- Security and intelligence focused on tackling terror in J&K and North East. No such security vigil in the south.
- It is easier to set up sleeper cells in southern cities
- There is a sizeable educated Muslim population who are now seen as likely candidates for indoctrination
- A large number of Muslims from the south working in the Gulf are potential recruits
- Arms and explosives can easily be landed on the southern sea coast
- India's new economic muscle, the IT sector, is concentrated in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. Software parks and scientific establishments could be potential targets.
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May 18, 2007: Blast at Mecca Masjid, Hyderabad, killing 16 persons.
Mastermind: Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)
December 28, 2005 Attack on Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, by a LeT-backed group
October 12, 2005 Bangladeshi suicide bomber blows himself up at the Special Task Force office, Hyderabad. Two police personnel are killed.
May-June, 2000 Series of 13 bomb blasts in churches in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Goa, killing nearly 50. Deendar Anjuman behind the blasts.
February 14, 1998 Serial car bombings in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, killing 46 and injuring over 200. Jehadi group Al Umma allegedly behind the blasts.
August 8, 1993 Bomb blast at RSS office, Chennai, killing 11 and injuring seven. Again Al Umma is said to be responsible.
***
| Glasgow attacker Kafeel Ahmed |
Another person close to the Ahmeds narrates a telling anecdote. He says Kafeel and Sabeel picked a fight with the mosque authorities over the use of decorative bulbs during the annual Urs festival. The boys said it was "un-Islamic" to indulge in the practice of grave worship and revering dead Sufi saints. There is also talk about a small meeting organised by Kafeel against the plight of Chechnya Muslims.
It seems Kafeel and Sabeel were gradually shedding local Muslim practices to take on and propagate Saudi-spawned Wahabism, which promotes an extremely puritanical reading of the Quran and demands strict adherence to its letter. The question is, how and when the "playful" and "gregarious" boys went beyond just becoming puritanical Muslims. They studied in professional colleges dominated by Hindus. Kafeel was at UBDT College of Engineering in Davangere in central Karnataka and Sabeel at B.R. Ambedkar Medical College in Bangalore. They also went to mainstream schools, not madrassas. Did their early years in Saudi Arabia, where their parents had a practice, influence this trajectory?
| Mohd Haneef |
| Kafeel’s brother, Sabeel Ahmed |
They are yet to translate a number of files which are in Arabic, a senior intelligence official said. The British external agency MI6 has told its Indian counterpart that Kafeel was "spotted" meeting a suspected Al Qaeda activist during a routine surveillance in 2003. However, this was not shared with the Indian authorities then.
As for Bangalore, the Kafeel saga makes for unhappy news. With a history of communal polarisation, India's hi-tech capital does have a sensitive underbelly. Already, the police has intensified security and will keep a watch on foreign tourists and students. Apparently, at least 100 foreigners have vanished without a trace from the city in the last few years. Their whereabouts will be probed. But more than anything Muslims will come under the scanner. The air of fear and suspicion does not augur well for a city which prides itself on being one of the most happening addresses in the subcontinent.
