"Grass Is Bomb, Shaadi Is Target"

By S.A. Ishaqui
Hyderabad, June 15 - When a terrorist tells his comrade that a shaadi (marriage) has been fixed, he means that a target has been selected. And when he says that there is no ghaas (grass) on this side of the fence, he means he has not got the explosives he needs.
These nuggets of jargon used by militants were decoded by the police after a careful study of communications between terror groups and their handlers in Pakistan. The police first came across shaadi and ghaas in communications of ISI agents. Later they were puzzled at finding the same words in documents seized from terrorists and records of Internet chats, e-mails and mobile phone conversations. ISI [Inter Services Intelligence] agent [name omitted] used these terms liberally while speaking to his counterparts in Pakistan and Bangladesh. It was he who told investigators the deadly meanings of these innocuous words when he was subjected to a narco-analysis test. Apart from "shaadi fix ho gayi (the marriage has been fixed)" and "pan mandi main ghaas nahi mil raha hai (there's no grass in the market)," the police has also found constant references to "chacha" and "mama" in the communications. They are not sure what they mean. For all they know, the "uncles" might be on the other side of the border waiting for the "marriage" to go off well.
Terrorists and their agents alert associates when the police increases security by saying, "Hyderabad mein mausam garam hai (Hyderabad is getting hot)". Policemen are called "tax officials". The police recently came to know that a terror agent was trying to recruit a young man through the Internet. After some time, the young man replied: "Aap ki bimari mujhe bhi ho gaya. Dawa bhejiye (I have caught your disease. Send me medicine)." "We did not understand it at first," said a senior police officer, adding, "After one terrorist was caught he told us that they were talking about jihadi operations."
Terrorists never use words such as terror, jihad, bomb and explosives in their communications. Sometimes, during telephonic conversations, they use codes like PAG-1 for weapons and ammunition, PAG-2 for radio-controlled devices and PAG-3 for chemicals used for making bombs.