The Hindu : New Delhi News : U.P. terrorist attacks cause for concern

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Thursday, Jan 03, 2008
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New Delhi

U.P. terrorist attacks cause for concern

Devesh K. Pandey

Too early to name any particular outfit: Police
“HuJI has a strong base in west U.P.”

NEW DELHI: A spurt in terrorist activities in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, including the latest attack on a Central Reserve Police Force camp at Rampur on Tuesday, has become a cause of serious concern for the Delhi police.

It is suspected that the attack on the CRPF camp that claimed eight lives was probably carried out by the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit.

The outfit has in the past carried out such attacks, including one in the Capital in December 2000 when LeT militants armed with assault rifles and hand-grenades barged into the Red Fort premises and gunned down three persons. The militants had fled by scaling the rear walls of the Fort.

Drawing a parallel with the Red Fort attack, a police officer said the militants who targeted the CRPF camp were also armed with assault rifles and hand-grenades and fled after conducting the operation.

However, many police officers feel that the attack could be the work of another outfit, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), which is known mainly for targeting military installations and conducting fidayeen attacks. The July 2005 attack at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, which was earlier thought to be the work of LeT, in fact turned out to be the handiwork of JeM.

“It is too early to name any particular outfit. But the reality is that terrorist attacks in U.P. are becoming more frequent, indicating that several terror modules are active in different parts of the State. Investigations so far have revealed that Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami has a strong network in western U.P. JeM is also suspected to have created a base in the State,” said a police officer.

The HuJI modules are being monitored from Bangladesh and coordination among the units is allegedly being done by Bilal, the man suspected to be the mastermind behind the Makkah mosque blast in Hyderabad. The recent serial blasts in U.P. courts were allegedly carried out by HuJI militants. One of the militants arrested in that case, Sajjad, has turned out to be a relative of an alleged HuJI militant the Delhi police had arrested in January 2007. The accused, Mohammad Ameen Wani, was arrested along with a Bangladeshi national. According to the police, he was trained in a camp at Muzaffarabad in Pakistan occupied Kashmir and then in a HuJI camp at Reeshkhore in Afghanistan. During interrogation, he had allegedly disclosed about his relative Sajjad who was then HuJI in-charge in U.P. Wani was also instrumental in initiating several young men from western U.P. into terrorism, the police said.

Apart from HuJI, the security agencies suspect that JeM has strengthened its network in the neighbouring State. In the wake of these developments, the police here have intensified counter-terrorism exercises in the run-up to the Republic Day.

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