It’s a cycle India has seen repeated 13 times in nearly three years: Bombs are planted where they can kill as many people as possible. Investigations follow, memories fade and months later, bombs explode in another city.
But with 552 people dead since October 2005, security forces remain chronically undermanned and ill-equipped, and the political elite appears unwilling to take the sweeping action experts say is needed to stop the bloodshed.
“What has been done between the last attack and the latest atrocity to augment our ability to stop terrorists, to root them out? Nothing,” said Ajai Sahni, a former chief of India’s domestic Intelligence Bureau.
He called India’s police forces and its intelligence agencies “hideous and hidebound” and noted that in a country where hundreds of millions of people worry every day about finding enough food to eat, “every politician knows that security issues don’t win or lose elections.”
On Saturday, 22 explosions tore through the centuries-old city of Ahmadabad, killing at least 42 people a day after seven smaller bombs left two dead in the technology hub of Bangalore.
By Tuesday, police had traced an e-mail taking responsibility for the Ahmadabad blasts and two cars used in the attack to a suburb of Mumbai, India’s commercial center, and had detained at least 30 people for questioning and arrested one possible suspect.
But just as in the past dozen attacks, there was little expectation the police would come up with anything more than a few small timers, if that.
While officials also see a foreign hand in the latest attacks, they remain uncertain as to groups involved or their exact aims.
“We have to accept that it is fellow citizens who are carrying out these attacks. They may get help from Pakistan, but they are Indians,” said Sahni, the former Intelligence Bureau chief.
Beyond that, officials remain puzzled.
“We have been unable to crack any major terror cells and this is limiting what we know,” said an official with the Home Ministry — which oversees domestic security — who spoke on condition of anonymity because the sensitivity of the matter.
Meanwhile, Japan’s government warned its nationals in India and closed part of its embassy in the country after receiving a message warning of a possible terrorist attack.
The Embassy of Japan in New Delhi received an e-mailed warning of bomb attacks on Sarogini Nagar, a market district in the Indian capital, according to a statement posted on the embassy’s Web site. The embassy told Japanese nationals to avoid public places including stations and markets.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS