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Home-grown

August 5, 2011

Last month's triple bomb blasts in Mumbai killed 26 people and wounded more than 130. They were the first to hit India's financial and entertainment capital since the Islamist militant attacks of November 2008.

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People react moments after a bomb exploded at Zaveri bazar in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, July 13, 2011.
People react moments after a bomb explosion in Mumbai, India on July 13, 2011Image: dapd

Home Minister P. Chidambaram told Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament, on Thursday that ongoing investigations "point to (an) Indian module." It was the first time that the Indian government expressly linked the July 13 blasts to a home-grown militant group. "We cannot live in denial. We cannot close our eyes to facts. There are home-grown modules."

The July 13 rush hour bombings in Mumbai took place in three different areas. By now, the suspicion has fallen on the shadowy Indian Mujahideen, a domestic militant group who carried out similar attacks in the capital New Delhi and the western city of Ahmedabad in 2008. The group is also thought to have planned and executed the bomb attack on a restaurant in the western city of Pune in February 2010 which killed 16.

Police guard Zaveri Bazaar, one of the sites of the July 13 bomb blasts
Police guard Zaveri Bazaar, one of the sites of the July 13 bomb blastsImage: dapd

On the radar

India blamed the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai on the Pakistan-based, banned terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba. The Indian Mujahideen is believed to have links with LeT. On July 14, the day after the blasts, Chidambaram was repeatedly asked at a press conference in Mumbai whether he suspected the hand of a foreign terror group, right wing groups, the underworld, the Maoists or the Indian Mujahideen in the explosions. Chidambaram replied that all groups "hostile to India" were on the "radar" and did not rule out the possibility of the blasts being an attempt to derail the forthcoming Indo-Pak talks. He reasserted that Indians lived "in the most troubled neighborhood in the world" with "Pakistan-Afghanistan (as) the epicenter of terror."

Growing shadow

In Thursday's parliamentary debate, opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) ally National Congress Party (NCP) accused the government of being too soft in its approach to terrorism. In his reply, Chidambaram acknowledged that the period from 2002 to 2006 had been the worst phase of terrorism-related violence for the country and that there was a "failure to recognize" the growth of such militants groups as the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the Indian Mujahideen.

Author: Arun Chowdhury (AFP, PTI)
Editor: Sarah Berning