Karela Fry

On an absolute scale all governments since the 1960s have failed against terror: first by allowing disaffection to fester to the point that political aspirations are frustrated and violent movements are spawned, and then by neglecting to identify, infiltrate and disband violent cells within these larger movements. These are two failures: the first is a political failure and the second is a failure of law and order.

Given that, one is forced to ask smaller questions. How has the UPA government performed against terrorist cells in cities? Carried away by yesterday’s serial blasts in Mumbai, some media sources have tried to hurriedly put together lists of terrorist bombings: here (Hindu), here (HT), here (NDTV), here (B Post), for example. These are extremely haphazard lists: the four don’t agree, and all of them leave out attacks outside major urban areas: for example blasts on railway tracks, in the Bengal violence of the last few years, or the attacks in Maoist dominated areas of central India. They are little better than what anyone remembers off the top of their heads, but unlike you and me, these people are paid to do this work.

But let us look at the data presented by them in more detail. I extract here the number of incidents yearwise from each source.

Source	2010	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005
Hindu	2	0	11	4	3	1
HT	2	0	8	-	-	-
NDTV	2	0	11	4	3	1
B Post	1	0	6	4	3	-

The first conclusion is that HT is an unreliable source. NDTV and Hindu agree with each other, and B Post roughly agrees. All of them concentrate on urban fundamentalist terror.

However, even within this limited context it is clear that during the early years of the UPA government terrorist outfits were building up their networks, and the attacks peaked in 2008. Since then the government has been fairly efficient in dismantling these networks, but there is a chance that previously sleeping networks are beginning to come to life.

20 July, 2011

This point of view is now confirmed by investigative agencies, reports ET:

“Obviously, there is an outfit or an untracked module that has mastered the art of executing terror attacks by leaving no electronic trail whatsoever,” a senior intelligence official said adding that the same module may have now been encouraged to execute the triple serial explosions in Mumbai. In fact, agencies do not rule out the May 25 car blast outside the Delhi HC being a handiwork of this common module.

“The cracking of the electronic trail in December 7 Varanasi blasts may just throw up a common link to the Mumbai blasts… the NIA and UP ATS are working hard on it,” the official said.
…
The nature of explosives used in the Varanasi and Delhi HC blasts was quite similar to the ones used in Mumbai. In all these cases, the bombs were a mix of ammonium nitrate, fuel oil, electronic timers, ball bearings and nails. The composition bears the hallmark of Indian Mujahideen, which had earlier used similar explosives in serial blasts at Delhi, Jaipur and Ahmedabad in 2008.