Sacramento, USA (May 29, 2014): Rioting between Muslims and Sikhs broke out in the City of Hyderabad in India’s State of Andhra Pradesh just days after the country’s 5-week general election concluded by launching Narendra Modi, accused by human rights groups of orchestrating a 2002 massacre of Muslims while Chief Minister of the State of Gujarat, into victory as India’s new Prime Minister.

Three died as Indian police fired into crowds during the May 14 riots. The Times of India reported: “Trouble began around 6.15am on Wednesday when a religious flag on a hillock occupied by Sikhs was reportedly found burnt.” The article claims Sikhs blamed Muslims, gathered with weapons, and began rioting, stating: “In the ensuing violence, around 10 houses and shops were burnt and several motorcycles, autorickshaws and cars damaged.” [1]

Alternative media in India reports the riots began after a Nishan Sahib (Sikh flag) was burned, but say the evidence Muslims were involved smells fishy. Suspecting foul play, Indian minorities in the U.S. believe the incident may be staged by a third party, citing several past fabricated events effecting both Sikhs and Muslims.

Manmit Singh, reporting from Ahmedabad, Gujarat, says the only physical evidence of Muslim involvement is an ID card found on the scene. Manmit Singh states (translated from Punjabi):

“Muslims are minorities and Sikhs are minorities…. Why would one attack another? It doesn’t make sense, and it seems some third party has an interest in seeing conflict. We appeal to Sikhs and Muslims not to react to this incident.” [2]

Bhajan Singh, Founding Director of US-based Organization for Minorities of India, calls the incident “fishy,” saying, “India has been caught staging a lot of false flags like this to pit one minority against another.”

Singh continued: “Minorities in India are in a squeeze. Power in India flips between two major parties — Indian National Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party. In 1984, the INC led pogroms against Sikhs. In 2002, the BJP led pogroms against Muslims. Leaders of these pogroms are the top power-holders in India today. These pogroms always seem to happen after strange outbreaks of conflict between minority communities which are revealed as staged — I would list 1982, 1987, 2000, and 2007 as examples.”

Families mourn over the bodies of Chittisinghpura massacre victims, 2000

The four incidents Singh mentioned occurred in Punjab in 1982, New Delhi in 1987, Kashmir in 2000, and Haryana in 2007 — the first two against Sikhs, the third against Sikhs and Muslims, and the fourth against Muslims. In a report on staged terror incidents, Singh writes:

“India’s central government maintains its iron-gripped monopoly on political power while refusing to fully or openly prosecute and punish any of those responsible for the ongoing use of state-sponsored terrorism. Meanwhile, these acts are expertly blended with anti-minority propaganda that besmirches non-Hindus as violent people who hate the government without reason, consequently forcing non-Hindu Indian communities to adopt permanent defensive postures within India.” [3]

1. The Cow Head Incident

The first incident was the cow head incident on April 26, 1982 in the City of Amritsar in the State of Punjab. Hindus were offended, and Sikhs were the guilty party implicated by the government. The outcome was Hindu-Sikh riots on a scale unprecedented in history.

What supposedly happened?

Severed cow heads were discovered outside Shiva temples in the City of Amritsar in the State of Punjab. A note left at the scene boldly claimed responsibility, declaring: “This step has been taken by the Dal Khalsa to protest against the resistance of the Hindus to accept Amritsar as a holy city.” The note was signed “Khalistan Forever,” linking the act to an armed Sikh separatist movement.

April 26, 1982 — Hindus and Sikhs clash, “engaging in ‘pitched battle’ outside the gates of Harmandir Sahib…. Amritsar tore itself apart until a 24-hour curfew was imposed that evening. Long considered the “city that never sleeps,’ Amritsar became ‘dead’ as shops closed, streets were deserted and Hindus and Sikhs alike locked themselves inside their houses in fear.” [4]

April 29, 1982 — The Indian Parliament passes a resolution which “strongly condemns certain calculated acts of sacrilege committed by some miscreants and fanatical elements in Amritsar, aimed at creating disharmony, disorder and misunderstanding among the patriotic and peace loving people of the State.” [5]

May 15, 1982— After arresting Sukhjinder Singh Kahnuwan, police report he confesses, announce the discovery iron boxes at the Sikh Golden Temple which they claim were used to transport the severed cow heads, arrest several others, and call the cased solved.

What really happened?

March 6, 1983 — Thirty members of the Punjab State Legislative Assembly draft a resolution alleging the state’s Chief Minister, Darbara Singh, masterminded the cow head incident to deliberately stir communal conflict The resolution states, in part:

“The Chief Minister himself managed the first act of sacrilege of Hindu Temple at Amritsar…. He arranged to send heads of two calves from Mohali in a trunk by bus and got the same thrown stealthily in or near the Hindu Temple at Amritsar. Thus the first communal fire lit at the instance of the Chief Minister later resulted in a number of similar acts of sacrileges of Hindu Temples and Sikh Gurdwaras at Patiala, Ludhiana, Moga, Sangrur, etc. This created a rift between Sikhs and Hindus.” [6]

The same day, MLA Surinder Kapoor also “accused the then Punjab Government of hatching a conspiracy at Mohali of cutting a few heads of dead cows and of actually conveying them to Amritsar for being stealthily thrown in some Hindu temple there.” [7]

1987 — Gurdev Grewal, a former Joint Secretary in the Union Ministry for Home Affairs, reports a fellow Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer tells him over lunch: “Do you remember that cow-head incident in Amritsar? I was then secretary to Chief Minister Darbara Singh. The Dal Khalsa did not place those severed heads of cows in the temples in Amritsar. We had arranged it.” [8]

Who are the real culprits? The state government of Punjab is responsible for the 1982 cow head incident. The staged incident produced chaos and disorder on such a scale that the central government used it as the excuse to impose “President’s Rule” for the seventh time in 30 years.

Under President’s Rule, the central government in New Delhi dissolves a state government and rules directly. The seventh President’s Rule in Punjab lasted nearly two years, from October 1983 to September 1985, overlapping the year of 1984 when the Sikh Golden Temple was invaded by the Indian Army in June and Sikhs were slaughtered on the streets of New Delhi in November.

Who won? The government won, both state and central, because it gained power while the Sikhs lost.

2. Gun Running by India’s RAW Agency

The second incident was gun running by India’s RAW agency on November 19, 1987 in the City of New Delhi, India’s capital. No one was hurt, but Sikhs were the guilty party implicated by the government. The outcome was Sikhs were internationally maligned as terrorists and framed as smugglers of Stinger missiles and other high-tech weaponry.

What supposedly happened?

November 19, 1987 — Airport employees were unloading freight boxes from Afghanistan off Indian Airlines Flight IC 452 in New Delhi when a box broke, spilling out ammunition. They notified airport security, who reportedly conducted an X-ray examination of the boxes, claiming to discover “at least one rocket launcher” inside.

March 25, 1988 —The New York Times reports: “This week, for the first time in the Punjab conflict, rocket launchers were used to attack a police outpost.” [9]

March 30, 1988 — The Indian Parliament adopts Amendment 59 to the Constitution, extending the central government’s powers to practice President’s Rule and declare a state of emergency in Punjab.

April 2, 1988 — The Los Angeles Times reports: “The rising violence, including several cases where separatists for the first time have used rocket-propelled grenades, has increased pressure on Gandhi’s government to take a much harder line against the Sikh militants. Hindu fundamentalists have urged the prime minister to send the army into the state.” [10]

April 10, 1988 — The New York Times reports: “American-made Stinger missiles supplied to Pakistan were in the hands of Sikh extremists, although no evidence has emerged that any have been fired.” [11]

April 30, 1988 — Indian police conduct Operation Black Thunder I, invading the Golden Temple to suppress Sikh militants.

May 9, 1988 — Indian police begin Operation Black Thunder II, a nine-day siege of the Golden Temple ending in the killing of at least 41 Sikhs.

What really happened?

November 19, 1987 — Writing for The Caravan magazine, journalist Praveen Donthi reports: “According to the freight bill, the consignment was telecom equipment bound for the Director General Communications in Sanchar Bhawan—a non-existent official.” Donthi elaborates:

“Police and customs officers took the shipment for a haul of terrorist contraband. While airport personnel argued over who should get credit for the seizure, a man in mufti appeared and identified himself as a Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) operative. Before the munitions could be properly inventoried, he confiscated the crates, claiming they were government property.” [12]

April 24, 1988 — In an article for The Observer, a London newspaper, journalist Dhiren Bhagat breaks the story, reporting: “Caches of arms, including rockets, are being smuggled into India from Pakistan – not by terrorists but by the Indian secret services.” [13]

May 3, 1988 — In an article for Globe and Mail, Canadian journalist Bryan Johnston reports: “Such rockets have been found in only one place since November: Punjab. Two were fired, ostensibly by terrorists, but caused just minor damage. Dozens more have been dug up from ‘militant caches’ — with much attendant publicity about their import from Pakistan.” [14]

May 5, 1988 — India admits the rocket shipment discovered at New Delhi belonged to the government, as described by Praveen Donthi: “P Chidambaram, then the union minister of state for home affairs overseeing internal security, admitted that R&AW organised the shipment.”

Who are the real culprits? Research and Analysis Wing, India’s primary external intelligence agency, seems to have been caught conducting a black operation to frame Sikhs. In a 2003 study of human rights in Punjab, Ram Narayan Kumar concluded: “Dhiren Bhagat’s story suggested that the rockets had been fired by the government-sponsored agents provocateurs with the intention to whip up anti-Sikh hysteria in the country.” Donthi expands:

“In his article, Bhagat speculated that the smuggled arms had been destined for Punjab, where the Khalistan insurgency was at its peak. In March 1988, there had been several rocket attacks on police and paramilitary units in the state—though nobody was hit—and such weaponry hadn’t been used anywhere else in the country following the November shipment. Although Bhagat didn’t say as much, it seemed plausible that government forces had staged the assaults as a pretext for stepping up military intervention in Punjab (and discrediting Pakistan).” [15]

Who won? The government won, because although it admitted to smuggling guns, it kept the power it gained by spreading the lie that Sikhs were armed with missile launchers. Sikhs lost because this propaganda campaign made people internationally view Sikhs as terrorists at a time when they were just beginning to appeal for justice for India’s Holocaust of Sikhs in 1984.

3. The Chittisinghpura Massacre

The third incident was the Chittisinghpura Massacre on March 20, 2000 in the Village of Chittisinghpura in the State of Kashmir. Sikhs were killed, and Muslims were the guilty party implicated by the government. The outcome was a drastic increase in tension between Sikh and Muslim communities in the region.

What supposedly happened?

March 20, 2000 — Late at night, 17 armed men dressed as Indian soldiers slipped into a heavily Sikh village called Chittisinghpura in the disputed, majority-Muslim State of Kashmir. Going door to door, they rounded up 35 Sikhs, lined them up outside their gurdwara, and shot them.

March 21, 2000 — India immediately blames Muslim terrorists. Indian police arrive at the village and arrest a young Muslim man named Yaqub Wagay. U.S. President Bill Clinton arrives for a scheduled visit and Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, who accompanied Clinton, writes:

“He did not endorse the accusation that Pakistan was behind the violence since the United States had no independent confirmation but he used every occasion to express sorrow for the victims of the attacks and their families.” [16]

March 23, 2000 — India’s home secretary announces Yaqub confessed involvement in the massacre and gave up names of the perpetrators.

March 26, 2000 — India reports killing five men in a firefight in Panchalthan, a village near Chittisinghpura. Then it claims they committed the massacre, announcing the case closed.

What really happened?

March 21, 2000 — American journalist Pankaj Mishra visits Chittisinghpura. He learns from locals that five Muslim men in neighboring villages were reported kidnapped by armed men over recent days.

March 25, 2000 — The uncle of Ahmad Dalal, a Muslim man who had gone missing the previous day, enquired at the local police headquarters, where he was told that “if the Indian Army had kidnapped his nephew, there was nothing anyone could do.” [17]

March 26, 2000 — Claiming they got in a firefight with five militants, police deliver the bodies of five dead men to locals in Panchalthan, who order them to bury the bodies. Police burn the personal effects, but villagers pull out clothes belonging Ahmad Dalal and an ID card belonging to another missing man.

Who are the real culprits?

Bill Clinton, then U.S. President, who was visiting India, later wrote: “During my visit to India in 2000, some Hindu militants decided to vent their outrage by murdering 38 Sikhs in cold blood.” [18]

Other suspects include Indian police or military in Kashmir; after discovery of mass graves in 2006, Amnesty International (2008) reported: “The grave sites are believed to contain the remains of victims of unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, torture and other abuses.” [19] Pankaj Mishra reports some Kashmiri Sikhs believe the massacre was “organized by Indian intelligence agencies to influence Clinton, and the Western journalists covering his visit, into taking a tougher line toward Pakistan.” [20]

Who won? The government won because it solidified its control over Kashmir, justified its presence to the international community, and, although it got a little caught, it is remembered as a hero for the storyline it spun about its staged shootout with kidnapped Muslims.

4. The Samjhauta Express Bombing

The fourth incident was the Samjhauta Express bombing on February 18, 2007 in the City of Panipat in the State of Haryana and the subsequent Malegaon bombing on September 29, 2008 in the City of Malegaon in the State of Maharashtra. Over 60 percent of victims in the Samjhauta Express bombing were Muslims and most victims in the Malegaon bombing were Muslim, but Muslims were the guilty party initially implicated by the government. The outcome was derailment of scheduled peace talks between India and Pakistan.

What supposedly happened?

February 18, 2007 — Around midnight, the first India-Pakistan rail line, Samjhauta Express, was bombed on its way to Pakistan. Sixty-eight people die in the blast. India immediately blames the attack on Muslim terrorists.

That same day, Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri cancels his scheduled visit to Delhi to discuss the peace process in the disputed Jammu and Kashmir region. India’s Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav concludes: “This is an act of sabotage. This is an attempt to derail the improving relationship between India and Pakistan.”

Also the same day, the most senior Bharatiya Janata Party members spoke in Parliament, demanding  stricter limits on civil liberties and reintroduction of repealed laws like “Prevention of Terror Act, 2002” (POTA), which allowed suspects to be detained for three months without charges on the accusations of anonymous witnesses. [21]

September 29, 2008 — A bomb blast in a market in Malegaon, a city in the State of Maharashtra, kills six. India again blames Muslim terrorist groups, despite the bombing occurring in a “predominantly Muslim area.” [22]

What really happened?

November 2008 — Both cases break under investigation by Mumbai’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), headed by Hemant Karkare, who begins arresting suspects. One of the investigating officers, S.M. Mushrif, wrote: “The involvement of a Hindutva (Brahminist) terror group called Abhinav Bharat and some army officers and religious leaders was revealed. It has been suspected that the same group is responsible for bomb blast on Samjhauta Express, Ajmer Dargah and some other places.” [23]

The ATS arrest Lieutenant Colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit, an active-duty military intelligence officer in the Indian Army and Major Ramesh Upadhyaya, a retired Indian Army officer who “once headed the RSS’s Mumbai unit of the Ex-Serviceman’s Cell.” [24]

November 15, 2008 — Express India reports: “The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) suspects that Lt Col Prasad Purohit supplied the RDX that was used in the Samjhauta Express blast…. The ATS suspects Purohit supplied the explosive to a person named ‘Bhagwan’ who is believed to be a link in the bomb blasts.” [25]

October 25, 2010 — A report by the State of Rajasthan’s ATS announces discovery of the agenda from as secret meeting of Hindu nationalists, where “locations for targeting Muslims were discussed, which included Jama Masjid, New Delhi, Dargah Sharif, Ajmer, Mecca Masjid Hyderabad, Malegaon’s Muslim population and the Samjhauta Express.” [26]

July 2010 —  FRONTLINE magazine reports: “The charge-sheet says the accused are linked to a Hindu fundamentalist group called Abhinav Bharat. It was to be a front organisation ‘with the intention of propagating a Hindu Rashtra’…. The Abhinav Bharat had put together an ambitious plan that called for a Taliban-like government that would ensure that India was rid of anyone opposed to the idea of a Hindu Rashtra.” [27]

February 25, 2014 — India Today reports Purohit, after serving five years without bail or conviction, wrote to the Home Minister, calling himself  “outrightly innocent.” His defense, reports the article, was “that he had infiltrated into saffron fundamentalist organisations on the express instructions of his superiors in the military intelligence and had duly passed on all intelligence gathered.” [28]

Who are the real culprits?

Hindu terrorists linked to the Indian Army and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a militant social organization in India which a 2009 U.S. State Department report said advocates an “ideology of Hindutva, which holds non-Hindus as foreign to India.” [29] Narendra Modi is a member since childhood.

Perhaps Lt. Col. Purohit’s claim of being an undercover operative spying on Abhinav Bharat for the military is true, but if so, he may be a scapegoat for higher-level officers, considering he claims he “duly passed on all the intelligence gathered” and yet no one acted to stop the Samjhauta Express and Malegaon bombings.

Who won? The government won, since Narendra Modi is now Prime Minister, and the BJP, RSS, and other Hindu supremacist organizations are now backed by state power in India.

India Should Invite Independent International Investigation of 2014 Hyderabad Riots

Arvin Valmuci, spokesman for OFMI, remarked: “The system is simple. Agents provocateurs working for the Indian State stage terror to stir up communal conflict to keep power. The public begins to misperceive the targeted minority as all violent people. Executive powers ride in to save the day by brutally massacring the minority group.

“The majority, ecstatic to be saved from the constructed threat, vote the responsible politicians into higher and higher offices. Politicians gain more power, minorities keep getting massacred, and the Indian State continues to prove itself as the greatest threat to India’s national integrity.”

Valmuci said OFMI recommends the Modi regime in India invite an internationally-recognized humans rights organizations such as the Carter Center, Ensaaf, or Human Rights Watch to send investigators to independently examine the violence in Hyderabad. “With so much clear evidence of state subterfuge in India, the credibility of humanitarians in the international community is at stake unless they speak out against this increasingly common behavior,” concluded Bhajan Singh.

Sources:

1. “3 die as cops fire on rioters in Hyderabad.” The Times of India. May 15, 2014.

2. SikhsHelpingSikhs SHS. May 14, 2014. “shs20140515 audio.” Commentary by Manmit Singh, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/Z7U-2nRyGUk.

3. Singh, Bhinder and Patrick J. Nevers. “The Faces of Terror in India.” (Lathrop, CA: Sovereign Star Publishing, 2011), p. 4.

4. Ibid, p. 16.

5. Government of India. White Paper on the Punjab Agitation (New Delhi: Govt. of India Press, 1984), p. 165

6. Dhillon, Gurdarshan Singh. Truth About Punjab: SGPC White Paper (South Asia Books, 1996), pp. 177-178.

7. Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh. Struggle for Justice: Speeches and Conversations of Sant Jarnail Singh Khalsa Bhindranwale, tr. Ranbir Singh Sandhu (South Asia Books, 2000), p. 29.

8. Grewal, Gurdev. The Searching Eye: An Insider Looks at the Punjab Crisis (New Delhi: Rupa & Co., 2006), p. 122-123.

9. Crossette, Barbara. “In Punjab, Sikh Turns Against Sikh.” The New York Times. March 25, 1988

10. Tempest, Rone. “Violence by Sikh Separatists Escalates in Punjab.” The Los Angeles Times. April 2, 1988.

11. Weisman, Steven R. “India Sees Hope in New Sikh Leaders.” The New York Times. April 10, 1988

12. Donthi, Praveen. “Known Unknowns.” The Caravan. December 1, 2013.

13. Bhagat, Dhiren. The Contemporary Conservative: Selected Writings, ed. Salman Khurshid (New Delhi, India: Viking, 1990), pp. 37-38.

14. Johnston, Bryan. “Servile press spikes scoop.” Globe and Mail. May 3, 1988.

15. Donthi, “Known Unknowns.”

16. Talbott, Strobe. Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy, and the Bomb (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2004), pp. 193-194.

17. Mishra, Pankaj. Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet, and Beyond (New York City: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006), p. 159

18. Albright, Madeleine. The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (New York City: HarperCollins, 2006), p. xi.

19. “Thousands lost in Kashmir mass graves.” Amnesty International. April 18, 2008.

20. Mishra, p. 166.

21. “BJP seeks anti-terror bill in budget session.” The Times of India. February 19, 2007.

22. Katakam, Anupama. “Terrorist face.” FRONTLINE. Vol. 27, Issue, 17, Jul. 31-Aug. 13, 2010.

23. Mushrif, S. M. Who Killed Karkare: The Real Face of Terrorism in India (New Delhi: Pharos Media, 2009), pp. 54-55.

24. Mushrif, p. 178.

25. Plumber, Mustafa and Anubhuti Vishnoi. “Purohit supplied RDX for Samjhauta bomb: ATS.” Express India. November 15, 2008.

26. Nair, Smita. “A blast and a conspiracy.” The Indian Express. October 25, 2010.

27. Katakam, “Terrorist face.”

28. Sawant, Gaurav C. “Malegoan blast case: Lt Col Srikant Purohit, in jail for five years, writes to Shinde, seeks parity with Muslim undertrials.” India Today. February 25, 2014.

29. United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Annual Report 2009: India Chapter, p. 2.