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| India-Pakistan |
| New Delhi braces for Indian Mujahideen |
| 2008-07-30 |
| Following fatal explosions in India's IT and pharmaceutical hubs, it is now the capital's turn to steel itself for terror. Thousands of extra police officers are pouring into New Delhi neighbourhoods and the streets are being sown with surveillance cameras. They are joining a battery of bomb-sniffing dogs and metal detectors crowding public markets, as part of the city's hastily erected anti-terrorism plan. All this, for an enemy few know any details about - except for its deadly resolve. A pro-Islamic group called the Indian Mujahideen has taken responsibility for the serial blasts which took place over a two-day span in Bangalore and Ahmedabad last week, claiming more than 50 lives. While only two people died in the Bangalore blasts, the low-intensity bombs rattled the southern city, which is home to 40 per cent of the country's IT and software industry. The next day's attack seemed similarly calculated for chaos, with 17 bombs ringing out within a 70-minute span in Ahmedabad - the largest city in the state of Gujarat, and a vital nexus of the pharmaceutical industry. The carnage could have taken an even more tragic turn yesterday, had police not discovered and defused 18 bombs in the western city of Surat, where 92 per cent of the world's diamonds are cut and polished. The Indian Mujahideen's bloody trail goes further back than last week's attacks, with the group also taking credit for the May bombings in the tourist-heavy city of Jaipur, which killed 80 people. "Our intelligence bureau is really one of the best intelligence services in terms of knowing what is happening," said Bharat Karnad, a security analyst with the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research. "So if they haven't gotten on to knowing what the Indian Mujahideen is, the fact is, it's not there. It's obviously a cover. The question is: Who is behind it?" |
| Posted by:ryuge |