Targeting The Devout

Another bomb attack on a place of worship – this time at Hyderabad’s largest and historic Mecca Masjid – falls precisely in pattern and linkages, into the succession of such incidents over the past years. While investigations are still at a preliminary stage, there is substantial evidence that yields the considered assessment that this is another Islamist terrorist operation executed by a combination of Pakistan-backed groups operating from or through Bangladesh, with some support from local groups and operatives. 

Eleven persons were killed in the Mecca Masjid explosion during the Friday prayers on May 18, 2007, and another five died in subsequent police firing on rampaging mobs of protestors who misdirected their ire against public property and the Police. Initial reports suggest that a combination of RDX and TNT was used in the improvised explosive device packed into a metal pipe, which used a cell phone for a trigger. Another two unexploded devices were recovered from the vicinity and defused by the Police. Sources indicate that the SIM cards of the recovered cell phones had recently been acquired in West Bengal, and efforts are currently being made to identify the point of purchase of the cell phones by their unique international mobile equipment identification numbers. 

While details on the actual perpetrators are expected to emerge over time, it is abundantly clear that the objective of this and earlier attacks on mosques and temples has been to provoke communal polarization and violence in the target areas and across the country. In this, the Hyderabad attack has, once again, failed comprehensively, making the Islamist terrorist attacks appear increasingly gratuitous. The Mecca Masjid bombing did, of course, succeed in provoking violent protests among Muslims in the Old city – but these were essentially expressions of diffuse and directionless rage at the killing of innocents in a place of worship, and not in a single incident did they assume the character of a communal polarization or confrontation. A few mischievous reports in a section of the media sought to suggest that right wing Hindu organisations may have been behind the blast, but such an eventuality remains both improbable and inconsistent with past experience, including the preliminary intelligence relating to the character of the explosive devices used.

It is useful, within this context, to notice the chain of major terrorist attacks on temples and mosques across India (outside Jammu & Kashmir) that have preceded the Mecca Masjid bombing:

September 8, 2006: 40 persons were killed and 65 sustained injuries in three bomb explosions at a mosque in Malegaon town in the Nashik District of Maharashtra. 

April 14, 2006: Fourteen persons, including a woman and a girl, were injured in two bomb explosions inside the Jama Masjid in the Walled City area of New Delhi soon after the evening prayers. Initial investigations indicated crude low-intensity bombs were used. 

March 7, 2006: At least 21 civilians were killed and 62 others injured in three serial bomb explosions at a temple and railway station in Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. Seven bombs were later defused, including four that had been planted on the Gowdolia-Dasashwamedh Ghat Road near the Kashi Vishwanath Temple. 

July 5, 2005: Six heavily-armed terrorists, who made an attempt to storm the makeshift Ram temple at the disputed Ayodhya complex in Uttar Pradesh, are shot dead by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel. Four CRPF personnel and two civilians, including a woman devotee, are injured in the exchange of gunfire. Uttar Pradesh Police chief Yashpal Singh said that three AK-47 and one AK-56 rifles, one carbine, one Chinese revolver and four grenades are recovered from the slain terrorists. 

September 24, 2002: Around 30 persons are killed and nearly 100 injured when heavily armed LeT terrorists stormed the Akshardham temple of the Swaminarayan sect in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. Documents recovered from the possession of the two slain terrorists led officials to believe that they belonged to a terrorist outfit called Tehreek-e-Kasas-Gujarat. Vaguely translated, the organization would mean ‘Movement for Revenge in Gujarat". 

In addition, there have also been a number of attacks principally directed against a particular community, or in communally sensitive or volatile situations, that have had the same motive of inflaming communal violence. These include: 

February 18, 2007: On February 18-midnight, 66 persons, including some Pakistani nationals, were killed and 13 others injured in explosions in two coaches of the Delhi-Attari special train at Diwana near Panipat in Haryana. Northern Railway General Manager, V. N. Mathur, told that he suspected sabotage as two improvised explosive device (IED)-laden suitcases, one from the rail track and another from the train, were also recovered subsequent to the explosions. One of the suitcases had incendiary material, either petrol or kerosene, which could have set the train afire, he said. The bi-weekly train, connecting India-Pakistan Samjhauta Express, had left Delhi at 10:40 pm for Attari near Amritsar and two of its bogies caught fire immediately after the explosions. The train runs non-stop from Delhi to Attari, where passengers are shifted to the Samjhauta Express, which goes to Lahore after customs and immigration clearances. 

July 11, 2006: At least 200 persons are killed and 625 others are injured in seven bomb blasts targeting the railway networks in the city of Mumbai. First class compartments of trains at Mira-Bayandhar, Jogeshwari, Mahim, Santacruz, Khar, Matunga and Borivli stations on the Western Railway are targeted. 

October 29, 2005: At least 62 persons are killed and 155 others sustain injuries in three powerful serial bomb explosions in the national capital Delhi on the eve of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. While two bombs exploded at busy marketplaces, one exploded inside a Delhi Transport Corporation bus. 

Hyderabad was a natural target of this campaign of communal escalation. For one thing, it has long been on the crosshairs of the Islamist terrorists. At a congregation of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) cadres at Lahore in 2004, for instance, the terrorist group’s ‘Amir’ (chief), Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, had declared that the ‘liberation’ of Hyderabad was among the group’s ‘top priorities’. He had also disclosed that the Lashkar had established a new unit in the city to ensure that the city reverts to "Islamic culture and habits". It is significant that over 40 per cent of the city’s four million people are Muslim, and Hyderabad has had a history of communal violence, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. 

Efforts towards mobilisation of Islamist extremists and terrorists in Hyderabad have long been in evidence, and, on October 12, 2005, a Bangladeshi suicide bomber, identified as Dalin alias Mohthasin Pilal, blew himself up at the Police Task Force office in Hyderabad killing a Home Guard. Investigations pointed to a joint operation by cadres of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B) and the LeT. The liquid explosive used in the Hyderabad suicide attack had been smuggled in by HuJI-B militants from Dhaka, while other parts, of the explosive device were bought from local markets in Hyderabad. The entire operation had, in fact, been finalised at the Dhaka headquarters of HuJI-B, while some extremists from Hyderabad were also involved in providing logistic support to the core strike team, which included the Pakistan-trained Bangladeshi suicide cadre.

Two and half month's later, on December 27, 2005, three HuJI-B militants involved in the Hyderabad attack were arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police. Interrogations confirmed that all of them had been trained in an Inter Services Intelligence (ISI)-run camp in Balochistan. Among their future targets were the Bangalore Software Park, the Hyderabad Hi-tech City, certain politicians, railway stations and busy places in Delhi and other parts of north India. Interrogations indicated that the ‘mastermind’ behind the STF suicide bombing was Abdul Rehman aka Shahid Bilal of the HuJI, who is also believed to be behind the planning of the Mecca Masjid bombing. Officers investigating the Hyderabad STF attack also came to learn about as many as 500 Hyderabadi Muslim youth who had undergone arms training at the behest of the HuJI-B in Bangladesh and Balochistan in Pakistan. The Andhra Pradesh police's special investigation department admits the ISI had set up what it calls a 'strategic base' in Hyderabad. 

Earlier, the then ISI kingpin in Andhra Pradesh, Azam Ghauri, was killed in a encounter with the police in the Jagityal town of Karimnagar District in April 2000. Ghauri had also formed some linkages with the then People’s War Group (Communist Party of India – Marxist Leninist Peoples War, which merged with the Maoist Communist Centre to form the Communist Party of India – Maoist, in September 2004). 

According to one report, between 1993-2006, the Andhra Pradesh Police arrested nearly 90 ISI-backed terrorists and agents who were responsible for minor and major bomb blasts, killings and communal violence in the State, and also seized several trucks carrying RDX explosives across Andhra Pradesh. Hyderabad and towns like Nalgonda in Andhra Pradesh, which have a large Muslim population, are believed to be targets of ISI recruitment for various Islamist terrorist outfits backed by the Pakistani intelligence agency. 

Significantly, in a written statement in Parliament, Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal disclosed in August 2006 that, "Available inputs indicate that some Indian youths from the States of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal have been lured by ISI to carry out violent and subversive activities."

A number of ISI-backed terrorist and subversive ‘modules’ have also been identified and neutralized by enforcement and intelligence agencies in Hyderabad over the past years. The most significant among these include, over the period 2004-2007, the following:

April 1, 2007: An ISI agent, Maqsood Ahmed, a resident of Malakpet, was working as a manager in the Proline garments showroom at Somajiguda, was arrested in Hyderabad. He who was allegedly attempting to recruit the city’s youth for jehadi activities. Maqsood had come into contact with Shahid Bilal through his friend Mohammed Ibrahim, and the duo planned to recruit youths for Jehadi activities in Hyderabad, Gujarat and Somalia. 

December 30, 2005: The Hyderabad Police arrested four suspected LeT activists in the city. 

August 29, 2004: Eight suspected LeT cadres planning to attack Americans visiting the State and incite communal tension through a series of explosions during the Ganesh festival were arrested in Hyderabad. Explosives, a car and four motorcycles were also seized 

June 10, 2004: Andhra Pradesh Police arrested a suspected agent of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), Anees Mohinuddin, at the Begumpet Airport, Hyderabad 

March 9, 2004: A 40-year-old Pakistani national, Arshad Mahmood, who was carrying a Bangladeshi passport, was arrested on charges of espionage. Mahmood was passing sensitive information on to Pakistan's intelligence officers through e-mail. Photographs of army units and locations, sketch maps of army unit locations in Secunderabad-Hyderabad, copies of e-mails and a sum of Rupees 31,000 in Indian currency were seized from his one-room rented house in the Muthyalabagh locality. 

January 10, 2004: Six youth, suspected to be ISI agents, were arrested from Hyderabad and from Siddipet in the Medak District, in Andhra Pradesh. 

The attack at the Mecca Masjid is an incremental attempt within a broad strategy of Pakistan-backed Islamist extremist mobilization across India, which sees Hyderabad as a natural focus of its efforts because of its religious demography and its history of communal violence. The public response to this latest terrorist outrage has demonstrated that this strategy continues to fail. But the attack itself demonstrates the determination among Islamist terrorist groups and their state handlers in Pakistan and Bangladesh to continue to push this strategy forward, despite past failure, on the calculus that some future atrocity will eventually trigger the wider conflagration that they hope for. 

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