I know this post comes a bit too late .After what happened,I was not really in a mood to blog.
The attacks began on the night of Wednesday, 26-Nov-2008.
Like many others in the city,the next few days were very hard for me, esp Thursday ,Friday and Saturday. There were rumors on Saturday that all the terrorists at Taj were killed but then ,in the next few hours, there were more firing.
There was anxiety,fear and anger all over.People were scared.People 'are' scared. The attacks were so brutal that it will take quite sometime for us to get back to our normal lives.
Many of us followed news all the time since Wednesday night till at least Sunday.In horror,we watched the attacks unfolding on TV/newspapers,internet,listened to the alleged terrorist's tape on TV and felt the anger and helplessness.
My eyes welled up each time I read about the casualties... children were killed....What kind of people are these terrorists?
The terrorist who called the TV channel claimed that they were doing this as a retaliation for the atrocities committed against Muslims in India. And the lone terrorist caught alive,the scary looking Kasab, said they were shown the footage of Gujarat riots and Babri Masjid demolition ,besides the crimes and incidents in Kashmir valley. The people behind the attacks, th chiefs of these terrorists ,used the above incidents to brainwash the youth and turn them into terrorists.
In order to eliminate terrorism, we first need to eliminate these leaders ,who
distort the Holy Quran to support their own fundamentalist agendas and then, lure the gullible,uneducated and poor youth.
I admit some Muslims have suffered at the hands of the hardliners and their support parties. In Gujarat riots,women and children were mercilessly killed...The perpetrators even killed pregnant women ..in few cases,it was reported that they plunged trishul into pregnant women's womb and took out the unborn baby with that...all this while the woman is alive and screaming in pain...Many innocents lost their near and dear ones..many became orphans,widows .....
Their lives have been ruined forever by those extremists..There are some Muslim hardliners too who are cunning and use religion to create communal tensions...But the people who perished in the riots were innocent and normal...they did not have anything to do with communal riots. They were hapless victims of hard line Hindu radicals. and the Gujarat government encouraged the attacks then and those perpetrators were never punished
The Gujarat riots or the bomb blasts and terror attacks can not be justified in anyway. They are all crimes against humanity.
Some terrorists caught for carrying out some of the recent blasts have claimed that the Gujarat riots was their motivation. What are these terrorists thinking??
How can they kill innocent children,women in the name of retaliation? The people who were killed in the bomb blasts or Mumbai terror strikes did not have anything to do with the Gujarat riots.
And in what way and how,do they think by killing innocents they are going to protect Muslims?
They are marginalizing Muslims from the society as unfortunately they share similar names with the terrorists.
Even if one has suffered at the hands of heartless killers,if your relatives/friends have been mercilessly murdered, even if minor kids have been butchered in the cruelest ways by radicals , even then,.
even if all these terrible, terrible things happened to one,he does not have any right to take an innocent life.
We must remember that the terrorists/extremists do not follow any religion. Had the extremists/terrorists been truly understanding and following the Bhagwat Gita/Vedas, then they would not have carried out the Gujarat riots. In the same vein,had the terrorists been truly understanding and following Quran, they would not have mercilessly killed innocents like in the Mumbai blasts.
It is the extremist leaders in both the religions who incite hatred and encourage violence. But it is always the common man who suffers. As the hatred increases, the leader's riches grow further ,where as the common man loses everything ,his dignity included.
The fact is that no religion preaches terror. We must also remember that 99% of Hindus and Muslims live peacefully. It is the rest 1% that are being targeted and lured by extremists.
We must know that 99% of Hindus would not have approved of Gujarat riots and in the same vein ,99% Muslims would not approve of the blasts. These so called 'Muslim terrorists' have tarnished the image of Muslims ,besides causing irreparable damage to many. It is sad to see suspicious eyes on Muslims by others but can we
really blame them ,considering the way terrorists have misused the name of Islam?
There can be a small fraction of bad people in all religions but then, we should not isolate the entire religion on that basis.The terrorists should be handed the harshest punishment possible. Mutilate Kasab's body parts one by one and show it on television so that other terrorists ,esp the youth, get the message.The Muslim bodies have done a commendable job by refusing to give Islamic burials to the slain terrorists. This step will probably restrict some youth from getting brainwashed by the hard line mullahs.
We must remember that we are human beings first.....God has given us the wisdom..we must be in a position to distinguish the good,bad and evil...what are we going to achieve by always being at each other's throats?
Hindus and Muslims have distinct cultures but are not we celebrating each other's festivals? Don't we have friends in each other? Friends who may not belong to your religion but has been with you thick and thin.
