Indian Homeland Security Watch

ajtr

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Islamism, modernity & Indian Mujahideen

Indian jihadists are often seen as backward-looking fanatics. They are, in fact, products of a modern, pluralist society.
Days before 21 improvised explosive devices ripped through Ahmedabad on July 26, 2008, a young cleric from Azamgarh arrived to offer religious instruction to the Indian Mujahideen's bombers.

Sheikh Abul Bashar hoped, Gujarat Police investigators say, to deepen the bombers' theological understanding of the war they were engaged in. He came armed with Salamat-e-Kayamat, an evangelical video replete with scriptural prophecies of the triumph of Islam before the day of judgment. He also acquired a copy of Faruk Camp, a paean to Taliban rule in Afghanistan, from Usman Aggarbattiwala, a young commerce graduate from Vadodara's Maharaja Sayaji University who allegedly programmed the integrated circuits used as timers for a separate set of bombs planted in Surat.

Bored by the religious polemic, though, Bashar's students turned instead to Anurag Kashyap's movie Black Friday — a riveting account of just how a group of hard-drinking, womanising gangsters carried out the 1993 serial bombings in Mumbai to avenge the anti-Muslim riots that that tore apart the city after the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

It seems improbable that the earnest cleric approved of these decidedly irreligious role-models — and the Indian Mujahideen's aesthetic choices — may point us in the direction of important insights into the jihadist movement in India.

Many believe the jihadist movement in India to be driven by religious fanaticism. There is little doubt that the idiom of the Indian Mujahideen drew on Islam, or at least a certain reading of Islam. The manifestos the organisation released after its operations sought religious legitimacy for the jihadist project. They also point to specific secular political problems facing India's Muslims, specifically communal violence. Bashar's Black Friday story helps debunk notions that the jihadist movement in India is spearheaded by madrasa-educated fanatics indoctrinated in something called “extreme Islam.” Both SIMI, and the Jamaat-e-Islami from which it was born, would rail against watching films; Indian Mujahideen terrorists revelled in them. Many seminaries are still struggling with modernity; India's jihadists are natives of the new world.

Azamgarh and the Indian Mujahideen: Early last month, police in Uttar Pradesh arrested Salman Ahmad, one of a string of alleged jihadists associated with the Lashkar-e-Taiba's so-called “Karachi Project”: an enterprise run by Karachi-based fugitive Indian jihadists Riyaz Ismail Shahbandri, his brother Iqbal Shahbandri, and Abdul Subhan Qureshi to execute a renewed wave of bombings across the country. Police say Ahmad, who was arrested after the Research and Analysis Wing intercepted phone calls he made from Nepal to Pakistan, had received training at a Lashkar camp in Karachi before being tasked to set up a safe-house in Kathmandu for routing new recruits to the Lashkar. Just 15, his lawyers claim, when he was alleged to have participated in the 2008 bombings in New Delhi, Ahmad studied at a government-run high school and had enrolled for a computer-applications course at a Lucknow college.

Ahmad's profile closely resembles that of many Azamgarh jihadists — which, along with Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Bhatkal, near Mangalore, served as a core recruitment base for the Lashkar-e-Taiba — linked jihadist cells which are today collectively referred to as the Indian Mujahideen.

Data obtained by The Hindu for 10 individuals alleged to be key members of the Azamgarh jihadist cell show that just two individuals — Bashar himself and Mohammad Arif Badruddin — had spent any length of time in madrasas. Many likely received some religious education in their spare time, in common with many small-town children of all faiths, but their aspirations appear to have been decidedly middle-class. Zeeshan Ahmad, one of the suspects involved in the 2008 shootout with the Delhi Police at Batla House, was pursuing a business administration degree. His flat-mate, Mohammad Saif, a history graduate, also hoped to secure an MBA. Mohammad Zakir Sheikh was studying for a Master's degree in Psychology in Azamgarh. Sadiq Israr Sheikh, who spent two years in an Azamgarh madrasa as a child, was enrolled in a computer-educaiton course.

Bashar's story casts some light on just how the jihadist cells in Azamgarh in fact formed. In the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the Jamaat-e-Islami came under intense pressure from hardliners calling for militant action. The party, deeply entwined in mainstream politics and suspicious of a confrontation with the Indian state, resisted. Maulana Abdul Aleem Islahi — a prominent Hyderabad-based cleric who had graduated from Azamgarh's well-known Madrasat-ul-Islah — earned the party's wrath by authoring an inflammatory tract challenging its line. Expelled from the Jamaat-e-Islami, Maulana Islahi became an ideological mentor to many young radicals who played a key role in the jihadist movement in India — among them, fugitive Indian Mujahideen commander Abdul Subhan Qureshi.

In the summer of 2005, Maulana Islahi offered Bashar a job at the Jamaiat Sheikh ul-Maududi, a seminary named for the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami. The cleric and Bashar's father had been friends and political allies in the Jamaat; their relationship evidently survived his expulsion.

Later, though, Bashar was increasingly drawn to the jihadist project advocated by Maulana Islahi's son, Salim. He left his job, began addressing gatherings of the pro-jihadist organisations like the Darsgah Jihad-o-Shahadat and Tehreek Tahaffuz-e-Sha'aire Islam, and edited the Islamist magazine Nishaan-e-Rah, which drew its name from the seminal ideologue Syed Qutb's key work, Milestones. Salim Islahi introduced Bashar to Sadiq Israr Sheikh, a Mumbai-based SIMI radical with Azamgarh roots who had studied at a madrasa there for some years as a child. Sheikh, who was linked through SIMI to the Indian Mujahideen's fugitive commanders Qureshi and Shahbandri, in turn recruited jihadists in Azamgarh — key among them Atif Amin, who was killed in the 2008 shootout.

The “Islamist Class”: Clearly, a complex matrix of factors — among them, personal friendship, kinship networks and ideology — helped build the Indian Mujahideen's networks. Madrasas or traditional Islamist affiliations were not among them. Bashar, for example, did not draw on students of the Madrasa Sheikh ul-Maududi for recruits. Nor did he seek out students at the Azamgarh seminary where he and his employer were educated, the Madrasat-ul-Islah.

Part of the reason for this may be that the jihadist movement, of which SIMI was the most visible face, stood in opposition to both the traditional clerics and organised Islamist politics. In his rich anthropological study Islamism and Democracy in India, the scholar Irfan Ahmad explored the frictions between the Jamaat-e-Islami establishment and SIMI at the Jamaat-e-Islami-run Jamiat-ul-Falah seminary in Azamgarh. Founded by the Jamaat-e-Islami to capitalise on the new political space that opened up after the Emergency, SIMI soon embarrassed the party's elders by its support for jihadists.

SIMI mounted polemical attacks on the Jamaat-e-Islami scholar Maulana Mohammad Rahmani, and sought to take control of the Jamiat-ul-Falah's old-students' association. In 1999, a time when it had become increasingly vocal in its calls for jihad and support for organisations like the Taliban, SIMI members provoked a showdown with authorities at the Jamiat-ul-Falah. The Jamaat-e-Islami's official students' wing, the Students Islamic Organisation, responded by founding a parallel student body, the Tanzeem Tulba-e-Qadim, which charged SIMI with propagating “ katta [gun] culture”, saying that its calls for jihad were “lethal for Islam, Muslims and the country.” Notably, SIMI was proscribed by authorities at the Jamiat-ul-Falah well before the Government of India finally acted against the jihadist organisation in the wake of the Al Qaeda's attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. During the police crackdown that followed the SIO refused to join in protests against SIMI leaders from the Jamiat-ul-Falah.

Dr. Ahmad points to the existence of what he describes as a distinct “Islamist class”. Unlike at some other seminaries, students living at Falah did not come from among the ranks of the poor. Fees, including food and incidental costs, ranged around Rs. 900 a month. Of 5,365 students, 4,300 came from cities. But class, he noted was “not just based on monthly income and an urban location but, more crucial, the specific cultural capital.” Just as cultural capital of the Jamaat-e-Islami led its leadership to make specific political choices to the crisis with which the Muslim community has been confronted, so, too, did the jihadists linked to the institutions and organisations that broke with the structured Islamist movement. Both sides drew on Islam to legitimise their position — but their choices were shaped by the challenges of politics in a modern, plural society.

“Haven't you still realised that the falsehood of your 33 crore dirty mud idols and the blasphemy of your deaf, dumb, mute and naked idols of Ram, Krishna and Hanuman”, the venomous Indian Mujahideen manifesto released to media as bombs went off across Ahmedabad read, “are not at all going to save your necks, Insha-Allah, from being slaughtered by our hands.”

Below, though, were five demands, each entirely secular in character: demands for restitution against police outrages, the punishment of the perpetrators of communal violence, and the legal defence of terrorism suspects.

Fighting the jihadists must obviously involve better policing and intelligence. But it also needs political interventions built around rights and justice — not the appeasement of religious neoconservatives and clerics, as successive Indian governments have seemed to believe.
 

ajtr

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Why Hyderabad is a breeding ground for jihad

During interrogation in Kerala [ Images ] last week, alleged terrorist T Naseer claimed that Hyderabad is the epi-centre of jihad in India [ Images ]. rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa reports from Hyderabad on how the city has become a breeding ground for jihadis.
A couple of days ago, captured Lashkar-e-Tayiba [ Images ] operative T Naseer reportedly told his Kerala police interrogators that Hyderabad is the Pakistani-based terrorist outfit's Indian headquarters.

Information provided by the security agencies reveal that Hyderabad has the most number of alleged terror operatives who have gone missing or are currently believed to be resident in Pakistan.

Walking through the streets of Hyderabad's old city, one does get the feeling of alienation amongst its youth. Old timers in the area say many of them have not come to terms with the fact that the city was liberated from the Nizam in September 1948 and handed over to the Indian government. They speak about how prosperous the city was under the Nizam and allege how after the liberation thousands of Muslims have been killed.

Maulana Nasirrudin, a Muslim cleric who has just been acquitted of charges under the Terrorist and Disruptive (Prevention) Activities Act, says that many residents have not forgotten the lives lost when the city was liberated nearly 62 years ago. He claims there have been several police atrocities against Muslims since as a result of which some have gone to Pakistan in a bid to take revenge.

"This is not the right approach. We need to stay and fight the government and demand our rights," the maulana points out.

Mohammed Shahid Bilal, the alleged mastermind in the August 2007 twin blasts in the city and the Mecca Masjid blasts in May that year, who is said to have been killed in an encounter in Pakistan, continues to remain a hero in the area where he lived.

A youth from his area, who preferred not to be identified for this report, says, "Saab jab tak Bilal tha, paani or current ka problem nahin tha. (When Bilal was alive, we did not have water or power problems)."

"He was framed by the police since he stood up to a RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) leader," alleges the young man. "The RSS leader wanted to instal a Ganapati [ Images ] pandal on wakf land and Bilal opposed this. After this they started fixing him in murder cases and later terrorism charges. He went to Pakistan to take revenge on the Indian establishment and has not returned since."

The Hyderabad police dismiss this allegation. City police officers say many young men are influenced by Lashkar propaganda. "We have evidence to prove that these men owe allegiance to the Lashkar. In 2002 the Lashkar decided to get aggressive. In October 2002, 14 men were sent to Pakistan for training. Various reasons like the liberation of Hyderabad, the demolition of the Babri Masjid [ Images ] were given to brainwash these men," the police sources say.

These men, the police sources claim, established sleeper cells in the city. In 2007, when the Lashkar gave a call for jihad, the likes of Bilal and Rehman Khan became full-fledged terror operatives. They were among the 14 men who had been sent to Pakistan and told to set up Lashkar networks in the city.

Intelligence Bureau agents believe Rehman Khan changed the thinking of many Muslim young men in Hyderabad and ensured that several Hyderabadi youth traveled to Pakistan to pursue jihad.

Hyderabad police sources say the first batch of 14 men executed several terror attacks including the assassination of former Gujarat home minister Haren Pandya, the May 2007 blast at the Mecca Masjid and the August 2007 twin blasts at Lumbini Park and Gokul Chaat.

"Muslims have always been blamed and sidelined," says Riyaz, a resident of the city's Moosrambagh area. "Today there is anger since many youth are being framed in terror-related cases. Why would a Muslim bomb a mosque and kill his own people? It was the blame for the Mecca Masjid blasts which angered us the most. I know it is stupid to join some organisation in Pakistan and fight the Indian government. But several youth have crossed the border to take revenge."

Human rights activist Lateef Mohammad Khan, who is fighting for Muslim youth booked in cases of terrorism, believes it is a conspiracy against the community. "Is there anything wrong in raising your voice against injustice? If the youth raise their voice, then they are branded terrorists. Following the blasts in Hyderabad several youth were picked up. Thirty six youth were charged in these cases. As of today 30 have already been acquitted of all charges."

Motasim Billa, who has been acquitted of terror charges, said during an earlier meeting: "I feel like laughing at what you guys write in the press. One day I am the commander of the HuJI (Harkat-ul-Jamaat-e-Islami) and the next day I am the chief of Lashkar's southern operations. Here I am standing in front of you. Do I look like a terrorist? It is all a conspiracy."

While the 2007 bomb blast cases and the charges that followed angered several Muslim youth, Maulana Nasiruddin's arrest was a turning point. When the maulana was arrested for provocative speeches in the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat violence, there was a protest outside the police headquarters. A young man named Mujahid was shot by the police.

IB agents claim this incident led to Nasiruddin's son Riazzuddin Nasir, a friend of Mujahid, to take up arms. He was recruited by Lashkar agents and sent to train in Pakistan. Before he could carry out attacks, Nasir was arrested by the Karnataka [ Images ] police. He is currently in a Gujarat jail facing charges for the July 2008 Ahmedabad [ Images ] bombings. The maulana's other two sons, Yasir and Jabir, are in an Indore jail facing terrorism charges.

The Lashkar, the IB sources say, has planned to set up a terror network in Hyderabad since 2000 when its founders Mohammad Saeed and Abdul Rehman Makki declared at a rally in Pakistan that the time had come to liberate Hyderabad from Hindu rule and restore the rule of the Nizam.

IB sources say the Lashkar first sent a man named Ishtiaq with an Indian passport. He married a local resident and tried setting up a network, but was picked up by the police.

Azam Ghauri then took over; he was accused of involvement in the March 12, 1993 Mumbai [ Images ] serial blasts. IB sources say Ghauri set up a network comprising nearly 70 men before he was killed in a police encounter.

Abdul Aziz, who had done jihadi service in Bosnia, was Lashkar's next choice for leader. With the help of the city's criminals he roped in the likes of Bilal and Rehman Khan.

A large part of Hyderabad's old city remains underdeveloped. Many of its winding lanes are havens for petty crime, pervasive unemployment and poverty. The promoters of jihad find willing recruits from these lanes. Controversial clerics aid their cause.

"We have seized material several times which say the time has come for a jihad to liberate Hyderabad and restore the rule of the Nizam," police sources say. IB sources believe the Lashkar has its strongest network in the old city.

During a meeting of America's Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and Indian security officials it emerged that 21 terrorists operating in Pakistan, including Abu Jundal, have Hyderabad origins. Hyderabad, the IB sources say, has surpassed Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh [ Images ] and Kerala as a breeding ground for Indian terrorists.

Hyderabad police sources believe Lashkar recruiters, foot soldiers and planners operate in the city. "We have intelligence that in the years to come they will set up modules for fidayeen (suicide attackers)," the sources say. "We suspect that there are at least 10 dedicated Lashkar modules in the city. It is a cat and mouse game. Since the blasts of two years ago, we have neutralised at least four of them (modules), but they are constantly working and keep setting up more modules."
 

ajtr

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Bomb scare at Thiruvananthapuram airport; hijack attempt gone awry?

Bangalore: Preliminary investigations into the discovery of a bomb in the Kingfisher Airlines flight IT 4731 from Bangalore to Thiruvananthapuram suggest a hijack attempt that went awry.Although the terror plot is yet to be confirmed, investigators do not rule out a Kandahar-type hijack to force the release of Indian Mujahideen extremists lodged in Kerala jails.

Points out a senior intelligence official, “The bomb was found next to the food and beverages galley in the rear of the ATR aircraft. In this type of aircraft, the luggage is kept next to the cockpit; it is not accessible to others, except to loaders and unloaders. The placement of the bomb next to food-trays suggests that someone was assigned to take it there and hijack the aircraft.”

“We will question the caterers. It seems to have been done in a hurry. There was no detonator, which indicates that someone with a detonator wanted to retrieve the bomb,” the official said.

Security agencies reckon the hijack attempt could be the handiwork of one of the Indian Mujahideen sleeper cells in India. “There are two sleeper cells in South India,” they say.

An airline official, who did not want to be named, said aviation authorities always woke up only after some incident occurred and were not proactive on the issue of passenger safety.

“Many lapses occur at airports but the government does not bother about them until something happens. Most airports have infrastructure for five stages of baggage checks but if a baggage passes the first stage – laser penetration to check for explosives – they do not bother about the four other checks,” he said.
Meanwhile, another airline official said that there was nothing new about the security measures suggested in the circular issued by the regional aviation authority. “We had been following them already,” he said.
 

ajtr

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Kerala police arrest man on suspicion of planting crude bomb

Bangalore: The Kerala police have identified a person, suspected of planting a crude bomb in Kingfisher flight IT-4731 at the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport.Unconfirmed reports said that the man had been detained.Meanwhile, the Kerala police also the found that the newspaper in which the bomb was wrapped was circulated in Nedumangad, about 18 km from the state capital. A senior police officer in Kerala said that the bomb was probably placed before passengers had boarded the flight on Saturday night.It was learnt that an interrogation of the cleaning staff had not yielded any results.

The flight, which reached the Bengaluru International Airport on Saturday night, returned to Thiruvananthapuram the next morning with 27 passengers and four crew members.

A Kerala police team, headed by Thiruvananthapuram city police commmissioner MR Ajith Kumar had, on Sunday, interrogated more than 20 people who were on duty at the Bangalore airport.

The investigating team also grilled airline officials before returning. The Bangalore police also questioned those on duty at the cargo section and security check points of the airport.

“We suspect the involvement of outsourced employees (caterers and loaders) as nobody else – with the exception of the cabin crew – has access to the galley at the rear of the aircraft,” an airport official said. Ruling out the possibility of passengers or other airport workers being involved, he said, “Nobody else is allowed to enter that area of the aircraft. We are only looking at people who have access to that section.”

Meanwhile, deputy commissioner of police (north-east) Basavaraj Y Malagatti said that the fact that the bomb was wrapped in the Thiruvananthapuram edition of a Malayalam newspaper, dated March 17, 2010, and a Kerala SSLC question paper suggested that the crude bomb was placed into the aircraft at Thiruvananthapuram.

Malagatti said that the city police were waiting for their Kerala counterparts to complete their part of the investigation. “We have formed five teams to probe the case from the Bangalore side. We will be sharing information with our Kerala counterparts,” he said.
 

ajtr

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Centre orders probe to find out how bomb reached Kingfisher flight

New Delhi: Calling it a “major security breach”, the Centre has ordered a probe into how a crude bomb made its way to a Kingfisher flight to Thiruvanathapuram on Sunday.


The probe will find out who were behind the attack plan.

“This is a major security breach and every possible action is being
taken to unearth how it reached the cargo [of the aircraft]. The matter has been taken very seriously and investigations have been ordered. The probe is being conducted by multiple agencies,” civil aviation minister Praful Patel said on Wednesday.

The improvised explosive found at Thiruvanathapuram airport from the cargo section of a flight on Sunday had arrived from Bangalore.
Initial investigations by the Kerala police have revealed that though the explosive was not of a high density, there were chances of it going off mid-air because of high air pressure. Experts have found that the bomb was made from a mixture of potassium chlorate, ammonia and sulphur.

“The likelihood of the bomb going through checks seems remote considering the security. We are exploring the possibility that it had been brought into the cargo hold by someone holding security clearance,” an official connected with the probe said.
 

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5730065.cms

Infiltration likely to go up: MHA
TNN, Mar 27, 2010, 04.07am IST

NEW DELHI: Increased infiltration in Jammu & Kashmir has sparked serious concern among authorities with many expecting a “hot summer”. Going by recent trends of increasing number of militants coming across the LoC, senior home ministry officials said the number of infiltrators was only likely to go up not just in the Valley but also from the Indo-Nepal border.

Speaking after a meeting with home minister P Chidambaram, Army chief General Deepak Kapoor said, “Infiltration has increased in J&K this winter in comparison to last winter. But we are fully capable of handling the situation.” Sources in the home ministry said at least 60 attempts were made by Pakistan-based militants to infiltrate into J&K since the beginning of this year.

The rise in attempts to cross the border illegally come after a relative lull in 2009. The number of encounters has also shot up to 40 which is nearly double of last year. About 38 militants had been killed. In fact, on Thursday, two militants were shot dead near Amritsar by the BSF as they tried to cross the border.

Nearly 110 terrorists had infiltrated into the border state in 2009 through 413 infiltration attempts, in which 93 terrorists were killed, sources said. A total of 395 cases of apprehension of infiltration were reported last year as compared to 342 in 2008. There were 573 cases of apprehension of infiltration reported in 2006 and 535 in 2007 along LoC in J&K.

Kapoor had said recently that around 2,500 terrorists in various training camps in Pakistan were waiting to enter Indian territory.
 

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...-reconcile-with-India/articleshow/5728203.cms

Taliban say they can 'reconcile' with India
PTI, Mar 26, 2010, 06.09pm IST

NEW DELHI: Claiming that they were not in "direct conflict" with India, Taliban have said there was a possibility of reconciliation even as they justified the February 26 Kabul attack on Indians as a "legitimate" action.

In a self-contradicting interview, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed his organisation did not want India out of Afghanistan but attacked the country for supporting the Hamid Karzai government and western forces.

"If the Taliban return to power, we would like to maintain normal relations with countries including India. It's possible for the Taliban and India to reconcile with each other," Mujahid told a news magazine.

He said "India's role is different from those countries that sent troops to occupy Afghanistan."

At the same time, he added that, "India isn't neutral in the Afghan conflict as it is supporting the military presence of US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan and working for the strengthening of the Hamid Karzai government."

Also, he said, "India has never condemned the civilian casualties caused by the occupying forces", a reference to US-led troops in Afghanistan.

Asked about the February 26 attack in which Indians, housed in two hotels in Kabul, were targeted, the spokesman said Taliban were responsible for it.

He said it was carried out by "Taliban fighters after we got intelligence information that RAW agents were holding a meeting there."

The February 26 attack targeted Indians engaged in developmental projects like medical and education programmes, killing seven of them.

Claiming that India was supporting the Afghan government and the western forces, Mujahid said the country is, "therefore, a legitimate target for us."

Asked if Taliban wanted India out of Afghanistan, he said, "We are not saying that India should be out of Afghanistan. Nor can India be completely expelled from Afghanistan."


The Taliban spokesman noted that India and Afghanistan have had historic ties and said "The Taliban aren't in any direct conflict with India. India troops aren't part of NATO forces, they haven't occupied Afghanistan."

He claimed that Taliban "favour neither India not Pakistan" but hastened to add that they cannot "ignore Pakistan as it is a neighbouring Islamic country" and was on good terms with them when they were in power.

"India, on the other hand, backed anti-Taliban forces of the Northern Alliance (NA) and refused to do business with our government... Our complaint is India backed the NA (Northern Alliance), and is now supporting the Karzai government," Mujahid said.

He was also critical when asked about Indian projects and whether those were beneficial for Afghan people.

Claiming that India was doing all this to promote its interest in Afghanistan, he said, "If India were so fond of the Afghan people, why did it not undertake development projects under Taliban rule?"
 

ajtr

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Kingfisher bomb case solved, accused in custody

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala police have taken into custody an employee of a private cargo firm here for his alleged involvement in placing an explosive device on a Kingfisher flight to Thiruvananthapuram March 21. The arrest is likely to be recorded later in the day.
"Right now, I will not be able to divulge the details but the case has been solved and the person who did this crime has admitted to it. The recording of the arrest and other things will take place shortly," a senior police official, who did not wish to be named, said here Sunday.
The explosive device was found in the cargo section of the Kingfisher plane after it landed in Thiruvananthapuram from Bangalore last Sunday. The flight had 27 passengers and four crew members.
After the passengers and the crew deplaned, a routine security check of the aircraft led to the detection of the device wrapped in a school question paper and a Malayalam newspaper.
"He is not an employee of the Airports Authority of India. He works with a private firm involved in operations inside the airport," the official added.
The police have ruled out the involvement of any terrorist outfit and said that the incident was the result of personal enmity among employees of private firms.
The person in custody hails from the suburbs of the capital city.
 

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Alert in high seas on possible terror strikes on oil wells

Security has been tightened in the high seas following intelligence reports that Pakistan-based terror groups may target some oil wells and Single Point Mooring (SPM) facilities where ships offload crude oil for transportation to the mainland through pipes.

Central security agencies have asked the Navy and the Coast Guard to increase patrolling in the seas and pursue any suspicious or unidentified ship or vessel moving in Indian waters, official sources said.

The moves comes in the wake of reports of central security agencies as well as Western intelligence that Pakistan-based terror outfits especially Lashker-e-Taiba may try and target oil wells located in the high seas and may also try and hit the SPMs, mini ports located 70 to 80 nautical miles (130 to 150 km) in deep seas.

It was found that the country has dozens of such unattended SPMs where ships carrying crude oil offload it and it is sent to mainland using pipes or smaller ships.

The concerned authorities have been now asked to carry out a proper listing of SPMs and hand over the list to Coast Guards so that security is provided to them. Each SPM is built at an estimated cost of Rs 600-700 crore in all those areas where ships cannot anchor at the coast because of shallow waters.

Navy and Coast Guards have, meanwhile, intensified patrolling around the oil wells located in the high seas besides asking oil companies to keep a tight vigil.

After the audacious 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, the Union government had designated the Navy as the central authority responsible for the country’s overall maritime security and it will be assisted by the Coast Guard, State marine police and central agencies.
 

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Fear of more terror attacks drives demand for sniffer dogs in India

By Rana Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 29, 2010



Aman in a camouflage uniform held a leash and ordered, "Sniff! Search!"

A black Labrador retriever began sniffing immediately at items piled on the ground: dolls, toy cars, a plastic dump truck. When his nose rubbed a gray briefcase, he stopped, wagged his tail and sat down. A hidden explosive had been discovered.

The 16-month-old Lab, curiously named Boom, is an ace sleuth in India's battle against terrorism and one of hundreds of dogs at India's largest military-run training center.

Sniffer dogs are in high demand in India as officials boost security in the aftermath of the deadly Mumbai attacks in November 2008. The army has long used dogs to battle separatist violence in the states of Kashmir and Punjab. But as insurgents and terrorists expand their targets across the country, dogs are also being deployed to malls, metro stations, luxury hotels and other public places in India's booming new cities.

The country's handful of sniffer dog training centers are run by the military. The institute here in the northern city of Meerut supplies trained dogs to the army, paramilitary forces, commando squads and police departments across India. Officials say the 50-year-old center has never had such a high volume of orders.

"The demand for sniffer dogs is colossal, and it has grown multi-fold since the Mumbai terror attacks. Every city wants more and more sniffer dogs now," said Commandant M.L. Sharma, chief of the Remount and Veterinary Corps, the army's premier training institute, which breeds, rears and trains dogs like Boom. "To meet this demand, we have to urgently grow 2 1/2 times in our capacity in the next two years."

New Delhi's police department has 32 sniffer dogs and has ordered 50 more ahead of the Commonwealth Games in October. Major airports have increased the number of sniffer dogs by at least 50 percent since 2008. The National Security Guard, an elite commando force, needs dog teams at its new regional hubs.

"We had to wait a long time for our dogs," said Rajan Bhagat, a senior police officer in New Delhi. "The pressure on the government and private breeders and trainers is too much."

Until the Mumbai attacks, private security in India meant a uniformed guard standing at the gate with a baton.

"Every bomb blast is a new wake-up call. Malls, cinemas, five-star hotels and offices now want their private security agencies to bring the dogs to sanitize their sites daily. India cannot afford expensive electronic explosive-detection devices, so dogs are a cheaper alternative," said Paramjit Singh, head of Taser India, an Arizona-based company that makes non-lethal stun guns and set up an office here after the Mumbai attacks.

India's private security industry is largely unregulated, and Singh said many companies "are fooling their clients by walking untrained Labradors."

Private security agencies say they do not have enough qualified trainers, and, because they lack access to explosives, they use firecrackers to train their dogs.

Anil Dhawan, president of the Asian Professional Security Association, India, said the country has become "a big market right now for international security companies specializing in trained sniffer dogs. Companies from Israel and the U.K. are looking to come here.

"But bringing the dogs and the handlers from abroad will be very expensive" for private establishments such as hotels and malls, Dhawan said.

At the military academy, dogs go through rigorous basic obedience training, take puppy aptitude tests and speed-walk on treadmills. One of the academy's star graduates, Bhanu, won a national medal for his work during the Mumbai attacks.

The training is not without hazard to the dogs. Dogs who sniff explosives constantly during training often have lung damage and a shorter life span, dog trainers say.

"It becomes like a smoker's chest. It brings down their vitality," Col. Sanjiv Bhalla said at the army's training center here. "The sniffer dogs live for about eight years, whereas a regular pet dog lives for 12 years." Beginning next month, Bhalla said, the center will begin testing with samples of non-hazardous explosives imported from the United States.

India's torrid summer months pose another problem for Labs. Their effective work hours are reduced, they get severely dehydrated and their noses bleed. Some Indian trainers are planning to import U.S.-made jackets with cooling packs for the dogs.

On a recent morning, six spiffy sniffer dogs in New Delhi's police department lined up for their day's duties, which included sniffing for explosives on the routes taken by VIP politicians' cars, at the railway station and in a stadium where the World Cup Hockey tournament was being played.

Sub-Inspector Digvijay Singh looked fondly at the dogs from a room with peeling walls adorned with plastic flowers and dog medals. "These dogs are patriotic Indians," Singh said. "They are better than our men, because they don't take bribes."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/w...ntent/article/2010/03/28/AR2010032802722.html
 

ajtr

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Financial and criminal intelligence network to be activated


New Delhi: In an effort to streamline exchange of sensitive information related to financial and other crimes among various enforcement agencies here, the government will activate an ambitious single-window intelligence network by the middle of this year.



The intelligence network called Secure Information Exchange Network (SIEN), has already brought on-board the databases of central enforcement agencies like the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-IND), Enforcement Directorate (ED), Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) among others.


This is the first of its kind of its effort to streamline crucial and actionable information of various stakeholder agencies functioning with exclusive mandates and under various Acts.


Two other agencies -- the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the technical and intelligence wing of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (Income Tax)-- will brought on board by June this year and the network would be fully activated to co-ordinate with foreign enforcement and intelligence agencies, sources said.


The SIEN will ensure exchange of information on real time basis by way of data exchange, video, and secure telephonic exchange of information. The exchange network will streamline the flow of information inputs received by various agencies in their fields of expertise and will be monitored in a comprehensive manner by the ministry of finance.


The network, will function under aegis of the Central Economic Intelligence Bureau (CEIB), under Economic Intelligence Council (EIC) headed by the finance minister.


The hardware to the entire intelligence information portal and database will be provided by the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) -- a scientific body functioning under the prime ministers' office.


The application software for the intelligence network is being developed by the Advanced Data Processing Research Institute (ADRIN), Secunderabad with the help of the NTRO.


The new intelligence network will also share the information stored in the portals of the National Economic Intelligence Network (NEIN) database which till now has 8,646 cases of offenders and other financial matters with it.


The intelligence database will analyse and process inputs to study the modus operandi adopted by money launderers, financing of terror, and share information with the agencies so that an uniform approach can be taken up in such cases having multi-disciplinary authorities and cross-border connections, sources said.
 

Rage

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^^ About time we had a secure, digital intra-finance invigilator network-exchange for intra-service document transfer, SMS notification, records access, etc.
 

ajtr

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Politicians playing a dangerous game
R Akhileshwari, March 30, Hyderabad:

Is the communal violence in Hyderabad being used by unscrupulous political forces to settle scores with their rivals? Or is it being used to scuttle the demand for Telangana state? Several people in the know believe it is so.

Instigating communal trouble to unsettle rivals in the party has been used by Congress leaders in the past with success. “A political game is being played in the Old City. Definitely, there’s conspiracy in how the trouble was fomented. It is clear to everybody,” said Zahed Ali Khan, veteran editor of Siasat Urdu daily newspaper published from Hyderabad.

Leaders in the Old City admitted that they were expecting such “pre-planned” trouble for the past four to five months. A few efforts made to trigger violence failed but the one on Saturday succeeded. They maintain that the huge funds have flooded the Old City, to both Hindus and Muslims and they cite two instances to prove their point.

Prophet Mohammed’s birthday, Milad-un-Nabi, was celebrated in an unprecedented manner on February 26 last. “Does this community which is poor and backward have the funds for such grand celebrations,” commented a community leader on condition of anonymity.

Similarly, Hanuman Jayanti which used to be a small affair limited to temples has been turned into a gala public affair this time. Evidently both sides are being funded, he observed.

Madhu Yashki Goud, Congress MP stirred up a hornet’s nest by charging coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema political vested interests with formenting communal trouble in Hyderabad.

He told Deccan Herald that it was a shame that political parties and groups within them were creating animosity between people for their political ends. “They are exploiting poverty and unemployment of a section of the people, their vulnerability and their helplessness,” he said.

Another senior Congress legislator Shankar Rao also alleged that those opposing Chief Minister K Rosaiah were behind the riots to destabilise his government. Their allegations evoked sharp reaction from Congress leaders belonging to the Andhra and Rayalaseema regions, who called these critics “madmen” and demanded disciplinary action against them.

Another agenda that is sought to be achieved is to scuttle Telangana statehood demand. Observers believe that the communal violence was being used to kill two birds: that is destabilise Rosaiah government and dilute the struggle for Telangana.
They insist that the developments point to a “nexus” of Andhra-Rayalaseema leaders across the political spectrum that is dominated by one caste that is keen on regaining the power it lost last September with the death of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy in a helicopter crash.

The effort of this group to install YSR’s son Jaganmohan Reddy as chief minister came to a naught and hence the ploy now being employed to destabilise the Rosaiah government to foment communal violence.

Even as this allegation is being trashed, the fact that city police commissioner A K Khan was the first one to state that the violence was “preplanned and deliberate” shows that he had the support of his political bosses in coming out in the open.
 

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BARC director in soup over foreign scribes’ visit

Mumbai: The visit of two foreign journalists to the high-security Bhabha Atomic research Centre (BARC) here has raised the hackles of the security establishment.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has asked BARC director Srikumar Banerjee to explain how the journalists were allowed to photograph the facility during their visit. Was formal permission granted for filming, the ministry has asked, official sources said.

In his reply, Banerjee has reportedly said that formal permission was neither sought nor granted but explained that the journalists were allowed to take photographs only from the outside and that they were accompanied at all times by BARC security officials.

Banerjee has explained that photographs of the building are easily available on the Internet and that the scribes clicked only the external view of the reactor building.

This explanation does not seem to have satisfied the ministry, nor Banerjee's contention that the authorities should not be overly sensitive about commonly available photographs, the sources said.

Efforts to seek reaction from Banerjee did not succeed as he refused to comment on the issue.

Government security agencies have been concerned over the vulnerability of BARC after it was listed as a possible target of the Pakistan-based terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba.

US terror accused David Headley had admitted during interrogation that he had carried out reconnaissance of the BARC facility and handed over its Global Positioning System co-ordinates to his handlers in Pakistan.

49-year-old Headley, who has been under arrest in the US since October last year, had travelled to Chembur and Trombay several times and filmed the exit and entry points of BARC besides the movement of employees, the sources said.

He is reported to have hired a boat from the Gateway of India and videographed the atomic research centre from the sea side. The Mumbai 26/11 attackers had also arrived by sea and landed near the Gateway of India.

Headley is being prosecuted by the FBI on several charges, including for being part of the conspiracy in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Investigators including officials from the National Investigation Agency, who are probing the role of Headley and his Pakistani-Canadian accomplice Tahawwur Rana in India, suspect that during his boat ride, Headley may have surveyed the mangroves along the coastline.

The security around the nuclear installation and the mangroves has now been tightened, the sources said.

http://www.zeenews.com/news618178.html
 

ajtr

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Purulia armsdrop mastermind held, may be extradited

KOLKATA: After over 14 years, the Purulia armsdrop case may have got its biggest breakthrough. The alleged mastermind, Danish citizen Kim Peter Davy alias Niels Christian Nielsen, was arrested at his home in Copenhagen on Friday and is expected to be extradited to India to face trial.

Interpol had issued a red-corner notice against Davy after the mysterious airdropping of a veritable arsenal of hi-tech weapons — including AK-47s, rocket launchers and anti-tank rockets — in the Jhalda police station area in Purulia on December 17, 1995. Davy lived quietly in his hometown in Denmark all this while as the other accused faced trial and some were sent to prison.

In 2004, India sent an extradition request to Denmark. Four years later, on October 8, 2008, it was said that the extradition was close to being finalized, with India agreeing to give an assurance to the Danish authorities on their conditions and bring about some changes in the existing extradition law. One of the conditions Denmark sought was the waiver of the death penalty if Davy were convicted. It is a mystery why it took one-and-a-half years more to bring Davy to book.

The fact that CBI knew where he was but took no action has led to a belief that the agency did not want Davy to be put on trial because his revelations might be too uncomfortable for some people.

The true motive of the operation still remains shrouded in mystery, but it has been said in the chargesheet that the weapons were intended for the “socio-spiritual movement of an Ananda Marga sect for a new social order”. Davy was known as Acharya Dada Nirvananda Avadhut in Ananda Marga’s Prout Universal group. In 2004, his mentor, Shri Lal Chand Parihar alias Acharya Tatbhanananda Avadhut, was arrested as an alleged co-conspirator.
 

RAM

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Now, Bangladeshis wield Indian PAN cards

It takes only Rs 1,000 for a Bangladeshi infiltrator to acquire an Indian PAN (permanent account number) card. And another Rs 300 to walk across the 4,095 km Indo-Bangladesh border if sneaking in isn’t an option. On April 8, the police in western Assam’s Dhubri district (adjoining Bangladesh) arrested 13 petty clothes traders at Gauripur town. Six of them were released after they produced documents establishing them to be residents of West Bengal. The remaining seven confessed to being Bangladeshi citizens.The seven – all residents of Gopalganj district in Bangladesh – admitted to having paid Rs 300 per head at the border to step into Tripura earlier this year and traveled across the Northeast to peddle their wares at Gauripur. The seven had three mobile phones and as many SIM cards from Indian cellular service providers. Two of them – Arif Sheikh and Tapan Biswas – possessed PAN cards an agent in Tripura capital Agartala had provided for Rs 1,000 each.

The agent, possibly going by an alias, is an inhabitant of Comilla district in Bangladesh (adjoining Tripura) who also home-delivers Indian SIM cards to would-be infiltrators, the arrested men said.
“Easy access to vital documents that can establish a foreigner as an Indian citizen makes it that much harder in detecting Bangladeshi nationals,” said Additional SP (Border) Deben Deka from Dhubri town. “Like infiltrators, even militants can easily acquire PAN cards.”Deka added one of the arrested men confessed to have used his connection in the 5th Battalion of the Border Security Force (BSF) to cross over. The 5th Battalion mans a stretch of Meghalaya’s border with Bangladesh, far away from Tripura where the seven said they entered.“It is very easy to allege. Let them (Assam police) give substantial indication who these men paid and at which point of Tripura’s 856 km border with Bangladesh, and we’ll take action,” BSF Inspector-General (Tripura sector) Ramesh Singh told Hindustan Times from Agartala. Organizations such as All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), having spearheaded a major anti-foreigners agitation, are not amused by such technicalities. “Our demand for a second line of defence along the Indo-Bangladesh border has been vindicated,” said AASU advisor Samujjal K Bhattacharyya.

The Northeast has since 1971 been touchy about a “demographic invasion” from Bangladesh. New Delhi subsequently woke up to the presence of some 30 million illegal Bangladeshis and decided in the late 1980s to fence the Indo-Bangladesh border.A Union Home Ministry report in November last year said 3,437 km border of the 4,095 km India-Bangladesh border was to be fenced by March 2010. It added work had been completed along a 2,800 km stretch.By October 2007, India had spent Rs 2,881.58 crore on fencing and flood-lighting on a 2,529 km stretch of the border.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-...s-wield-Indian-PAN-cards/Article1-530400.aspx
 

RAM

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Lashkar-e-Taiba flourishes on Facebook

Days after a 10-man death squad attacked Mumbai in November 2008, the Lashkar-e-Taiba's Internet portal disappeared into thin air: part of an effort to persuade the world that Pakistan was indeed serious about shutting down the operations of jihadists operating from its soil. Now, the Lashkar has returned online using a Facebook page run by its parent religious body, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa. The Jamaat-ud-Dawa Facebook page is nowhere near as elaborate as the web portals it hosted prior to the Mumbai attacks, but it still contains a wealth of propaganda intended to rouse supporters.

In a poster for a March 23, 2010 rally, held to mark the anniversary of the 1940 resolution which led to the formation of Pakistan, the Jamaat refers to a “debt that has yet to be honoured.” Slogans superimposed over an image of the burning Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai explains what the “debt” is: “free Kashmir, Pakistan's lifeline, from the enemy;” work for the “freedom of the Muslims of Gujarat, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and the rest of India;” to “save Pakistan's parched rivers.”

Ambitions
Maps posted on the Jamaat's Facebook page provide a graphic illustration of its ambitions. One map of India is emblazoned with the crescent-moon and star logo of Pakistan, and the flag of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa flying on the Red Fort in New Delhi. In another, much of northern, north-eastern and central India are referred to as Pakistan. Nepal, Bangladesh and south India are marked “disputed territories.” The page also carries a facsimile of a Hadith — sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad — which purports to provide scriptural legitimacy to the Jamaat's jihad. “A King of the House of the Pious,” it prophesies, “will send a Lashkar [army] towards India. The mujahideen will plunder the land of India, take over its treasures, and the King will use these treasures to honour the House of the Pious.” “The mujahideen of this Lashkar,” it continues, “will conquer all territory between the east and west and will establish the Kingdom of the Pious.”

Pictures of Osama
Interestingly, the page also contains several images of Al-Qaeda chief Osama-bin-Laden — a figure whose role in the ongoing jihad against the Pakistani state has led the Jamaat-ud-Dawa to distance itself from him. In one computer-generated image, Osama is shown riding away on horseback from a burning White House. There is also a low-resolution image of an individual who appears to be Jamaat chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed seated next to Osama.

Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar's new Facebook page does not contain similar exhortations to violence. But his younger brother, Talha Saif — whose Facebook page uses the alias Saif-ul-Islam — uses Facebook to guide readers to a YouTube slideshow extolling the bravery of Mumbai assault team member Ajmal Amir Kasab and other jihadist material. ‘Jihadi cool’
Much of the audience of the Facebook jihadists seem to be young diaspora Pakistanis. Judging by the MTV-inspired visual content of their pages, they appear to be driven less by Islamist politics than the lure of what is being called “jihadi cool”: in the words of Georgetown University scholar C. Christine Fair, a radical chic revolving around “motorcycles, guns and access to women.”

The Jamaat's online followers include 1987-born Amir Akram, whose Facebook page displays him proudly displaying the medals he has won in the service of Pakistan's armed forces. Akram asserts that he supports “dictatorship whether civil or military,” but his cultural tastes appear to be at odds with the Jamaat's neo-conservatism. His Facebook page states that he enjoys cricket and Indian popular films; the young officer's friends include several women wearing attire which the Jamaat would likely consider inappropriate. Rana Jahanzaib asserts he hates the Indian Premier League and Star Plus television — but his profile page says he is “interested in women,” and is looking for dating and a relationship. So, too, is his fellow Jamaat follower Rizwan Ahmad, who claims to have studied at the Delhi Public School before going on to complete higher education at the SKANS School of Accountancy in Lahore. Jaish chief Azhar's more improbable Facebook friends include Rotterdam-based Gautam Ramaswamy, whose profile also demonstrates an eclectic interest in Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the philosophy of Adi Shankara and the music of the heavy metal band Slayer.

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/article395438.ece
 

ajtr

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Bomb detected on Delhi-bound train, defused

LUCKNOW: An improvised explosive device (IED) detected in a coach of the New Delhi-bound Sampark-Kranti express at Mahoba railway station in Uttar Pradesh was defused early Thursday, averting a major tragedy.

According to state Additional Director General of Police Brij Lal: "The IED was planted in the toilet of a three-tier coach where it was noticed Wednesday night by a woman passenger who promptly informed the cops at the station."

The bomb could be defused only after the arrival of a bomb disposal team past midnight, he said.

The train reached Mohaba, some 300 km from Lucknow, at 9.30pm and left the station after six hours during which the coach with the bomb was detached and shifted to a corner of the yard, he said.

"We have now sent the remains of the explosive device for forensic analysis that will give us an idea about its intensity," Lal said.

"The bomb was noticed by Kaushla Devi, a middle-aged passenger, as soon as she entered the toilet after embarking at Mahoba station that was the first halt after Chitrakoot from where the train had started," he said.

He said after the women raised an alarm, railway authorities got the entire train and platform cleared of passengers and a bomb-disposal squad was summoned from a neighbouring district.
 

ajtr

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Bangalore blasts aimed to create chaos, panic

A major tragedy was averted at the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore on Saturday when two bombs, which were timed to explode at 8 pm, went off at 3 pm.

A third bomb, which was found later, was defused by the bomb squad of the Karnataka police.

The police also found another bomb near gate number 7 of the stadium, which was timed to explode at 4.30 pm.

Sources confirmed to rediff.com that all three bombs had been timed to explode at 8 pm, when thousands of spectators were leaving the stadium after the end of the match.

Two explosions had rocked Bangalore minutes before the Indian Premier League match between the Royal Challengers Bangalore and the Mumbai Indians at 4 pm on Saturday.

The two bombs, planted at gate number 12 and near the Anil Kumble circle close to the stadium, went off at 3 pm instead. Fourteen people, including three policemen and one security personnel, were injured in the blast. The security guard's condition is reportedly serious.

Sources point out that if the bombs had exploded at 8 pm, they would have caused chaos and panic among the thousands of spectators, and might have led to a massive stampede.


Immediately after the news of the explosion broke out, the players were asked to return to the dressing room. The police then carried out a second round of anti-sabotage operationThe Union home ministry has asked for a report about the twin blasts.


Investigations have revealed that improvised explosive devices and a timer device were used to trigger off the two low-intensity blasts. The investigative teams say that crude bombs were used in the blasts, and they were similar to the ones used to trigger the Bangalore serial blasts in July, 2008.


The forensics team has found that ammonium nitrate was used to assemble the crude bombs. The police are probing the possibility of the blasts being the handiwork of terror outfit Indian Mujahideen, sources told rediff.com.


The police had initially assumed that the blasts had been planned to create panic, not destruction, by some mischief mongers. The presence of the IEDs and the timer in the bombs has given the case a whole new perspective, as these are specialised equipments and are not easily accessible to the common man, said sources in the police. "Although it is too early to comment on who could have carried out the blasts, we are not ruling out the possibility of a larger group being involved in the incident," said a police official.


The bomb was also packed with shrapnel, said sources.


A massive manhunt has been launched to nab the perpetrators of the blasts. Several investigative agencies, including the Intelligence Bureau, are trying to ascertain the motive behind the twin blasts.


Unconfirmed reports have suggested that a couple of people have been detained for questioning in connection with the blast.

"We will provide tight security for forthcoming IPL games," assured Karanataka Director General of Police Ajai Kumar Singh.

"We have also found nitrate glycerine in the bombs," he said, adding that all the bombs have been defused and there was no cause to panic.
 

ajtr

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I think terror groups are having Dry runs in bangalore.yesterday they found 2 unexploded bombs and two others went off now again one today was found.remember when serial blast went off in jaipur delhi ahmdabad and surat in 2008 then also bangalore had dry runs of sort wit one bomb going off and 2 found unexploded.There seems to be major tragedy in making in india and above all usa issuing travel advosory to its citizen visiting india.
Thats why david headly is so important to india.USA it seems has knowledge of major terror attacs on india but it just gives fuzzy warning signals.sometimes it seems usa is in hand in glove with pakistan in attacking india through terrorists.

Another explosive device found in Bangalore

BANGALORE: A day after two low-intensity blasts in the city, an explosive device weighing 2kgs was found wrapped in a yellow bag near Mahatma Gandhi statue on MG road. The device has been diffused and sent to the forensic department for tests.

As stands filled on Saturday for the Mumbai Indians vs Royal Challengers IPL match, two bombs went off at the Chinnaswamy Stadium wounding 12 people and triggering panic. Roughly 20,000 people had packed into the stadium and hundreds more were streaming in when a loud explosion at Gate 12 rocked the arena and rattled nearby buildings. Six policemen were injured when the grill near the wall collapsed on them.

The explosion occurred at 3.15pm. Another one about 20 minutes later compounded the cops' worst fears because the second bomb went off closer to the stadium and near the state police wireless headquarters. The explosives were hidden in the bushes.

Preliminary forensic investigation revealed that the explosive was an ammonium nitro glycerine gelatin stick. It was detonated with a micro-chip fitted timer. Police remained tight-lipped on who they suspected and pointed no fingers. But of late, Bangalore has emerged on the terror hit list as a prime target of resurgent India.


Terrorists may be planning attacks in India: US

Terrorist groups may be planning attacks in India, the US has warned in its latest advisory and asked its nationals to exercise caution during their stay in the country.

Alerting US citizens, the Department of State said: "The US government continues to receive information that terrorist groups may be planning attacks in India."
 
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