Probes yield little result in terror-hit India

EASY TARGET: Following Hyderabad blasts, Junaid was arrested and tortured for five months and then released.

    

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Keywords: Jaipur Blasts, Terror

When Waliullah was first produced in court in May 2006, local lawyers attacked him.

Waliullah told the Allahabad High Court that his life was in danger, and the case was transferred in November last year to Ghaziabad. That very month, blasts went off in the same Varanasi court where Waliullah had been attacked.

Prosecution lawyers say most of the 150 witnesses will find it hard to travel to Ghaziabad to testify.

They ask why Waliullah had high security cover, and why his hearings were conducted in camera.

And the fact that his cases were transferred out of Varanasi, suggest that he could have powerful backers.

So why is it that not one person has been convicted for the attacks on Varanasi, Malegaon and Hyderabad? A key problem is a shortage of intelligence officers.

"The Intelligence Bureau for this entire country of more than 1.2 billion people has a total of no more than 3,500 field operatives. The failure is in the political executive, they have not created the necessary capacities and consequently there is no use blaming the intelligence agencies," Ajay Sahni, Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management, reveals.

Sources add that HuJI now has over 50,000 sleeper cells across India. Most ofd them are dormant and loosely organised groups of people with authentic Indian identities.

Sleeper cells provide logistic and financial support for terror operations, maintain safe houses for terror operatives, and constantly recruit fresh workers.

Working closely with SIMI's network of activists, makes HuJI a lethal terror threat in India.

Reports suggest similarities between the Jaipur and Hyderabad twin blasts, which were reportedly carried out by HuJI.

In both attacks, the main explosive was ammonium nitrate, put in C-shaped boxes with metal casing, with alarm clocks as timers.

A group calling itself Indian Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for the Jaipur blasts, but analysts say it could be a bluff.

"I don’t even think Indian Mujaheedin is an organisation. A name like Indian Mujaheedin or Mujaheedin-el-hind becomes extremely important because then they can try to say that no it is not Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, which are all based in Pakistan," Sahni adds.

(With inputs from Divya Iyer, Sandhya Ravishankar and Toral Varia)