Blast after blast

tauringhuang.

Jul 28th 2008 | COLOMBO
From Economist.com

Another spate of deadly terrorist attacks in India

AP
Correction to this article

EVERY six months or so, in recent years, unknown terrorists have exploded crude bombs in India’s cities and trains, and a dozen or more people have been killed. But these mystery killers have now upped the tempo. On Saturday July 26th, and in another bomb-blast the day before, at least 50 people were killed in two Indian cities.

The deadliest attacks were in Ahmedabad, in the prosperous western state of Gujarat, on Saturday. At least 49 people died and some 200 were wounded in around 20 small blasts, which came in two waves. The first hit the city’s crowded market area; the second, 20 minutes later, struck a hospital to which many victims had been rushed. The previous day’s atrocity was less bloody: one person was killed and six wounded by eight explosions in Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka—and the centre of India’s important computer-services industry.

A self-proclaimed Indian terrorist outfit, the “Indian Mujahideen”, claimed responsibility for the Ahmedabad attack. It was reported to have sent an e-mail to several Indian television-news channels shortly before the explosions which read: “Await five minutes for the revenge of Gujarat.” This presumably was a reference to the state’s long history of Hindu-Muslim violence, and, in particular, to a slaughter of over 2,000 Muslims in 2002, in which senior members of the bureaucracy and police allegedly colluded. The killing was a response to the deaths of 58 Hindu activists in a fire on a train, for which Muslims, on slender evidence, had been blamed.

The Indian Mujahideen, or those calling themselves by that name, also claimed responsibility for blasts in Jaipur in May. They killed over 60 people. Indian commentators have been quick to blame Pakistan, or members of its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency, for the attack. They always are. But in the absence, so far, of any evidence to support this claim, it is hard to know how seriously to take it. In Ahmedabad, police responded, as they invariably do, with a hasty round up: of some 30 “suspects”. It would be surprising, on past form, if any is convicted of the crime.

In fact, it is quite likely that the ISI is involved in the killing to some degree. The question is: by how many degrees of separation from it? During a 60-year rivalry, Pakistan has made skilful use of Islamist militants against India, in the contested region of Kashmir, and elsewhere. This must have bequeathed its current spooks a heavy case-load of proven and would-be terrorists, in Pakistan, Bangladesh and many parts of India.

It is almost inconceivable that the ISI is no longer trying to keep tabs on these men. It is also likely that some in its ranks, despite the progress of a four-year effort to make peace between India and Pakistan, want to keep up the fight. But the extent to which they are having their wish seems to be largely a matter of guesswork.

Nonetheless, India has been making some increasingly confident guesses. After a suicide bomber attacked India’s embassy in Kabul last month, killing 41 people, including an Indian diplomat and army general, India’s national security advisor, M.K. Narayanan said: “We have no doubt that the ISI is behind this.”

Meanwhile, the effects of the recent spate of violence are all too concrete. The last round of peace talks between India and Pakistan, which were held in Islamabad in May, a week after the blasts in Jaipur, achieved little. Further bilateral meetings, mainly on trade, will be held this week in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, at an annual regional shindig: a summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation. But the atmosphere has been tainted.

Among India's senior bureaucrats and soldiers the violence serves to confirm their reluctance to forge closer ties with Pakistan on any level. That is a tragedy, but one that India can afford. For Pakistan, a more fragile place, which faces a much bigger Islamist threat within its own borders, the relative benefits of peace would be greater.



Correction: we misspelt M.K. Narayanan. We also incorrectly identified Ahmedabad as the capital of Gujarat. These errors was corrected on July 28th 2008.