Daily Times

On February 18, 2007, at midnight, the Samjhota Express was burnt. The train had passed the Panipat railway station and was heading towards Attari with a large number of passengers. When it approached Diwana station, two of its bogies suddenly caught fire. The fire was so intense that even the steel structure of the bogies melted. That day 68 people died in the fire and dozens were injured.

Of the 68 fatalities, most were Pakistanis, but the victims included a few Indian civilians and the military personnel guarding the train. The train was sealed because of immigration security, thus, there was no chance of anyone escaping. It was the most painful death being burnt helplessly. Hardly anyone escaped when the doors were opened. Most of the injured also expired. The passengers who perished were those who were returning to Pakistan after meeting with their Indian relatives or friends. Many of them were from the age group that had nostalgic memories of the pre-independence relationships. The pre-partition generation would be the happiest if relations between the two countries normalised.

Most significant was the timing of this horrible act of terrorism. The Samjhota Express tragedy was timed to blow up the efforts of the two governments to defuse conflicts and reach some understanding. This was not the first time that normalisation efforts were sabotaged. It had happened before, including the attack on the Indian parliament building. Each time the pattern has been to commit an act of terror and blame it on Pakistan at a time when negotiations seem to approach success. This strategy serves two purposes: 1) The consolidation of the extremist Hindutva lobby and 2) Defeating the policy of the Congress secularists.

The Samjhota terrorists’ act was planned on the standard operating procedure (SOP) of the Hindutva associates and their terror wings. The ‘SOP’ is to plan a terror attack on the selected target and to put the responsibility on ‘Pakistani terrorists’ by wide publicity. In the case of the Samjhota tragedy, news releases put the responsibility on two ‘Pakistani terrorists’, but this time it started to backfire in a big way. Here is the full story:

The first and very widely propagated news was that two Muslims were involved in carrying out the sabotage. One of these was of the Kashmiri origin and the other had crossed the border from Pakistan and belonged to a Pakistani (suspect) jihadist group. Initially, the scheme worked well and the matter was accordingly reported by the Indian intelligence organisation to the political top brass. The perception of Pakistan as a promoter of terror was strengthened. The obvious purpose was to get the Indian government entangled in this matter and put the ensuing peace talks on the backburner. The peace process was ‘derailed’. However, the plan started to backfire soon.

Since the tragedy had happened in the area of the jurisdiction of the Haryana police, it decided to take an immediate action against the two persons indicated by the first news flash. The house of the so-called Kashmiri terrorist was raided and they were shocked to find that the person had died five years ago! The second person when traced was found to be a Pakistani who had been in police custody for the previous one month because he boarded a train from Amritsar to Delhi without ticket. Obviously, none of the two could be a part of the terrorist act. The Haryana police discarded the leads in the press and started professional investigation independently. They discovered one of the suitcases that were thrown out of the train compartment for some reason and also the remains of the other suitcases that carried the explosives. All of these had the explosive RDX. RDX was traced to be of the type being used by the Indian army in Kashmir. Next, the Haryana police tried to find out how this material got to the terrorists. The forensic reports indicated that some of the explosive materials were bought from a chemical company in Mumbai. Gradually, the Haryana police zeroed in on an army person named Colonel Prohit as the provider. At this point, the higher intelligence authorities close to the Indian government were alerted, and they considered it essential that the Haryana police be stopped from further investigation. If the Haryana police had continued their investigation and unearthed the real terrorist mechanism then the whole scheme could backfire. Thus, government was briefed that the matter of the Samjhota Tragedy had ‘international implications’ and so, being very sensitive, the investigation should be taken away from the Haryana provincial police and handed over to a ‘central’ authority. That is the reason the Haryana police was stopped from carrying out its investigation.

But the cover up effort got a huge setback again. A competent and conscientious officer, Hemant Karkare, was appointed the head of the Anti Terror Squad in Mumbai. He started investigating various acts of terror within India and refused to bow to political pressures from the rightwing extremist politicians. During his investigation, an act of terror occurred at the Malegaon Mosque on Jumat-ul-Vida. Malegaon is a suburb of Mumbai. In his investigation, Karkare found the main planner to be a VHP activist, Ms Pragiya Singh Sidhvi, whose motorcycle was found with explosives at the mosque. Soon Hemant Karkare’s team established a connection between Sidhvi and Colonel Prohit who provided the RDX for explosion. Karkare then found the link between Colonel Prohit’ and the Samjhota Express fire. Karkare’s life was threatened by the Hidutva and the Sangh Privar groups like the VHP, Jan Sangh, Abhinav Bharat, Jagran Munch and several others. But the courageous Indian officer refused to bow down. He followed his conscience and the call of duty. He completed his investigation and filed the case with the Nasik court in Mumbai. His report contained the details in over 4,000 pages and exposed the terror network of the Hindu extremists. The terrorists responsible for Samjhota tragedy were convicted and jailed. The cover up finally failed.

Later, Hemant Karkare became the target of revenge by Hindutva terrorists.

The writer is a former DG Pakistan National Council of the Arts, Secretary Arts Council Alhamra, COO of ICTV US, Chairperson Fruit Processing Industries, Chairperson Export Promotion Committee, head of several business delegations to European countries, specialist in arts management and cultural diplomacy. He is an expert callishtenist, dramatist, researcher, and the author of 8,000 years of the People of Indus Valley. Presently, he is the Central Vice- President APML and General Secretary, Punjab APML