Blasts spark fears other Indian cities may be next
Analysts link blasts in Ahmedabad, Bangalore to India’s ties with US
By Ravi Velloor, India Bureau Chief
NEW DELHI - MUMBAI police yesterday scoured the city and raided a house for clues to the terrorist attacks on Ahmedabad and Bangalore that took place over consecutive days.
On Saturday, Ahmedabad in the west was hit by 16 bombs. At least 45 people have died and doctors were treating another 161.
Analysts say the attacks are a warning that India’s economic centres will be targeted if it plans to increase its presence in Afghanistan.
Minutes before Saturday’s blasts, a little-known group called Indian Mujahideen e-mailed news companies claiming responsibility for what was to come.
Officials speculated that the group was actually the banned Students Islamic Movement of India using a guise, or a unit of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba.
In a 14-page document attached to the mail, it said the Ahmedabad blasts were an ‘opening launch… an answer to the tyranny and oppression of Hindus’.
Ahmedabad, the largest city of Gujarat state, is the scene of deadly riots in 2002 in which 2,500 people died, most of them Muslims killed by rampaging Hindu mobs.
Police yesterday raided a house in Mumbai believed to have the computer from where the e-mail originated, and rounded up 30 people.
The Ahmedabad attack came a day after two people died when eight low-intensity bombs went off in the technology hub of Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka state.
The attacks are read here as a warning not just to Hindu nationalists who govern these areas but also the Congress-led Indian government.
The message is that its economy, now expanding at an annual rate of about 9 per cent, will be targeted if it escalates its strategic presence in Afghanistan, analysts say.
India’s rising embrace of the US and Israel pushes it to the frontline of potential attacks by Al-Qaeda, Taleban and other radical groups that base their vengeance on a flawed interpretation of Islam.
This month’s political developments in India, including the government’s decision to push forward on a civilian nuclear deal with the US, has highlighted New Delhi’s growing strategic links with the US. Leftist parties, opposed to the deal, say the nuclear deal is a precursor to drawing India closer to the US.
India also has close intelligence and defence ties with Israel, which has emerged as the country’s second-biggest supplier of weaponry after Russia. For weeks, intelligence analysts have speculated that militants may target the Israeli embassy in New Delhi.
More than 180 people have died in India in terrorist attacks in the past year.
Analysts here note that Ahmedabad and Bangalore are in states ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and have significant Muslim populations. Those behind the attacks were hoping to cause communal discord, they said.
‘We believe there is more to it,’ said a senior intelligence official in New Delhi.
‘Bangalore is India’s software and services hub. Ahmedabad is the administrative headquarters of India’s most industrially dynamic state, Gujarat. It is a warning that they have the capability and will to kill our remarkable economic growth.’
The attacks come weeks after the Indian embassy in Kabul was targeted by a suicide bomber.
The senior intelligence official said special vigilance was now being maintained over Gurgaon, Chandigarh and Chennai, all outsourcing centres, the mainstay of India’s booming services sector.
Source : Straits Times - 28 July 2008
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