The war of civilisation between the Muslims and the infidels has begun in Indian territory. So said the first statement issued in the name of the so-called Indian Mujahideen (IM) in November,2007, after the three orchestrated explosions in three towns of Uttar Pradesh outside local courts.
We saw the latest round of this war in Mumbai on the night of November 26, 2008, as an unestimated number of terrorists literally took control of Mumbai and targeted with frightening precision famous hotels preferred by the rich of the country and foreign tourists, railway stations, a hospital and many other places scattered across this business capital of India.
Mind boggles as one tries to think and figure out how the terrorists could have planned and carried out terrorist strikes of such magnitude, territorial spread and ferocity without our intelligence and police having been able to get scent of it.
The iceberg has moved from UP to Jaipur. From Jaipur to Bangalore. From Bangalore to Ahmedabad and Surat. From there to Delhi. From Delhi to Assam. From Assam to Mumbai now.
Attention should be drawn to an article of Hamid Mir, a journalist of Pakistan, which spoke of Indian Muslims going to Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban against the US and which also said that India is one of the routes being used by foreign jihadis going to Afghanistan.But there is no reaction just as Rajiv Gandhi did not react to repeated wake-up calls from the then Afghan President Najibullah that Muslims from Kashmir were being trained by the Afghan Mujahideen.
In October, two diplomats from the EU countries sought an appointment with Mr. B. Raman for a discussion on the IM.They expressed their surprise and concern over the fact that the Indian intelligence and police seemed to know so little about the IM despite their having arrested many perpetrators of the previous blasts and interrogated them.
Is the IM the name of an organisation or of a movement? Is it one or many organisations in different States acting, like the International Islamic Front (IIF) of Osama bin Laden, as a united front—–autonomously where they can and unitedly where they should? Who constitute its command and control? Where are they? In India or outside? Nobody knows for certain.
Till now, we were greeting with glee Pakistan’s incompetence in dealing with terrorism. We can no longer do so. We have become as clueless as Pakistan.
One question : how safe are our nuclear establishments and material?
