Pakistani Jihad-ISIS Spreads Terror Tentacles in a Dozen Indian States

This article will review the current jihadist threat to India from the Islamic State, or ISIS, as well as from Pakistan, which seems to be reviving militancy in Punjab.

Three days before the 27 Julyterror attacks in Gurdaspur district, a media report noted on 24 July that Punjab “is reportedly witnessing revival of Khalistan Movement”, basically a terror network backed by Pakistan.

This article will also argue thatthe Indian government and the judiciary need to put curbs on social media networks and the Urdu press to curtail pro-jihadist rationalisations.

While the French Revolution gave us the slogans of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, the post-9/11 reality of global jihad means that India must add a fourth component to the cause of human freedom: Security.

Indian Intelligence Reports

On 21 July, journalist Aman Sharma of The Economic Timesreported that the Home Ministry would soon hold “a meeting with states to discuss the growing influence of ISIS in the country.”

Sometime in July, the Home Ministry prepared a note that aims to evolve a national Plan of Action against the “phenomenon of ISIS.” Sharma added: “intelligence agencies have raised concerns over indications of ISIS influence in at least a dozen states, including the sensitive state of Jammu & Kashmir.”

These concerns were flagged off by intelligence agencies, Sharma noted in his report, especially for “Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Jammu & Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh among a dozen states in this regard.”

According to the report, the July note observes:

“As per available intelligence inputs, very few number of Indian youth(s) have joined ISIS after travelling to Iraq and Syria. Further, intelligence/security agencies have foiled the plan of some youth(s) to travel to Iraq/Syria who are under counselling and monitoring at present. A certain number of ISIS sympathisers are also under surveillance by security agencies.”

As per the report, Home Secretary L.C. Goyal, working to evolve a national strategy on counter-radicalisation, expressed concern in an earlier note dated June 20 that “radicalisation of youth is increasingly becoming an issue of ‘serious concern’ in the government in the context of the ISIS.”

As the support of ISIS has grown worldwide over the past year, India is known to have some alert minds at the wheels such asNational Security Advisor Ajit Doval. As per a media report, Doval who took a two-day trip to Kashmir on July 21-22 has called “a high-level security meeting of 10 states to discuss the ‘silent’ threat.”

The report also noted that former Intelligence Bureau (IB) chief Syed Asif Ibrahim, who is known for counter-radicalisation expertise, has been engaged by the government for a role in Kashmir. On July 24, another media report noted that “top-level representatives of 10 states including Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, which is reportedly witnessing revival of Khalistan Movement, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and the North-East Indian states, will be present” at the upcoming meeting of states on the influence of ISIS.

Indian Muslim Youth Joining Al Qaeda and ISIS

Speaking at a counter-terrorism conference in Jaipur, Home Minister Rajnath Singh had said on March 19: “Influence of the Islamic State on the Indian youth(s) is negligible as just a handful of Indian youth(s) have joined the ISIS and some have also returned after being persuaded by their families.”

At a public event in Assam last year, Rajnath Singh had said: “in such a large country, only 18 Muslim youths have been attracted to the ISIS.” Over the course of the past 12 months, Indian media reports about the number of Indian Muslims joining ISIS and Al-Qaeda or expressing support for them have put varying figures: four, five, six, 11, 13, 15, 25, 80, 100 and 300. This month, reports indicated that 11 Indians may have travelled to Syria and Iraq, joining the ISIS.

Indian NSA Head Ajit Doval

India is a large country of 1.23 billion people, which means that it will be always difficult for intelligence agencies to be present everywhere. While the actual figures of Indian Muslims joining ISIS may not be known, it seems that the number of Indian Muslims attracted to the jihadist call of ISIS could be between a few scores up to 300.

Indian Muslims who joined the ISIS followed several paths: four individuals flew directly from Mumbai to Iraq; one Kashmiri youth based in Australia went directly to Syria via Turkey; some youths from Tamil Nadu based in Singapore travelled to Syria; Indian youths from the UAE and other Middle Eastern countries joined ISIS.

Areeb Majeed, one of the four Mumbai youths, disclosed after return that he counted 13 Indians at a terror training camp in Syria. Youths of Indian origin from the UK and South Africa are suspected to be based in Syria. Also, some of a dozen Indian Muslims who went to the Pakistan-Afghanistan region appear to have travelled to Syria to join the Islamic State.

Rising Support for ISIS in Jammu & Kashmir

Of special importance is Jammu & Kashmir, which borders Pakistan.

Lt.-Gen. Subrata Saha of the Indian Army noted recently that during 2014: “There were five instances when we saw the flags (of ISIS) on display at different places, on four occasions in Srinagar and one occasion at Shopian.”

A string of media reports in June-July this year indicated that there is increasing support for ISIS among Kashmiri youths. On June 12, ISIS flags were hoisted during a protest following the weekly Friday prayers at a mosque in Srinagar as well as at another mosque in Kupwara district. On June 19, an ISIS flag was waved by a masked youth in a rally organised by separatists in Anantnag district. On June 26, ISIS flag was waved during a protest in Srinagar.

The act of waving ISIS flags is mostly of political nature and is continuing. On July 17 and 18, ISIS and Pakistani flags were waved during a protest in Srinagar against the house arrest of secessionist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani. On July 24, the ISIS flag was shown in Srinagar.

In the past, Kashmiri youths waved Pakistani flags as a form of anti-India protest. But the Pakistani flag is being increasingly replaced by the ISIS flag in these protests which mostly occur after the weekly Friday prayers, and do not mean that these youths are essentially members of the ISIS. However, an Indian media report dated July 22 indicates that “32 youths were reported to have joined the ranks of militants” in Jammu & Kashmir this year, not necessarily with the ISIS.

Kashmiri militants pose in a recent video

Recently, a group of 11 Kashmiri youths who joined the Pakistan-backed terror group Hizbul Mujahideen this year released a video of themselves dressed in military fatigues and carrying guns. The video was shot somewhere in a forest in Kashmir. The ages of the militants range from 19 to 29; and ten of them have been identified by the local security officials.

As per a media report, the number of foreign terrorists in Kashmir is over 50.

Journalist Bashaarat Masood wrote in a July 26 report: “33 young men… have joined the ranks of militancy in the first six months of the year in the [Kashmir] Valley, taking the total number of its active militants to 142. Of the 142, 54 are foreigners, mostly from Pakistan, and 88 are local youths.”

Speaking on the Kargil Vijay Diwas – which marks India’s victory in Kargil on July 26, 1999 in the largest Pakistani state-supported jihadist war against India in recent times – Lt.-General D. S. Hooda, the chief of Indian Army’s Northern Command, told reporters that the ISIS was “creeping towards this side” in India from Pakistan. Hooda said:

“There are no large footprints of ISIS in Jammu & Kashmir. Yes, there are incidents of flag waving that we have seen. Is it a matter of concern, yes it is. Because ISIS is such an organisation with such radical sort of ideology and views that we should make sure that it doesn’t even get a hold.”

Lt.-General Hooda also noted that in recent years, the number of Kashmiri youths joining militancy was about five, six or seven per year, but this has now shot up. He further stated:

“There are reports that last year [in 2014], according to our intelligence figures, about 60 local recruits, mostly from south Kashmir, and this year, about 30-35 is the figure that we have [of youths who joined militancy]. The number is not that large that it will transform the security situation in Jammu & Kashmir.” “But obviously, it is a matter of concern when young people have now slowly again started picking up the gun because two-three years back, the numbers were single digit – five, six or seven – that was the kind of recruitment taking place”

There are other estimates indicating that about 100 terrorists were able to infiltrate per year into Jammu & Kashmir from Pakistan in recent years.

Pervez Musharraf

The ISIS threat to India is complicated because there is always a risk that the Pakistani military’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), known for creating and nurturing terrorist groups to fight against Afghanistan and India, could rope in some of the ISIS-affiliated jihadists in Pakistan-Afghanistan region.

India has always been alert to the state-supported jihadist organisations. At the March 19 conference, Rajnath Singh accurately diagnosed:

“The source of most terrorist activity in India lies across our borders. It is unfortunate that even after paying such a heavy cost for itself, Pakistan and its associates find it difficult to understand that there are no ‘good terrorists and bad terrorists’.”

The reference to “good terrorists” is generally not comprehensible to unsuspecting audiences in the Western countries, who come to misleadingly think that these are some “good” Taliban that Pakistan uses. However, for Indian audiences, it is clear that “good” are those terrorists which Pakistan uses to advance jihad against Afghanistan and India.

The fact that India has always been alert to the Pakistani state-backed jihadist threat does not automatically follow that New Delhi has also been meeting the challenge. The default Indian position has been to reach out for peace; its best example was Pakistani army ruler General Pervez Musharraf who masterminded the jihadist incursion into Kargil in 1999 and on whose watch the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks were planned. He was hosted in Delhi and Agra as if he was the envoy of peace.Musharraf is regularly feted by Indian journalists who lap him up for exclusive interviews as if he was a saint despite the overwhelming evidence against him for launching the Kargil war, arguably the biggest jihadist attack against India in recent memory.

Put Curbs on Urdu Press and Social Media Networks

While India has military preponderance to deal with the Pakistani state, the work of counter-radicalisation in India should involve the following: both the government and the Indian judiciary should stay alert to the use of social media by jihadist groups, as well as propagation of jihad and rationalisations of Muslim grievances by Urdu and other media outlets, both offline and online, accessed by Indian Muslim youths.

In his landmark speech in Birmingham on July 20, British Prime Minister David Cameronnoted:

“as we counter this ideology [of Islamic extremism], a key part of our strategy must be to tackle both parts of the creed – the non-violent and violent.”

India must remain aware of the challenge of ISIS in the domain of non-violence as various Islamist groups seek to get a foothold in Indian Muslim societies through non-violent means.

During the post-9/11 years, it has been observed that the Left-liberal groups defended the terrorists’ rights to free speech. The Washington DC-based Middle East Media Research Institute(MEMRI), to which this writer is affiliated, has highlighted through a series of research papers how jihadist groups are using social media such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and Tumblr to propagate jihad, offer video tutorials in assembling bombs and recruit terrorists.

In the early days when ISIS was yet to make a mark, attempts by MEMRI to have the jihadist content on the internet removed was countered by officials from social media networks that it would be violation of free speech and was not humanly possible to do so.

In a January 30 essay published inForbes magazine, Yigal Carmon and Steven Stalinsky of MEMRI argued the following:

“One can hardly imagine the development of the global jihad movement without the Internet. An entire generation of Muslim youth(s) has been and continues to be radicalized online by violent images and incitements to murder.”

They noted:

“These [social media] companies should be questioned in a transparent framework, and must commit to tackling the problem of eradicating violent jihadi content from their platforms. It is time for the government to catch up to terrorist use of the Internet and create and enforce new laws to address this problem.”

A purely technological argument has also been offered: since most social media networks already use algorithms to prevent child abuse content from appearing on their websites, they must similarly prevent the publication of jihadist content through algorithms and proactive monitoring.

David Cameron’s call for a counter-radicalisation strategy also means that the Indian government must put curbs on media outlets, which promote Islamic extremism through non-violent means by offering justifications on the grounds of Muslim grievance issues.

This is especially important for India where a section of the Urdu press is engaged in rationalising the jihadist arguments against democratic governments as well as against liberal and reformist voices among Muslims.

Urdu Times

 

Two examples from India’s Urdu press here are highly relevant. First, Roznama Urdu Times, a Mumbai-based Urdu-language daily newspaper, published a leading article by Muhammad Najeeb Qasmi Sanbhali in its issue dated December 26, arguing that Muslims being converted to Hinduism are justified to be killed. The article quoted Hazrat Ayesha, the wife of Prophet Muhammad, as saying that the prophet had said: “if a person leaves his religion (of Islam), then murder him.”

The article, written in the context of  the ghar wapsi (re-conversion) debate emanating from Hindu groups’ attempts at reconversion of Muslims and Christians, quoted verses of the Qur’an, hadiths (sayings and deeds of Prophet Muhammad), as well as sayings and practices of the Righteous Caliphs (the first four caliphs of Islam: Abu Bakr, Umar ibn Khattab, Usman ibn Affan, and Ali ibn Abi Talib) to justify the killing of apostates, i.e. Muslims who leave Islam.

It should be mentioned that the killing of apostates is a major argument forwarded by jihadist organisations across the world, including Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and ISIS. The Urdu daily stated:

“In this verse [152 of Koran’s chapter Al-Araf], Allah has clearly ordered that an apostate be killed… In fact, the first interpreter of the Koran, Prophet Muhammad, has clearly ordered the killing of a person becoming apostate.”

The second example is that ofHaftroza Nai Duniya, a mass-circulation Urdu weekly newspaper published and edited by former parliamentarian Shahid Siddiqui. The newspaper’s issue dated May 25-31, 2015 was devoted to the issue of “terrorism and Islam.”

Through a series of articles, whose authors were not identified, the Urdu weekly narrated a series of grievances, both historical from the era of Prophet Muhammad to the contemporary times, to indirectly inculcate in the minds of Muslim youths the same arguments that jihadist organisations are forwarding.

For example, the Haftroza Nai Duniya argued that jihad is essentially defensive in nature and all wars involving Muslims have always been due to aggression on the part of non-Muslims right from the days of Prophet Muhammad till the present times. By not naming the authors of the articles, Haftroza Nai Duniya sought to escape individual responsibility for the views expressed in them, but in such a situation it will be right to infer that those views are of the newspaper’s editor Shahid Siddiqui.

Shahid Siddiqui

The newspaper published conspiracy theories such as these: American soldiers chopped off Osama bin Laden’s body into pieces and threw them on the mountains of Afghanistan as they were returning from the 2011 operation in Abbottabad; the “so-called Islamic terrorism has been born from the womb of American imperialism” and there is an “organised conspiracy from Hollywood to television serials” to facilitate American foreign policy in the Middle East.

It also posed a question and answered: “The Islamic State’s massacres: After all, who is mutilating the character of Islam?” – “There is only one answer: America.”

It should be mentioned that Islamic clerics routinely disparage Jews to advance grievances against the non-Muslim world.

Shahid Siddiqui’s Haftroza Nai Duniya justified the massacre of nearly 900 Jews of Banu Quraiza on Prophet Muhammad’s orders. It should be noted that the Banu Quraiza Jews had surrendered, offering to leave behind their wealth. If an Indian journalist deems it fit to justify the massacre of nearly a thousand surrendered persons, one is left wondering how he is different from ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi who too beheads numerous surrendered Shias, Christians and gays in Syria and Iraq today.

Continuing Threat of Pakistan

As long as Pakistan continues to exist, India will continue to face a threat to its security. This is purely due to the ideological nature of the Pakistani state, currently being strengthened with American money and arms.

The July 27 terror attacks in Gurdaspur occurred even as the Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Muhammad Saeed is engaged in recruiting youths from refugee camps of Burmese Muslims in Indonesia.

Indian youths should remain aware of the jihadist threat that is seeping into our society. However, they should also remain alert that jihadists seek to cause fear among masses. Jihadists will succeed if the people start acting with paranoia, thereby hurting the social cohesion of India and damaging relations between various communities.

While the security forces, intelligence agencies and police departments work to check the phenomenon of jihadism, counter-extremism will succeed only when Indians join hands and work to strengthen the country’s cohesion. On Twitter and other social media platforms, one sees Indian youths getting worried about the jihadist threat to India.

To the youths of India who are in the tempestuous age of teens to twenties: yours is an age when you should have fun, go to college and study, do fall in love but do not convert in order to marry, and work hard to succeed in life.

This will ensure that the Republic of India is secure for the next half a century and more.

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Major Islamic Terror Attacks In India till 2006

India is being attacked by Islamists from inside as well as outside

Major Terrorist Attacks In IndiaMarch 12, 1993 - A series of bomb blasts, planted by Muslim underworld figures, rock the country's commercial capital of Bombay, killing some 260 people and injuring 713.

February 14, 1998 - 46 persons were killed and more than 200 injured when 13 blasts ripped through Coimbatore, members from Al-Umma, All India Al-Jihad Committee, and Peoples Democratic Party were found to be behind the attack.

December 24-31, 1999 – Pakistani militants hijack an Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu to New Delhi with 189 people aboard, kill one passenger and force the release of three jailed Muslim militants in exchange.

December 22, 2000 - Lashkar-e-Taiba militants attack the Red Fort in Delhi that left two Army personnel and a civilian dead.

October 1, 2001 - At least 21 people killed in a suicide bomb explosion and gunfire at the assembly in Kashmir in an attack by suspected Islamic militants.

December 13, 2001 - Heavily armed Islamic militant group opened fire in Parliament complex, killing several people in an unprecedented attack on the seat of power in the world's biggest democracy.

January 22, 2002 - Four people were killed in an attack on the American Center, Kolkata by Lashkar-e-Taiba militants.

March 30, 2002 - Seven Hindus killed in an attack by Islamic militants on the Raghunath Temple in Jammu.

May 14, 2002 - More than 30 army men were killed in a terrorist attack on an Army camp near Jammu.

September 24, 2002 - 35 people were killed when 2 Lashkar-e-Taiba militants attacked the Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

December 2, 2002 - Two persons were killed and 31 injured in a powerful explosion in a bus outside the crowded Ghatkopar railway station in Mumbai. Students Islamic Movement of India was suspected to be behind the blasts

December 6, 2002 - Twenty-five people were injured in a bomb blast by members of the Students Islamic Movement of India at McDonalds fast food restaurant at Mumbai Central railway station. The bomb was planted in the airconditioner duct. It was suspected to be a crude bomb.

January 27, 2003 - At least 30 people were injured when a bomb planted on a bicycle went off throwing splinters of sharp nails outside Vile Parle railway station in Mumbai. Members of SIMI were found to be behind the attack.

March 13, 2003 - A powerful bomb blast shattered a bogie of a local train at Mulund railway station in Mumbai during peak hours killing 11 people and injuring more than 65. This was the most powerful serial explosion.

August 23, 2003 - Two bombings at the Gateway of India and the Mumba Devi temple in Mumbai killed 52, injured 167. Terrorists from Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Students Islamic Movement of India were found to be behind the attacks.

July 28, 2003 - Bus blast kills 3 and injures 31 others in Mumbai. Pakistani intelligence agency: ISI and members of the Students Islamic Movement of India were found to be behind the blast.

July 5, 2005 - Five Bangladeshi terrorists, trained by the Jaish-e-Mohammad, attacked the Ram Janmabhumi in Ayodhya, all 5 killed, 1 civilian died.

October 29, 2005 - 67 people were killed and 224 injured in serial bombings in major Delhi markets on Diwali eve. A Pakistani group, Islamic Inquilab Mahaz, claimed responsibility for the attack. The group is linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba.

March 7, 2006 - At least 20 persons were killed and over 101 injured when two blasts rocked Varanasi. The first blast took place at the Sankat Mochan Hanuman temple, the second at the Varanasi railway station. Terrorists from Lashkar-e-Taiba were found to be behind the attack.

June 1, 2006 - Three heavily armed terrorists were killed in an encounter with the police when they tried to drive through the security cordon guarding the RSS headquarters in Nagpur. Two policemen were injured in the encounter.

Massacre of Hindus and Sikhs in Kashmir

2006
April 30: 19 Hindus killed in remote villages of Panjdobi and Thava in Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir
May 1: 13 Hindus killed in Vasantpur area of Udhampur district of Jammu and Kashmir
May 23: 7 Hindu tourists killed in grenade attack in Srinagar
May 25: 3 Hindu tourists killed, seven injured in grenade attack in Srinagar
May 31: 21 Hindu tourists wounded in grenade attack in Srinagar
June 12: 1 Amarnath pilgrim killed, 31 wounded in grenade attack in Jammu
June 12: 8 Hindu laborers killed, 5 wounded in Anantnag district

2004
April 5: Seven persons killed in Pahalgam area of Anantnag district
June 12: 5 Hindu tourists killed in Pahalgam

2003
March 24: 24 Hindus killed in Nadimarg village near Shopian in Pulwama 
July 7: 5 Hindus killed in Nowshahra

2002
January 1: 6 Hindus killed in Magnar village of Poonch
January 7: 17 Hindus killed in Ramsoo area of Jammu district, 6 killed in Sonway in Pogal area of Banihal
February 17: 8 Hindus gunned down at Bhambal-Nerla village in Rajouri district
May 14: 33 persons, killed at Kaluchak on the Jammu-Pathankote highway
July 13: 28 Hindus killed in Rajiv Nagar in Jammu
August 6: 9 Amarnath pilgrims killed and 32 wounded at a base camp at Nunwan near Pahalgam
August 29: 10 Hindus killed in Rajouri and Doda districts
November 24: 14 killed and 53 injured at the historic Raghunath temple in Jammu

2001
February 3: 8 Sikhs gunned down in Mahjoornagar in Srinagar
February 11: 15 Gujjar families massacred in Kot-Chadwal in Rajouri district
March 17: 8 killed near Atholi in Doda district
May 10: 8 Hindus killed in Paddar Kishtwar, Doda
July 21: 13 Hindus killed in Amarnath attack
July 21: 20 Hindus killed in Kishtwar, Doda
July 22: 15 Hindus killed in Cheergi and Tagood villages in Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir
August 4: 15 Hindus gunned down in Shrotidar village in Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir

2000
February 28: Five Hindu drivers killed near Qazigund in Anantnag district 
February 29: Five Sikh drivers killed in Qazikund, Kashmir Valley
March 20: 35 Sikhs killed in Chittisinghpura village near Jammu
August 1: 31 Hindus including Amarnath pilgrims killed in Pahalgam in Anantnag
August 1: 27 labourers killed in Qazigund and Achabal in Anantnag district
August 2: 7 Hindus killed in Kupwara district 
August 2: 12 Hindus killed in Doda district of Jammu
August 2: 8 Hindus killed in Marwah, Doda
November 24: Five Hindus killed in Kishtwar, Doda

1999
February 13: Five Hindus killed in Udhampur
February 19: 19 Hindus killed in Rajouri, 4 in Udhampur
June 29: 12 Hindu labourers from Bihar killed in Santhu village of Annatnag
July 1: Nine Hindus killed in Mendhar Poonch
July 15: 15 Hindus of Thathri village of Doda killed
July 19: 15 Hindus killed at Layata in Doda

1998
Januaryuary 26: 23 Kashmiri pandits killed in Wandhama in Valley
April 17: 29 Hindus killed in Prankot and Dhakikot villages of Udhampur
April 18: 27 Hindus killed at Prankote (Doda)
May 5: Five Hindus killed in Surankot Poonch
May 6: 11 Hindu Village Defence Committee members killed
June 19: 25 Hindus killed in Chapnari (Doda) 
July 27: 20 Hindus killed in Kishtwar, Doda
August 8: Thirty-five labourers killed in Kalaban, bordering Doda and Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh

1997
January 25 17 Hindus killed in Sumber area of Doda district 
January 26: 25 Kashmiri Pandits killed in Wundhama, Srinagar
April 7: Seven Kashmiri Pandits killed in Sangrampur
June 24: 8 Hindus killed in Swari (Rajouri) 
September 24: Seven Hindus killed in Sawari village of Rajouri

1996
January 5: 16 Hindus killed in Barshalla village of Doda
Januaryuary 12: Seven Hindus killed in Bhaderwah, Doda
May 6: 17 Hindus killed in Sumbar Ramban tehsil of Doda
June 7-8: Nine Hindus killed in Kamladi village of Doda

1993
August 1: 17 Hindus killed in Sarthal in Bhaderwah area of Doda when Hindus were segregated from a bus

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Saffron Terror - A Congress Conspiracy to destroy Narendra Modi

   May27, 2016

   Shwetank Bhushan

In the previous column this author explained how the entire Ishrat Jehan Episode was planned by previous Congress Government. to eliminate a rising political opponent, Mr. Narendra Modi, either physically, politically or judicially.

Lead by Sonia and Rahul Gandhi and represented by Ex-PM Dr. Manmohan Singh, Ex Home Ministers P. Chidambaram and Sushil Kumar Shinde, all of them together misused and abused the constitutional offices under oath and compromised the national security of this country and protecting the enemies who has been killing our citizens in the terror attacks and bleeding India.

A series of low-intensity terror attacks targeting Muslims were conducted to create a "Saffron Terror" background, and 26/11 was the culmination. Hindu extremist organizations have been accused of involvement in terrorist attacks like 2006 Malegaon blasts, Mecca Masjid bombing (Hyderabad), Samjhauta Express bombings and the Ajmer Sharif Dargah blast. In this post, we will focus on each such terror allegations, especially the Samjhauta Express Blast case (since it's been in focus for a long time) . 

Malegaon Blasts: 8th September 2006

A series of bomb blasts that took place in Malegaon, a town in the Nashik district of the Indian State of Maharashtra. Most of the blast victims were Muslim pilgrims.

In the September 2006 incident, police investigations have determined that the explosives contained in these bombings were "a cocktail of RDX, Ammonium Nitrate and fuel oil, the same mixture used in July 2006 Mumbai train bombings, a terrorist incident for which several Islamist groups are suspects. Since the investigation was still under way, Nasik Superintendent of Police, Rajvardhan declined to give details, saying: "We can't say anything till we get reports from all the agencies", but soon released the sketches of two suspects. Here is the Report.

On 30 October, Times of India reported that first arrest was made in Malegaon blast case. This is the arrest of Noor-Ul-Hooda, an activist of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). On 13th October, the DGP of Mumbai, Mr. Pasricha said that they were very close to cracking the case and claimed to have identified the perpetrators. On 6 November, the Times of India reported from Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) that the prime conspirator Shabbir Batterywala is an operative of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and the co-conspirator is Raees Ahmad of SIMI.

On September 12, 2006, Indian Prime Minister said following, "It will be inappropriate for us to rule out anything or rule in anything. I think there should be a fair investigation which inspires confidence and brings out the truth and nothing but the truth without any pre-conceived notion. That has to be the objective".

Alas! The Maharashtra ATS had prima facie ruled out the involvement of Hindu Nationalist groups.

Samjhauta Express Blasts: 18th February 2007

The twin blasts shook two coaches of the Samjhauta Express around midnight on 18 February 2007. Sixty-eight people were killed in the ensuing fire and dozens were injured. 

It has been allegedly linked to Abhinav Bharat, a Hindu fundamentalist group. In November 2008, it was reported that the Maharashtra ATS suspected the attacks were linked to Prasad Shrikant Purohit, an Indian army officer and a member of Abhinav Bharat.

Purohit himself claimed that he had "infiltrated" the Abhinav Bharat. During an army's Court of Inquiry, 59 witnesses stated to the court along with Officers who testified that Purohit was doing his job of gathering intelligence inputs by infiltrating extremist organizations. Col. Purohit was given a clean chit by the Army's Court of Inquiry. It is interesting that, except the Indian investigators, all others pointed

Now comes the interesting part. Except the Indian investigators, all others pointed fingers at the LeT to be responsible.

“Qasmani Arif, chief coordinator of the relations of LeT with other organizations, has worked with LeT to facilitate terrorist attacks including, the bombing of February 2007 in the Samjhauta Express in Panipat (India).” This is what resolution [No 1267] of the Committee on Sanctions of the United Nations Security Council [UNSC] dated 29.6.2009 declares. Adding that Qasmani was funded by Dawood Ibrahim and he did fund-raising for LeT and Al-Qaida, the UNSC said: “In exchange for their support, Al-Qaida provided support staff for the bombing in February 2007 in the Samjhauta Express in Panipat.” This resolution is available on UN site.

Six months after the UN and the US announced sanctions against LeT and Qasmani, the Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Mallik himself admitted that Pakistani terrorists were involved in the Samjhauta blast, but with a rider that “some Pakistan-based Islamists had been hired by Lt Col Purohit to carry out the Samjhauta Express attack.”

Not just UN or US Treasury or just the admission of Pakistan’s interior minister, in fact, independent investigation in the US revealed more. Some ten months later, Sebastian Rotella, a US journalist, wrote in his investigative report titled, “U.S. agencies were forewarned about suspect in 2008 Mumbai bombings” that Faiza Outalha, the third of wife of David Coleman Headley had confessed [in 2008, that was made public in 2010] that Headley was involved in Samjhauta blast.

In The Washington Post issue dated 5.11.2010, in a column titled, “U.S. agencies were forewarned about suspect in 2008 Mumbai bombings” Sebastian Rotella wrote:   "She said Headley had been given a special mission and that he had both U.S. and Pakistani passports," the senior anti-terror official said. "She said she felt she had been innocently used in an express train bombing" in India that had killed 68 people in 2007. "  

Why did  NIA not name Arif Qasmani as suspect/accused in the Samjhauta blast? Why it did not seek the extradition of Arif Qasmani from Pakistan? What effort did the NIA make to secure the evidence on the basis of which the UNSC had declared Arif Qasmani as the accused in the Samjhauta blast? What effort did it make to secure the evidence on the basis of which the US Treasury Department had declared Arif Qasmani as the perpetrator? Did the NIA write to the Ministry of External Affairs or the Interpol directly for assistance from the US and the UN in the above? Whether it asked the MEA to seek the co-operation of the group established between India and Pakistan for sharing of the information? None.

Even at the start of the Samjhauta investigation in 2007 itself, the probe evidence had clearly pointed to the role of SIMI and LeT. India Today [19.9.2008] in its report titled ‘Pak hand in Mumbai train blast’s, Samjhauta Express blasts", says Nagori gave a meticulous account of the involvement of LeT and Pakistan in the Samjhauta terror. The report was based on narco test testimonies of SIMI leaders. India Today reported that narcotic tests were carried out in Bangalore, in April 2007, three months after the Samjhauta blast.

It revealed that SIMI activists had executed the Samjhauta blast, with the help of the Pakistani nationals from across the border; while Nagori was not directly involved, two members of SIMI Ehtesham Siddiqui and Nasir were directly involved; SIMI members, including Nagori’s brother Kamaruddin, were involved in the Samjhauta blast.

While the NIA is focusing on the confessions made by Swami Aseemanand about the involvement of Hindu extremist groups in the Samjhauta blasts case, the revelations by SIMI claiming responsibility for the attack cannot be overlooked. The contradictory statements by the two radical groups have left the investigators going in circles, reported Vicky Nanjappa.

Why were these clinching pieces of evidence not pursued? How did the blame shift from Islamists to Hindus? Some elements in the Maharashtra police appears to have colluded in linking Malegaon 2008 blast to the Samjhauta blast.

When leads were thus pointing to Pakistan and SIMI as partners in Samjhauta blast, as an anti-climax, the Maharashtra ATS shockingly told the Special Court through the public prosecutor, that Col Purohit, allegedly involved in the Malegaon blast in which RDX was used, had supplied RDX for the Samjhauta blast though one ‘Bhagwan’. Within the next 48 hours [17.11.2009] India Today online refuted the ATS claim saying that Samjhauta investigators had told India Today that study of the blast carried out by the National Security Guard said that no RDX, but Potassium Chlorate and Sulfur had been used as explosives. The magazine also recalled that immediately after the blasts, then Home Minister Shivraj Patil told the media that not RDX, but, a ‘new type of explosive’ had been used to bomb the Samjhauta Express.

On that very day [17.11.2009] the ATS counsel retracted from the statement he had made earlier involving Col Purohit in the Samjhauta blast. But the damage was done in the 48 hours.

The Carvan mentioned Aseemanand claimed that the attacks on the Samjhauta Express, Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid and Ajmer Dargah, and the blasts in Malegaon in 2006 and 2008, were cleared by the highest levels of the RSS. Swami Aseemanand emphatically denies to have had any close door meeting with senior leaders of the RSS in the year 2005 or afterward. Swami Aseemanand challenges the correspondent to prove the truth of the allegations or apologize forthwith.

Immediately Pakistan said that it would raise the issue of Col. Purohit’s involvement in Samjhauta in the Secretaries level meeting on November 25, 2008. Finally on January 20, 2009, Maharastra ATS officially denied that Col Purohit had supplied RDX for Samjhauta. This was how the Samjhauta focus – later the blame – shifted from LeT and SIMI to Col Purohit and via Purohit on to Saffron.

The Maharashtra ATS attempt to link Malegaon 2008 to Samjhauta which shifted the focus away from LeT on to Purohit needs to be probed, particularly given Dawood Ibrahim’s deep influence in Maharastra Police.

For more details on Samjhauta Blast revelations, I strongly recommend S Gurumurthy's Counter Investigation To NIA Investigation in Samjhauta Blast Case.

Mecca Masjid Bombing: 18th May 2007

The Mecca Masjid bombing occurred inside the Mecca Masjid, a mosque in Hyderabad. 14 people were reported dead in the immediate aftermath. The IED contained Cyclotol, a 60:40 mixture of RDX and TNT. These are important inputs as they are specially used by the Islamic Terror outfits.

Though the SIT of Hyderabad Police arrested ‘South India commander’ of the LeT, identified as Shaik Abdul Khaja alias Amjad, from Afzalgunj area of the city. Police said that the arrested was linked to Mohammed Abdul Shahid Bilal, a key suspect in the bombing.

The South Asia Terrorism Portal, the Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis, the National Counter-terrorism Center the United States, and the United Nations reported that Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) was actually behind the attacks while excluding involvement by any Hindu group.

The South Asia Terrorism Portal cited Vikar Ahmed as the main suspect in the blast. Mohammed Abdul Shahid Bilal, former chief of HuJI’s Indian operations, was also regarded as a key suspect in the Mecca Masjid bombing, later he was shot by unknown gunmen in Karachi on 30 August 2007.

But the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and ATS questioned former members of the RSS On 19 November 2010, the CBI produced Swami Aseemanand before the court in connection with the Blast. It is important to note here that Aseemanand made a confession, which was "confidential", which he later retracted.

It is explicit from the NIA charge-sheet that Aseemanand’s retracted confession almost exclusively constitutes the backbone of the NIA case. The leak of Aseemananda’s alleged confession to the media (Tehelka), which is shocking and deliberate, was part of the design to politicize the case, conduct and conclude a media trial, and to create, at the global level, the notion of "Saffron (Hindu) Terror" for political purposes of the ruling party, Congress.

However, this confession was later found to be obtained under duress. In late 2011, Aseemanand wrote a petition to the President of India describing torture meted out to him during his confinement, prompting the High Courts to issue a notice to the NIA to investigate the allegations of torture.

Ajmer Dargah Attack: 11 October 2007

The Ajmer Dargah blast occurred outside the Dargah (shrine) of Sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer, Rajasthan allegedly by the Hindutva organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its groups. On 22 October 2010, five accused, of which four allegedly belonging to the Hindu nationalist group RSS were arrested in connection with the blast.

The NIA court in Ajmer framed murder charges against seven persons, including key accused Aseemanand, in the Ajmer Dargah blast case. Devendra Gupta, Lokesh Sharma, Chandrashekhar Leve, Bharat Mohan Rateshwar, Jarshad Bhai and Mukesh Wasani have also been charged under sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) of IPC.

Senior Ex-RAW officer, RSN Singh said that several blasts of low intensity were planned and conducted by the politicians and then they used NIA, SIT to frame Hindu outfits.

CNN-IBN had reported that it was Home Minister, Sushilkumar Shinde, who forced Bhavesh Patel to implicate RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. In his letter, Patel also blamed several other UPA ministers, including Minister of State for Home RPN Singh, Coal Minister Sri Prakash Jaiswal and Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh, for trying to frame Bhagwat.

Soon after the change of government at the Centre last year, it was decided that the hearings in the case would be fast-tracked and at least five hearings would be held every month. It is not at all surprising that one by one many key witnesses, in this case, are turning hostile. 15 of the total 83 witnesses examined in the case so far have turned hostile since June last year.

“Yet another one (Anand Raj Kataria) has turned hostile today. The case is getting weakened by the day,” said public prosecutor Ashwini Sharma, reported by the Indian Express.

Malegaon Blast:  29th September 2008

India witnessed a surge in terror attacks. A series of blasts in Jaipur killed 63. Since then, other major Indian cities including Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi were targeted.

On 29 September 2008, police in Ahmedabad, Gujarat foiled another terror attack when 17 bombs were found and defused. However, a low-intensity bomb exploded at a market packed with Muslims breaking their Ramzaan fast, killing one and wounding 15. Another bomb placed near a Temple in Faridabad was located and defused. Furthermore, the bombs were purportedly similar to those that exploded in Delhi two days before this attack.

The explosions in Malegaon and Modasa took place on the eve of Navratri, a major Hindu festival celebrated across India.

Police said that unsophisticated, crude bombs, identical to those that detonated in Delhi 3 days before, were used. The investigation was led by Mumbai ATS chief Hemant Karkare, who was later killed in the 2008 Mumbai Attacks.

PTI had reported that on 5th October 2008 police had arrested a Muslim man in connection to the bombings. further investigations were under way, with more arrests expected.

Surprisingly, there came a twist in the investigation. Only on the basis of the bike being used in the blast, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur was arrested along with Shiv Narayan Gopal Singh Kalsanghra and Shyam Bhawarlal Sahu. The said bike once belonged to Sadhvi Pragya, which she sold in 1997 way before she took to a spiritual quest. The Saffron Terror angle was brought in.

On 25 October, two more ex-army personnel were also questioned and in two days the total arrest count mounted to seven when the ATS took in Sameer Kulkarni from Bhopal and Sangram Singh from Indore for questioning. According to the ATS, these arrests brought to light the workings of two groups, Rashtriya Jagaran Manch and Abhinav Bharat.

The ATS reported that they were part of an alleged "larger conspiracy", without elaborating what the conspiracy, or the basis for it, was. Allegations arose that the Sadhvi Pragya and others were framed for the blast. Then came the shocking charges made against the ATS by Sadhvi Pragya in an affidavit claiming that the investigating team has lost all moral authority, the manner in which unsubstantiated allegations have been made against army personnel and also detailing how she was physically and psychologically tortured and abused in obscene languages by her interrogators.

Top BJP leaders, including L. K. Advani expressed their shock and disbelief and asked for a judicial inquiry. In response to the whole imbroglio, the then Agriculture Minister, and NCP Supremo Sharad Pawar described the BJP as "unpatriotic".

 "The police have started investigating...If any political party takes objection, it is unfair and unpatriotic. Why should we interfere in the process of investigations?"  

On 4 November, the case heated up with the arrest of serving Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit. The Indian Army took this matter very seriously, as this was a matter of shame for the men in uniform.

Col. Purohit's counsel alleged that Purohit, with a distinguished service record in the army, was being victimized for political reasons and that he could even be eliminated by the ATS because of the possession of intelligence data of a sensitive nature pertaining to SIMI and ISI operations, which could embarrass some top political quarters. The ATS had jumped to a conclusion in utter haste without ascertaining the intelligence they have collected about the Army officer who belonged to the Intelligence Wing.

A key witness Yashpal Bhadana, a member of Abhinav Bharat recorded his statement before a magistrate under Section 164 CrPC in connection with the Malegaon case, that he was `coerced' to give a statement framing people, including Swami Aseemanand, in the Samjhauta Express blast case. Bhadana's testimony was recorded at the instance of NIA and may change the course of investigation in a clutch of cases, particularly the 2008 Malegaon blasts where Col Purohit and Pragya Singh Thakur were arrested.

Till today, the National Investigative Agency (NIA), has found no evidence against Col. Purohit or Pragya Singh Thakur in the Malegaon Blast or the Sunil Joshi Murder case and it may recommend the court to drop all charges.

Why frame an Army Man? Who was Lt. Col Purohit?

The Intelligence Bureau (IB) says that it had issued series of alerts regarding the build-up of Burdwan module. However, what is interesting to point out that the first signs of a build-up was spotted in 2007 and it was Col. Purohit who had issued that alert and even prepared a report.

Colonel Purohit who has been accused of aiding subversive activities had, in fact, claimed several times that he had become a target and his job was to mingle with terrorists in order to prepare reports on them.

His reports stated that there was movement from Bangladesh, where in some radicals were crossing over into West Bengal and settling down. Col. Purohit’s report is a clear indication that the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) with the able support of the Jamaat-e-Islami had decided on making West Bengal a base in order to target the establishment in Bangladesh. It is also an indicator that the same modules were trying to set up a base for the SIMI in India as well.

Detailing the sinister design of JMB, he stated that its primary purpose was not only to create unrest in Bangladesh but in the long run, target the Indian establishment as well. He also speaks at length about the creation of an Islamic Necklace which would include the states of Assam, West Bengal, and Tripura. These areas have seen a great deal of infiltration over the past couple of the years and even the NIA which is now probing the case has found detailed links between the JMB and these states.

It seems, he knew too much.

If you observe in all the information above, who is convicted in all these Blasts? No one. I have no reasons to disqualify US intelligence inputs on all of these terror attacks as the US has ridiculed any involvement by Hindu organizations. Why was the US intelligence making a categorical statement accusing, not even suspecting LeT & SIMI's involvement in all the attacks and why is it that our intelligence framing up charges against "Saffron Terror"?

It is obvious that the manner in which NIA has investigated is intriguing, unusual, unprecedented, and explicitly points to insidious and hidden motives in the probe. Given the political propensities and compulsion of the ruling Congress party repeatedly made explicit by its functionaries including the Home Minister P Chidambaram and its General Secretary Digvijay Singh about the notion of Hindu terror, the unusual investigation of the NIA and its rejection and suppression of such vital evidence makes it a case of fixing the present accused.

According to released documents by WikiLeaks, Congress Party's general secretary Rahul Gandhi remarked to US Ambassador Timothy Roemer, at a luncheon hosted by Prime Minister of India at his residence in July 2009, that RSS was a "bigger threat" to India than the LeT.

This was a bigger conspiracy hatched by UPA Government and its senior ministers. Never in the history of India did anyone drive Communal wedge as deep and in such a conspiratorial manner, as Sonia Gandhi led Congress Party. From Anti-Godhra campaign to the invention of "Saffron Terror", to Fake Encounters with religious slurs, Congress had a cloaked dagger. The concept of 'Saffron Terror' is nothing but a political conspiracy against the Sangh and its senior leaders.

These investigations by the NIA needs to be discarded in its entirely and re-investigation of the case by an independent SIT must be carried out the under the supervision of the judiciary. Otherwise, besides that there would be a total miscarriage of justice both ways - not only by torturing the innocent but also by letting free the real offenders.

"Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. MyIndMakers is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information on this article. All information is provided on an as-is basis. The information, facts or opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of MyindMakers and it does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same."

- See more at: https://www.myind.net/saffron-terror-congress-conspiracy-destroy-narendra-modi#.dpuf

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How many people have been killed by Christians since Biblical times?

VICTIMS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH 

"WONDERFUL EVENTS THAT TESTIFY TO GOD'SDIVINE GLORY" 

Listed are only events that solely occurred on command or participation of church authorities or were committed in the name of Christianity. (List incomplete) 

Ancient Pagans 



As soon as Christianity became legal in the Roman Empire by imperial edict (315), more and more pagan temples were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed. 
Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain. 
Examples of destroyed Temples: the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea, the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, the Heliopolis. 
Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were famous as "temple destroyer." [DA468] 
Pagan services became punishable by death in 356. [DA468] 
Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed, because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues. [DA469]
According to Christian chroniclers he "followed meticulously all Christian teachings..." 
In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights. 
In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand of Christian authorities. [DA466] 
The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415.
[DO19-25]

Mission 

Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. [DO30] 
Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany. [WW223] 
15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights of the Order. Number of victims unknown. [DO30] 
16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops "pacified and civilized" Ireland, where only Gaelic "wild Irish", "unreasonable beasts lived without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing." One of the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that "the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies... and should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie", which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused "greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde".
Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage. [SH99, 225]

Crusades (1095-1291) 

First Crusade: 1095 on command of pope Urban II. [WW11-41] 
Semlin/Hungary 6/24/96 thousands slain. Wieselburg/Hungary 6/12/96 thousands. [WW23] 
9/9/96-9/26/96 Nikaia, Xerigordon (then Turkish), thousands respectively. [WW25-27] 
Until January 1098 a total of 40 capital cities and 200 castles conquered (number of slain unknown) [WW30] 
After 6/3/98 Antiochia (then Turkish) conquered, between 10,000 and 60,000 slain. 6/28/98 100,000 Turks (incl. women and children) killed. 
[WW32-35]
Here the Christians "did no other harm to the women found in [the enemy's] tents - save that they ran their lances through their bellies," according to Christian chronicler Fulcher of Chartres. [EC60] 
Marra (Maraat an-numan) 12/11/98 thousands killed. Because of the subsequent famine "the already stinking corpses of the enemies were eaten by the Christians" said chronicler Albert Aquensis. [WW36] 
Jerusalem conquered 7/15/1099 more than 60,000 victims (Jewish, Muslim, men, women, children). [WW37-40]
In the words of one witness: "there [in front of Solomon's temple] was such a carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood of our foes", and after that "happily and crying for joy our people marched to our Saviour's tomb, to honour it and to pay off our debt of gratitude." 
The Archbishop of Tyre, eye-witness, wrote: "It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished." [TG79] 
Christian chronicler Eckehard of Aura noted that "even the following summer in all of Palestine the air was polluted by the stench of decomposition". [WW41] 
Battle of Askalon, 8/12/1099. Thousands of heathens slaughtered "in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ". [WW45] 
Fourth crusade: 4/12/1204 Constantinople sacked, number of victims unknown, numerous thousands, many of them Christian. [WW141-148] 
Crusades (1095-1291)

Estimated totals:

Wertham: 1,000,000
Charles Mackay,Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the
Madness of Crowds(1841): 2,000,000 Europeans killed. [http://www.bootlegbooks.com/NonFiction/Mackay/PopDelusions/chap09.html]
Aletheia, The Rationalist's Manual: 5,000,000
Individual Events:

Davies: Crusaders killed up to 8,000 Jews in Rhineland
Paul JohnsonA History of the Jews(1987): 1,000 Jewish women in
Rhineland comm. suicide to avoid the mob, 1096.
Gibbon,Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, v.5, 6

1st Crusade: 300,000 Eur. k at Battle of Nice [Nicea].
Crusaders vs. Solimon of Roum: 4,000 Christians, 3,000 Moslems

1098, Fall of Antioch: 100,000 Moslems massacred.
50,000 Pilgrims died of disease.
1099, Fall of Jerusalem: 70,000 Moslems massacred.
Siege of Tiberias: 30,000 Christians k.
Siege of Tyre: 1,000 Turks
Richard the Lionhearted executes 3,000 Moslem POWs.
1291: 100,000 Christians k after fall of Acre.
Fall of Christian Antioch: 17,000 massacred.
[TOTAL: 677,000 listed in these episodes here.]
Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/]

Jaffa: 20,000 Christians massacred, 1197
Sorokin estimates that French, English & Imperial German Crusaders lost
a total of 3,600 in battle.

1st C (1096-99): 400
2nd C (1147-49): 750
3rd C (1189-91): 930
4th C (1202-04): 120
5th C (1228-29): 600
7th C (1248-54): 700
James Trager,The People's Chronology(1992)

1099: Crusaders slaughter 40,000 inhabs of Jerusalem. Dis/starv reduced
Crusaders from 300,000 to 60,000.
1147: 2nd Crusades begins with 500,000. "Most" lost to
starv./disease/battle.
1190: 500 Jews massacred in York.
1192: 3rd Crusade reduced from 100,000 to 5,000 through famine, plagues and
desertions in campaign vs Antioch.
1212: Children's Crusade loses some 50,000.
[TOTAL: Just in these incidents, it appears the Europeans lost around
650,000.]

TOTAL: When I take all the individual death tolls listed here, weed out
the duplicates, fill in the blanks, apply Occam ("Pluralitas non est
ponenda sine necessitate"), etc. I get a very rough total of 1½ M
deaths in the Crusades.

Heretics and Atheists 

Already in 385 C.E. the first Christians, the Spanish Priscillianus and six followers, were beheaded for heresy in Trier/Germany [DO26] 
Manichaean heresy: a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice birth control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics) was exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between 372 C.E. and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims. [NC] 
Albigensians: the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians. [DO29]
The Albigensians (Cathars) viewed themselves as good Christians, but would not accept Roman Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. [NC]
Begin of violence: on command of pope Innocent III (the greatest single mass murderer prior to the Nazi era) in 1209. Beziérs (today France) 7/22/1209 destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Number of victims (including Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic 
neighbors and friends) estimated between 20,000-70,000. [WW179-181]Carcassonne 8/15/1209, thousands slain. Other cities followed. [WW181]
Subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars (probably half the population of the Languedoc, today southern France) were exterminated. [WW183] 

After the war ended (1229) the Inquisition was founded 1232 to search and destroy surviving/hiding heretics. Last Cathars burned at the stake 1324. 
[WW183] 
Estimated one million victims (Cathar heresy alone), [WW183] 
Other heresies: Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and many others. Most of these sects exterminated, (I believe some Waldensians live today, yet they had to endure 600 years of persecution) I estimate at least hundred thousand victims (including the Spanish inquisition but excluding victims in the New World). 
Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada, a former Dominican friar, allegedly was responsible for 10,220 burnings. [DO28] 
John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was burned at the stake in 1415. [LI475-522] 
Michael Sattler, leader of a baptist community, was burned at the stake in Rottenburg, Germany, May 20, 1527. Several days later his wife and other follwers were also executed. [KM] 
University professor B.Hubmaier burned at the stake 1538 in Vienna. [DO59] 

Giordano Bruno, Dominican monk, after having been incarcerated for seven years, was burned at the stake for heresy on the Campo dei Fiori (Rome) on 2/17/1600. 
Thomas Aikenhead, a twenty-year-old scottish student of Edinburgh University, was hanged for atheism and blasphemy.

Witches 

From the beginning of Christianity to 1484 probably more than several thousand. 
In the era of witch hunting (1484-1750) according to modern scholars several hundred thousand (about 80% female) burned at the stake or hanged. 
[WV] 
Incomplete list of documented cases:
The Burning of Witches - A Chronicle of the Burning Times

Religious Wars 

15th century: Crusades against Hussites, thousands slain. [DO30] 
1538 pope Paul III declared Crusade against apostate England and all English as slaves of Church (fortunately had not power to go into action). [DO31] 
1568 Spanish Inquisition Tribunal ordered extermination of 3 million rebels in (then Spanish) Netherlands. [DO31]
Between 5000 and 6000 Protestants were drowned by Spanish Catholic Troops, "a disaster the burghers of Emden first realized when several thousand broad-brimmed Dutch hats floated by." [SH216] 
1572 In France about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of pope Pius V. Until 17th century 200,000 flee. [DO31] 
17th century: Catholics slay Gaspard de Coligny, a Protestant leader. After murdering him, the Catholic mob mutilated his body, "cutting off his head, his hands, and his genitals... and then dumped him into the river [...but] then, deciding that it was not worthy of being food for the fish, they hauled it out again [... and] dragged what was left ... to the gallows of Montfaulcon, 'to be meat and carrion for maggots and crows'." [SH191] 
17th century: Catholics sack the city of Magdeburg/Germany: roughly 30,000 Protestants were slain. "In a single church fifty women were found beheaded," reported poet Friedrich Schiller, "and infants still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers." [SH191] 
17th century 30 years' war (Catholic vs. Protestant): at least 40% of population decimated, mostly in Germany. [DO31-32]

Jews 

Already in the 4th and 5th centuries synagogues were burned by Christians.Number of Jews slain unknown. 
In the middle of the fourth century the first synagogue was destroyed on command of bishop Innocentius of Dertona in Northern Italy. The first synagogue known to have been burned down was near the river Euphrat, on command of the bishop of Kallinikon in the year 388. [DA450] 
 694 17. Council of Toledo: Jews were enslaved, their property confiscated, and their children forcibly baptized. [DA454] 
1010 The Bishop of Limoges (France) had the cities' Jews, who would not convert to Christianity, expelled or killed. [DA453] 
1096 First Crusade: Thousands of Jews slaughtered, maybe 12.000 total. Places: Worms 5/18/1096, Mainz 5/27/1096 (1100 persons), Cologne, Neuss, Altenahr, Wevelinghoven, Xanten, Moers, Dortmund, Kerpen, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, Prag and others (All locations Germany except Metz/France, Prag/Czech) [EJ] 
1147 Second Crusade: Several hundred Jews were slain in Ham, Sully, Carentan, and Rameru (all locations in France). [WW57] 
1189/90 Third Crusade: English Jewish communities sacked. [DO40]
1235, Fulda/Germany: 34 Jewish men and women slain. [DO41] 
1257, 1267: Jewish communities of London, Canterbury, Northampton, Lincoln, Cambridge, and others exterminated. [DO41] 
1290 Bohemia (Poland) allegedly 10,000 Jews killed. [DO41] 
1337 Starting in Deggendorf/Germany a Jew-killing craze reaches 51 towns in Bavaria, Austria, Poland. [DO41] 
1348 All Jews of Basel/Switzerland and Strasbourg/France (two thousand) burned. [DO41] 
1349 In more than 350 towns in Germany all Jews murdered, mostly burned alive (in this one year more Jews were killed than Christians in 200 years of ancient Roman persecution of Christians). [DO42] 
1389 In Prag 3,000 Jews were slaughtered. [DO42] 
1391 Seville's Jews killed (Archbishop Martinez leading). 4,000 were slain, 25,000 sold as slaves. [DA454] Their identification was made easy by the brightly colored "badges of shame" that all Jews above the age of ten had been forced to wear. 
1492 In the year Columbus set sail to conquer a New World, more than 150,000 Jews were expelled from Spain, many died on their way: 6/30/1492. 
[MM470-476] 
1648 Chmielnitzki massacres: In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain. 
[DO43]

(I feel sick ...) this goes on and on, century after century, right into the kilns of Auschwitz.

Native Peoples 

Beginning with Columbus (a former slave trader and would-be Holy Crusader) the conquest of the New World began, as usual understood as a means to propagate Christianity. 
Within hours of landfall on the first inhabited island he encountered in the Caribbean, Columbus seized and carried off six native people who, he said, "ought to be good servants ... [and] would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion." [SH200]
While Columbus described the Indians as "idolators" and "slaves, as many as [the Crown] shall order," his pal Michele de Cuneo, Italian nobleman, referred to the natives as "beasts" because "they eat when they are hungry," and made love "openly whenever they feel like it." [SH204-205] 
On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross, "making the declarations that are required" - the requerimiento - to claim the ownership for his Catholic patrons in Spain. And "nobody objected." If the Indians refused or delayed their acceptance (or understanding), therequerimiento continued: 

"I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter in your country and shall make war against you ... and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church ... and shall do you all mischief that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him." [SH66]

Likewise in the words of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony: "justifieinge the undertakeres of the intended Plantation in New England ... to carry the Gospell into those parts of the world, ... and to raise a Bulworke against the kingdome of the Ante-Christ." [SH235] 
In average two thirds of the native population were killed by colonist-imported smallpox before violence began. This was a great sign of "the marvelous goodness and providence of God" to the Christians of course, e.g. the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634, as "for the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess." [SH109,238] 
On Hispaniola alone, on Columbus visits, the native population (Arawak), a rather harmless and happy people living on an island of abundant natural resources, a literal paradise, soon mourned 50,000 dead. [SH204] 
The surviving Indians fell victim to rape, murder, enslavement and Spanish raids.As one of the culprits wrote: "So many Indians died that they could not be counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere. The stench was very great and pestiferous." [SH69] 
The Indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned alive. As "they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell." [SH70] 
What happened to his people was described by an eyewitness:
"The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties ... They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles... then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive." [SH72]
Or, on another occasion:
"The Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and from some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and mutton for market. Six hundred, including the cacique, were thus slain like brute beasts...Vasco [de Balboa] ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by dogs." [SH83] 
The "island's population of about eight million people at the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492 already had declined by a third to a half before the year 1496 was out." Eventually all the island's natives were exterminated, so the Spaniards were "forced" to import slaves from other caribbean islands, who soon suffered the same fate. Thus "the Caribbean's millions of native people [were] thereby effectively liquidated in barely a quarter of a century". [SH72-73] "In less than the normal lifetime of a single human being, an entire culture of millions of people, thousands of years resident in their homeland, had been exterminated." [SH75] 
"And then the Spanish turned their attention to the mainland of Mexico and Central America. The slaughter had barely begun. The exquisite city of Tenochtitlán [Mexico city] was next." [SH75] 
Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto and hundreds of other Spanish conquistadors likewise sacked southern and mesoamerican civilizations in the name of Christ (De Soto also sacked Florida). 
"When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead." 
[SH95]

Of course no different were the founders of what today is the US of America. 

Although none of the settlers would have survived winter without native help, they soon set out to expel and exterminate the Indians. Warfare among (north American) Indians was rather harmless, in comparison to European standards, and was meant to avenge insults rather than conquer land. In the words of some of the pilgrim fathers: "Their Warres are farre less bloudy...", so that there usually was "no great slawter of nether side". Indeed, "they might fight seven yeares and not kill seven men." What is more, the Indians usually spared women and children. [SH111] 
In the spring of 1612 some English colonists found life among the (generally friendly and generous) natives attractive enough to leave Jamestown - "being idell ... did runne away unto the Indyans," - to live among them (that probably solved a sex problem).
"Governor Thomas Dale had them hunted down and executed: 'Some he apointed (sic) to be hanged Some burned Some to be broken upon wheles, others to be staked and some shott to deathe'." [SH105] Of course these elegant measures were restricted for fellow Englishmen: "This was the treatment for those who wished to act like Indians. For those who had no 
choice in the matter, because they were the native people of Virginia" methods were different: "when an Indian was accused by an Englishman of stealing a cup and failing to return it, the English response was to attack the natives in force, burning the entire community" down. [SH105] 
On the territory that is now Massachusetts the founding fathers of the colonies were committing genocide, in what has become known as the "Peqout War." The killers were New England Puritan Christians, refugees from persecution in their own home country England. 
When however, a dead colonist was found, apparently killed by Narragansett Indians, the Puritan colonists wanted revenge. Despite the Indian chief's pledge they attacked.
Somehow they seem to have lost the idea of what they were after, because when they were greeted by Pequot Indians (long-time foes of the Narragansetts) the troops nevertheless made war on the Pequots and burned their villages.
The puritan commander-in-charge John Mason after one massacre wrote: "And indeed such a dreadful Terror did the Almighty let fall upon their Spirits, that they would fly from us and run into the very Flames, where many of them perished ... God was above them, who laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making them as a fiery Oven ... Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling the Place with dead Bodies": men, women, children. [SH113-114] 
So "the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their land for an inheritance". [SH111]. 
Because of his readers' assumed knowledge of Deuteronomy, there was no need for Mason to quote the words that immediately follow:
"Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them..." (Deut 20) 
Mason's comrade Underhill recalled how "great and doleful was the bloody sight to the view of the young soldiers" yet reassured his readers that "sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents". [SH114] 
Other Indians were killed in successful plots of poisoning. The colonists even had dogs especially trained to kill Indians and to devour children from their mothers breasts, in the colonists' own words: "blood Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives to seaze them." (This was inspired by Spanish methods of the time)
In this way they continued until the extermination of the Pequots was near. [SH107-119] 
The surviving handful of Indians "were parceled out to live in servitude. John Endicott and his pastor wrote to the governor asking for 'a share' of the captives, specifically 'a young woman or girle and a boy if you thinke good'." [SH115] 
Other tribes were to follow the same path. 
Comment the Christian exterminators: "God's Will, which will at last give us cause to say: How Great is His Goodness! and How Great is his Beauty!"
"Thus doth the Lord Jesus make them to bow before him, and to lick the Dust!" [TA] 
Like today, lying was morally acceptable to Christians then. "Peace treaties were signed with every intention to violate them: when the Indians 'grow secure uppon (sic) the treatie', advised the Council of State in Virginia, 'we shall have the better Advantage both to surprise them, & cutt downe theire Corne'." [SH106] 
In 1624 sixty heavily armed Englishmen cut down 800 defenseless Indian men, women and children. [SH107] 
In a single massacre in "King Philip's War" of 1675 and 1676 some "600 Indians were destroyed. A delighted Cotton Mather, revered pastor of the Second Church in Boston, later referred to the slaughter as a 'barbeque'." [SH115] 
To summarize: Before the arrival of the English, the western Abenaki people in New Hampshire and Vermont had numbered 12,000. Less than half a century later about 250 remained alive - a destruction rate of 98%. The Pocumtuck people had numbered more than 18,000, fifty years later they were down to 920 - 95% destroyed. The Quiripi-Unquachog people had numbered about 
30,000, fifty years later they were down to 1500 - 95% destroyed. The Massachusetts people had numbered at least 44,000, fifty years later barely 6000 were alive - 81% destroyed. [SH118] These are only a few examples of the multitude of tribes living before Christian colonists set their foot on the New World. All this was before the smallpox epidemics of 1677 and 1678 had occurred. And the carnage was not over then. 
All the above was only the beginning of the European colonization, it was before the frontier age actually had begun. 
A total of maybe more than 150 million Indians (of both Americas) were destroyed in the period of 1500 to 1900, as an average two thirds by smallpox and other epidemics, that leaves some 50 million killed directly by violence, bad treatment and slavery. 
In many countries, such as Brazil, and Guatemala, this continues even today.

More Glorious Events in U.S. History 

Reverend Solomon Stoddard, one of New England's most esteemed religious leaders, in "1703 formally proposed to the Massachusetts Governor that the colonists be given the financial wherewithal to purchase and train large packs of dogs 'to hunt Indians as they do bears'." [SH241] 

Massacre of Sand Creek, Colorado 11/29/1864. Colonel John Chivington, a former Methodist minister and still elder in the church ("I long to be wading in gore") had a Cheyenne village of about 600, mostly women and children, gunned down despite the chiefs' waving with a white flag: 400-500 killed.
From an eye-witness account: "There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed ..." [SH131]

By the 1860s, "in Hawai'i the Reverend Rufus Anderson surveyed the carnage that by then had reduced those islands' native population by 90 percent or more, and he declined to see it as tragedy; the expected total die-off of the Hawaiian population was only natural, this missionary said, somewhat equivalent to 'the amputation of diseased members of the body'." 
[SH244]

20th Century Church Atrocities 

Catholic extermination camps
Surprisingly few know that Nazi extermination camps in World War II were by no means the only ones in Europe at the time. In the years 1942-1943 also in Croatia existed numerous extermination camps, run by Catholic Ustasha under their dictator Ante Paveliç, a practicing Catholic and regular visitor to the then pope. There were even concentration camps exclusively for children!
In these camps - the most notorious was Jasenovac, headed by a Franciscan friar -
orthodox-Christian Serbians (and a substantial number of Jews) were murdered. Like the Nazis the Catholic Ustasha burned their victims in kilns, alive (the Nazis were decent enough to have their victims gassed first). But most of the victims were simply stabbed, slain or shot to death, the number of them being estimated between 300,000 and 600,000, in a rather tiny country. Many of the killers were Franciscan friars. The atrocities were appalling enough to induce bystanders of the Nazi "Sicherheitsdienst der SS", watching, to complain about them to Hitler (who did not listen). The pope knew about these events and did 
nothing to prevent them. [MV] 

Catholic terror in Vietnam
In 1954 Vietnamese freedom fighters; the Viet Minh; - had finally defeated the French colonial government in North Vietnam, which by then had been supported by U.S. funds amounting to more than $2 billion. Although the victorious assured religious freedom to all (most non-Buddhist Vietnamese were Catholics), due to huge anticommunist propaganda campaigns many Catholics fled to the South. With the help of Catholic lobbies in Washington and Cardinal Spellman, the Vatican's spokesman in U.S. politics, who later on would call the U.S. forces in Vietnam "Soldiers of Christ", a scheme was concocted to prevent democratic elections which could have brought the communist Viet Minh to power in the South as well, and the fanatic Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem was made president of South Vietnam. [MW16ff]
Diem saw to it that U.S. aid, food, technical and general assistance was given to Catholics alone, Buddhist individuals and villages were ignored or had to pay for the food aids which were given to Catholics for free. The only religious denomination to be supported was Roman Catholicism.
The Vietnamese McCarthyism turned even more vicious than its American counterpart. By 1956 Diem promulgated a presidential order which read: 

"Individuals considered dangerous to the national defense and common security may be confined by executive order, to a concentration camp."

Supposedly to fight communism, thousands of Buddhist protesters and monks were imprisoned in "detention camps." Out of protest dozens of Buddhist teachers - male and female - and monks poured gasoline over themselves and burned themselves. (Note that Buddhists burned themselves: in comparison Christians tend to burn others). Meanwhile some of the prison camps, which in the meantime were filled with Protestant and even Catholic protesters as well, had turned into no-nonsense death camps. It is estimated that during this period of terror (1955-1960) at least 24,000 were wounded - ; mostly in street riots ; - 80,000 people were executed, 275,000 had been detained or tortured, and about 500,000 were sent to concentration or detention camps. [MW76-89].
To support this kind of government in the next decade thousands of American GI's lost their life. 

Christianity kills the cat
On July 1, 1976, Anneliese Michel, a 23-year-old student of a teachers college in Germany, died: she starved herself to death. For months she had been haunted by demonic visions and apparitions, and for months two Catholic priests - with explicit approval of the Catholic bishop of Würzburg - additionally pestered and tormented the wretched girl with their exorcist rituals. After her death in Klingenberg hospital - her body was littered with wounds - her parents, both of them 
fanatical Catholics, were sentenced to six months for not having called for medical help. None of the priests was punished: on the contrary, Miss Michel's grave today is a place of pilgrimage and worship for a number of similarly faithful Catholics (in the seventeenth century Würzburg was notorious for it's extensive witch burnings).
This case is only the tip of an iceberg of such evil superstition and has become known only because of its lethal outcome. [SP80] 

Rwanda Massacres
In 1994 in the small African country of Rwanda in just a few months several hundred thousand civilians were butchered, apparently a conflict of the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups.
For quite some time I heard only rumors about Catholic clergy actively involved in the 1994 Rwanda massacres. Odd denials of involvement were printed in Catholic church journals, before even anybody had openly accused members of the church.
Then, 10/10/96, in the newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany - a station not at all critical to Christianity - the following was stated: 

"Anglican as well as Catholic priests and nuns are suspect of having actively participated in murders. Especially the conduct of a certain Catholic priest has been occupying the public mind in Rwanda's capital Kigali for months. He was minister of the church of the Holy Family and allegedly murdered Tutsis in the most brutal manner. He is reported to have accompanied marauding Hutu militia with a gun in his cowl. In fact there has been a bloody slaughter of Tutsis seeking shelter in his parish. Even two years after the massacres many Catholics refuse to set foot on the threshold of their church, because to them the participation of a certain part of the clergy in the slaughter is well established. There is almost no church in Rwanda that has not seen refugees - women, children, old - being brutally butchered facing the crucifix.
According to eyewitnesses clergymen gave away hiding Tutsis and turned them over to the machetes of the Hutu militia.
In connection with these events again and again two Benedictine nuns are mentioned, both of whom have fled into a Belgian monastery in the meantime to avoid prosecution. According to survivors one of them called the 
Hutu killers and led them to several thousand people who had sought shelter in her monastery. By force the doomed were driven out of the churchyard and were murdered in the presence of the nun right in front of the gate. The other one is also reported to have directly cooperated with the murderers of the Hutu militia. In her case again witnesses report that she watched the slaughtering of people in cold blood and without showing response. She is even accused of having procured some petrol used by the killers to set on 
fire and burn their victims alive..." [S2]

More recently the BBC aired: 

Priests get death sentence for Rwandan genocide
BBC NEWS April 19, 1998

A court in Rwanda has sentenced two Roman Catholic priests to death for their role in the genocide of 1994, in which up to a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. Pope John Paul said the priests must be made to account for their actions. Different sections of the Rwandan church have been widely accused of playing an active role in the genocide of 1994...

As can be seen from these events, to Christianity the Dark Ages never come to an end.

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