Partners in Crime

X straddled the victim and pushed the knife while Y and Z held him down on the thin, hard green plastic carpet. The horrible sounds of death were loud at first but subsided quickly as the sharp blade sank into the brown skin and sliced through the windpipe. The sound stopped because the air from lungs started to come out instead as red bubbles, first tiny bubbles dulling the sides of the shiny metallic surface, and later, as the blade was withdrawn and wiped off, larger bubbles through that massive gash. The blood initially came out in spurts and splattered X, Y, and Z, who deftly avoided their faces, but as its supply dwindled, the blood only welled up around the neck, forming a small pinkish red puddle that won’t get fully cleaned until several days later in a far away land. As the face froze into an eternal mask of pain and horror, the 20 day old honeymoon of the 25 year old newlywed came to an abrupt end.

W secretly guided the negotiations between the killers and outsiders. He coached the killers in what demands to put and what to accept. He planned the whole outrage, providing every minute bit of instruction, including how much money to extort, money that was to come directly to him and his gang of ruthless killers! In fact, W did pretty well for himself until he got “promoted” when V realized that W was becoming a threat to him.

V, his boss, was the most adroit of the lot and in the plot every bit as much. The self-styled CEO of a vast enterprise, he ensured that the best wages went to the least productive among his workforce, as long as they protected him personally. V is fearless, except perhaps of other masters in even more far away lands. But they generally leave him alone, because he is so indispensable! V was and is the eternal survivor - the type of individual around whom a whole building may collapse after fire, but this individual always escapes without a single scratch. Perhaps he may even go out and collect the fire insurance!

And then of course, there is U who watched it all without batting an eyelid. U believed that the life of one K (kafir) was a trivial and insignificant price to exact for the greater, much greater cause of K (Kashmir). U, who was firmly convinced that one faith provides the sole path to salvation and therefore, every other consideration is secondary! U, who bought it all because it was all for a “good cause” or even “the cause”! U, who neatly created a distinction or even a disconnect in mind - between being a good Muslim and being a good human being and felt convinced that in order to be one all the time, one need not always be the other – and the human being came out the loser. In significant numbers, U watched it all passively, day after day, year after year, as one lie replaced another, as one fake messiah was superseded by another - every one of them calling himself the true representative of the people of the Book. As one outrage followed another, U took it all calmly, very calmly! U, without whose acquiescence – active or silent, there would not have been the V, the W, the X, Y, or Z.

Yes, it was U, still without a clue!

They were partners in crime, all of them, but especially U.

(Note: first posted on May 1, 2005.)