| |
Like pulling rabbits out of a
hat
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - Just like a magician pulling a rabbit
out of a hat, Pakistani President General Pervez
Musharraf's intelligence forces have contrived a feat of
equal illusion with the arrest of a number of foreign
students alleged to have terror links.
Among
those detained is 27-year-old Indonesian Gun Gun Rusman
Gunawan, said to be a younger brother of Hambali, the
operational chief of Southeast Asia's Jemmah Islamiyah
(JI) terror organization, who himself was arrested in
Thailand in the middle of last month.
As a
partner in the US's global "war on terrorism", Musharraf
is under constant pressure to crack down firstly on
support of cross-border militancy into Indian-occupied
Kashmir, and secondly to round up people with terrorist
links seeking refuge within Pakistan.
In both
cases, his record is open to criticism, although, with
some regularity, whenever the general travels abroad,
and especially to the US, there is a spurt of activity
on the home front. Musharraf is currently in New York
for the annual session of the UN General Assembly, which
he is due to address, and he has had a number of
high-profile interviews and meetings in which he has
touted his government's record in the fight against
terrorism.
The weekend's announcement,
therefore, by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in
Islamabad of the arrest in Karachi of 13 Malaysian, two
Indonesian and two Myanmese students on suspicion of
links with the JI could not have come at a better time
for Musharraf.
The students were mostly from two
large institutions of Salafi origins in Karachi - Jamia
Abu Bakar Islamic University situated in the
Gulshan-e-Iqbal area, and Jamia tut Darasatul Islamyia,
in University Road. The arrests were made on Saturday,
and unlike in the past, news was soon leaked to the
national and international press.
But all was
not what it appeared.
It transpires that Gun Gun
Rusman Gunawan had in fact been arrested much earlier,
some sources told Asia Times Online on September 1, and
he had been studying at Jamia Abu Bakar since 1999. He
was named along with the batch arrested at the weekend,
though.
In all cases the method was the same,
with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) using the
cover of the FIA, claiming that the students were wanted
by their governments. As far as can be ascertained, the
students' immigration and study clearance papers (from
both Pakistani and home country officials) were in
order.
The Indonesian government, despite the
Pakistani claims, quickly lodged an official protest
with Islamabad over the arrests, and denied that it had
requested that the students be apprehended.
Speaking to this correspondent, the director of
Jamia tut Darasatul Islamyia, Abdul Rehman Abid, gave
his eye witness account. "Last Saturday, several dozen
policemen laid siege of the campus. Different persons in
civvies [civilian clothes] entered the campus and
refused any movement to the students. They asked the
Jamia administration to produce a list of students. We
provided them with a computer-generated copy.
"They marked a few names - all were Malaysian
students - and all were teenaged. We produced them. The
students thought that it was just a question and answer
session, but the officials asked for their arrest. They
said that the students were wanted in their countries of
origin and would be extradited. The students had tears
in their eyes, and we saw them go off with an utter
feeling of helplessness.
"You please tell me, if
they were criminals, why did these agencies not follow
the routine course under which Interpol warrants would
have been produced. If they were involved in any crime
in Pakistan, why was a case not lodged against them. How
can anybody be picked up without any evidence or reason
and taken to an unknown destination? We contacted their
embassies and they denied that they had made any
extradition requests.
"We never went to the
press to disclose the news, the intelligence agencies
personally informed the press corps about this
development. Generally, they avoid [disclosure]. You
know and I know that this is just to make Musharraf's
visit [to the US] to look colorful, and it happens every
time. We Pakistanis always expect these type of events
before the arrival of any US dignitary, September 11
anniversary or the departure of a Pakistani celebrity to
the US," Abdul Rehman Abid went on to say.
He
said that since September 11, 2001, the Salafi schools
had become a target for the intelligence agencies. The
Salafi schools are ideologically close to Saudi Arabia
and its Wahhabism, and therefore there is an interaction
with Arabs. According to the director, intelligence
sleuths visit the campus several times in a month and
harass the administration, at times even soliciting
bribes.
It is worth noting that such Salafi
schools have no connections with the Taliban, who are
followers of the Hanafi school of thought, which is at
odds with the Salafis. Islamic schools such as
Darululoom Haqqania of Akora Khattak, Binori Town
Karachi, Jamia Farooqia and dozens others all over
Quetta and North-West Frontier Province on the border
with Afghanistan nurture the Taliban. Yet there has not
been one single operation against these seminaries.
And despite harassment, the weekend's arrests
were also the first to be made at a Salafi school.
Like the rabbits conjured out of a hat, there is
a sense of wonderment at these latest arrests. But one
can only speculate as to the overall effectiveness of
the whole exercise in the broader context of the "war on
terror".
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co,
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
