given their sophistication, then what is their goal. Seems like they want more than just disruption of the financial world of India. Many of them will be dead and someone spent a lot of time and money training them.
Tenor

Sat, Nov 29, 2008 / 11:42 pm Reply

DJ feels that targeting ‘Westerners’ ‘is not standard Indian militant or Indo-Pak terrorist activity.’ This has not been the case during the nine years I’ve been living in India.

1) first of all the overwhelming number of victims in the recent attacks were Indian.

2) Several years ago, I happened to be pm a train from Pathancot to Delhi that had originated form Jammu. It was over three hours late arriving and there were Indian troops at our station. Come to find out from a man who shared a taxi with us on arrival in Delhi that he’d been at the Jammu station and it was attacked by men shooting AK47’s and throwing grenade — still the train did depart.

Given that proximity, I followed the press accounts about the attack. The authorities caught remaining members of the terror cell and learned that they were planning attacks on Paranganj — the backpacker cheap-stay place in Delhi favored mainly by tourists — and on the Indira Gandhi International Airport. Some years later, in one of the first incident of simultaneous pipe-bombings around Delhi, several of the bombs were in Paranganj.

However, since then several similar attacks have occurred in Delhi and they have targed ‘western-style’ upscale shopping markets that cater to the wealthier middle and upper classes of India. Actually (at least five years ago) the police foiled an attack by armed gunmen at the first ‘mall’ in Delhi — they had intelligence that led to a shootout with the terrorists in the underground car park. This occurred during Diwali shopping season (Diwali is the Indian equivalent of gift-giving Christmas holiday).

Of course, who can forget the attack by armed gunmen on the U.S. consulate in Calcutta (where only Indian nationals serving as guards and police were killed) in either December 2001 or January 2002.

India has several Maoists insurgencies that are ongoing for years in a few states where only Western fools dare tread. Since as one hears, life is a bit cheap here — as reflected in the obvious lack of a Personal Injury litigation industry and the consequent lack of safety at all levels of daily life in construction or lack of emergency road aid, etc. — the routine nature of terrorist attacks barely causes a ripple a week after the initial news horror. Unfortunately it’s election season now and this was covered quite spectacularly here . . . and maybe ginning up the anti-Pak/anti-Muslim rhetoric will seem like a good idea to some fools.

Also, well over three hundred people were killed in simultaneous bombings on July 11th in Mumbai some years ago and the western media barely paid it any mind. Perhaps the terrorists (who of course are seeking publicity) think it’s a good idea to proclaim they’re hunting Westerners while in fact they slaughter mainly Indians.

Anyone who visits Mumbai [home to the largest slum in the world — that is, home to a huge number of incredibly hard working Indian people who have no place fit for human habitation to reside in — and incredibly conspicuous consumption at, for example, the Oberoi or Taj Hotels] must be struck by that vast panorama’s potentially volatile mix of immoral injustice where the bottom of the Third World lives cheek to jowl with a sliver of the First World elite (unless their eyes are stuck ‘wide shut’).

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