MUSLIMS and Islam have been intricately linked to terrorism in Western media and it has been emphasized time and again that Islamic teaching is linked to terrorism. This is because Muslims do not have a press of their own to tell the truth to the world and the Western world continues to believe its own press and its governments’ policies about Muslims being the cause of terrorism. Western governments are doing this in order to brainwash their people so as to justify their invasion of Muslim lands for oil, wealth and territory.
Apart from bomb attacks, there are other ways of causing terror and one of them is by plowing a vehicle into crowded places with or without a bomb. A recent such attack occurred on July 14, 2016 in Nice, France on Bastille day in which a Tunisian man drove a truck into a crowd killing 84 people and injuring 202. Since he happened to be a Muslim, it suited the authorities to blame Islam by implication.
Another incident occurred on 20 December 2016 in Germany when a truck driver drove into Christmas shoppers, killing 12 and injuring 48 people. A Pakistani national was at first arrested and then, thankfully, released. An unarmed Tunisian man suspected of carrying out this attack was shot dead by police in Milan, Italy on Friday December 23 during a routine identity check of cars. Thus, without any trial, a lid was put on the case.
There is another similar incident which deserves to be mentioned because it involves a role reversal with regard to the religion of the people involved, and although this was incidental, the authorities quickly brushed it under the carpet because it might have had an adverse effect on public memory and served to tarnish their theory of “Islamic terrorism” which is: “All Muslims may not be terrorists, but why are all terrorists only Muslims?” That theory suggests that there is something fundamentally wrong with Islam and all Muslims, hence they should be bashed publicly and privately for any and every wrong occurring anywhere in the world.
The incident that I would like to mention occurred as follows: On the morning of January 25, 2012, a 39-year-old bus driver named Santosh Mane took a bus in the city of Pune, India and drove off erratically, hitting people, crashing into vehicles, barricades, and everything that came in his way. The police and members of the public tried to stop him and chased the bus, but to no avail. The police fired 10 rounds at the bus in a vain attempt to stop this murderous rampage but were not able to prevent the destruction. The man drove on for one whole hour over a distance of 14 km on the streets of Pune, killing nine people and injuring 30 while damaging 37 vehicles in the process. Mane was finally overpowered by 21-year-old computer applications student, Sharif Ibrahim Kutty, who jumped onto the bus as it slowed down.
Now, in this case the terrorist was a Hindu and the rescuing hero a Muslim. What is to be noted is that in spite of members of the public chasing the bus and police following on motorbikes and in a car and after firing 10 rounds at the bus, they were not able to stop it. Sharif Kutty’s name was only mentioned in the newspapers on the day after the incident occurred and after that his name disappeared from the story. Subsequent reports only mentioned that members of the public and police overpowered Santosh Mane and his murderous rampage was thus stopped.
Following this incident, the city’s police commissioner Meeran Borwankar ruled out the possibility of the driver being mentally disturbed or overworked. She said that according to preliminary investigations, Mane was “totally fit and healthy. The driver was in his full senses and was not suffering from any mental disorder.”
The police were also told by the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) officials that Mane was not mentally disturbed or overworked. This was also confirmed and announced by Chief Minister of Maharashtra Prithviraj Chavan in a press conference. Mane had come to the Swargate depot from Gangapur on Tuesday evening after completing his trip and had had “sufficient sleep,” and was not under the influence of liquor either, the police said.
All this only goes to prove that Mane carried out the act of terrorism willfully and in his full senses, whatever his motives may have been. Eyewitnesses said that even after mowing people down, they saw Mane laughing and that he showed no signs of remorse.
After this incident Mane was produced and tried before the court and he was rightfully awarded the death sentence by the high court in Mumbai on December 11, 2013 which was later confirmed on April 3, 2014. The judge, who had convicted the driver of murder on April 3, observed that Mane was fully conscious of his actions as he did not crash the vehicle into any building along the road, but only targeted people in order to kill them.
In a significant twist in the tale, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India in April 2015 put a stay on the execution of the death penalty in response to a mercy petition filed by the lawyer of Santosh Mane saying that he was the sole earning member for his family and that he was suffering from psychiatric illness. The Supreme Court had apparently bought the insanity plea in approving the stay order.
Now ask yourself what would have happened if the driver had been a Muslim and the rescuer a Hindu. Reams and reams of newsprint would have been devoted to the incident; kilometers of TV footage would have been devoted to it. The incident would have become a national tragedy; a lot of the friends and relatives of the driver would have been dug up and arrested and made to confess to crimes of enormous proportions. Things would have been linked to imaginary organizations like Jaish-e- Muhammad or some such which exist only on paper in police records. The authorities want to keep the minds of the people totally brainwashed so that they believe that Muslims are terrorizing the country. When any politician or policeman is asked how such a powerless, oppressed minority manages the finances for these costly terrorism operations, the reply is: “The oil-rich Gulf countries finance all of these operations,” without a shred of evidence being presented.
A lot of Muslim youths are picked up regularly by police from various parts of India, tortured in jails and later produced before the public, press and the courts for any crime occurring anywhere, linking them to terrorism. This was confirmed by Union Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde when he directed all chief ministers of all states on 30 September 2013 not to arrest innocent Muslim youths under the pretext of terrorism.
There is mass hysteria created mainly by the West against Muslims blaming them for everything, mainly terrorism, so that the West can justify their invasion of Muslim lands for oil, wealth and territory. In India there is mass hysteria created against Muslims, blaming them for every possible crime, picking up innocent Muslim youths and torturing them in order to convince the majority that all crimes can be attributed to a small minority who have been deprived of money, jobs, opportunities, etc. These governments then go on to pass rules that are against humanity in the name of the prevention of terrorism. After hoodwinking the public about Muslims and terrorism and successfully diverting people’s attention, they also go on to exploit them in other ways, such as by demonetization in which most of the money, business and power will be in the hands of a chosen few who are close to the ruling party.
Shabbir Thingna,
Madinah.
