Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak

Frontline Pakistan
Emotional speeches are delivered and then the martyr’s testament,
which often exhorts their kin to strictly observe the Islamic tenets and
be prepared to give their lives in the way of Allah, is read in public.
The men are implored neither to listen to music nor to watch films.
They are asked to destroy their television sets because they ‘spread
the Hindu culture of singing and dancing’. 24 LeT’s sectarian tilt and
ultra-orthodox ideology distinguish it from other Pakistani radical
Islamists. Some other militant groups even accuse it of undermining
the Kashmiri jihad by promoting sectarian division. 25
LeT’s main stress was on jihad against Hindus, who it regarded as
the worst polytheists, and against Jews who it claimed were ‘singled
out by the Qur’an as the enemies of Islam’. LeT leaders maintained
that Hindus and Jews were their main targets because they were ‘the
enemies of Islam and Pakistan’. 26 A party document, ‘Why are we
waging jihad’, argued that jihad was the only way to avenge history
and re-establish the lost glory of Islam. It vowed to take back Spain,
where Muslims had ruled for 800 years, and to re-establish Muslim
rule in India. It said that LeT was fighting to liberate not just Kashmir,
but the whole of India. It was one of the reasons why LeT’s attacks
against Hindus had been so savage. In many cases the victims were
beheaded. In December 2000 LeT extended its jihad from Kashmir to
mainland India.
It was just before dark on 3 December 2000 when two of LeT’s gunmen
sneaked inside Delhi’s Red Fort, which housed an Indian military
unit and a high-security interrogation cell used both by the Central Bureau
of Interrogation and the army. 27 The fort, built by Mughal Emperor
Shahjahan in the seventeenth century, sits on the edge of the Indian
capital’s old town and has a huge symbolic value for India. Traditionally,
the Prime Minister hoisted the national flag here on Independence
Day, and part of this historic landmark was opened to tourists in
the daytime. A fierce firefight broke out after armed intruders stormed
the security barracks, killing three guards. LeT claimed responsibility
the next day, declaring that the guerrillas who were involved in the
deadly attack were safe at an undisclosed location.
The audacious raid on the Red Fort was the first operation against
an Indian military installation inside India by an Islamic militant group
involved in the Kashmiri struggle. ‘The action indicates that we have
extended the jihad to India,’ Hafiz Saeed declared when I met him a
month after the incident. The attack on the Red Fort signalled a new
and more aggressive phase in jihadist activities.