Thursday, February 17, 2022

Islam - Current Day > Jihadist trial in France; Wife-beating advice from families minister; Seminary attacked; Enraged mob in Punjab; French far-right elections; 49 Jihadists convicted

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Multiple suspects on trial over jihadist murder of French priest


Four men are accused of being accomplices in the 2016 murder of Father Jacques Hamel


View of the Palais de Justice de Paris ©  Steve Parsons/PA Images via Getty Images


Four men allegedly connected to the jihadist killing of a Catholic priest, Father Jacques Hamel, as he said mass in a French church in 2016 went on trial in Paris on Monday. Prosecutors are accusing each man of being accomplices in the brutal crime. 

Three of the four are facing charges of conspiring with terrorists, with prosecutors saying they all knew of the planned attack through prior communication with the now-deceased attackers. Jean-Philippe Steven Jean Louis, 25, Farid Khelil, 36, and Yassine Sebaihia, 27, have denied the charges and described themselves as “scapegoats.” They face up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

Jean Louis is accused of spreading propaganda through social media and encouraging jihadist attacks, while the other two suspects are accused of being in contact with the killers and knowing about the attack. 

Rachid Kassim, the fourth suspect, is accused by prosecutors of not only being complicit in the murder of the 85-year-old priest, but of actually providing the target and further support to the killers before the attack. He is being tried in absentia, as he is believed to have been killed in a 2017 drone strike in Iraq, though his death has not been confirmed. 

Kassim previously received a life sentence in absentia for having ordered a failed 2016 terrorist attack in Paris, in which two women tried to blow up a car near the Notre Dame cathedral. 

Adel Kermiche and Abdel-Malik Petitjean killed Father Hamel at a church in the small Normandy town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray on July 26, 2016. The 19-year-old assailants also took hostages, including two nuns, during the attack. The two prime suspects were later shot and killed by police at the scene. 

One worshiper, Guy Coponet, was injured in the attack and attended the trial on Monday. The now-92-year-old is expected to testify and said he hopes “those responsible” for the attack “can ask forgiveness from all those who suffered,” according to France 24.

Hamel’s killers claimed to be members of the Islamic State, which later took credit for the attack, and Kassim is accused of recruiting the two. 

The priest’s murder occurred during a flurry of terrorist attacks in France, with more than 200 being killed in Islamist-inspired attacks between 2015 and 2017. 




Female Malaysian Minister in hot water after wife-beating advice


Malaysian women’s rights groups have said the nation’s deputy minister

for family, is “abhorrent” and not fit for the job


FILE PHOTO. ©  Getty Images / hl-studios


Malaysian women’s rights groups on Monday called for the deputy minister for family and women to resign, after the official sparked outrage by giving advice on wife-beating in an Instagram post.

In a two-minute video posted on Sunday, Siti Zailah said that husbands should first speak to their “unruly” wives then, if that does not work, sleep apart from them for three days and, finally, resort to the “physical touch approach” should a wife still prove to be too “stubborn” to comply.

“If the wife still refuses to take the advice, or change her behavior after the sleeping separation, then the husbands can try the physical touch approach, by striking her gently, to show his strictness and how much he wants her to change,” the official said in her video.

The deputy minister’s “advice” drew the ire of Malaysia’s women’s rights organizations, who accused her of normalizing domestic violence, which is outlawed in the Southeast Asian nation. An association of eight such groups, called Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG), have called on Siti Zailah to resign over her words, accusing her of “perpetuating ideas as well as behaviors that are opposed to gender equality.” 

That would be Sharia, of course.

Between 2020 and 2021 alone, there were 9,015 police reports of domestic violence in Malaysia, the association said in a statement on Monday, pointing out that this number does not include other reports received by various charities and women’s support organizations.

“As a minister who is meant to uphold gender equality and the rights of women to protection and safety, this is abhorrent, denies women the right to equality, their right to dignity and to be free from degrading treatment,” the statement said.

The group has also urged Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob to take immediate action on the matter. The appeal to the government was then signed by 11 other women’s rights organizations.

A Malaysian female MP and the former Vice-President of People's Justice Party, Nurul Izzah Anwar, slammed the deputy minister’s words on Monday, calling them “detrimental and contrary to the current reality and needs.” The MP added that Malaysia had seen an increase in domestic abuse during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Neither the government nor Siti Zailah herself have so far reacted to the outrage. The deputy minister, who is an MP for the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, has previously caused controversy after urging women to only speak to their husbands when given permission and only when their spouses have “finished eating, have prayed and are relaxed.”





Burkina Faso: Muslims attack Catholic seminary,

destroy cross, burn two dorms, classroom, and vehicle

FEB 16, 2022 4:00 PM 
BY ROBERT SPENCER

Once again, the world yawns. Only if the roles were reversed, which they would not be and should not be, would the international media take any notice of this.

The cross is an affront to Islam. The Qur’an claims that Jesus was not crucified, although in somewhat equivocal language for what is supposed to be the perfect word of an omniscient god:

“And their saying, ‘Indeed, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, the messenger of Allah.’ And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but another was made to resemble him to them. And indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption. And they did not kill him, for certain.” (4:157)

And a hadith depicts Muhammad saying: “The Hour will not be established until the son of Mary (i.e. Jesus) descends amongst you as a just ruler, he will break the cross, kill the pigs, and abolish the Jizya tax. Money will be in abundance so that nobody will accept it (as charitable gifts).” (Bukhari 46.37.2476)

This means he will destroy Christianity (break the cross), force the Christians to obey the Islamic food laws (kill the pigs) and end the second-class dhimmi status (abolish the jizya) that Islamic law specifies for Christians, such that they will either have to convert to Islam or be killed.

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“Minor seminary in Burkina Faso attacked” 

CNA, February 10, 2022 

Saint Kisito de Bougui
, a minor seminary in Burkina Faso, was attacked overnight, the pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need announced Friday.

No lives were lost in the attack, which took place the night of Feb. 10-11, though “there was a lot of material damage.”…

ACN said the it had been informed by local partners “that the jihadists came by motorbikes” late in the evening of Feb. 10, and stayed at the seminary for an hour.

The attackers burned two dormitories, a classroom, and a vehicle. Another vehicle was stolen.

A crucifix was destroyed, and the assailants said “they don’t want to see crosses,” telling the seminarians, according to ACN, “they should go now, that they will come back and if somebody remains there they will kill them.”

The pontifical charity said the seminarians are now with their families for a week, and some residents of Bougui are leaving the town. 

Burkina Faso, located in West Africa, has seen an increase in Islamist violence in recent years….




Pakistan: Enraged Sunni Muslim mob attacks Shi’ite scholar for ‘blasphemy’

FEB 16, 2022 2:00 PM
BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

A Muslim mob nearly killed a Shia scholar for offending Islam, but he was rescued. A day earlier, a middle-aged mentally challenged man was stoned to death, also in Pakistan’s Punjab province. The Shia scholar reportedly burned pages “of a religious book”; an enraged mob attacked his home with bricks, sticks and other objects around his house.

This is the normal face of Pakistan, where murder or death threats are routine in support of Sharia blasphemy laws. The death penalty for blasphemy (cf. Sunan Abu Dawud, book 38 no 4348) is accepted by far too many Muslims, and is being exported to Western countries.

Muslim advocacy groups are infamous for trying to impose a version of Islamic blasphemy laws on Western societies via the “Islamophobia” subterfuge.

There is also the threat of violent attacks for “blasphemy,” as seen in France in the case of Samuel Paty, who was beheaded in the street for insulting Islam, and whose murder was widely supported in the Islamic world.

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“In the name of blasphemy in Pakistan, the mob again became uncontrollable, this time a Shia scholar was attacked,”

Hindustan News Hub, 
February 14, 2022:

Lahore: An angry mob attacked and injured a Shia scholar over the alleged burning of pages of a religious book in Pakistan’s Punjab province, while a middle-aged man was earlier accused of blasphemy. And a mentally ill person was beaten to death with stones.

About a dozen people armed with sticks, sticks, bricks and other objects surrounded the scholar’s house for alleged blasphemy, police officer Mubashar Macan said at Tandlianwala in Faisalabad district, about 180 km from Lahore. However, the police who reached the spot saved them.

Police took the scholar to an unknown place


After the incident, the police has taken the scholar to an unknown place and his family has also been shifted to another place due to security reasons. It is noteworthy that in the last two months, two people have been killed in mob violence in Punjab state…

Tandlianwala, PK



'France spits on my family': French Muslims' fury as politicians focus on Islam


With one town described as 'Afghanistan two hours from Paris'


Reporter writing about Sharia was forced to go into hiding


By RACHAEL BUNYAN FOR MAILONLINE and AFP
PUBLISHED: 04:20 EST, 9 February 2022

French Muslims have spoken of their fury as politicians have focused on Islam during the presidential election campaign, with one far-right candidate describing a town as 'Afghanistan two hours from Paris'. 

They fear that anti-Islamic rhetoric has now been normalised in France by far-right candidates such as Eric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen of the National Rally, with some Muslims saying they now live under 'permanent suspicion'. 

As if they haven't always lived under permanent suspicion!

'I have the impression that today's France spits on my parents, who fought to liberate it, on my parents who come to build its roads, and on me, who has respected all of the rules of democracy and integration,' said Khadija, 38, a social worker in the Loiret region in central France.  

The anger at anti-Muslim rhetoric in France comes after Zemmour caused a fresh outcry on Monday by describing the town of Roubaix in northern France as 'Afghanistan two hours from Paris'.

Zemmour, who has twice been convicted of hate crimes for statements about Islam, told France Inter Radio: 'French people who are Muslims must live in the French way and not consider that sharia law is superior to the laws of the republic.'

He made the comments after a French journalist who fronted a documentary about the rise of radical Islam in Roubaix was given police protection after receiving death threats over her investigation. 

Ophélie Meunier, 34, revealed Sharia-compliant faceless children's toys being on sale in the town, as well as restaurant booths to 'shield' women from the male gaze.  


Muslims fear that anti-Islamic rhetoric has now been normalised in France by far-right candidates such as Eric Zemmour (left) and Marine Le Pen (right) of the National Rally, with some saying they now live under 'permanent suspicion'


French journalist Ophélie Meunier, who fronted a documentary about the rise of radical Islam in Roubaix, was given police protection after receiving death threats over her investigation


Veiled women pass by a Halal Quick fast-food restaurant in the northern French city of Roubaix on August 30, 2010

For Muslims, who make up almost nine per cent of the country's mainland population, they have been made uneasy over the bursts of rhetoric against them during the presidential election campaign. 

'Sometimes I tell myself that no one can understand quite how violent this is,' said Fatma Bouvet de la Maisonneuve, a psychiatrist of Tunisian origin and author of the book 'An Arab Woman in France'.

I think there are some Jews who can clearly understand the violence.

Acknowledging that people can be tempted to turn in upon themselves, she said: 'Frankly, sometimes we just want to meet among Arabs to tell each other how bad things are,' she said.

Marine Le Pen's father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who made it to the second round in the 2002 presidential vote, has shocked much of France with repeated broadsides against Islam and immigrants.

French Muslims fear that such rhetoric has now been normalised and increasingly supported by widespread news reports and saturation of social media.

'I feel bad, very bad,' said Khadija, who asked that her second name be withheld. 

'A few days ago, my five-year-old daughter told me that she did not like being Arab,' she said, complaining of 'living under permanent suspicion, no longer knowing what's behind the baker's smile, or what people really think'.


A veiled woman walks past a soldier patroling in a street of Roubaix, northern France, on January 13, 2015


For Kamel, who works for a charity association, the attacks on the night of November 13, 2015 changed everything. Islamist gunmen massacred 130 people in and around Paris at locations including restaurants and the Bataclan music venue.

'I parted ways with many of my friends who were beginning to link Muslims with terrorism,' he said.

For the prominent sociologist Ahmed Boubaker, 'a dam has broken' and now 'there is a total lack of inhibition' on the part of political figures accusing Muslims of failing to integrate.

'However, I am not convinced that French society is as racist as we say it is,' he said.

'It is the politicians who are chasing after the pseudo-racism of public opinion, without realising that in fact they are manufacturing it.'

For others in France, they feel the secularism on which the modern-day republic was founded is under threat from religious ideologies brought in by overseas migrants.

It comes after French journalist Ophélie Meunier, 34, received death threats in the wake of documentary Zone Interdite - or 'Restricted Zone - that aired in France on January 23 looking at the influence of hardline Islamic views in Roubaix.  

Meunier found a restaurant where women are given cubicles to eat away from men, and a toy shop selling faceless dolls to comply with strict interpretations of Islam that forbid depicting facial features.

She also spoke to Amine Elbahi, 26, a Muslim lawyer from Roubaix who helped expose an educational institution that received £53,000 of public money to teach poor children, but was accused of spreading Islamic teachings instead.

Elbahi spoke out against the influence of radical Islam in the film, and has now been branded an 'infidel' and threatened with beheading. He is also under police guard.

At one point, Meunier is believed to have been separated from her husband and two children and placed in a 'safe house'.



The documentary was filmed in Roubaix, a poor town in northern France, where the Muslim population is proportionately one of the highest in the country


Why do hardline Islamists forbid depictions of people? 
The Quran, Islam's holy book, forbids idolatry - the worship of anyone or anything other than the one God, which Muslims believe to be Allah.

Meanwhile Hadith - the teachings, actions, and received beliefs of the Prophet Mohammed - prohibit the depiction of humans and, depending on interpretation, other living beings.

Traditionally, this has been justified on the basis that depictions of humans could easily become idols.

This is why depictions of prominent religious figures - such as Mohammed and other prophets - are expressly forbidden, with many observant Muslims adhering to this rule. 

For example, widespread protests broke out in predominantly Muslim countries after it emerged French teacher Samuel Paty - who was subsequently beheaded - had shown cartoons of Mohammed to his pupils. 

But interpretations of Hadith and what exactly constitutes a depiction likely to attract worship vary widely between different branches of Islam and between scholars and clerics.

The most hardline interpretations teach that any depictions of humans are haram - or forbidden.

In Afghanistan, clerics recently declared shop mannequins to be haram and ordered that they be beheaded so as to remove the faces.

And during ISIS's 2014 conquest of vast areas of Syria and Iraq, fighters were often seen defacing religious monuments of other Islamic sects which they believed to be idolatrous. 

But others take a more-relaxed view. 

Shia Muslims, who ISIS and other extremists view as apostates, sometimes depict Husayn - grandson of Mohammed - though not the prophet himself. 


'It's intolerable for Ophelie to find herself in this situation for having just done her job', a colleague told the Mail this week.

Roubaix, which is twinned with Bradford, West Yorkshire, has one of the largest Muslim populations (an estimated 20,000) of any town in a country which itself has the largest Muslim population in Western Europe (an estimated 5.7 million).

In a clip shared on Zone Interdite's official Twitter page ahead of the release of the full documentary, specialist in radical Islam Professor Bernard Rougier holds the faceless dolls and teddy-bears as he explains: 'It's a way to show that from childhood, you will be a better Muslim than others, and implies, others are not good or true Muslims.

'And so it is the introduction of an ideological principle into the world of childhood... in that sense it is quite worrying, yes.' 

The hidden-camera footage shows the undercover reporter going into the shops selling the dolls, which also offer books with the same imagery. 

The documentary also featured a restaurant where women are given cubicles to eat away from men  

The waiter can be heard advising the reporter from Zone Interdite, who had a hidden camera and was posing as a customer, that female diners should come during the week, as weekends are very busy, so they can be sure of getting a cubicle. 

The reporter then asked: 'It's good for women with headscarves?' The waiter replied: 'That's what it is for.' 

'There is no law against the booths,' a relative of the owner Abdellaziz Ould Lazizi told the Mail this week. 'All sorts of people use them: men, women, families, Christians, Muslims and Jews.'

Critics have suggested that opening up the booths to all customers — when perhaps the real purpose is to cater for Muslim women as the waiter implies on camera — is simply a way of getting round what is known in France as laicite (secularism), the aim of which is to keep religion out of public spaces. 

Emmanuel Macron, a centrist who is gearing up to fight a presidential election in April where he is likely to face off against a right-wing challenger, has been accused of being soft on immigration and of failing to defend French values. 

Macron's rival Zemmour was quick to align himself with Meunier after it emerged she had been threatened following the documentary. 

In a clip shared on Zone Interdite's Twitter page, they show secret footage in a Roubaix toy shop of faceless dolls being sold in order to respect an ultra-radical version of Islam that prohibits the representation of human beings


'Ophélie Meunier is in mortal danger,' he tweeted on Saturday, as the documentary began garnering widespread attention.

'This is what happens when you show the French the Islamization of our country. Millions of patriots thank her for her courage.' 

During the presidential campaign, Le Pen and Zemmour have been tearing into each other in the hope of making the run-off against Macron. 

The two agree on any number of points: expelling foreigners who repeatedly break the law, privatising France's public broadcasters, stopping construction of wind turbines in favour of nuclear energy and ending free trade agreements to protect French farmers.

But 'what's at stake is the leadership of the far-right, with two very distinct profiles,' said Stephane Francois, professor of political science at the University of Mons in neighbouring Belgium.

'On the one hand, you have Marine Le Pen, who has tried to soften her language' to eliminate traditional reluctance to vote far-right, Francois said, while Zemmour 'goes straight for what's radical and thinks Le Pen is too moderate'.

French members of the French National Police Intervention Group (GIPN) arrest a suspected radical Islamists group member, on April 4, 2012, in the French northern city of Roubaix


After Le Pen and Zemmour held competing rallies, the far-right mayor of southern town Beziers Robert Menard told broadcaster CNews Sunday that 'they said more or less the same things'.

But Zemmour 'continues to be brutal, hard, cutting, he's wrong to be like that, he's dividing France,' added Menard, himself a Le Pen supporter, but also a friend of Zemmour.

One of the more controversial proposals of the ultranationalist Zemmour is to ban parents from giving their children foreign-sounding first names. He has also likened young criminals in predominantly immigrant housing estates to jihadists.

A recent survey by pollsters Ipsos Sopra-Steria found the far-right candidates neck-and-neck at around 14 percent, while conservative Valerie Pecresse's 16.5 percent kept her in place as top challenger to Macron, with around 24 percent backing. 

Coming after a long career in TV punditry, Zemmour's candidacy has upset 53-year-old Le Pen's third run at the Elysee Palace. In recent weeks he has wooed away high-profile members of her camp, with even her niece Marion Marechal saying she now leans towards the former journalist.

Le Pen had spent years softening the image of the outfit she inherited from her father Jean-Marie, going so far as to change its name from the toxic 'National Front' to 'National Rally' (RN) once he was safely retired from the leadership.

Although she reached the second round in 2017, Macron won handily after a humiliating TV debate in which Le Pen appeared to lack command of the issues.

This time, 'my laws are already written... my plans are thought through, straightforward and costed,' she told newspaper Le Figaro last week.

But while she hammered on Macron's open flank, the cost-of-living debate around rising inflation and energy prices, Le Pen could not help but make some swipes at her ideological twin's camp.

Zemmour 'isn't fighting to win, but to kill the National Rally,' Le Pen insisted, accusing him of trying to set up 'some fantastical realignment of politics' that could sweep him to power at the next election in 2027.

She charged that the other far-right candidate was defending a narrow vision of a traditional Catholic France.

'My aim isn't to defend Asterix's village,' she told Le Figaro - a reference to the world-famous comic-book character whose tiny hometown is the last to hold out against Roman invaders. 

Zemmour tacked away from questions on economics and inflation in an interview with broadcaster France Inter on Monday.

'There is one major problem, which is the great replacement of the French people by another people, another civilisation,' the 63-year-old said, returning to his stock theme of immigration and Islam.

The phrase 'Great Replacement' is drawn from a 2011 book by French writer Renaud Camus, whose conspiratorial argument that white Europeans are being deliberately supplanted by non-white immigrants has inspired extreme-right figures like Christchurch mass shooter Brenton Tarrant.

And the name of Zemmour's party, 'Reconquest!', evokes the expulsion of the Muslims from Spain and Portugal during the Middle Ages.

'Zemmour is reinventing or recreating the National Front in its early years, the 1970s and 80s,' said Stephane Francois, the political scientist.

'He's pouring oil on the flames, sending messages to the most radical of the extreme right... he wants to rally behind him the right of the UMP (former President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative party), identitarians, neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers and so on.'

The candidate continues to double down on his claim that France bears no responsibility for the rounding-up of Jews during the Nazi occupation. 'It was the Germans who demanded this roundup,' he told France Inter.

Meanwhile, he retorted that allegations from Pecresse and Le Pen that he is backed by Nazis were 'stupid'.

'There are no Nazi supporters in my team,' Zemmour said.




India: 49 Muslims convicted for 21 jihad bombings

in Ahmedabad in 2008

FEB 16, 2022 11:00 AM 
BY ASHLYN DAVIS

On Tuesday, February 8, a special court in Gujarat pronounced judgement in the 2008 Ahmedabad bomb blast case, convicting 49 of the 77 Muslims who were accused in the series of 21 explosions. Twelve were acquitted for lack of evidence, while 16 were given the benefit of the doubt.


While India is currently reeling under the threat of Sharia adherents using Muslim students to drive the secular democracy closer to the implementation of Sharia, this was not the first time jihadi students from the Muslim community wreaked havoc in the country.

The blasts that sent tremors through the city were plotted by the Islamic terrorist organization Indian Mujahidin, formerly known as the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). Banned since 2001, the terrorist outfit was formed in Uttar Pradesh in April 1977 by jihadi students in order to work toward converting India into an Islamic land. Though the movement is proscribed under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967, its founder, Mohammad Ahmadullah Siddiqi, serves as professor of Public Relations and Journalism at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois. The 2008 bomb blasts, however, were planned long after Siddiqi moved to the US.

At 6:41 PM on July 26, 2008, several Indian news agencies received a lengthy email suggesting that jihadis were back in action to avenge the globally notorious 2002 Gujarat riots. Though the riot of 2002 has been covered exhaustively by media houses, not many reports highlighted the fact that the riot was triggered by enraged Muslims who halted the Sabarmati Express train before setting it ablaze, burning 59 Hindu pilgrims to death. Similarly, the fact that Muslims planted 21 bombs across Ahmedabad to “avenge” what they had started also didn’t get the media bandwidth it deserved.

A 14-page email sent by the Indian Mujahidin with the subject line, “Await 5 minutes for the revenge of Gujarat,” read: “In the name of Allah the Indian Mujahideen strike again! Do whatever you can, within 5 minutes from now, feel the terror of Death!” By invoking Allah, they made it clear that they were drawing the inspiration to carry out this large-scale violence from Islam. The email added: “We wonder at your memory. Have you forgotten the evening of 11 July 2006 so quickly and so easily?,” taking a dig at the failure of Indian security agencies regarding the July 2006 local train blasts in Mumbai. The email also contained threats for the Indian business tycoon Mukesh Ambani and warnings for movie stars, demanding that they stop working in films. Ahmedabad, like India’s financial capital Mumbai, held massive financial significance for the country; the repercussions of any damage to this city were bound to be massive. The jihadis knew this.

The first bomb went off at 6:45 PM and for the next hour and a half, a series of 21 explosions continued at short intervals, tearing through the populated areas of Thakkarbapa Nagar, Khadia, Maninagar, Sarangpur, Bapunagar, Hatkeshwar Circle, Jawahar Chowk, Isanpur, Govindwadi, Sarkhej, and Narol. Bombs were also planted at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital’s Trauma Center and L. G. Hospital Maninagar. It was a calculated move to increase the number of casualties, targeting vulnerable patients with limited mobility. Also, any kind of breakdown in the supply of essentials such as oxygen or electricity would kill patients who had not been killed in the blasts. One has to have a breathtaking level of brutality to think this through.

The blast at the civil hospital was deafening; it was dark for a split second, and then the survivors saw pieces of dead bodies scattered all around. The floor was covered in blood. 56 persons were killed in the blasts, and over 200 were injured. The severity of the victims’ burns led to a new branch of medical research.

It was the time for most people to return from work, but they couldn’t decide if they should board a train or run for their lives. Bombs were exploding in all directions. The city was abuzz with the sirens of police vehicles and ambulances.

On July 27, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) of the crime branch of the Ahmedabad police, Abhay Chudasama, received initial leads from reliable informers. Accompanied by a committed team, the DCP chased these leads and others clues that came in later, and unearthed a massive terror racket that had its tentacles throughout India. They arrested one of the key conspirators, Mufti Abu Bashir, from Lucknow. More terrorists were arrested in various hideouts in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Gujarat. They had been planning the blasts since December 2007; cars and bicycles were used as bombs carriers. The sinister plan didn’t even end there: police were located and defused two bombs in the city of Surat on July 28, and 18 more bombs on July 29.

The trial began in 2009. It took 13 years for justice to be delivered. Recalling these incidents alerts us against believing that the enemy is weak because it is made up of “students.” The enemy is not too weak to strike. The conditioning starts rather early.



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