Intelligence is blaming the attacks on Muslim groups in Pakistan and Bangladesh which have infiltrated all main Indian cities, writes Rahul Bediin Mumbai
A SENIOR army officer responsible for arresting the ongoing siege of two luxury hotels and the home of a Jewish rabbi by well-armed gunmen in India's financial capital of Mumbai has blamed Pakistan for launching the militants.
Maj Gen RK Hooda yesterday said militant communication intercepts revealed one of them spoke a Punjabi dialect common in neighbouring nuclear rival Pakistan, which India routinely holds responsible for the majority of terrorist strikes that have claimed 700 lives since 2005.
Other terrorism experts too claim Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT or Army of the Pure) carried out the meticulously executed strikes in Mumbai that claimed 101 lives and injured more than 200 on Wednesday evening.
The death toll in the co-ordinated and indiscriminate shootings is expected to rise significantly as more bodies were recovered once the siege was eventually lifted.
"The LeT is the only terrorist group capable of carrying out such a strike by providing them training, discipline and dedication," declared former security adviser to the federal administration Ved Marwah.
The al-Qaeda-associated LeT yesterday denied the allegations. Based at Mudhrike, near the Pakistani border city of Lahore, it believes the necessity for jihad (holy war) has always existed and democracy is one of the "menaces" inherited from an alien government.
Senior Indian intelligence officers blamed terrorist attacks on Muslim groups with close association to insurgent groups based not only in Pakistan but also in Bangladesh, both of whom have antagonistic security relations with India. They believe all major Indian cities have been infiltrated at the behest of the two neighbouring states by "foreign sleeper cells" poised to strike at will.
But over the years, worrisome local roots to these terrorist groups have also emerged. The country's 130 million Muslims feel increasingly vulnerable to Hindu extremist violence, such as that in 2002 in the western Gujarat state, when some 2,000 were killed in a pogrom lasting several weeks.
Consequently, investigations revealed local Muslim extremist groups such as the Indian Mujahideen (which has taken responsibility for the recent serial bombings in the capital, New Delhi and in Ahemdabad in the west), were providing crucial logistical help to the LeT and Bangladesh's Harakata-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (HuJI). Local Muslim involvement also makes deniability for these two outsider groups easier.
The Bangladesh-based HuJI is also believed to be working closely with the LeT. Both groups, according to Indian and western intelligence sources, were supported by Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence, backed by that country's army. "This fault line of disaffected Indian Muslims is one that is being cynically exploited by people from outside to execute their deathly aims," says retired Brig Arun Sahgal of the United Service Institute in Delhi.
It is one of apocalyptic proportions and little is being done by the authorities to contain it, he added.
Over the years, no one has been found guilty of the terrorist strikes though many people, mostly Muslims, have been arrested, triggering allegations of profiling of the Muslim community. This has further fuelled resentment and often also swollen terrorist ranks.
And the state's response to every major militant attack in India has remained similar, highlighting the authorities' helplessness and susceptibility.
Political leaders have condemned the attacks in near-identical statements, with heightened police deployment across major cities, random traffic checks, and hastily installed metal detectors and closed circuit televisions in shopping malls, railway stations and public places.
"These are part of a ritualistic set of actions intended to reassure people that the government is working to make their lives more secure," a senior security analyst says. The reality, he argues, is that not only do such measures result in harassing of millions of commuters and cause horrific traffic jams but they only last a few days, with the electronic gadgetry invariably falling into disuse, disrepair or both.
Crucially, he adds, no terrorist has ever been arrested in these checks and not a single bomb recovered.
"There has to be some coherence in the national response to terrorism. And only then can we devise protocols, strategies and tactics for an appropriate response," former Maj Gen Sheru Thapliyal declares. Until that happens, he warns, we have to merely sit and wait for the next terrorist strike.