Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: August 18, 2006
Blast at Krishna temple is ominous
The bomb explosion in Imphal, Manipur, on
Janmashtami at the ISKCON temple, which killed four people and injured 40
others including the international director of the religious society Damodar
Swami, was the first of its kind and, therefore, holds grave portents. Manipur
is no stranger to strife; indeed, in 2004-05 it reported the second highest
number of insurgency related fatalities in the country, a total of 331, which
included the killing of Inspector General of Police (Intelligence) T Thangathuam
in Bishnupur in December last. This was the most in a State in the same period
after Jammu & Kashmir, which accounted for more than 1,700 deaths. What
gives fresh cause for worry is that it is the first time that a place of worship
was targeted in the State, with the obvious objective of spreading panic in
the Hindu majority valley in Manipur. It also establishes that while the country's
security agencies were busy focussing on major towns and cities following
the American advisory of possible terrorist strikes, the North-East was not
given the same degree of attention, as a result of which the blast in the
Imphal temple could not be prevented. In other words, what the terrorists
attempted successfully in Akshardham (Gandhinagar), Raghunath Mandir (Jammu),
and Sankat Mochan (Varanasi), was repeated in Imphal, and both the UPA Government
at the Centre and the State Government of Mr Idobi Singh are answerable for
the dastardly killings inside the Krishna shrine. They must, to begin with,
throw light on the extent to which Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence
has penetrated the North-East providing logistical and material support to
terrorists infiltrating into the region from Bangladesh. They must answer,
also, whether it was the work of the same set of jihadis who have attacked
Hindu shrines in other parts of the country in the past. If not, are there
new players trying to fish in the troubled waters of the North-East?
Indeed, security analysts and think-tanks
have for long been pointing at the changing demographic profile of the region,
and the Government must state clearly whether or not this is the beginning
of yet another round of ethnic cleansing aimed at driving out the Hindu population.
In fact, Manipur has witnessed a fall in its Hindu majority; whereas according
to the 1901 census, 60 per cent of the region's population was Hindu (36 per
cent comprised animistic tribes), the figure had reduced to 57 per cent by
1991. In this period, the Christian population has reached 34 per cent and
Muslims have grown from four per cent in 1901 to eight per cent in 1991. If
politics of vote-bank has played havoc with regional security and inspired
multiple insurgent groups, widespread corruption has prevented the utilisation
of Central funds for development programmes. Economic growth, as a result,
is negligible. This is all the ballast and basis hostile foreign interests
need to spread their growing arc of terror.
