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Almost 24 hours after the blasts in Jaipur in May, two television channels in New Delhi reported receiving an anonymous e-mail claiming responsibility for the explosions on behalf of a group called 'the Indian Mujahideen'. The message was purported to have been sent by
guru_alhindi_jaipur@yahoo.co.uk.
The most significant aspect about this message was that it had included the picture of one of the cycles alleged to have been used in Jaipur, with the number of the cycle readable. The picture was found to be authentic. This gave rise to the possibility that the Uttar Pradesh and Jaipur blasts were carried out by the same group.
On the basis of reports received last year, I had assessed on January 30 that while continuing to give financial, training and arms assistance to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan was encouraging the Lashkar to rely only on Indian Muslims for its operations in Indian territory and not to depute Pakistani Muslims for this purpose.
It was evident that the ISI had also started following a similar policy in respect of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami by encouraging it to set up a separate organisation for India consisting of recruits from the Indian Muslim community with no involvement of Pakistani Muslims. The HUJI headquarters are located in Pakistan. It has an active branch in Bangladesh, consisting only of Bangladeshi nationals of the Afghan war (1980s and 1990s) vintage, which is referred to by US counter-terrorism experts as the HUJI-B. Members of the HUJI-B were coming to India for organising terrorist strikes with the co-operation of recruits from the Indian Muslim community.
I had further assessed that a HUJI set-up in India consisting of recruits from the Indian Muslim community has now come up which could be projected in future as a purely Indian organisation with no Pakistani or Bangladeshi involvement.
I had further assessed as follows: 'It is only a question of time before the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, the Jaish-e-Mohammed, the anti-Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Al Qaeda [Images] itself set up their own outfits or sleeper cells in India consisting only of Indian Muslims so that these too could be projected as indigenous Muslim organisations of India and not as Pakistani or Arab organisations. The pan-Islamic jihad in India to support Al Qaeda's pan-Islamic objectives is sought to be given an Indian facade with the encouragement of the ISI.'
The blasts in Bengaluru and Ahmedabad mark a further step in the ISI-sponsored Indianisation of jihad. The Indianised jihad is presently targeted against the BJP, but it could turn against the American and Israeli presence in India in due course.
B Raman
