Intelligence

Hindu who became a militant Islamist

Hindu who became a militant Islamist - World - Times Online

By Sean O’Neill
Dhiren Barot's path to terrorism began not in war-torn Kabul or the slums of Karachi, but in Kingsbury, northwest London, where he was brought up as the son of Indian Hindu parents.

He converted to Islam aged 20 and immersed himself in the faith’s political radicalism after attending extremist lectures in London.

Barot was born in December 1971 in Baroda, India, and was brought to Britain by his parents the following year.

He attended Kingsbury High School, but left after studying GCSEs and obtained a City & Guilds qualification in tourism.

Between 1991 and 1995 Barot worked as a ticket clerk at the offices of Air Malta in Central London. He applied unsuccessfully for a transfer to Heathrow. He quit in September 1995 to go on “a long overseas trip”. That journey took him to terrorist training camps, to the guerrilla war in Kashmir, and to a life as a full-time terrorist.

Edmund Lawson, QC, told the court: “Working as a ticket clerk was his last substantial job. From then on, no social security benefits were sought or received. The plain inference is that someone or some organisation was supporting him financially.”

In 1999 a book written by Barot, titled The Army of Madinah in Kashmir, under the nom de guerre Esa al- Hindi, was published in Britain.

It described his adventures in the jihad but also showed that he was thinking of how to carry out terrorist attacks against the West. He wrote that Muslim nations needed “flank protection” against the West and urged attacks on the soil of “interfering nations”.

November 6, 2006 at 10:29 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home