Who is behind this act and why? What kind of explosives were used and from where these were procured? Is there a foreign hand behind the Hyderabad blasts? Why Hyderabad? Why now?
Then there are other more important big-picture issues.What are the immediate-term implications of these blasts for national security? What needs to be done to nip such terror acts in the bud? Do the Hyderabad blasts also convey something about the state of preparedness of the terrorists involved?
These are the kinds of questions which will generate answers as the investigations proceed. Some questions may never yield answers as many terror attacks in the past have remained in the grey zone.
Though no terror outfit has yet claimed responsibility for the 22 February Hyderabad blasts, it seems to be the signature act of the Indian Mujahideen, an offshoot of Simi (Students’ Islamic Movement of India). Typical IM tactics and tell-tale modus operandi have been used.
These can be enumerated as follows: placing bombs on bikes and tiffin boxes in crowded places during peak hours; picking soft targets and going for mass killings with the focus on not who but how many are getting killed; using tools for the blast that are readily available locally – such as choosing receptacles for the bombs, choice of explosives and the not-so-sophisticated modes of detonation of the bombs.
Most probably, easily available material like ammonium nitrate would have been used for the blasts. This has been the favoured chemical used by the IM ultras for committing acts of terror one after another in different parts of India.
From the preliminary reports and the fact that no crater was formed at the site of the bomb blasts it can be safely deduced that the perpetrators did not use RDX, a defence ordnance product, or plastic explosives. Why use these sophisticated explosives when the perpetrators can catch global attention by using commonly available fertilisers?
One motive for the blasts is probably to generate an impression that the Hyderabad terror attack is the handiwork of home-grown terror outfits, not foreign terrorists. This is a typical IM tactic: keep the deniability quotient very high as far as the involvement of foreign elements is concerned.
It can also be surmised that the Hyderabad blasts may have come in response to the hanging of Afzal Guru on 9 February 2013. While terror outfits would like to replicate their success in Hyderabad in many parts of India, particularly New Delhi and Mumbai, ironically it tells a tale about the state of preparedness of the terrorists as well.
One way of looking at it is that the terror apparatus, the modules, the sleeper cells, etc, are not in good shape elsewhere. But then this argument will have to be tested by time. If such or even bigger incidents are perpetrated in several other Indian cities then it is a major headache for the Indian security establishment.
If no more terror attacks take place in India in the next few weeks and months, then Hyderabad would emerge as a classic example of what local police must not do. The Andhra Pradesh police force has been stretched beyond limits over the Telangana-related mass agitations and obviously has had little time to take care of larger security issues.
Another issue that bamboozles the Indian security apparatus is how to deal with the phenomenon of home-grown terror networks which have been in place for years now. One of the worst years for Indian security managers vis-a-vis the home-grown terror network issue was 2008. The IM had then repeatedly demonstrated its ability to cover the helping hand of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) as IM terrorists struck with impunity: Jaipur (13 May, 68 killed), Bangalore (25 July, two killed), Ahmedabad (26 July, more than 50 killed) and a fortunately botched up terror plot in Surat (27-29 July) where more than 22 live bombs were recovered over a period of three days.
These and many other attacks, before and after, made it well nigh impossible for the Indian agencies to nail the ISI with solid evidences. This does not mean that the ISI did not spawn these terror attacks. Rather it indicated the substantially improved ISI tactics and getting the dirty job done through their Indian proxies with the home-grown tag.
If the IM’s involvement in the latest Hyderabad terror attack is corroborated, it will be a wake-up call for the Indian intelligence agencies. Only a few years ago Indian intelligence had told the government in their despatches that the back of IM had been broken. Though the IM has been active since 2005, it was from 2007 onwards when the outfit started playing havoc with the Indian law and order system, exploding bombs at public places across the country with impunity and a remarkable consistency.
Moreover, if the IM’s role in the Hyderabad blasts is confirmed, it would perhaps be the first time when the IM had pulled off such a lethal operation with such large casualties since the US State Department added IM to its list of terrorist organisations on 15 September 2011. The State Department has stated that the IM has close ties with Pakistan-based terror outfits like Lashkar-e-Toiba and others, something that the Indian security and intelligence agencies had been saying for years.
Clearly the US ban on IM was meant to be largely symbolic sans any operational utility. It wasn’t expected to blunt the claws and paws of IM and reduce in any manner its capability to unleash more terror attacks in future. It did not. The American gesture was mere lip-service in the international war against terrorism.
Why? Entities banned by the US cannot operate on the American soil, people associated with them cannot travel to the US and the banned entities’ accounts are seized. The IM hasn’t been operating from the US anyway, nor does it have any bank accounts there. The IM has been operating on shoestring budgets, as is evident by its signature bomb attacks which are neither spectacular nor expensive like 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks of November 2008.
The IM provides a perfect alibi for the Pakistani military establishment in implementing its policy of inflicting a thousand cuts on India while keeping the deniability quotient very high.
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