Yasin Bhatkal, The Indian Mujahideen Terrorist Don.

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup



 Yasin Bhatkal, The Indian Mujahideen Terrorist Don.

 

The story of Mohammed Ahmed Siddibapa best known as Yasin Bhatkal is that of an average Muslim youth aspiring for redemption from his ordinary birth by being a fundamentalist. Rightly or wrongly, according to perceptions, his religion enjoins that other religionists are vermin to be eradicated, and that it is a noble service which will eventually be rewarded by a  lascivious lifestyle in life hereafter. It lifts them from the state of unequipped ordinariness, by such a dubious service to religion and community - the easy way for the unqualified. In other communities such riffraff turn in to bullies, dons, nihilists or Maoists.That is the only explanation for young Muslims turning to the path of terrorism

 Yasin Bhatkal, a class X dropout from the  coastal Karnataka town of Bhatkal, ( one account says he is an engineer) went on to become one of India's most wanted  terrorist. Security dossiers lists the name of the fugitive as Mohammed Ahmed Siddibapa alias Ahamed alias Yaseer. It says he was born on January 15, 1983, studied up to Class X and also Islamic issues, is 5 ft 6, fair, clean-shaven, wears "pant shirt" and moves with a laptop.

Yasin is wanted for bomb blasts in Gujarat, Bangalore and Hyderabad. His associates are Riyaz, Iqbal, Sultan, Muyeed and Shabbir. He speaks Urdu, Kannada and Nawayati, a local dialect. He had a passport issued in Bangalore which was valid until June 18, 2013.  Siddibapa,  notorius  as Yasin Bhatkal, is the co-founder and operational commander of the Indian Mujahideen, its official bomb-maker, trained bomb expert and the mastermind of nearly a dozen bomb blasts across the country who has been named in almost every terror attack since 2007. A proxy of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Indian Mujahideen (IM) was launched at the instance of ISI of Pakistan.


 Yasin's journey into the world of terror is said to have started in the early years of the last decade  He, along with brothers Riyaz and Iqbal — the three of whom would go on to found the IM — tried to attract Muslim youth towards their ideology before his family discovered his leanings and packed him off  to Dubai in November 2005. His life in Dubai is a bit of a blur. Intelligence agencies claim he escaped from Dubai and was seen with al-Qaeda supporters in Abu Dhabi. They say he managed to return to India in 2007 and rejoined Riyaz and Iqbal in Mangalore and was trained in making nitrate bombs. 

 The attacks he allegedly planned and the bombs he made and planted during these years killed more than 250 people and maimed many more in Gujarat, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Pune  It was Safdar Nagori, a SIMI leader said to be Yasin's right-hand man, who blew Yasin's cover Nagori, who was interrogated by the Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch following the serial blasts there, is believed to have told them that Yasin was the "master-planner" of the Ahmedabad blasts.Another associate, Abrar Sheikh, a strong link between all the IM modules in the country and an understudy of Nagori, is said to have told police that he attended training camps as instructed by Yasin, who also closely monitored the camps.Besides, Pune resident Md Akbar Ismail Chaudhry, a key accused in the August 2007 Hyderabad twin blasts, had told the police that ahead of those blasts, he and an associate travelled to Bangalore and met Yasin. They were then taken to a farmhouse near Kopa in Chikmagalur in Karnataka, where Riyaz was present, and given training in the use of explosives and bomb materials 

In 2011 Yasin assumed the name  Shahrukh when he lived in Delhi for about six months  and got married to one Irshad's 21-year-old daughter. Irshad and Yasin allegedly ran a small ordnance and weapons factory in a room in Meer Vihar in West Delhi where police found six magazines, several ounces of ammonium nitrate, live cartridges and chemical substances. Ironically, it was named "Peace Engineering Works". 

Yasin Bhatkal who carried a reward of Rs. 10 lakhs on his head, was picked up from Pokhara in Nepal where he was living in the guise of a Unani doctor. The successful operation of the Intelligence Bureau, which was facilitated by Nepal, also yielded a bonus in the form of Asadullah Akhtar alias Haddi, an absconding front-ranking member of the Azamgarh module of the Indian Mujahideen (IM) who had played a crucial role in the 2011 serial blasts in Mumbai. With the police of different states on his trail, Yasin had made Nepal his base. He would come to India only for plotting and perpetrating terror attacks. The vast network of associates he had created in the nearby Darbhanga district helped him stay away from India and yet operate efficiently. In the event, it was the success of IB in tracking one of his assets which led to the high-ranking fugitive.
The arrest of Yasin, who carried a reward of Rs 10 lakh, is a major breakthrough for the Indian security establishment's efforts to neutralize IM which overcame setbacks inflicted by security agencies to resume its terror campaign against India.

India should have fast track courts to deal with terror cases. As things stand, these cases wind their way through our judicial system for years. Where the accused are indeed guilty and are finally convicted, this allows room for needless speculation on whether they are innocent and being framed. Where they are innocent, it does irreparable damage to those accused falsely, whether deliberately or because of a genuine error by the investigating agencies. Neither situation is desirable. Of course, fast track courts must not mean kangaroo courts in a hurry to reach a decision, never mind the evidence. The process should be rigorous. Indeed, the state must ensure that lawyers who appear for the accused are protected from harassment by others and where no one is willing to do so, it must provide quality counsel for the defense. Such an approach will ensure true justice, for the accused as well as for society and terror victims.

Why the Rupee is Weakening

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

Why Rupee is Weakening

   




   

 Depreciating rupee has spooked the markets and led to widespread speculation.  The rupee has collapsed, the stock market is falling - has India moved from a breakout nation to a breakdown nation in just a few months? The currency’s poor performance began earlier this year. Since late April, the cumulative decline has been 8.7 percent, with a 4.2 percent fall in May alone. And since May,The Indian rupee has declined by nearly 16% against the US and is now Asia's worst performing currency so far this year.
   
India, however, is not the only country suffering from a weakening currency. Other emerging markets like Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, Turkey and South Africa are also witnessing a huge currency volatility because of fears that US may end its quantitative easing by year-end.
   
Can we really leave the rupee to market pricing? We don’t have a choice but to live with market pricing. Nifty and the rupee are a thermometer. They are reporting that the patient has a fever.
   

Factors Involved:

Domestic: Various factors are involved in the steady decline of the rupee which impact on the rupee value vis a vis dollar in a cumulative, synergetic way. There are domestic and global reasons. Among domestic reasons are high current account deficit and growth concerns.

     Worsening Current Account deficit

 

 High Current Account Deficit (CAD) is the main reason that has continuously impeded all efforts of government in arrest the fall of rupee.  Current Account Deficit occurs when a country's total imports of goods, services and transfers is greater than the country's total export of goods, services and transfers. This situation makes a country a net debtor to the rest of the world.  India posted a record current account deficit of 4.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the year ending March. Government’s failure to explore new destinations has led to poor growth of exports. In the absence of a single window clearance system, and process delays, exports have failed to register good growth. Even traditional export areas have failed to show resilience making Indian produce globally less competitive
   
Rising import bill (arising out of gold and oil) is also a major factor that has curtailed government’s effort to tackle the fall of rupee. Oil imports account for 35 per cent of trade . Traders say there has been continuous demand for the greenback from oil importers, the biggest buyers of dollars in the domestic currency market, pushing the rupee lower. Similarly, falling gold prices have offset the government's and the central bank's moves to reduce gold imports, which increases current account deficit and weighs on the currency. Gold contributes to over 10/11 percent of the total import bill. During the first quarter, global demand for gold fell 12 percent to 856.3 tonnes against 974.6 tonnes in the corresponding period last year. But in India consumer demand jumped 71 percent to 310 tonnes, compared with 181.1 tonnes in the year-ago period despite repeated increases in import and excise duties by the government this year. Gold imports were 141 tonnes in April and rose to 162 tonnes in May. The govt. Could reduce it to 31 tonnes in June but the reduction could not be held for the month of July.

     Insufficient Foreign Direct Investment(FDI) inflows
 
The government has failed to tap major FDI inflow in the country. Instead, India has witnessed withdrawal of major projects by global giants Inordinate delays, land acquisition problems, government clearance delays, lack of promptness have all contributed to the withdrawal of major companies. Last year Indian companies spent more overseas than Foreign Investors in India. To prop up the rupee in the near-term, markets would need assurances that India can attract foreign flows in an increasingly difficult global environment. .
   
    Foreign Institutional Investment(FII) outflows

Overseas investors have pulled out nearly Rs 18,500 crore (about USD 3 billion) from the Indian capital markets in July.  Foreign investors have sold a net $11.6 billion of Indian debt and equities since late May. In their highest monthly outflow, overseas investors pulled out a record Rs 44,162 crore (over USD 7.5 billion) in the month of June. Outflows of FIIs have put a continuous pressure on rupee not allowing it to come out of the slump

Poor economic growth in the manufacturing, agricultural and mining sector has dented investor sentiment and they have become wary of investing in India. Reflecting a persistent slowdown, industrial production in June contracted by 2.2 percent.
   
Instead, traders fear this would impose capital restrictions that could adversely impact company profits and could also scare off foreign investors at a time when the expected tapering of US monetary stimulus is already creating uncertainty in emerging markets
   
Global: On the global front, the recovery in the US economy is expected to prompt the central bank there to end the loose monetary policy by the year end. At the global level, investors have been worried that the Federal Reserve will end its government bond-buying program. The implication is that if this happens, then the foreign funds that have been moving to emerging markets looking for better returns will return to the United States once bond yields there firm up. This would mean that there will be fewer flows to these developing countries, including India, which would pressure the balance of payments and in turn the domestic currency. . Anticipating this, foreign investors are pulling out their money from India to invest it back in the US, which is resulting in a scarcity of dollars in India. US recovery is also boosting the dollar strength.

This explains to a large extent an apparent paradox in the global currency market, where the dollar has been weakening against the euro, yet has strengthened against the currencies of most emerging markets that have been recipients of fund flows. Brazil’s currency has depreciated 7 percent in May, while the Mexican peso has fallen 4.9 percent, the South Korean won by 2 percent and the Russian ruble by 3.5 percent

The problem is that when fear sets in the foreign exchange market, it often reinforces the fundamentals. The threat of a further decline in the currency causes importers to rush in to buy dollars while exporters will hold back their dollars for conversion, thus exacerbating the demand-supply gap.
     

Action Taken to Stem the Fall

All that the govt. has done in stemming the tide down of rupee is in the field of fund outflow. Reserve Bank of India(RBI) last week had laid down restriction on Indian firms investing abroad. Simultaneously it also clamped down on outward remittances by resident Indians. but these actions have triggered talks of return of capital control regime.
   

Action Needed

There is a debate whether it is a good idea to use the forex reserves to prop up the rupee. Some experts say it’s a bad idea for two reasons. First, India’s reserves are not too large. The resources available to global speculators are vastly larger than those available to the RBI. Second, reserves are not net wealth that we can use as we please. They are the assets that balance the liability that is the Indian rupee, that is issued by the RBI. Selling one dollar means sucking Rs 64 out of the economy. Selling $10 billion means sucking Rs 0.64 trillion out of the economy.
   
In fact, a medium to short-term approach towards growth has to be adopted by the government.
   
We should undertake economic reforms so as to make the patient better. This requires reducing subsidies, reducing the fiscal deficit, enacting new laws that reform the government, and achieve better performance on core public goods such as the judiciary and law and order. much faster go on building infrastructure
   
The long-term strategy consists of two parts: First, we should engage in fiscal prudence, so as to boost domestic savings and thus narrow the current account deficit. Second, we should build sound frameworks for capital flows. It is truly painful to build and run a business in India. We must change that.
    

Rupee depreciation does have its advantages since it makes Indian goods cheaper overseas and therefore more attractive to consumers, which benefits exporters. But these days, exporters may not actually see significant gains as the global economy is still stagnant and the price advantage on exported goods may not materialize any time soon given their relative inelasticity. In fact, some importers of Indian goods are asking exporters to lower their prices on account of this price advantage. But given that India’s foreign currency assets have at best been stable at around $ 260 billion, there are limits on such intervention.
   

Pak Killing Of Indian Soldiers: The Deadly Ambush And An Ambivalent Government

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

 The Deadly Ambush And An Ambivalent Government

    

It was an audacious and provocative attack. Pakistani soldiers, obviously belonging to Pakistan Border Action Team(BAT)  numbering about 20, intruded into the Indian territory past midnight yesterday and ambushed a six member patrol party at the Sarlah post on the Indian side of the LoC. A Subedar and four jawans of the 21 Bihar Unit were killed in the attack which took place at around 2 AM while one soldier was injured. The attack took place 450 meters from the LoC on the Indian side.  The Sarlah post of Poonch Brigade near the Chakkan-da-Bagh area, is over 200km away from Jammu. The incident occurred just hours after the ceasefire violation in Samba sector on Monday evening in which one BSF soldier was injured.

The Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists and the Pakistani Army, according to sources, took advantage of the weather conditions and topography of the area to sneak across the LoC. The attackers took the advantage of dense vegetation. The patrol party was passing through a vulnerable (unfenced LoC) sector of some 300 mts between Cheeta and Begum posts when they were ambushed.
                                                                                                                                                                               
As usual according to their game plan, Pakistani security officials denied any involvement in the deaths of Indian soldiers saying there had been no exchange of fire on the border and that, in fact, there was no such incident whatsoever,

What Defense minister AK Antony chose to say in Parliament was, very differently, that the attack on Indian soldiers was carried out by about 20 heavily armed men "dressed in Pakistani military uniforms"(?). However Additional Directorate General of Public Information for the Indian Army had tweeted : "Ensuing firefight, 5 Indian Soldiers were Martyred & 1 Soldier injured." Also, minutes before Antony's statement, a press release sent by the Defense Ministry said "Pak Border Action Team attacked Indian Soldiers" clearly indicting the Pakistani Army that has denied the charge The Jammu press communique was issued after collecting details from the Northern Army Command which is tasked to protect entire Jammu and Kashmir. Both India and Pakistan have Border Action Teams (BAT) which function as crack special forces often used as quick reaction teams to address emergencies at the border. An embarrassed Defense Ministry had no other recourse but to make a sudden vault e face and withdraw the release. The Minister's dubious statement has since been severely criticized.

 The Govt. has of cource gone through the usual rituals, protesting and sending diplomatic missives and uttering template statements. India summons Pakistan Deputy High Commissioner; lodges strong protest over killing of its soldiers at the LoC in Poonch sector. Defense minister AK Antony speaks " We strongly condemn the incident. The army is fully ready to tackle such occurrences. We're ready to take all steps to protect the LOC." Army Chief Gen Bikram Singh is taking stock of the situation, and  Indian DGMO being asked to lodge a strong protest with his Pakistani counterpart over the hotline. Business as usual.

Lok Sabha adjourned till 2pm after uproar over the killing of five jawans where .Yashwant Sinha thundered: “Is the Congress with India or with Pakistan? They should come clear on it,”  “Since January, there have been continuous attacks.. our Army, this Parliament, this country has the strength… we should respond back in the same way,” he said. Sinha also demanded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh make a statement in the House. Narendra Modi has called the killing of five Indian soldiers by Pakistani troops a "dastardly ambush" and that the death of five Indian soldiers is unacceptable.  From China's intrusions to Pakistan's ambushes- UPA government has been absolutely lax in securing the Indian borders. When will Center wake up?, Modi asked. BJP and SP members raised slogans protesting the killing. The BJP said India should not hold talks with Pakistan in the wake of the killings .

Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav demanded that the government inform parliament about the steps it was taking to stop repeated intrusions across the border by China and killings of Indian soldiers by Pakistan. Pakistan and China may have some secret understanding, he said. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had to say: "These incidents don't help efforts to normalise or even improve relations with Pak and call in to question the Pak Govt's recent overtures."

Striking a different note and significant in repercussive ways, Congress President Sonia Gandhi said in a strong statement: "India cannot be cowed down by such blatant acts of deceit" and urged the government to "take appropriate action." Incidentally, this appears to be the latest in a series of her oblique stands divergent from govt. attitude.

Apparently incongruous is the Minister's statement in Parliament. When the minister says something so ambiguous like 'people dressed in army uniforms' it gives Pakistan a route of escape Conflicting statements on who killed the Indians, add a worrying dimension to the debate. By attributing the attack to men dressed in Pakistani uniforms, the Defense Minister has let Islamabad off the hook. Isn't the Government giving Pakistan a way out?  While questions continue to be asked as to why AK Antony stopped short of mentioning the Pakistan army in Parliament,  it well may be a way of keeping the dialogue process on with Pakistan.

The Pakistan Army had violated the ceasefire agreement over 33 times this year. On July 27, another BSF jawan was injured when Pakistani troops violated ceasefire twice in the space of 10 hours by targeting Indian posts along the Indo-Pak border in Poonch and Kathua districts. The Pakistani troops had used mortars, RPGs and heavy machine guns leading to heavy firing exchanges. On July 3, Pakistan violated ceasefire when it fired on cops, who had gone to LoC in Sabzian, Poonch to collect the body of a Pakistani intruder killed in an IED blast on July  Pakistani troops fired on troops trying to evacuate injured porters after two were killed in IED attack by Pakistani militants along LoC in Poonch on July 8. On July 12, Pakistani Rangers fired on Indian forward posts in Pindi belt along international border (IB) in Jammu district. Pakistani troops opened small arms firing on Indian posts in forward area along LoC in Poonch district on the night of July 22.

If Pakistan wants better ties with India then this is not the way.. The incident could cast a shadow on the resumption of the Indo-Pak dialogue process. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif are slated to meet in New York next month on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session. The dialogue process was put on hold following the beheading of an Indian soldier and another soldier's body found mutilated following the January 8 attack by Pakistani troops in the Poonch sector This is the second biggest attack in Poonch area in a year, after the January 8  incident that had triggered a series of skirmishes along the LoC and the India-Pakistan international border. Official sources suspect that the last night's assault could have been a reaction to the recent elimination of over a dozen armed terrorists killed by the Indian security forces in counter-infiltration operations carried out in north Kashmir.

The hand of friendship cannot be extended from one side only. The incident has serious defense, security and foreign policy implications. Government should come out with a clear-cut and firm response to the latest Pakistani attack.This is a serious situation and requires a strong response from the government, one that will make Pakistan dare not to violate the sanctity of LOC and carry out dastardly acts like this any more and never ever.





   

Mining and Muzzling A Whistle Blower

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

 Mining and Muzzling A Whistle Blower

The suspension of young I.A.S.  lady officer Durga Shakti Nagpal has created a huge furore across India as highly unjust and revealing of the deadly sway of the political- mafia nexus that has taken a strangle hold of the public space in the country. The general public, media and the intelligentsia are all indignant over the blatantly brazen action against an young lady officer who valiantly went about doing her duty most conscientiously. All that she did was the commendable deed of holding the criminal sand mafia dons of the N.C.R. Region of Uttar Pradesh by the scruff of their neck.

Most of the sand-mining activity in the NCR region, comprising Noida (Uttar Pradesh), Faridabad (Haryana) and Delhi, is illegal it is estimated that about 250 to 350 truckloads of sand is illegally dredged every day. The cost of this sand varies from 100 crore (US$17 million) per month[15] to 500 crore (US$85 million) per annum. Ms.Nagpal was the S.D.M of Gautam Budh Nagar district, the major locale of the mining. It now transpires that the UP Chief Minister's office in Lucknow itself had asked the GB Nagar district administration to prevent further illegal activity. Ms. Nagpal, the SDM, merely followed the order in letter and spirit.

Under Ms. Nagpal, a joint operation involving the revenue, police and transport departments was launched and villages of Asgarpur, Nangla Wajidpur, Gulavli, Kambakshpur, Jaganpur Chaproli were monitored.Since April 2013, the Uttar Pradesh Police had filed 17 FIRs and in 22 cases, the Chief Judicial magistrates had ordered the arrest of illegal sand miners. From April to June 2013, the police had impounded 297 vehicles and machinery used for illegal mining and collected Rs 82.34 lakh in fines.

This was too much for the sand mafia who had all these years had carried on their illegal activities with total impunity with the help of the politicians under their pay roll On 25 July, the government transferred the mining officer of the Gautam Budh Nagar district Ashish Kumar to Bulandshahr. He was assisting Ms. Nagpal in the administrative crackdown.[27] Before being transferred, Kumar survived three attempts on his life, the last one was on 9 February 2013. Ms. Nagpal was also targeted on April 26 2013, during a visit to the Kasna police station. These attacks were attributed to the sand mafia operating in the district

Ms. Nagpal was suspended on 28 July 2013, ostensibly for a cooked up charge of demolishing the  outer boundary wall of a mosque after she inspected the  under-construction mosque in Kadalpur village, in the Rabupura area of Greater Noida . The construction of the mosque had not been cleared by the state government which in any case was in govt. land. It is alleged that Samajwadi party leader Narendra Bhati, who has cabinet-minister rank was frustrated by the drive against illegal mining and was reportedly responsible for getting her abruptly suspended. Later Narendra Bhati was recorded on video boasting about getting the officer suspended within 40 minutes.

The Samajwadi Party government said in a statement that Ms. Nagpal was suspended for demolishing a mosque's wall and the Chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Yadav justified the order saying that Nagpal's actions "lacked foresight and disturbed communal harmony" and she was suspended due to "administrative compulsion to ease communal tension". This was later refuted by reports that the area had not reported any communal tension. The Station Officer of Rabupura police station said that since the demolition took place in night, most residents were not even aware of the incident. The demolition was reportedly executed in compliance to Supreme Court orders forbidding construction of illegal religious structures on public land. The court, in a judgement passed in 2009 had ruled that "no new temples, mosques, churches and gurdwaras can be constructed on public parks, public streets and public spaces" and "the ban must be enforced even if it gave rise to a law and order problem.

According to the report on the demolition incident submitted by the Ravikant Singh, District Magistrate (DM) of Greater Noida to the UP government, Ms. Nagpal did not demolish a wall of any religious structure, in fact there was no religious structure in place. The construction of the wall had just begun, and on being warned by Ms. Nagpal of the structure being constructed on government land, the local residents decided to dismantle the constructed wall themselves. The report called Nagpal's actions "blemish-free".[56] The report also says that there was no communal tension or the possibility of any clashes between religious communities.[24] The UP government has appointed a committee to verify the DM’s report.

The persecution of Ms. Nagpal raises several pertinent issues. Politics and politicians are turning dirty. Whistle blowers and honest officers are being muzzled for mafia's benefit. Govt. is going to the extent of ignoring the rule of law to protect the criminals, and the politicians will not hesitate to fan communal and cast-based sentiments to harass any honest officer. Rightly,The All India IAS Association, a national body of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers has demanded immediate revocation of her suspension, and had called the incident "demoralising" for young IAS officers. On 1st August, in a rare act, thousands of IAS officers filed a petition to the Department of personnel and training, demanding intervention by the Central government to direct the UP government to revoke Durga's suspension. And what you expect of the UPA govt.? Home Minister, Mr. Shinde's reaction was to the effect: "servants should obey the masters'. Can you imagine a more foot- in-the mouth statement!