During the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Canadian law enforcement agencies in an unprecedented show of cooperation scrambled to help 225 diverted planes carrying more than 35,000 passengers.

Across the country officers of Immigration Canada, Customs, municipal police forces and the RCMP joined hands in an integrated network to focus on the crisis at hand.

The cooperation was also the genesis of a clandestine exercise called Project Shock--a $60 million Mountie led effort to shadow, document and interrogate Muslims in Canada.

In RCMP parlance--'Under Project Shock, the RCMP works closely with other government departments in the fight against terrorism.'

The force insists Project Shock does not target any one particular group but all groups and individuals suspected of being involved with terrorism. However, those in the know, and that includes some Mounties who are challenging some of the motives and actions under Project Shock, say the primary targets are Muslims.

The Asian Pacific Post has learnt that at least one Mountie is threatening a lawsuit against his superior officer for having a racist bent and bigotry. One of the initiatives under Project Shock was the creation of Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams (INSETs), which comprises representatives from across the RCMP and partner agencies at the municipal, provincial and federal levels.

It was one of these INSET probes that led to the death of Mohammad Aramesh in Vancouver's West End last month.

Aramesh, 31, fell to his death while trying to escape police who entered his seventh floor apartment after receiving a search warrant to look for drugs. Vancouver police assisted INSET in executing the search warrant in Aramesh's apartment the same day he sent an e-mail to some friends who belong to the Balouch tribal group in Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Those who knew Aramesh suspect he may have been dabbling in drugs and attempted to escape because he did not know who was busting down his door. INSET believed he had terrorist connections. It is likely the public will never know what Mohammad Aramesh was up to or if he was indeed part of a terrorist cell, due to the secrecy involving INSET probes.

What, however, is becoming clear is that Project Shock and other terror probes are sending a chilling message to Muslims in Canada and the U.S.

Take the case of Ahmed Kutty, 59, and Sheik Abdul Hamid, 37, of Toronto who were denied entry into the United States a few weeks ago after being handcuffed and detained for 16 hours at an airport in Fort Lauderdale.

Their offence was 'flying while Muslim' on Sept 11, 2003.

The moderate Muslim leaders who speak out against terrorism were flying through Fort Lauderdale to Orlando where they planned to raise money for an Islamic school in Canada.

Some might ask: What's the big deal The U.S. has suffered terrorist attacks. So what if a couple of Muslims spend the night in the slammer. They didn't die.

Where's the harm?

Kutty's answer is simple. If this kind of thing can happen to him 'a relatively well-known Canadian Islamic moderate with ties to both civil liberties groups and the media' think of what is going on with those who are not so fortunate.

Those 'less fortunate' include the 21 suspects caught up in the mid-August terrorism dragnet in Ontario called Project Thread.

Even the RCMP had concerns about the so-called security threats posed by the 21 and backed off the case.

Immigration Canada, however, trumpeted the arrests saying one of the suspects was a student pilot who was allegedly scouting out the Pickering nuclear plant.

Now the Project Thread terror probe appears to be unravelling completely as security concerns are being dropped against those arrested. The case is now focussing on commonplace immigration violations. As for the student pilot, who flew along a normal route which goes near the Pickering power plant, he spent 44 days in protective custody at a maximum security jail.

These and other cases, many unreported, increasingly show that Muslims in Canada are being subject to racial profiling, poor investigational protocols and human rights violations.

While Canada's national security is paramount, the RCMP and others entrusted to uphold the law must stop the 'every Muslim is a suspect' approach before they alienate the entire community.

The Canadian taxpayer really does not want to see the $60 million allocated for the protection of the nation end up as compensation for lawsuits and human rights violations.