Fidayeen

The naive boy does not remotely fit the definition of this deadly cult. A 20-year-old orphan from Mansoorabad, Faisalabad, Pakistan, Bhat says he did not even know he was a fidayeen. In fact, the policemen who captured him while he was trying to flee in the middle of a major standoff between militants and security forces at Srinagar’s Lal Chowk too didn’t expect a frightened boy to be a member of the suicide squad.

And that is why he remained alive to tell his story.

IT was the cloudy afternoon of November 14. Lal Chowk — Srinagar’s business nerve centre — was packed with shoppers and students, waiting for buses to return home. At 3.05 pm, there was a sudden commotion. Militants appeared and lobbed a grenade at a security picket. Then, as the square resonated with gunfire, militants jumped inside a hotel.

The attack was in accordance with a standard fidayeen script in Srinagar. And so was the response. Within minutes, hundreds of heavily- armed policemen encircled Lal Chowk and bulletproof bunker vehicles were ready for an assualt.

Sketchy details started pouring in only when policemen took out the first casualties. Five securitymen and two civilians were hit by the bullets.

‘‘There are a few bodies lying there and we are unable to pull them out,’’ a police officer said. The firing would pause for few minutes, only to start again. A Japanese photographer, caught in a narrow alley, tried to run across the square for safety but was hit in the neck.

As the evening cast its shadows, policemen plugged all escape routes, withdrawing to their cordon ring. They had to wait for the first light to resume their operation. But unlike other similar attacks, this time the police had done the unthinkable: one among the two attackers had been captured alive.

AND weeks later, when the policemen allowed The Sunday Express to talk to Ajaz in a dimly-lit room, he was engrossed watching a cricket match on television. Occasionally, he murmured in Punjabi. A metal shackle tied to his left cuff, his chin resting on his palms, he glanced when the police officers introduced him.

Ajaz’s dangerous journey started from his home — a single room shack in Mansoorabad. ‘‘One day during Ramzan, there was knock at the door. It was my friend and neighbour Hubaib. He wanted to talk to me and invited me to join Lashkar,’’ Ajaz recalled. ‘‘He told me that I needed to go for arms training to Muzaffarabad and then I would be sent to Kashmir for a few months.’’

Hubaib left. And Ajaz said he thought about it for a few days. ‘‘I was bored of work at the bakery. I was paid Rs 1,500 a month and I had to go at midnight and then work all day. Then once I returned, I had to cook,’’ he said. ‘‘I knew they would give me some money as well. So I decided to give it a try.’’

At 20, Ajaz was head of a family of orphans. His barber father, Riyaz Ahmad Bhat, and mother had died two years earlier. ‘‘I had been taking care of my two younger siblings,’’ he said. ‘‘My brother Nazir is three years younger and works at a sweets shop. My sister Nabeela is studying in class II.’’

HUBAIB returned after a few days. ‘‘This time he met me at the bakery. He said they (militants) would give me some money as well so I didn’t need to worry. He had said Rs 35,000,’’ Ajaz recalled. ‘‘I agreed.’’

Ajaz said he had no idea about the dangers in his path: ‘‘He (Hubaiab) didn’t say anything.’’ Another few days and Hubaiab ‘‘asked me to be ready to leave’’. Ajaz remembered the day of departure: ‘‘I left the bakery early. I had already put a few clothes in a bag. I picked it up and, without saying anything to my sister, I left.’’

They took a bus to Muzaffarabad and drove all night. ‘‘We went straight to the training camp. There were 60 of us,’’ he said. ‘‘We would do exercises and run early in the morning and then they (instructors) would train us in different weapons, especially Kalashan (the AK-47).’’

The training was completed in three months. ‘‘I was told to return home,’’ he said. ‘‘All of us were told to wait at home till our turn came.’’ Ajaz took a bus back. ‘‘My brother and sister had moved to our uncle’s house and were happy to see me. They had heard I had gone to become a militant,’’ he said. ‘‘They (his siblings) didn’t say anything.’’

FOR eight months he stayed home. ‘‘I was roaming around like a vagabond,’’ he said. ‘‘It was fun. I didn’t have to work.’’ Then the day came. ‘‘A neighbour told me Abdul Rehman was looking for me. Lashkar has a mosque in Mansoorabad and I met him there. He told me I had to leave for Muzaffarabad immediately,’’ Ajaz said. ‘‘And I left. I wanted to tell my closest friend, Mohsin … But I didn’t tell anybody.’’

On arriving in Muzaffarabad, Ajaz was immediately sent to the Doodniyal sector as part of a group of 12. ‘‘At 11 pm, our commander, Abu Walid, asked six of us to go with the guide,’’ he said. ‘‘We were given a sack full of dates and biscuits. The commander also gave each one of us a gun with five magazines and five grenades, a wireless set and Rs 35,000.’’

They walked for five days to reach the Rashanpora jungle in Rajwar (Kupwara district). ‘‘Every one of us was extremely tired. I had never climbed mountains and it was very difficult,’’ he said. ‘‘Two militants met us there. We stayed in the forest for another month and then we were taken to Rangpath in Rafiabad. We stayed in the jungles.’’

He constantly referred to ‘‘01’’ — who had taken over as their guide in the Valley. A police officer later said that they had already arrested 01 — a local Lashkar man.

Ajaz said he had no idea what their plan was when he accompanied 01 to Sopore. ‘‘Two of us were asked to hand over our weapons and accompany 01. We walked down from the forest and sat in a passenger bus. Then took a Sumo from Sopore,’’ he said. ‘‘Nobody knew us and we were silent. We didn’t even talk to each other.’’

HE finally arrived in Srinagar on November 12. ‘‘I was put in a hotel while Khalid (the other militant) was taken by 01 to his home,’’ he said. ‘‘The next day I too joined them. We walked around Lal Chowk all day. Nobody stopped us or asked us anything.’’

Recalling the day of the attack, Ajaz said he was taken to a mosque. ‘‘I was given a bag with a gun and grenades and asked to walk to Lal Chowk and attack fauj (army). 01 told me to return to the mosque after the attack,’’ he said. ‘‘I knew Khalid too was there but had no idea where he had gone.’’

He said he had just reached Lal Chowk when Khalid threw a grenade. ‘‘I ran to Punjab Hotel and locked everybody in a room. And then I waited. I heard gunfire too,’’ he said. ‘‘After a while, when I heard some movement, I threw a grenade onto the road.’’

AJAZ was getting jittery, especially as the cricket match between Pakistan and England was taking an interesting turn. He moved his chair close to the television and kept talking: ‘‘I sat there for an hour or so and when the firing started, I got scared. I wanted to flee. So I left the gun and walked out from the rear side of the hotel. A policeman stopped me. I told him I was from Kralkhud (in downtown Srinagar) … But I had spoken in Punjabi. They searched me and called the officers …’’

Why was he scared? ‘‘Kounsa unhoun nay bola tha marnay ke liyay jana hai (Nobody had told me I had to go to get killed),’’ he said and suddenly moved away from the television. ‘‘And three among us (six militants) are already dead.’’

He cried and felt scared of death, he confessed. ‘‘But now I feel fine. I want to go back. I want to work again. I want to get married and have children,’’ he said. And as the policemen asked him to get ready to return to the lock-up, he played with his handcuffs. ‘‘I know I am lucky to be alive,’’ he signed off, ‘‘but please don’t tell my brother and sister that I am here in jail. They’ll cry.’’

Ferocious father of the fidayeen

Nurtured by the likes of Maulana Masood Azhar, to these jihadis suicide is not an act; it is an ideology

MUZAMIL JALEEL

THEY celebrate death and when they go out for an attack, they know they will never return. Surrender is impossible and even security agencies admit it is rare to trap such militants alive. Unlike indigenous outfits, their agenda transcends the demand for right to self-determination or the creation of an independent Kashmir. The pan-Islamic militants seem to have changed the course of insurgency in Kashmir.

First came the foreigners — the Pakistani and Afghan recruits — but the complexion of these groups is fast changing. Both the main outfits, Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, are emphasising local recruitments. Since the July 13, 1999, fidayeen attack on a BSF camp in Bandipore, the involvement of local recruits in suicide attacks has increased.

Fidayeen attacks were at their peak just before September 2001. The frequency came down substantially after the December 13, 2001, attack on Parliament. The situation actually changed after President Pervez Musharraf’s January 2002 speech and the subsequent ban on Islamic militants in Pakistan.

But soon these militant groups went out of the control of the Pakistani establishment and even attempted the assassination of Musharraf himself.

Although the number of suicide attacks dropped in the Valley, the militants still used these sensational strikes at regular intervals. There was, however, a sudden spurt in fidayeen attacks, especially in Srinagar, after the October 8 earthquake.

THE fidayeen groups were introduced by Lashkar-e-Toiba (Army of the Pious) as a post-Kargil strategy. In a statement issued during a three-day congregation of LeT at Murdike, 30 km from Lahore, soon after the war, Lashkar chief Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi said: ‘‘These fidayeen missions have been initiated to teach India, which is celebrating after the Kargil war, a lesson.’’

The fidayeen are a special squad of the Lashkar, kept for the most dangerous missions. However, they are not like the suicide squads of, say, the Tamil Tigers. The fidayeen do not go on missions where death is certain, like ramming a truck filled with explosives or where the riders are fated to consume cyanide.

As Islam clearly forbids suicide, the fidayeen typically select missions where they do have a chance, however slim, of returning alive.

THE parent outfit of the fidayeen, the LeT, has emerged as the most powerful pan-Islamic group, especially after the sneak-in attack at the Red Fort in Delhi, which killed three armymen. Though security forces in Srinagar believe LeT has been active since 1993, there was little information of its organisation and ideology for years.

The group operates discreetly. According to a senior security officer, it is difficult to keep track of Lashkar militants as they ‘‘use a set of code names. And when a militant dies, he is replaced by a new recruit with the same code name’’.

LeT is the militant wing of the pan-Islamic Markaz-e-Dawat-ul-Irshad, which has its headquarters at Murdike and runs around 2,200 madrassas and training centres across the country. The Markaz has a clear agenda. Starting with the complete Islamisation of Pakistan and Kashmir, it hopes Islam will finally dominate the world.

For this, the organisation established the Jamia Dawat-ul-Islam, or University of Dawat-ul-Islam, in 1989. Located on a four-acre campus, it imparts religious education and military training. According to a 2004 essay in the Lashkar mouthpiece Jihad Times, around ‘‘50 of the students of this University had died fighting in Kashmir’’.

The basic ideology of the group states that religion is not the private affair of Muslims and politics cannot be separated from religion. Launched in 1985, Markaz rejects democracy as a western concept full of flaws.

In 1987, Lashkar-e-Toiba was launched by Markaz with an aim to take part in the Afghan war. Its militants fought the Russians in the Haji area of Paknea province along with the Afghan mujahideen outfit Itihad-e-Islami. Then they turned their attention to Kashmir.

Jaish-e-Mohammad was formally launched from Masjid-e-Falah, Karachi, on February 3, 2000. Founded by Maulana Masood Azhar — freed thanks to the IC-814 hijacking in December 1999 — the Jaish’s first attack on the Valley was the suicide car bombing outside the 15 Corps headquarters. A few days later, a 24-year-old British national, also a militant, blew up an explosive-laden vehicle.

Azhar created the Jaish by bringing together supporters from the two factions of Harkat-ul-Ansar, put on the list of terrorist organisations by the US State Department in 1995. The group managed to gather 300 Afghan commandos.

Azhar, an ideologue, motivator and fund-raiser of the pan-Islamic Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, had been arrested with another Harkat commander, Sajjad Afghani, in Anantnag in 1994.

After several unsuccessful attempts to free Azhar, the Harkat was able to get him and two others — Mushtaq Latrum, a commander of Al-Umar Mujahideen, and Omar Sayeed Sheikh, a British national jailed for kidnapping three tourists — in Kandahar.

Terror after tremor

Frenzy of fidayeen strikes in post-earthquake Srinagar

October 18: Minister of State for Education Ghulam Nabi Lone, two CRPF men and a police constable are killed after two fidayeen sneak into a fortified VVIP residential colony in Srinagar’s Tulsibagh.

One fidayeen is shot by a constable, while the other flees, leaving his AK-47 behind, after killing the minister. Two militant groups, Al Mansoorian and Islamic Jihad Front, claim responsibility.

November 2: Seven persons, including two policemen and four civilians, are killed when a car-borne militant triggers a massive blast. The explosion takes place hours before the swearing-in of Ghulam Nabi Azad as chief minister. A fidayeen, driving an Alto packed with explosives, detonates it after a traffic constable asks him to stop near a checkpoint at Nowgam.

Jaish-e-Mohammad claims responsibility and identifies the fidayeen as Mubashir Hussain of Abaspora, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

November 14: Two fidayeen throw a grenade at a CRPF bunker, open fire and then enter an adjacent hotel in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk. Four persons, including two CRPF men, are killed and seven others injured. To flush out the militants, security forces cordon the hotel. The 25-hour encounter ends after the security forces kill one fidayeen and capture the other. Al-Mansoorian and Islamic Front claim responsibility.

November 17: Militants detonate a powerful car bomb outside the corporate headquarters of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank. The explosion leaves four dead and 40 injured, including former minister Usman Majeed. Seconds before the blast, a fidayeen disembarks from the explosive-laden car and escapes. No group has so far owned up for the attack.

November 23: Security forces foil a fidayeen strike by killing two militants outside a cinema hall. The fidayeen had tried to storm the CRPF camp housed in a closed cinema hall at Khanyar. Three CRPF men are also killed.

November 30: The arrest of a bank robber leads the police to the network behind eight major militant strikes. These include the assassination of Ghulam Nabi Lone, the attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s public rally and several suicide attacks in Srinagar.

During questioning, the bank robber leads the police to three Pakistani militants. The police also traps the chief of the fidayeen — Rehman bhai.