The Hindu : Front Page : Intensive hunt on for bombers

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Wednesday, Mar 08, 2006

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Front Page

Intensive hunt on for bombers

Praveen Swami

Lashkar principal suspect but hand of Jaish-e-Mohammad and Harkat ul-Mujahideen not ruled out

INNOCENT VICTIM: A young blast victim in a Varanasi hospital. — Photo: AP

NEW DELHI: Police forces in five States, as well as the Intelligence Bureau, have begun investigating the worst terrorist attack in India since the Mumbai bombings of 2003. Informed sources said authorities in Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Delhi, all of which have seen terrorist attacks in recent months, have been asked to share intelligence on the pan-India terror networks that executed the Varanasi bombings.

With little hard intelligence on their hands so far, the principal organisations on investigators' check-lists will most likely be the organisation responsible for most recent terror strikes, — Lashkar-e-Taiba. In May 2005, the Uttar Pradesh Police unearthed evidence that a major Lashkar recruitment targeting seminary students was underway in the State, after two terrorists from Bihar and Jharkhand were arrested in Lucknow.

Investigators found that Sadat Rashid had begun to work for the Lashkar in the course of a two-year teaching assignment at a seminary in Jammu and Kashmir. Mr. Rashid was given funds and explosives, and asked to set up an independent Lashkar squad to execute strikes across Uttar Pradesh. He turned to a colleague in Lucknow, Masood Alam, for help in finding recruits.

Last year's case caused not a little concern in the intelligence community, since older Lashkar networks had been heavily dependent on Pakistani nationals, rather than local residents for executing strikes. As early as July 1998, for example, authorities had arrested top Lashkar operative Abdul Sattar, a resident of Pakistan's Faislabad district, who had set up a covert cell in the town of Khurja along with Shoaib Alam and Mohammad Faisal Hussain.

Overground supporters are often as critical to terrorist operations as the actual attackers. Investigations into a Lashkar cell which had planned to execute attacks in Bangalore and Khadakvasla last year found that the Pakistan terrorists who were to have carried it out had obtained driving licences from Jamshedpur and Aligarh, using the identities of their local contacts, Mohammad Aafan and Ghulam Hussain.

Other terrorist groups

Lashkar operatives, however, aren't the only terrorist cadre to have created networks in Uttar Pradesh. As early as 2001, three Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists were killed in the course of an abortive attempt to target the Babri Masjid site. Abdul Aziz Barohi, Liaqat Ali Kamboh, and Syed Faizan Ahmad, all Pakistani nationals, were shot dead in an encounter at Lucknow that April, before they could execute their planned strike.

On some occasions, notably for the July strike on the Babri Masjid site, the Jaish and Lashkar have also pooled local resources. Former members of the proscribed Students Islamic Movement of India have played a key role in such enterprises. In July, the Uttar Pradesh Police charged six S.I.M.I-linked individuals, including four members of a single family, for facilitating the Jaish-led strike on the site.

Interestingly, intelligence sources say they will also be exploring the possible role of an organisation until recently believed to be near-defunct, the Harkat ul-Mujahideen. Once the principal Islamist terror group in Jammu and Kashmir, the Harkat was wiped out after its links with al-Qaeda brought it into confrontation with the United States of America.

However, the organisation has recently shown signs of revival.

Informed sources said a top Harkat commander visited Ahmedabad just weeks before an RDX-based explosive was used by terrorists for the first time in Gujarat.

Large-scale fatalities on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad train on which the bomb was planted were avoided only because the timer that controlled the device was erroneously programmed to explode 12 hours late.

Like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Harkat sees its terror campaign in J&K as part of a larger war against what it characterises as a Hindu state — an ideological position it has also sought to leverage to win recruits amongst riot-hit communities.

However, intelligence sources said, there has been no indication so far that the group has the resources to stage an attack of the scale seen in Varanasi.

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