ON THIS DAY February 26

Warning, This post contains graphic images

February 26, 1978:In the Philippines, Islamic terrorists from the Moro National Liberation Front kidnapped French Finance Ministry official Pierre Huguet. He was taking pictures with his tour group in Zamboanga when he was pushed off a bridge and plucked out of the water by jihadists lurking in a boat below.
The terrorists released Mr. Huguet unharmed two weeks later when the Philippine authorities agreed to reimburse the Muslims for the expenses incurred during their crime. It’s one thing to pay some arbitrary ransom, but to ask for and receive a terrorism expense check in some sort of cordial business agreement is a special kind of whacky. Reimbursing a criminal for their out of pocket costs makes terrorism seem like a legitimate enterprise. This is not a game. The stakes could not be higher.

February 26, 1982: An Air Tanzanian Boeing 737 with 99 passengers and crew on a flight to Dar es Salaam was hijacked by five Tanzanians with guns and grenades. The members of the Tanzanian Youth Democratic Movement forced the pilots to land at Nairobi for refueling. The plane made more refueling stops in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Athens, Greece before touching down in Stansted, England. The English police refused to fuel the thirsty jet.

After three days, the hijackers freed the remaining passengers and surrendered to British police who arrested them. Their goal had been the removal of Tanzania’s socialist leader, President Julius Nyerere. They accused Nyerere of imposing intolerable economic conditions on their East African nation. The drama was brought to an end with the intervention of former Tanzanian Foreign Minister Oscar Kambona, an exile, who persuaded the youths to surrender. On September 18, the five youths were convicted and sentenced to prison terms of between four and eight years.

February 26, 1983
: In Marseille, France, a bomb was discovered which had been set to explode during Jewish festivities for Purim.

February 26, 1991
: In Germany, three American employees of a government agency were fired on. In addition, a grenade was tossed into the hotel in which they were staying in Berlin. A Lebanese Muslim was taken into custody in connection with the attack.

February 26, 1991: A Jordanian jihadist opened fire on a Soviet diplomatic car in Amman.

February 26, 1992: Khojaly Massacre was the killing of hundreds of ethnic Azerbaijani civilians from the town of Khojaly on 25 February 1992

Background
On February 20, 1988, Armenian deputies to the National Council of Nagorno-Karabakh voted to unify the region with the Armenian SSR[. On February 22, 1988, the first direct confrontation of the conflict occurred as a large group of Azeris marched from Agdam against the Armenian populated town of Askeran, “wreaking destruction en route.” The confrontation between the Azeris and the police near Askeran degenerated into the Askeran clash, which left two Azeris dead, reportedly killed by an Azeri police officer, as well as 50 Armenian villagers, and an unknown number of Azerbaijanis and police, injured Large numbers of refugees left Armenia and Azerbaijan as violence began against the minority populations of the respective countries

In the fall of 1989, intensified inter-ethnic conflict in and around Nagorno-Karabakh led the Soviet Union to grant Azerbaijani authorities greater leeway in controlling the region.

The Soviet policy backfired, however, when a joint session of the Armenian Supreme Soviet and the National Council, the legislative body of Nagorno-Karabakh, proclaimed the unification of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.

On December 10, 1991 in a referendum boycotted by local Azerbaijanis, Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh approved the creation of an independent state. A Soviet proposal for enhanced autonomy for Nagorno-Karabakh within Azerbaijan satisfied neither side, and a full-scale war subsequently erupted between Armenia and Azerbaijan.The struggle over Nagorno-Karabakh escalated after both Armenia and Azerbaijan attained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

In the post-Soviet power vacuum, military action between Azerbaijan and Armenia was heavily influenced by the Russian military.
Furthermore, both the Armenian and Azerbajani military employed a large number of mercenaries from Ukraine and Russia.

There were also fighters from as many as one thousand Afghan mujahideen participated in the fighting on Azerbaijan’s side. Also Chechnya fighting on the side of Azerbaijan.


Khojaly Massacre was the killing of hundreds of ethnic Azerbaijani civilians from the town of Khojaly on 25 February 1992 during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. According to the Azerbaijani side, as well as Memorial Human Rights Center, Human Rights Watch and other international observers, the massacre was committed by the ethnic Armenian armed forces, reportedly with help of the Russian 366th Motor Rifle Regiment.The official death toll provided by Azerbaijani authorities is 613 civilians, of them 106 women and 83 children.

According to Human Rights Watch, the tragedy struck when “a large column of residents, accompanied by a few dozen retreating fighters, fled the city as it fell to Armenian forces. As they approached the border with Azerbaijan, they came across an Armenian military post and were cruelly fired upon”.

The Armenian side states that the killings occurred as a result of wartime military operations, and were in part caused by the prevention of the evacuation of town inhabitants by Azerbaijani forces. Armenian government officials asserted that the casualty count, though high, was due to the fact the fleeing retreating defenders in Khojaly had mingled with the civilians and when the Azeri troops shot back, Armenian forces fired upon them, killing both soldier and civilian alike.

NOW, IS THIS ANOTHER CASE OF THE BABOONS HIDING BEHIND WOMEN AND CHILDREN


February 26, 1993
: A bomb in a Cairo café killed three and wounded 18 including two Americans.

February 26, 1993: In the United States, the first World Trade Center bombing in New York City killed seven, including an unborn child. More than 1,000 innocent people were wounded by the blast, debris, and smoke. It was Islam’s opening act on American soil, a prelude of what would come. And yet it wasn’t enough to awaken the sleeping, almost comatose, giant.
The world’s foremost Qur’anic scholar, the Egyptian Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, masterminded the bombing along with his disciple, fellow Muslim terrorist Ramzi Ahmed Yousef. If Islam isn’t a terrorist religion, Sheikh Ar-Rahman’s participation is hard to explain

As a result of his involvement in the crime, the blind Sheikh is serving a life sentence in the U.S. medical center for federal prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. He is being kept alive by the people he was trying to kill. In addition to being poisoned by Islam, the blind cleric suffers from diabetes, hepatitis, gall stones, a liver tumor, respiratory failure, partial paralysis, artery disease, high blood pressure, the aftermath of a heart attack, and bouts of insanity.
The first Islamic bombing of the World Trade Center would cost Americans $500 million. Because the message was not heeded, and the enemy was not identified, the second Islamic bombing of the World Trade Center, would cost half a trillion dollars.If you have not abandoned the will and ability to be judgmental, you will find what follows enlightening. At least ten Muslims associated with the Egyptian Islamic Group and the Philippine Abu Sayyaf organization, packed a rented van with explosives and then parked it in an underground lot.

The Islamic jihadists, all of whom were attendees of the blind cleric’s New Jersey mosque, were hoping to bring the World Trade Center towers down, killing everyone inside.They were so demented, so polluted with Islam, their deadly cargo included a devise designed to release cyanide gas. The plan was to kill emergency response crews – fireman, policemen, and medics trying to do their jobs. Fortunately, very few Muslims are engineers. The poison gas was consumed in the blast and resulting fire.

The rented van, which was loaded with over 500 pounds of explosives (a mix of nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil), was driven into the underground parking structure of one of the towers. Upon detonation, the blast ruptured a hole in floors up to the third story and caused significant structural damage. The goal of the attack was to weaken the foundation of the tower, causing it to collapse, and then fall into the other tower.Proving that Islam makes Muslims incompetent, six days after the bombing, police arrested Mohammad Salameh as he was trying to get the deposit back for the van he rented to carry the bomb. Winning the Darwin award, the jihadist actually called the rental agency prior to his arrival, letting them know that he was on his way. The bumbling terrorist was the product of Jordan University where he studied Islamic Law before becoming a disciple of Qur’an scholar, Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman who was the imam of his Jersey City mosque.

Also arrested was Ibrahim Elgabrowny, a cousin of El Sayyid Nosair. That Muslim had been Rabbi Kahane’s assassin – the founder of the Jewish Defense League. Islam is as Islam does.

Other fundamentalist Muslims indicted for their role in the blast which injured 1,040 Americans included Nidal Ayyad, Mahmud Abouhalima, Bilal Alkaisi, Muhammad Ahmed Ajaj, and Ramzi Ahmed Yousef. They called themselves “the Liberation Army Fifth Battalion” in a letter sent to the New York Times in which they claimed “credit” for having built, delivered, and detonated the bomb. In their press release, Allah’s anti-Semites called for the termination of U.S. relations with Israel and an end to American involvement in Middle Eastern (read Muslim) affairs.

The Liberation Army Fifth Battalion was merely a name chosen by Ramzi Yousef for Sheikh Rahman’s gang. It was never an actual jihadist organization. These bad boys were just good Muslims.

Every participant in the attack was a Muslim – as were those who brought the buildings down less than a decade later. Some were connected. Ramzi Yousef’s uncle, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, was a high-ranking al-Qaeda member who has been blamed for planning many attacks, including the September 11th, 2001 hijackings and suicide bombings. And Sheikh Omar Rahman was the founder of al-Gama’a al Islamiyya (the Islamic Group) – the largest Egyptian terrorist organization. Each of the 2/26/93 terrorists were members of this religious club.

Since it’s considered unconstitutional in America to restrict the public display of any religion other than Christianity, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef was accused of being the inspiration behind the bombing, rather than the Islamic cleric Sheikh Rahman. That is not to say that Ramzi wasn’t instrumental in the attack, but only that Yousef worked for the religious leader, not the other way around. Both were convicted.

After his trial, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef was sentenced to life plus 240 years in prison in January 1998. In an insult to our sense of value, he was also fined $4.5 million for restitution. At his sentencing, the good Muslim said: “I am a terrorist and I am proud of it.” Islam was the reason.

Ramzi, Omar, Mohammad Salameh, Ibrahim, Nidal, Mahmud, Bilal, and Muhammad Ahmed were found guilty not only of actually bombing the World Trade Center but of planning to bomb a half-dozen other New York City targets – including the Holland Tunnel and the United Nations.

Unknown to most Americans, the court convicted these same Muslim men of having conspired to use liquid explosives hidden in beverage and personal care products, and detonators hidden in consumer electronic devices, to simultaneously kill everyone aboard 10 to 12 jumbo jets as they flew transcontinental flights across the Pacific and Atlantic. Their Philippine-based scheme, dusted off by some Muslims in London, is the reason air passengers are inconvenienced today, and no longer able to pack beverages or cosmetics in their carryon baggage.

But there is much more to this story. Along with the computer files detailing this deadly plan, Philippine investigators discovered another diabolical airborne scheme. It called for jihadists to hijack American aircraft and fly those planes into symbolic targets. Specifically listed among the buildings they hoped to bring down was the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the White House. Sound familiar? And since this was found in late 1994 and early 1995, years before 9/11/2001, and since the Islamic perpetrators had proven they were serious, why do you suppose America did nothing to stop the next bombing? More interesting still, why hasn’t the U.S. government admitted to knowing the specific details surrounding 9/11, and instead of having claimed that there was no way to predict it?

The upcoming destruction of the World Trade Towers wasn’t a secret. When Ramzi Yousef was flown via helicopter from the courthouse after his conviction to prison, his blindfold was removed by an FBI agent who said, “See, they still stand.” Yousef replied: “Not for long.” Because this is important, we will return to the evidence behind this stunning revelation before we leave the scene of this crime.As a good Muslim, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef was proud of what he had done and what others like him would do. He confessed at his trial that his goal was to kill 250,000 Americans. He said: “Our calculations were not very accurate this time. However we promise you that next time it will be very precise and the Trade Center will be one of our targets.”

America, however, thanks in large part to its lying politicians, deceitful professors, disingenuous clerics, and misleading media, did not, and does not, know who Yousef meant by “our.” As a direct result, the number of Americans “they” will murder and mutilate would continue to rise from tens, to hundreds, to thousands, to millions.

In hindsight, some read “al-Qaeda” into Ramzi Yousef’s threat. But at this time, al-Qaeda had yet to kill a single American or Jew. In the world of Islamic terrorism, al-Qaeda was known only to the mujahideen engaged in the Afghanistan-based Great Jihad, to the genocidal Islamic regime slaughtering Africans in the Sudan, and to their American and Pakistani patrons, the CIA and ISI. Ramzi meant “Muslims” when he used “our” and “we.”

February 26, 2000: In Yemen, two Saudis and six Yemenis were arrested for kidnapping foreigners and for forging official documents.

On This Day Since 9/11

February 26 2002:
Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Ten Shias are slaughtered, as Sunnis open up with automatic weapons at point-blank range at a mosque. At least twenty others are injured.
February 26 2002: Kashmir, India. Two civilians are killed in separate attacks by the Mujahideen

SIMMERING TENSIONS

One of the fiercest religiously motivated political rivalries existing today is between Hindus and Moslems. Many think it began when the Indian Hindu nationalist movement of the early 1900s refused to represent the interests of Indian Muslims. It’s true that this widened a rift until, as independence from the British Empire drew near, it was impossible for them to share a single nation. Muslims had a justifiable fear of being ruled by the more numerous Hindus. Yet partition of British colonial India into the free nations of India and Pakistan did not solve the problem; Hindus and Muslims are still at loggerheads — .

Bloodshed in India is centuries old. The initial rift in India relations was created during the Islamic invasion in the 600s. “…the Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history.” The Koran justifies the fanatical violence by Muslim’s with, “Slay the infidels, wherever ye find them and prepare them for all kind of ambush”; and “Choose not thy friends among the infidels till they forsake their homes and the way of idolatry. If they return to paganism then take them whenever you find them and kill them.” Obviously, if there is no god but Allah, then polytheistic Hinduism cannot be peacefully unified with such an aggressive and intolerant religion


The exact number of people killed during the invasions will never be known. Estimates are based upon the Muslim chronicles and demographic calculations. K.S. Lal estimated in his book The Growth of Muslim Population in India that between the years 1000 CE and 1500 CE the population of Hindus decreased by eighty million.


Today
80.5 % of the people are Hindu,
13.4 % of the people are Muslim
1,80% of the people areChristian,
1.84 % of the people areSikhs
0.76 % of the people are Buddhist

Muslims form nearly 16 percent of India’s 1 billion people, and simmering tensions with the majority Hindus often spill over into rioting,

I wonder why this could be ?

As can be seen throughtIsalmic history since Mohammed smashed all the pagan idol,(including a stone Dove,today a symbol of peace) in the Kabah on his conquest of Mecca.This distruction of Holy places continues even today,as witnessed by churches being burnt in australia.
In India is a holy site much like Al-Aqusa in Jerusalem,where moslems built a mosque on a holy site of another religion.

Ayodhya today is a small, rustic city with ancient Hindu architecture predominating, and with some Mughal influence. Its population is mostly Hindu with a smattering of Muslims, Jains and Buddhists. However, its history and heritage hold an unequivocal importance for over Hindus in India and across the world.

Ayodhya was one of the most ancient, largest and most magnificent of Indian cities,and was the capital of the Hindu kingdom of Kosala the court of the great king Dasaratha, the 56th monarch of the Solar line in descent from Raja Manu.


The opening chapters of the Ramayana, a religious epic of the Classical Hindu period, recount the magnificence of the city, the glories of the monarch and the virtues, wealth and loyalty of his people. Dasaratha was the father of Rama Chandra, more commonly known as Lord Rama, the Seventh Avatara of the Vishnu, the Supreme Almighty; personification of Dharma. Many Hindus believe the birthplace of Rama to be in Ayodhya at the place called Ram Janmabhoomi, the site of the desolate Babri mosque. According to the Ramayana, Ayodhya was ruled by the House of Ikshvaku, who was the son of Manu.


With the Islamic invasions of India from the 9th century A.D., Ayodhya was the victim of pillage and sacking. Hindu temples were looted and destroyed, and mosques were constructed in their place. With Muslim rulers established around the city, it lost its strategic and economic importance to Lucknow and Kanpur.


Babri mosque

The Babri Mosque (also Babri Masjid بابری مسجد) was a mosque constructed by order of the first Mugal emperor of India, Babur, in Ayodhya in the 16th century. Before the 1940s, the Mosque was called Masjid-i Janmasthan (“mosque of the birthplace”). The mosque stood on the Ramkot (“Rama’s fort”) hill (also called Janamsthan (“birthplace”).

It was alleged that Babur destroyed an existing temple at the site, which Hindus believe was the temple built to commemorate the birthplace of Rama, an incarnation of Vishnu and ruler of Ayodhya. The Babri Mosque was one of the largest Mosques in Uttar Pradesh, a province of India with some thirteen million Muslims. Although there were several older Mosques in the city of Ayodhya, with a substantial Muslim population, including the Hazrat Bal Mosque constructed by the Shariqi kings, the Babri Mosque became the largest.



Babar’

Ram Janmabhumi is sacred to the Hindus because they hold it to be the birthplace of Rama, who embodies for them the ideals of truth, heroism, chivalry and every other virtue. What is the justification for the mosque by Babar beyond the fact that he had the power to erect it as a mark of conquest and of humiliation of the Hindus? . One can understand that many Muslims hold the tomb of Moinuddeen Chisti in Ajmer to be sacred because he is venerated as a Sufi saint. No such justification exists for the Babri Masjid, for it was not intended as a place of worship. To understand temple destructions by Babar and his descendants – and the building of mosques in their place – we must recognize that it was part of their ideology. Here is how one of his descendants, a granddaughter of Aurangazeb, described why mosques should be built at the site of demolished temples:”… keeping the triumph of Islam in view, devout Muslim rulers should keep all idolaters in subjection to Islam, brook no laxity in realization of Jizyah, grant no exceptions to Hindu Rajahs from dancing in attendance on ‘Id days and waiting on foot outside mosques till end of prayer … and ‘keep in constant use for Friday and congregational prayer the mosques built up after demolishing the temples of the idolatrous Hindus situated at Mathura, Banaras and Avadh …”

Spoken like a true child of Aurangazeb! But this allows us to answer the question raised earlier about Babar’s right to destroy the temple and build his mosque: Babar’s ideology – as described by his descendent – gave him that right. It is an ideology that sees everything outside the pale of Islam as an object of derision to be humiliated and destroyed. This does not mean that everyone – especially the victims – should accept it as legitimate. Accepting the legitimacy of the Babri Masjid at Ram Janmabumi means acknowledging the superiority of Babar’s ideology over that of the overwhelming majority of the people of India, and his right to impose it on others by force. This is imperialism pure and simple.


National symbols

. Every living nation has national symbols and Ayodhya is India’s. Would we let stand a mosque built by someone like Osama bin Laden after demolishing Mount Vernon (George Washington’s home) or the Statue of Liberty. Similarly, the Westminster Abbey in London is more than a Church, for it is inseparably bound with English history and tradition. This is how the people of India also look at Ram Janmabhumi: it is a sacred spot for Hindus for historical, cultural and nationalistic reasons – and not just because it is a place of worship. Many like me who never go to a temple or church still hold it sacred for cultural and historical reasons.To highlight this point: can the terrorist warlord Osama bin Laden claim the ideological right to demolish the Venkateshwara Temple in Tirupati or the Golden Temple in Amritsar and build something else in their place to mark the triumph of his ‘faith’?Or George Bush to demolish Mecca.. These, like Ram Janmabhumi, the Westminster Abbey, and the Statue of Liberty, are not pieces of real estate that can be bartered – or forcibly occupied and demolished.


So here is the plain truth:
Ram Janmabhumi is a national symbol, while the Babri Masjid is a symbol of Babar’imperialism.

It was destroyed in a riot by hostile Hindu activists on December 6, 1992.


Anger in Gujarat

In 1969, nearly 2,500 people were killed there in the region’s worst violence between Hindus and Muslims since the subcontinent was split into India and Pakistan in 1947. A series of communal riots rocked the city in the 1980s and again in 1992 following the demolition of the Babri mosque by Hindu activists in the north Indian town of Ayodhya. There followed a decade of relative peace, barring a few months of sporadic anti-Christian violence in the state’s tribal areas three years ago.
Rapid economic growth in the 1960s and 1970s turned Gujarat into one of India’s richest and industrially developed provinces. The mushrooming of industry, especially textile mills, meant that there was a large influx of people from other Indian states, People who were never really brought up in the Gandhian tradition When recession in the 1980s forced the closure of many of the mills, some 50,000 people lost their jobs. Frustration and unemployment turned many to crime and Gujarat now has a thriving underworld, second only to and closely linked with the underworld in Bombay,. But the fact that one of the state’s most powerful underworld dons in the 1980s was a Muslim raised religious tensions.Huge sums of money have been made smuggling arms, contraband and silver from Pakistan to Bombay via Gujarat.
Much of that money has found its way into the hands of religious extremists,Crime gangs also quite openly take sides in communal riots, making the violence that much more bloody and vicious.





Nearly 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in the Gujarat riots which were sparked by the burning to death of 59 Hindu activists in a train coach off Godhra railway station, allegedly by a Muslim mob.
‘Hundreds of girls and women were dragged out of their homes, stripped naked before their own families and thousands of attackers, who taunted, insulted and threatened them, ‘They were then raped, often gang-raped, beaten with sticks, Hindu tridents and swords, had their breasts cut off and their wombs slashed open and rods violently pushed into their vaginas. Finally the women victims were mutilated or burned to death.’
Between 250 and 300 girls and women were among the dead. Amnesty said local police and state investigators had either failed to investigate cases or deliberately closed them citing a lack of evidence.
Kausar Bano, who was nine months pregnant during the riots and allegedly had her ‘womb cut open with a sword, the foetus was ripped out, killed and thrown into a fire before she herself was burned to death’
.


Wednesday sentenced 11 people to life imprisonment


VADODARA: A fast-track court in Godhra on Wednesday sentenced 11 people to life imprisonment for killing 11 members of a minority community in Anjanwa village of Panchmahals district during the post-Godhra riots. But 18 other accused were acquitted for lack of evidence.
Fast-track court judge R D Thackar sentenced prime accused Dalpa Baria and 10 others Kalu Soma, Kalu Sana, Bana Fata, Raising Fula, Dhana Rupa, Salam Aba, Balvant Jeeva, Natwar Kalu, Ratna Kalu and Rupa Soma for life.
Three others Raising Punja, Bharat Punja and Dhana Rupa were sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment. The court examined 80 witnesses before delivering the verdict.


The Hindu nationalist government of Gujarat, which continues in power, has come under severe criticism by human rights groups for its alleged role in aiding and abetting the riots apart from failing to control them.
‘During the attacks, police stood by or even joined in the violence. When victims tried to file complaints, police often did not record them properly and failed to carry out investigations,

And it is this below that sparked this incident in one of a thousand conflicts world-wide where muslims are involved

There are some of the photos that will explain you why there was such a reaction after Godhra….


WARNING: BEFORE YOU SCROLL DOWN.

Gruesome Pictures





So once again moslems are the biggest victims,of crimes committed by Moslems


365 days, 80 arrests, Pota…probe goes on

Three hundred and sixty five days, three sleuths spearheading the investigation, countless raids, 80 arrests and one mission — to unearth the alleged conspiracy to kill passengers of Ahmedabad bound Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002.
With the recent arrest of Godhra cleric Maulana Hussain Umarji, considered a major breakthrough, the Special Investigation Team is more than determined to get to the bottom of the conspiracy. “It was not a spontaneous reaction to the harassment of a tea vendor but a well planned conspiracy with involvement and backing of the underworld mafias — directly or indirectly. The amount of money involved in the crime is mind boggling and more skeletons are expected to tumble out of the closet in the forthcoming days,” said an official
.

Protests over Gujarat arrest
http://newswww.bbc.net.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2734001.stm
Shops in the town of Godhra in India’s Gujarat state have closed in protest at the arrest of a Muslim in connection with a deadly train attack.
Maulana Hussain Umarji, a cleric, is suspected of planning the alleged arson attack, which took place in Godhra last February.

Setting things straight

Did Godhra town, in the desolate tribal belt of eastern Gujarat, witness a pre-planned terror attack funded by foreigners on February 27 last year? A year after the incineration of 59 passengers aboard bogie S6 of the Sabarmati Express train, the investigators seem confident of unveiling the “conspiracy” behind the ghastly act. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Gujarat Police recently moved the sessions court in Godhra to invoke provisions of Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) against all 123 accused in the case, including seven who are out on bail.

The investigations had come a full circle after the February 6 arrest of Maulana Hussein Umarji, the most influential Muslim from Godhra and the leader of the Deobandi-Tablighi Jamaat. The police say Umarji, 55, was the prime conspirator and financier of the ‘premeditated’ crime.

“New circumstances and facts have come before the court establishing beyond doubt that the Sabarmati Express carnage was an act of terror,” said Special Public Prosecutor J.M. Panchal, who stepped down after POTA was sought to be applied to the case. “The government needs to appoint a new prosecutor as I have conveyed my inability to continue, on personal grounds.”


JABIR BINYAMIN BEHERA
The police say Behera was part of the core group that attacked the Sabarmati Express. According to his confession to the police, he was among those who cut the vestibule to enter bogie S6 and broke open the door to empty the fuel cans into the coach.

Umarji, a prosperous timber merchant, was trained in theology at a Deobandi seminary in Uttar Pradesh in the 1960s. According to SIT sources, he has admitted to being part of a Deobandi financing scheme under which the needy families of each of the Godhra accused were given Rs 1,500 a month. The SIT suspects that he was channelling crores of rupees to Gujarat, largely through the hawala route. Much of it, the authorities believe, has been spent feeding fundamentalism and instigating the Godhra incident.

Many in the legal fraternity feel the Gujarat government added the foreign hand angle after it failed to prove the conspiracy theory. Interestingly, the move to invoke POTA coincided with the date of hearing of bail applications of six accused at the Gujarat High Court. Apparently, the earlier release of the two accused on bail, on grounds that their identities could not be established, had upset the authorities.



MAULANA HUSSEIN UMARJI
According to Jabir Binyamin Behera’s confession, it was Umarji who directed the conspirators to attack bogie S6. He also dissuaded Behera from surrendering to the police. The police said he had received crores of rupees, routed through hawala, from sympathisers of the Tablighi Jamaat in foreign countries.

The original chargesheet had blamed more than 1,000 local Muslims for the act in Godhra that set off a retaliatory carnage, which claimed over 1,000 lives across Gujarat. Initially, the investigators had named Haji Bilal Ismail Sujela, an independent member of the Godhra Municipality and chairman of its planning body, as the prime suspect, along with Godhra Municipality president Mohammed Hussein Kalota. As early as March last year, the investigators were confident of unearthing Bilal’s links with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.



RAZZAK KURKUR
Kurkur, who owns the Aman Guest House in Signal Falia locality, was named prime accused in the supplementary chargesheet filed in September. The police claim that the conspirators met at his guest house and he led the mob during the assault on bogie S6.

In September, the investigations changed track with the naming of Razzak Kurkur, a hotelier from the Muslim-dominated Signal Falia area, as an accused. It was then claimed that though a huge mob was involved in the attack, the actual train burning was the handiwork of a core team of 20 (12 of them have since been arrested).

Umarji had been a prominent figure right from the days of the riots in February-March last year. He was known to have led many a minority delegation to political leaders. His arrest followed the confessional statement of Jabir Binyamin Behera, an accused who was arrested on January 22.

According to the POTA appeal by the investigators, “two meetings took place at Aman Guest House [owned by Kurkur and located near the Godhra railway station] on February 26, 2002, attended by, among others, Kurkur, Salim Haji Ibrahim Badam alias Salim Paanwala, Salim Zarda and Haji Bilal.” They had decided to set the Sabarmati Express on fire. The strategy was to launch a deadly attack at the slightest provocation from the karsevaks who were returning from Ayodhya. The same night, the conspirators collected 140 litres of fuel from a local petrol pump and stored it at Aman Guest House.



HAJI BILAL ISMAIL SUJELA
Sujela is an independent member of the Godhra Municipality and chairman of its planning committee. He was arrested within a month of the train burning, for allegedly leading the mob. He is stated to have visited Pakistan twice in 1992 and once in 1993. In March, investigators were confident of unearthing his ISI links. But in the interim chargesheet, all that Bilal was accused of was stopping the fire tenders from reaching the railway station. Subsequent investigations maintain that he was part of the core group that burnt coach S6.

Behera says in his confession that around 11.30 p.m., he was present on the ground floor of the guest house when Haji Bilal and Farooq BhanaÑanother accusedÑarrived on a scooter. They had come with instructions from Umarji, who had specifically told them to target bogie S6. Apparently, he had advance information on the position of the karsevaks on the train.

The crucial second meeting was held around midnight, with Kurkur, Bilal, Bhana and Paanwala closeted in a separate room. Shortly after midnight, Paanwala left for the railway station to check whether the train was running on time. He returned with the information that it was running four and a half hours late. The original plan of a pre-dawn attack was dropped.

The aftermath: Large-scale riots followed the Godhra massacre

But the conspirators regrouped again, before the train reached platform no. 1 at 7.40 a.m. on February 27. The fuel was transported near Godhra A cabin in an autorickshaw. The huge mob from Signal Falia colony was already on the alert. The confession says Behera and a few others cut open the vestibule of coach S6. They clambered in, broke open the door and emptied the fuel from the jerry cans into the coach. The others broke the windows and threw in burning rags.

In his confession Behera says it was Umarji who advised him against surrendering to the police. The investigators consider Umarji a “big catch” since the mob that burnt bogie S6 was mainly composed of people from the Ghanchi community, a majority of whom were followers of the Tablighi Jamaat.

Tablighi Jamaat underplays political power of the state and concentrates on civil society, identity and cultural issues of Islam. It rejects many practices adopted by Indian Muslims. The puritanical ideology had begun spreading its tentacles in the Godhra region in the mid-1970s. No wonder, Umarji’s arrest has shaken Godhra’s Muslims.

The SIT is currently on the lookout for Umarji’s son Syed, who allegedly helped him carry out the hawala transactions. A computer which was used for the purpose is yet to be traced but the SIT recovered vital documents during a raid on their residence in Godhra.


February 26 2003: Zamaqi, Iraq. Ansar al-Islam suicide bomber kills three Kurdish guards at a checkpoint.

February 26 2004: Sarobi, Afghanistan. Five aid workers, involved in a project to build roads and provide clean water, are ambushed and killed by the Taliban. Three are injured.
February 26 2004: Assinovskaya, Chechnya. Jihadis kill fourteen people with a roadside bomb.February 26 2005: Narathiwat, Thailand. A man is gunned down as he is walking to a local marketFebruary 26 2006: Baghdad, Iraq. Muslim radicals shoot mortars into residential neighborhoods, killing fifteen Sunnis and three Shias. Three other bodies are found elsewhere.
February 26 2006: Hilla, Iraq. A Muslim terrorist detonates a bomb in a passenger bus at a station, killing at least five people
February 26 2006: Pattani, Thailand. A local doctor is killed by Islamists while walking home from work.
February 26 2006: Baqubah, Iraq. Jihadis open fire on a group of teenagers playing soccer, killing two boys and injuring five.
February 26 2006: Mosul, Iraq. Angry Muslims pull a pediatrician from his office and execute him
February 26 2006: Tank, Pakistan.Two policemen are killed by al-Qaeda militants.
February 26 2006: Kabul, Afghanistan. Taliban-led prison uprising leaves six inmates dead and about forty injured.February 26 2007: Baghdad, Iraq. Six people are killed when Islamic terrorists bomb a public works factory.
February 26 2007: Baghdad, Iraq. A Scottish man is among four killed by a roadside bomb.
February 26 2007: Kandahar, Afghanistan. A suicide bomber kills two civilians.
February 26 2007: MedinaSaudi, Arabia. A 17-year-old boy is among four French nationals brutally gunned down by Islamic purists.
February 26 2007: Khost, Afghanistan. A policeman is killed when he tries to stop a suicide bomber from entering a station.
February 26 2007: Baghdad, Iraq. Twenty-five people are murdered in sectarian attacks within the Religion of Peace.

February 26 2008: Khost, Afghanistan. A 9-year-old child and five Afghan adults are murdered by Islamic bombers.
February 26 2008: Mosul, Iraq. A suicide bomber detonates inside a passenger bus, killing eight Iraqis
February 26 2008: Dusamareb, Somalia. A former government official is assassinated by Islamic terrorists.
February 26 2008: Peshawar, Pakistan. A Shia leader is shot to death by Sunni radicals.
February 26 2008: Kandahar, Afghanistan. An 50-year-old American humanitarian worker and her driver are kidnapped and executed by the Taliban

February 26, 2009: Cairo, Egypt. Egyptian Cleric Ahmad Abd Al-Salam: Jews ‘Infect Food with Cancer and Ship it to Muslim Countries’

Following are excerpts from a speech delivered by Egyptian cleric Ahmad Abd Al-Salam, which aired on Al-Nas TV on January 28, 2009.

The Jews “Invest Their Utmost Efforts… in Conspiring How to Corrupt the Islamic Nation… This Is Why We Hate Them”

Ahmad Abd Al-Salam: “The Jews ‘will not fail to corrupt’ the believers. What does this mean? The Jews are never remiss – they invest their utmost efforts, day and night, in conspiring how to corrupt the Islamic nation, the nation led by the Prophet Muhammad.

“I want you, Muslim viewers, to imagine the Jews sitting around a table, conspiring how to corrupt the Muslims, and how to destroy their worldly and religious affairs. The Jews ‘will not fail to corrupt you,’ and this is why we hate them.”

The Jews “Infect Food with Cancer and Ship It to Muslim Countries”

“The Jews conspire day and night to destroy the Muslims’ worldly and religious affairs. The Jews conspire to destroy the economy of the Muslims. The Jews conspire to infect the food of the Muslims with cancer. It is the Jews who infect food with cancer and ship it to Muslim countries.”

“We Hate the Jews Because They Spare No Effort in Stripping Muslim Girls of their Clothes”; “Sexual Temptations… Were Conspired By the Jews”

“We hate the Jews because they spare no effort in stripping Muslim girls of their clothes. It is the Jews who conspire to have Muslim girls, and even married Muslim women, wear clothes that are tight, short, or see-through, or clothes that are open from the front, or the back, from the right or the left.

“The Jews ‘will not fail to corrupt you,’ and this is why we hate them. The Jews conspire to destroy Muslims. The Jews conspire to bring Muslim youth down to the pit of sexual temptation. The sexual temptations, which are prevalent worldwide, were conspired by the Jews.”

February 24, 2009, Gloucestershire, Britain A man who is accused of waging a urine and faeces-spraying campaign at two supermarkets, a pub and a bookshop caused £700,000 damage, a court heard yesterday.
Sahnoun Daifallah, 42, is alleged to have squirted a brown, foul-smelling substance from a spray container at four businesses in Gloucestershire on May 14 and 16 last year.
The court heard the man from White City, Gloucester, visited the Air Balloon pub at around 12.45pm on May 14 where police were called after he asked a barmaid Susan Lawson-Bagent how much it would cost to rape her.

February 24, 2009, Melbourne, Australia, An “immature” teacher acting out unfulfilled teenage love when she hugged and kissed a student is likely to avoid a jail sentence.But the two-week affair will almost certainly cost married science teacher Nazira Rafei, 26, her job.
She will also be required to report as a registered sex offender, possibly for life, after being found guilty of an indecent act with the 15-year-old boy.
Rafei’s strict Muslim upbringing meant she never experienced teenage love, her lawyer Peter Morrissey told a pre-sentence hearing in the Victorian County Court on Thursday. The highly regarded second-year Melbourne teacher failed to put an end to advances from the boy last February despite reporting them to a colleague the previous year, the court heard.
The pupil got her phone number and the pair began meeting outside school. The relationship then progressed to hugging and kissing. Last week, a jury rejected claims by the boy that the teacher had sex with him.
The youth gave evidence that Rafei said to him: “I’m your sex slave” and “disrespect me”. The jury found Rafei did perform an indecent act when she hugged and kissed the boy. The teacher admitted at the beginning of the trial to performing two other indecent acts on the child.
Mr Morrissey described his client as immature, having led a sheltered life and forbidden from mixing with boys at school and university. “There was no question of having boyfriends or going out unescorted – that didn’t occur,” he said. “Really what happened wasn’t about sex at all, it was about adolescent teenage romance and an inability to deal with it.”
The court heard Rafei was matched up with her husband on a visit to Lebanon.

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