India connection among captured Taliban?

Times of India ^ | 2001.12.03 | RASHMEE Z AHMED

[N00dleN0gg1n]

India connection among captured Taliban?

RASHMEE Z AHMED

TIMES NEWS NETWORK
LONDON: Two days after 85 foreign Taliban soldiers emerged blinking into the world from their subterranean hell-hole in Qala-i-Jhangi fort near Mazar-i-Sharif, reports say there is an India connection of sorts among some of the fighters and those they fought.

The most revealing of these, according to The Times, London, is the strange case of Abdul Hamid, formerly John Philip Walker of Washington D.C.

In an account as chilling as it is considered incriminating for Pakistan's well-documented links with the Taliban, the paper quotes Hamid to say he fought Indian troops in Kashmir, alongside his Pakistani Taliban brethren.

Analysts say the 'white fighter and his Kashmir connection' has struck the British media with great force, though it is hardly unusual to find Britons among the Valley's militants.

The most prominent case, pointed out an Indian diplomat, was that of Omar Sheikh, the former London School of Economics student who became a jihadi for the Kashmir cause and was incarcerated in an Indian jail for five years till External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh personally ferried him to Kandahar for the hostage-hijacker swap one year ago.

But it is not just those who fought India who feature among the ranks of the scrawny, soot-blackened survivors of the Qala-i-Jangi prison revolt.

Among the 400 foreign fighters reported to be held by the Northern Alliance at present, are several Indians, all of whom reportedly claim they are wrongly accused of fighting alongside the Taliban.

One among them, according to British domestic broadcaster Sky, is Javed Farooqui, an old man who apparently finished up in Afghanistan by way of Britain and India.

Farooqui, who described his move to Afghanistan in 1997 as part of the "search for a more spiritual life, a pious life", denied he was ever a Taliban fighter.

He left his comfortable home in Wembley, north London to "live like a saint", he said and seemed to hold his Pakistani fellow-prisoners in contempt.

"Most of them are from Pakistan and they are uneducated", the former London bank employee disdainfully told Sky TV’s correspondent, who suggested that Farooqui’s "English and Indian roots" set the old man well apart from the herd.

The foreign ranks of the Taliban have become a troubling part of an apparently fast-concluding story of bombing, bloodshed, death and justice.

According to human rights activists, including the London-based Amnesty International, the former John Walker, British and Pakistani fighters are the only ones who could conceivably be sent 'home', even if they ultimately face trial for treason in the US and UK.

Commentators acknowledge that the disparate Arabs and Chechens are a lingering human problem because their governments would be unable or unwilling to take them back.

But no one, least of all anyone in authority, has spoken so far of those among the ranks who claim to be ‘Indian’.

[sheik yerbouty]

India is 90% Hindu.

[HopieAnn]

Actually it's about 60% Hindu, 30% Muslim, 10% Christion/Other

[Sonny M]

Actually it really is about 90% Hindu. Its a country of over a Billion people. Around 100,000,000 people are muslim. Give or take a few million, most of the rest are Hindu, and there is a small christian/jewish/buddhist segment. Though small by percentage, is actually huge numbers.

[mikeIII]

Today has a Moslem population of 140Million - second largest in the world. Probably the most moderate too.
"...
Population (1999 est.): one billion; urban 32%. Annual growth rate: 1.8%. Density: 311/sq. km. Ethnic groups: Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid 2%, others. Religions: Hindu 81.3%, Muslim 12%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, other groups including Buddhist, Jain, Parsi 2.5%.
...."
www.state.gov

[sheik yerbouty]

Your percentages seem lopsided.

[BERZERKER]

Your percentages clash with the CIA Factbook, The US Department of State, and Indian factbooks.

The percentage is broken down as Hindu 81.3%, Muslim 12%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, Judaism 1.0%, other groups including Buddhist, Jain, Parsi at 2.5% (2000).

In terms of languages spoken there, English enjoys mainstream status and is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication. Hindi is the national language.

[HopieAnn]

Actually, I just got all my info from Indians that work here in my office. Those were the percentages they gave me. From their observations.

Actually one of the women I work with was at the Stock Exchange back in '92 (I think) when it was bombed (along with the Air-India, and other stuff).

She was pretty traumatized and suffered almost a post-tramatic shock type after the WTC attack.

I wouldn't be surprised that the "feelings" she carries for Muslim seperatists makes her perceive them more. She say's Muslims have a very big presence in India, especially Fridays.