It has been known that the Israeli NSO Group had the Pegasus spyware which India was using. It is a welcome move that even the closest ally of Israel, the US, has taken a bold step on November 4, 2021, of not allowing products in the US (entity) to resort to Pegasus spyware. That entity list in the US will shun Israeli spy work. Entity List will free American products from Israeli maneuver. But what about India which relied on Pegasus for such a long time? Kashmir and Dehli have been facing these issues as well.
The US move is “based on evidence that these entities developed and supplied spyware to foreign governments that used these tools to “maliciously target government officials, journalists, business people, activists, academics, and embassy workers”. That is what India under the Modi government has been doing. What of that now? This is particularly true of the right-wing Hindutva government in its stance on the Muslims, Dalits, Naxalites, etc. Another Israeli company Candiru was also doing the same targeting the minorities and opposition parties in India.
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An example will illustrate
Kapil Mishra, Anurag Thakur (Minister of Sports, Youth Affairs and Minister of Information and Broadcasting) had given the slogan ‘shoot the traitors (Muslims)!’ Soon after the departure of President Ronald Trump, this led to pogroms of Muslims. There has been virtually no executive or judicial action taken against the BJP leaders. And now this Friday, November 5 2021 Mishra has undertaken the task of not allowing Muslims in Gurgaon to perform Friday mid-day prayer there. Will the government simply launder the money obtained through opium and heroin as usual but what about the crimes of leaders who cause pogroms? Have these crime allegations also been laundered by Pegasus and Candiru? If this is a present-day account of history then what about the past of the Modi regime?
“Kashmir aa kar doodh ka doodh and pain ka paani ho gaya.” After Maulana Abdul Qayum Mansoori was brought to the valley by DG Vanzara and his team truth came out in the open “Our Indian officers were mostly only perpetrating torture on Muslims but they were also deceiving Hindus in order to get medals and awards.” (p. 49)
“Never before had Kashmir felt that it was not part of India.” All this is on account of India itself and its delinquency in the hour of need. The cumulative long-term- the shadow is the startling revelation of Omar Abdullah in his interview published in Indian Express on July 28, 2020. The response of India to the plight of Kashmiris in the turmoil there was hardly anything. Parliament may be one odd speech, otherwise nothing. It was, for the first time perhaps, politically I felt that we were absolutely alone. That all these friendships that we talked about and these grand alliances and all, they all stopped the other side of the Pir Panjal.
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Pir Panjal didn’t extend this way
“They were happy to take our support when they needed it for their own causes but they didn’t find common cause with us and, honestly, I will not stand up for a single one of them tomorrow. Not one of them. I won’t campaign for any of them, I won’t support any of them and god- forbid, any of them get taken off to jail, I will not utter a word for them, because they didn’t speak when people here were suffering.
“When Kashmiri kids weren’t able to go to school. When our traders weren’t able to open their shops. When tourists were being railroaded out of here overnight in buses and hotels were being emptied. When jails were being filled with people for no reason. These people lost their voices. God forbid, anything like this happens to them, I will lose my voice as well. I have no cause with them. That’s it. I will speak for the people of J&K, I don’t speak for anybody else.”
That is what Omar Abdulla decided. But Mufti Qayyum was much plain and simple as well as straightforward. He was simply picked up and thrown into the dungeon. He spent 11 years in jail during which he and others were taken to Kashmir by plane to identify two who were killed in fake encounters along with Ishrat Jahan. Two of them were Kashmiris supposed to be in Kashmiri jail at that time. The accused were innocent like the Mufti. They were beaten so much that the accused saw no way so they said all right we accept the crimes. Then a new session began.
The Gujrat Police of Modi’s administration asked the accused to choose in which crimes they would like to be connected. They were given the right to choose as it happens in elections. The topics to choose are the Akshardham temple attack, Godhra train attack and Haren Pandya assassination. The Mufti was asked to choose narcotics, charas. He had not seen the thing so the police showed him a black ball and said it was charas.
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In Kashmir jail, they had to identify Chand Khan. They had not seen him or even a photo of him. They could not. When the identity parade was over the Director-General of Kashmir K Rajendra called the Mufti and asked about it. Qayum told him that the Gujarat police would kill him if he uttered any word. The DGP offered snacks to him and told him not to worry. During this episode, there were senior officers from Intelligence Bureau and R&AW present.