In the past three years, this is the 21st terror attack outside Jammu & Kashmir. More than 400 people have been killed in the terror strikes since Oct 2005. India had more than 2,300 terrorism-related deaths in 2007 - about 10% of a worldwide figure of 22,000 terrorism-related deaths that year. The Jaipur attack might have been worse had three unexploded bombs not been defused in the walled city area. The macabre statistics pose a serious question to our corrupt, outdated and over burdened law enforcement and legal systems.
One of the suspects in the serial bomb blasts in Jaipur on 13th May has been identified as SIMI activist Abu Faisal. He had been arrested from a hotel in the Gwaltoli area of the Indore in 2006, but was later released on bail. Faisal has been actively involved in anti-national and illegal activities since his release and was absconding after March 27, 2007.
All District Collectors and Superintendents of Police in Rajasthan have been directed to complete within 30 days the process of identifying Bangladeshi migrants living with or without voter ID Cards and/or ration cards and get them verified. The procedures for deporting the identified illegal nationals could then be started. Did we have to wait for such an exercise to commence?
An outfit calling itself Indian Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for the mass murder in Jaipur. There is little doubt that the tag Indian Mujahideen is a smoke screen to camouflage Pakistani roots of jihadi terror and present it as a homegrown phenomenon. When Mohammed Jalaluddin - alias Babu Bhai, the "Indian operations commander" of the Bangladesh-based militant group, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Huji), at the time of his arrest - was arrested in Lucknow in 2007, he told his IB interrogators that Jaipur and Haridwar were few of the prime targets for terror strikes. Yet the terror strike could not be prevented! A native of West Bengal, Jalaluddin was trained in Bangladesh and then sent to unleash terror in India in 1999. He claimed involvement in the July 2006 serial train bombings in Bombay, in which 209 people were killed. His trial is yet to be concluded in the painfully slow legal labyrinths of the Indian legal system. It should not surprise anyone if another hijacking like the IC 814 in 1999, forces the government of India to release him in exchange for hostages; or execution of his sentence delayed by deranged politicians and power hungry political parties out to grab Muslim votes; never mind more such strikes in the country.
Based on Jalaluddin's confessions, India's Intelligence Bureau did issue advice last year, listing a number of cities like Jaipur that it said were on the "hit list" of the jihadis. When nothing happened for a few months, the warning found its usual place, in the garbage dump. Unfortunately, intelligence agencies rarely chase up leads to get more specific intelligence and when something like Jaipur happens, they refer to their old report to save their necks.
The Jaipur serial blasts must be seen in conjunction with the recent infiltration attempts in Kashmir, gun battles along the border, and the new democratic government of Pakistan’s promise to deport Dawood Ibrahim - the mafia don blamed for bombings in Mumbai in 1993, to India. The move has obviously not gone down well with Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) as the agency has traditionally exploited Dawood Ibrahim’s criminal network to export arms, explosives, drugs and terrorism in Asia and elsewhere. The ISI now operates more through Nepal and Bangladesh, where they have developed a secure network of operatives who liaise with militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Toiba or the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami. The Huji and the Lashkars have scores of sleeper cells all over India ready to strike on direction of Pakistan’s ISI.
But the real strength of the Islamic jihadi groups responsible for explosions in Kashmir and other Indian states lies not so much in the "foreign hand" but in the proliferation of these "sleeper cells" within India. The need for laws like the TADA or POTA to curb terror menace was never so acute. The serial bomb blasts in Jaipur must be recognised as a national shame and a challenge by Pakistan’s ISI and Muslim terror outfits to all Indians. The impact of the dastardly crime must not be restricted to Rajasthan and the families of those killed. Localising such cowardly misdeeds by fanatics would amount to condoning the mass murder and encourage these medieval philosophers to repeat their sordid performance elsewhere. It is high time the Indian politicians stopped blaming “foreign hand” euphemism for Pakistan and discard all indirect references to countries involved in encouraging terrorism. Unless the calculating political establishment shuns all shallow vote bank politics and resolves to hold the terrorism bull by its horns, more Jaipur like strikes and scores more innocent deaths are just waiting to be reported.
One of the suspects in the serial bomb blasts in Jaipur on 13th May has been identified as SIMI activist Abu Faisal. He had been arrested from a hotel in the Gwaltoli area of the Indore in 2006, but was later released on bail. Faisal has been actively involved in anti-national and illegal activities since his release and was absconding after March 27, 2007.
All District Collectors and Superintendents of Police in Rajasthan have been directed to complete within 30 days the process of identifying Bangladeshi migrants living with or without voter ID Cards and/or ration cards and get them verified. The procedures for deporting the identified illegal nationals could then be started. Did we have to wait for such an exercise to commence?
An outfit calling itself Indian Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for the mass murder in Jaipur. There is little doubt that the tag Indian Mujahideen is a smoke screen to camouflage Pakistani roots of jihadi terror and present it as a homegrown phenomenon. When Mohammed Jalaluddin - alias Babu Bhai, the "Indian operations commander" of the Bangladesh-based militant group, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Huji), at the time of his arrest - was arrested in Lucknow in 2007, he told his IB interrogators that Jaipur and Haridwar were few of the prime targets for terror strikes. Yet the terror strike could not be prevented! A native of West Bengal, Jalaluddin was trained in Bangladesh and then sent to unleash terror in India in 1999. He claimed involvement in the July 2006 serial train bombings in Bombay, in which 209 people were killed. His trial is yet to be concluded in the painfully slow legal labyrinths of the Indian legal system. It should not surprise anyone if another hijacking like the IC 814 in 1999, forces the government of India to release him in exchange for hostages; or execution of his sentence delayed by deranged politicians and power hungry political parties out to grab Muslim votes; never mind more such strikes in the country.
Based on Jalaluddin's confessions, India's Intelligence Bureau did issue advice last year, listing a number of cities like Jaipur that it said were on the "hit list" of the jihadis. When nothing happened for a few months, the warning found its usual place, in the garbage dump. Unfortunately, intelligence agencies rarely chase up leads to get more specific intelligence and when something like Jaipur happens, they refer to their old report to save their necks.
The Jaipur serial blasts must be seen in conjunction with the recent infiltration attempts in Kashmir, gun battles along the border, and the new democratic government of Pakistan’s promise to deport Dawood Ibrahim - the mafia don blamed for bombings in Mumbai in 1993, to India. The move has obviously not gone down well with Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) as the agency has traditionally exploited Dawood Ibrahim’s criminal network to export arms, explosives, drugs and terrorism in Asia and elsewhere. The ISI now operates more through Nepal and Bangladesh, where they have developed a secure network of operatives who liaise with militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Toiba or the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami. The Huji and the Lashkars have scores of sleeper cells all over India ready to strike on direction of Pakistan’s ISI.
But the real strength of the Islamic jihadi groups responsible for explosions in Kashmir and other Indian states lies not so much in the "foreign hand" but in the proliferation of these "sleeper cells" within India. The need for laws like the TADA or POTA to curb terror menace was never so acute. The serial bomb blasts in Jaipur must be recognised as a national shame and a challenge by Pakistan’s ISI and Muslim terror outfits to all Indians. The impact of the dastardly crime must not be restricted to Rajasthan and the families of those killed. Localising such cowardly misdeeds by fanatics would amount to condoning the mass murder and encourage these medieval philosophers to repeat their sordid performance elsewhere. It is high time the Indian politicians stopped blaming “foreign hand” euphemism for Pakistan and discard all indirect references to countries involved in encouraging terrorism. Unless the calculating political establishment shuns all shallow vote bank politics and resolves to hold the terrorism bull by its horns, more Jaipur like strikes and scores more innocent deaths are just waiting to be reported.
