Foiling The Terrorists

Were the circumstances not so tragic, it would have been easier to appreciatethe farcical nature of the political and media responses to the latest Islamistterrorist outrage, this time the March 7, 2006, bombings at the ancient SankatMochan Temple and the Cantonment Railway station in Varanasi, at a site and in acity revered by the Hindus. There were, of course, the usual cries ofintelligence and policing failure, with now-routine claims of ‘hardevidence’ of the attack having been received ‘months earlier’; politicalparties sought to muddy issues, communalizing the attack and blaming each otherfor ‘weak policies’ and administrative failure; a new Rath Yatra, seeking torevive the communal passions of the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi mobilization of1990-92, was announced by the architect of the original movement, former DeputyPrime Minister L.K. Advani, though it gained little support even within his ownparty; citing the earlier (failed) attack at Ayodhya on July 5, 2005, and theJuly 28, 2005, explosion on the Shramjeevi Express near Harpal Ganj, Jaunpur,poorly informed commentators fretted that Uttar Pradesh was the "new hub" ofIslamist terrorism; even worse-informed were commentators who profoundly soughtto link the attack to ‘geopolitical shifts’ in South Asia, and to PresidentGeorge Bush’s visit to Delhi and Islamabad the preceding week.

The truth is far less startling, though no less distressing. The attack atVaranasi is just the latest incident in a relentless campaign of subversion andterror engineered by Pakistan and its jihadi surrogates, which hassystematically targeted vulnerable areas across the country over the years.Uttar Pradesh is, no doubt, a prominent target of this covert war – at least41 incidents of Pakistan backed Islamist terrorism, subversion and theidentification and neutralization of Islamist terrorist modules by intelligenceand police agencies have been recorded over the period April 2001 – February2006 in Uttar Pradesh alone. Uttar Pradesh is, however, just another point onthe Pakistan-drafted jihadi map of India. Over the period January 2004and March 11, 2006, for instance, at least 64 Pakistan-backed Islamist terroristmodules have been identified and neutralized across India, outside Jammu &Kashmir (J&K) and the Northeast; only 14 of these were in Uttar Pradesh.

The Varanasi blast was claimed by the ‘Lashkar-e-Qahhar’ (Army of theVanquisher), but this is just a name, not an organization. As was the case, forinstance, with the Al Faran, Tehrik-e-Shohda, Al Mansooran, Tehrik-e-Qisas, anddozens of other such ‘fronts’, these are put forward when the actual groupresponsible does not want to take public responsibility for a particular action;this is usually the case where civilian targets are attacked, especially whenPakistan is under increasing international pressure to curb the activities ofterrorist groups – such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM),Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), etc., – that are widely known to be operating openlyfrom its soil, and with state support. It is useful to recall that, after theDelhi blasts in October 2005, the Islami Inqilabi Mahaz (Islamic RevolutionaryFront), a front organization of the LeT, had claimed responsibility. Similarly,an unknown group, which has not been heard of since, the Tehreek-e-Qisas(Movement for Retribution), claimed responsibility for the Akshardham attack inGujarat on September 24, 2002. These fronts are projected only to enablePakistan to maintain ‘deniability’ as it continues to host and support theactual or parent groups on its soil with impunity.

Despite several arrests and detentions, and the killing of a prominentterrorist of the LeT, Salar-ud-Din aka Salim at Lucknow a day after theVaranasi blasts, conclusive identification of the perpetrators of the Varanasiattacks is still to be made. There is sufficient circumstantial and trendevidence to suggest, however, that this attack has again been engineered by oneof the Pakistan-backed terrorist groups operating in India. The most likelysuspects are the Lashkar-e-Taiba (which has denied involvement, though thismeans little) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad, though some other groups – includinglocal remnants of the banned Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) –may also be involved. The pattern of the attacks in Varanasi, including thenature of explosive devices used, also suggests links or a common source withthe Delhi blasts, which were attributed to the LeT.

The Varanasi blasts were, no doubt, intended to provoke a communalpolarization, and this is a natural objective for the Islamist terrorists, giventheir ideology as well as the history of the sub-continent. This is neither anew nor a recent tactic, and the objective in attacking temples is to provokeindiscriminate violence against Muslims. To the extent this happens, theterrorists could consider themselves successful. Since this has not happened inthe wake of the Varanasi attacks, the jihadis have essentially failed,though the loss of life and the maiming of innocents leaves behind indeliblescars.

Playing petty and vote bank politics over terrorist incidents and on issuesrelating to counter-terrorist policy is an unfortunate and continuous trend inIndia, and there is some evidence that several political formations seek toexploit the Varanasi incident for wider political and electoral mobilization.Such efforts can only work to the advantage of the terrorists and India’senemies. Unfortunately, none of India’s political parties or leaders appearsto have the stature or intellectual capacity to rise above such pettypoliticking. Unless at least some issues – including terrorism andcounter-terrorist policy – are thought of as being national concerns and areput beyond the realm of partisan politics, the country will continue to suffer,and will remain vulnerable to manipulation by its enemies.

Over-thinking the proximate circumstances of each terrorist incident is notparticularly productive from a policy perspective; what is required is a betterunderstanding, as well as a comprehensive strategy to contain, the broadersubversive design. It is the case that the terrorists gain only to the extentthat their target societies concede their objectives. If Indians fall into thetrap of indiscriminate communal retaliation, the jihadis and their statesponsors gain; if the Indian government makes concessions or alters its policiesunder pressure, the jihadis and their state sponsors gain. If Indiaremains steadfast, however, the terrorists can achieve nothing, and thismovement – indeed, Pakistan itself – will founder and disintegrate againstthe rock of the Indian resolve.

Ajai Sahni is Editor, SAIR; Executive Director, Institute for ConflictManagement. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South AsiaTerrorism Portal