Bleed India with a thousand cuts is a military doctrine followed by the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI. The 2008 Mumbai attacks were a series of terrorist attacks that took place on November 26, 2008, when 10 members of the LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba), an extremist Islamist organisation based in Pakistan, carried out 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks that lasted for four days across Mumbai. This attack was just one cut, out of the thousands of cuts inflicted by Pakistan on India over the last 70 years.
Why only 70 years? Let's also take into account the attacks carried out by Ghaznavi, Ghauri, Babur, Aurangzeb and all those Islamist invaders along with their "peaceful" followers? The 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks carried out by Pakistan against India was a continuation of the invasion by these extremist Islamist butchers. Pakistanis proudly propagate this as the "thousand years war”. So from the days of initial coup in Pakistan for military to rule over this unnatural country called Pakistan, an enemy was required and eventually Indian became that enemy.
I remember those sorrowful days after the tragic 26/11 attacks in 2008 when my neighbor from Mumbai at Sharjah in United Arab Emirates (UAE) was scared and worried. "Zafar Bhai why is Pakistan is doing this with us? You are also from Pakistan can you explain to me what are the reasons behind these attacks?" he asked me. I told him that I am not from Pakistan I am from occupied Sindh. "We are also under suppression of Pakistan and its state sponsored terrorism. I condemn these brutal attacks and killing of innocent people in India," I explained to my Indian friend.
Unfortunately India has always been attacked or invaded through the Sindh. Persians, Arabs and Greeks entered Hindustan from Sindh because Sindh is the gateway to India. Even this time for the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008, Karachi in Sindh was used.
India always had soft policies towards Pakistan, but Pakistan's existence is on enmity with India. India must take strong decisions and must liberate Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Until and unless Pakistan is disintegrated and weakened, India will not be safe. Strong Sindh and Balochistan will play a key role for a strong India.
History repeats itself from time to time. I remember Timur from Central Asia invaded Delhi in 1398. Timur himself recorded the invasions in his memoirs, collectively known as Tuzk-i-Timuri. In this, he vividly described the massacre at Delhi: "In a short space of time all the people in the Delhi Fort were put to the sword, and in the course of one hour the heads of 10,000 infidels were cut off. The sword of Islam was washed in the blood of the infidels, and all the goods and effects, the treasure and the grain which for many a long year had been stored in the fort became the spoil of my soldiers. They set fire to the houses and reduced them to ashes, and they razed the buildings and the fort to the ground. All these infidel Hindus were slain, their women and children, and their property and goods became the spoil of the victors. I proclaimed throughout the camp that every man who had infidel prisoners should put them to death, and whoever neglected to do so should himself be executed and his property given to the informer. When this order became known to the Ghazis of Islam, they drew their swords and put their prisoners to death. One hundred thousand infidels, impious idolaters, were on that day slain. Maulana Nasiruddin Umar, a counselor and man of learning, who, in all his life, had never killed a sparrow, now, in execution of my order, slew with his sword fifteen idolatrous Hindus, who were his captives, on the great day of battle these 100,000 prisoners could not be left with the baggage, and that it would be entirely opposed to the rules of war to set these idolaters and enemies of Islam at liberty no other course remained but that of making them all food for the sword."
The 26/11 Mumbai attack was carried out by Pakistan-sponsored Jihadis with this same mentality. These Islamist groups can’t rest until a single "infidel" is alive on earth. It's in their nature to attack and even the ideology supports them for these cruel acts. However, at the same time ignorance and poverty also plays its role for such brutal actions. It is a fact that militant factions recruit and brainwash impressionable minds and then use them as pawns to kill innocent people. Most people are shown golden dreams of being granted a palatial mansion in the heavens for persecuting Indians, Jews, Christians, Muslim minorities and other non-Muslims. What remains unfathomable is how can the slaughter of innocent men, women and children help anyone to achieve heights of piety? God created life to be appreciated. Most of us know that such fundamentalist groups only serve one God and that's “money and power” for themselves. Pakistani generals and their cultivated maniac mobs of Jihadis are destroying peace and humanity in the world.
Till today Pakistan is denying its involvement in the 26/11 attacks even after being provided with a large quantum of evidence and statements. Pakistani establishment and its state-controlled media is playing the dubious role to convince people of Pakistan that these Mumbai attacks were fake and are a ploy to defame Pakistan. It's for this reason that 75% Pakistanis still believe that 9/11 or 26/11 was an inside job done by US/Israeli and Indian governments to give a bad name to peaceful Islam and to the Muslims. Even the Pakistani intellectuals (so called) say the same.
An emboldened Pakistan has now resorted to playing the same old tricks. A few days before Pakistan "sentenced" Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the mastermind of 26/11 Mumbai serial attacks and chief of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) & Jamaat- ud-Dawa (Jud). Hafiz Saeed has been "sentenced" for ten years by Pakistan not on charges of Mumbai terror attacks but for terrorist financing. This is merely eyewash meant only to save Hafiz Saeed the 'asset' of Pakistan. Pakistan is concerned for Hafiz Saeed's safety and wouldn't let any thing happen to him, and so he is currently enjoying at his second home (Haweli) in Kot Lakhpat Jail, Lahore. For the world Pakistan is seen as taking measures against terrorist Haifz Saeed, but what about Dawood Ibrahim and Masood Azhar and the hundreds of thousands Taliban roaming freely in Pakistan.
The fact of the matter is that Pakistan has become a hub of global terrorism and such extremist organizations could not have survived in Pakistan without the tacit support of government and some sections of the society. Pakistanis have to live with the fact that the entire world is pointing fingers at them. My sympathies are always with the relatives and families of all the Indians, Americans, Canadians, Europeans, Israelis and other victims who lost their lives in this tragic act of terrorism. We Sindhis are also victims of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. We stand with India.
<em>(Zafar Sahito is a Sindhi nationalist and Vice President of Jeay Sindh Thinkers Forum)</em>.
