Mumbai Blasts-A Vicious Cycle Of
Terror, Counter-terrorBy Praveen Swami
The Hindu
26 August, 2003When Mohammad Saqib Abdul Hamid Nachan walked into a Mumbai courtroom and surrendered in April, the Mumbai Police thought they had silenced the Lashkar-e-Taiba orchestra that has terrorised Mumbai for the last nine months. Monday's murderous twin bombings at the Zaveri Bazaar and the Gateway of India have made clear that much of the orchestra, as well as its conductor, are still at large.
Before today's tragic killings, 17 persons had been killed and 189 injured in a series of five blasts that began on December 2, 2002. Eleven suspects, led by Nachan, were arrested in Maharashtra for two of the serial bombings; one, Imran Rehman Khan, was deported from the United Arab Emirates where he had fled after the first attack. There is evidence, however, that the arrested bomb-makers were just part of a large pool of trained terrorists. The terror offensive seems linked, furthermore, to a vicious cycle of communal terror and counter-terror.
No one is yet wholly certain about the authors of today's bombings, but the available evidence suggests they may be linked to the explosions that have taken place since December. No arrests were made for four bombings that took place in December 2002 and January 2003, at Andheri (East), Mumbai Central Railway Station, and two at Vile Parle (East). Documents obtained by The Hindu show that different bombs in the ongoing terror series were made in very different fashion, a sign that different individuals may have fabricated them. Some used gelatine sticks while others used a home-made explosive compound of ammonium nitrate, potassium chlorate, sulphuric acid and sugar — chemicals available over the counter in most major cities. Some bombs were set off using electronic timers while the March 13 bombing of a Mulund-Karjat train, which claimed 11 lives, used a chemical timer made by filling a rubber balloon with acid. According to preliminary reports from Mumbai, an ammonium nitrate-based explosive may have been used in today's bombs as well.
What is most intriguing about this series of explosions — at first reminiscent of the Mumbai serial bombings of 1993 — is that they seem to involve individuals and organisations very different from those associated with that carnage. None of those arrested for the recent bombings has any connection with the mafia, which carried out the 1993 outrage. Instead, many of the cadre seem to be drawn from the ultra-orthodox Gorba faction of the Ahl-e-Hadis, a conservative Islamic sect that rejects the mainstream practice of interpreting scripture in the light of contemporary circumstances. Much of the Lashkar cadre is loyal to the Ahl-e-Hadis, although the sect's religious leaders do not endorse violence.
Islamist terrorism in Mumbai has a complex history. Its operations long predate the 1993 terror strikes. In 1985, Ahl-e-Hadis activists met at the Mominpura mosque in Mumbai and set up the Tanzim Islahul Muslimeen (TIM), a group intended to defend Muslims against communal attacks. Three of those present at the meeting went on to become key figures in pan-India terrorist warfare unleashed by the Lashkar. Azam Ghauri, a People's War member who flirted briefly with Maoism before turning to religion, was killed in an April 2000 encounter with the Andhra Pradesh Police at Karimnagar.
Abdul Karim `Tunda', nicknamed for an arm deformed when a bomb-making exercise went wrong, went on to command the Lashkar's operations outside Jammu and Kashmir. The third was Dr. Jalees Ansari, a Maharashtra Government-employed doctor who was arrested for his role in setting off seven separate bomb explosions on trains to mark the first anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Ansari claimed he acted to avenge his experiences of communal hatred and bigotry.
Many of the dozen-odd young men now arrested for the recent series of bombings in Mumbai seem to be driven by the same desire for revenge. Mohammad Nachan first encountered Bhiwandi riot victims when many of those displaced by violence there settled in his village, Padgha, near Thane. Deeply moved by their suffering, Nachan maintained contact with several riot victims until he was recruited a decade later by the now-banned Students Islamic Movement of India. From the late 1980s, Indian intelligence officials believe, Nachan began to regularly recruit Muslim youth for weapons training in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The contacts for this process, officials say, were made during five visits to Pakistan and Bangladesh between 1989 and 1991.
In 1992, Nachan was ordered to join Operation K2, an ambitious ISI plan to create a common pan-India infrastructure for Khalistan and Kashmir terrorists. Nachan was tasked with hiring safehouses where cadre could hide out and weapons caches smuggled across the Gujarat border could be stored. Lal Singh, the Khalistan terrorist tasked with running Operation K2, was subsequently arrested in one of the most celebrated Indian intelligence coups of the murderous Punjab insurgency. Nachan served part of his life term before being released in October 2001. Out of jail, the Mumbai police say, Nachan promptly revived his SIMI contacts, resumed recruitment of terror trainees, and provided shelter to Lashkar units in Kalyan and Thane. Now charged with a direct role in the December 2002 Ghatkopar bus bombing, which claimed two lives, and the March Mulund-Karjat train bombing, Nachan denies the charges.
Today's events have made clear that Nachan is not the only — or even the biggest — Lashkar fish swimming in Mumbai's troubled waters. The search for the conductor of the longest-running terror bombing campaign any major Indian city has ever seen will now have to start afresh.