Author: Times News Network
Publication: The Times of India
Date: July 13, 2006
When, hunting for a killer, sleuths look for
an accused with a motive, opportunity and weapons to carry out his murderous
intent. Precise leads are yet to emerge in Mumbai, but there is a suspect
- one who would willingly target innocents on a local train.
The suspect under scrutiny has a bloody record.
Striking with no compunction or regard for human life is a routine matter
for this entity. Pursuit of a twisted ideological goal has led this killer
to plant hundreds of bombs with the help of local accomplices all over the
country.
Its head and heart are safely ensconced in
the protective care of the Pakistani establishment, a country recently noted
by a western magazine to be even more dangerous than the nuclear rogue, North
Korea.
This entity is Laskhar-e-Taiba, India's most
potent security threat which has the cold-blooded resolve to wreak the sort
of destruction Mumbai saw on Tuesday. Like tremors at the edge of a web indicating
the presence of a spider, the Mumbai blasts carry the dreaded fingerprints
of Lashkar.
Pin-pointed information about LeT involvement
is still being sought by investigators. But there were enough warning signs
that LeT - either with local recruits like SIMI and Mumbai underworld, or
in collaboration with its terror twin Jaish-e-Mohammed - was planning something
big.
The evidence lay in the hauls of RDX in Aurangabad
and Malegaon and the detonation of an improvised device at Ahmedabad railway
station. It lay in arrests in Mumbai itself, and security officials now say,
in signs that LeT's master handlers m Pakistan wanted to stage a "show"
in a major Indian city Attacking Mumbai would just suit the bill.
Some intelligence officials feel that Pakistani
establishment may have plotted the carnage to retaliate for its troubles in
Baluchistan. Though home grown, and a product of exploitation of resource-rich
Baluchistan by a Punjabi elite, the unrest among Baluchs have been blamed
by Pakistan establishment on RAW.
If Pakistan wanted to teach India a "lesson",
the attacks on the Mumbai local train network were what it would look for.
LeT has now a well-oiled collaboration with
SIMI cadre in various states, particularly Maharashtra, and it can always
drawn upon the Ahl-e-Hadis extremists - the hard-line Islamic sect it represents
- for help with logistics. With its network of safe houses, hawala funding
and arms and ammunition caches, the organisation has the wherewithal to deliver
a telling blow - a strike meant to signal to India that despite its rising
global profile, it can still be hit amidships.
Unlike in the past, there have been no tell-tale
phone calls to handlers in Pakistan or Jammu and Kashmir after the operation.
Instead, LeT operatives have chosen to make cans to other countries like Dubai
or UK which are much more difficult to trace. Yet, the temptation to crow
being strong, agencies are keeping their ears glued to satellite eavesdroppers.
Lashkar operatives have been behind major
terror strikes in Delhi, most recently the 29/10 bombings last year. Through
2006, the special cell of Delhi Police foiled dozens of attempts to smuggle
in arms and explosives, but one such bid apparently succeeded. Like Mumbai,
the LeT have several safe houses and an extensive network of fund managers
who transfer arms, explosives and money for terrorist aims in the capital.
Invariably, the Mumbai bombers would have
been seen by someone. The explosives and timers would provide forensic experts
clues. A chance arrest, an underworld leak or a tapped conversation will provide
sleuths with the breakthrough they are seeking. It is a matter of unraveling
the connections between the terror masterminds in Muridke and the hands that
planted the bombs.
