Terror Attacks in Bodh Gaya: Prevention is Better than Cure Printer-friendly version

Dr. N Manoharan, 

Senior Fellow, VIF

When serial blasts rocked Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya on 07 July 2013, it was for the first time that a Buddhist holy spot was targeted in India. Ten of the 13 bombs planted at the temple were indeed of low intensity, but their psychological impact was huge. Though no group or individual has claimed responsibility so far, fingers are being pointed at four different directions as possible perpetrators.

Was there a political motive? Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh tried to connect the timing of the blasts with Gujarat Chief Minister and BJP leader Narendra Modi’s advice to the party workers to teach Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar “a lesson”. What Digvijay Singh was trying to suggest was that the BJP would be interested in projecting Bihar’s law and order situation in a poor light, especially after JDU-BJP split in the state. The speculation has no value other than to gain cheap publicity.

There were also conjectures on the possible involvement of Tamil extremist groups to express their resentment against Sinhala Buddhists for the latter’s treatment towards their ethnic brethren in Sri Lanka. Two Buddhist monks were attacked in Tamil Nadu in March this year; and, in January 2011, the Mahabodhi Society Temple in Chennai was attacked. But, the Tamil groups involved in those attacks clearly lack the capability of carrying out terror attacks, that too using bombs. They have no wherewithal to strike a target more than 2000 kilometers away.

Were Maoists behind the attacks? Gaya is indeed a hotbed of the Maoists, but when it comes to a possible motive, it is difficult to establish their involvement. Mahabodhi temple was neither a state symbol nor a camp for security/police forces. Maoists would not bother otherwise. There were doubts whether they did the attack on behalf of any jihadist organisation. There are opportunistic linkages between Maoists and jihadist terror groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). However, such linkages have so far not been so deep as to extend to the outsourcing of terror attacks.

The final possibility is the involvement of the Indian Mujahideen (IM). There have been alerts from the Intelligence Bureau over Mahabodi Temple as one of the prime targets of terror groups like the Indian Mujahideen. The Delhi Police had also sounded out Bodhgaya Temple as one of the targets based on interrogation of IM militants in its custody. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) that has been investigating the case has established IM hands in the blasts. What does the IM have against a Buddhist target? Two broad motives can be established.

The primary aim was to avenge “atrocities” against Muslims in Myanmar by the Buddhist majority. For quite some time, Pakistan-based terror groups like the LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) and Jamaat-e-Mujahideen of Bangladesh (JMB) have been trying to establish a firm foothold in Mayanmar, especially in the Muslim-inhabited Arakan area. They have links with local radical groups like Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO), Jammat-ul-Arakan, Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami Arakan and Difa-e-Musalman Arakan. These Myanmarese groups have training camps in neighbouring Bangladesh. Bodh Gaya is one of the popular pilgrimage destinations for the Burmese Buddhists.

The second motivation was obviously anti-India. The Indian Mujahideen is part of ISI’s grand strategy of destabilisation by taking subversion and terrorism to the heartland of India using violent non-state actors. Thus, IM’s hand is evident in most of the terror attacks in India’s hinterland since the mid-2000s.

The serial blasts clearly established a serious security lapse at various levels. It is not clear why the IB alerts were not taken seriously. It is also beyond comprehension why such a high-profile target was not guarded properly. The outer ring was manned by the state police, but with scant presence. Ironically, the security inside the temple premises was entrusted to private security personnel. The fact that 13 bombs were placed at diverse places to go off serially in a span of half-an-hour shows the level of incompetence of the security net around the Mahabodhi temple. This lacuna should be addressed on a priority basis.

An old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” applies to internal security management. Two important preventive measures, among others, are suggested:

1. There should be adequate ‘target-hardening’ around the temple. It includes a professional security cover that should be in a position to deter prospective attackers. Given the importance of the place (a UNESCO heritage site and one of the holiest Buddhist shrines in the world), the idea of deploying a central security force at the outer ring should be explored. The other measures that require attention under ‘target-hardening’ include functional metal detectors, proper frisking, situational awareness, effective surveillance cameras, and check points at all approach roads. The objective is to make the environment as unfriendly and as difficult as possible for the terrorists to commit any subversive act.
2. Also, the key to success in fighting terrorism effectively lies in obtaining accurate and reliable intelligence about impending attacks and neutralisation of terrorist modules well in advance. Intelligence gathering in India, especially preventive aspects of intelligence, needs substantial improvement. Terrorist attacks occur either due to absence of precise/actionable intelligence or, more often, lack of follow-up action even when such intelligence is available. Specific intelligence should reach the concerned agency in real time. Cohesion amongst intelligence agencies and sharing of intelligence in a far more integrated manner is an operational necessity. What is required is ‘intelligence convergence’ more than ‘intelligence coordination’, of both men and material

Pakistan’s Lame Lawmakers’ Resolution on Kashmir a Challenge for India

Sushant Sareen 

(Senior Fellow, VIF)

The highly provocative, extremely offensive, and utterly reprehensible resolution passed by the National Assembly of Pakistan condemning Indian ‘state sponsored brutalities’ and demanding the handing over the body of executed terrorist Afzal Guru to his family, allowing people to freely practise their religion (this coming from a state where an open season has been declared on Shias, Hindu girls are abducted and forcibly converted and Christians are subjected to the worst sort of Islamofascism), pulling out of security forces from Kashmir and repealing all ‘black laws’ in the Indian state, release of all ‘political prisoners’, implementation of the UN Security Council resolutions, and promising political, moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiris, has predictably enough raised the hackles in India.

While on the one hand the resolution has given an indication of the direction in which things are likely to move as far as Pakistan's export of terrorism in Kashmir is concerned, on the other hand it has exposed all the manufactured bonhomie and double-talk being indulged by the Pakistani politicians who tried to beguile Indian policy makers into believing that there was a political consensus in Pakistan in favour of normalisation of relations with India. Since around 1997, India has been sold the nonsense that neither Kashmir nor India is any longer an issue in Pakistani elections. The real reason why India and Kashmir didn’t figure as an election issue was that there was a broad based political consensus in Pakistan in favour of exporting jihad and delivering a ‘death by a thousand cuts’ to India. Since no one opposed this policy there was no gain to be made by raking this issue at the hustings.

Over the last few years, however, an impression had gained ground that the political consensus inside Pakistan in favour of export of jihad was breaking down. Not surprisingly, some political players smelled an opportunity to agitate on this issue to increase their vote bank. But the moment one player tries to exploit this issue, all others start falling over each other to swear their commitment to snatching Kashmir from India. The unanimous passage of this resolution bears out that no one in Pakistan is willing to question, much less stand up against, the Jihadist policy of the State. What this does to the policy of appeasement towards Pakistan being followed by the Manmohan Singh government and to the expressed desire of the Indian Prime Minister who had declared that he would think he had done his job well if he managed to normalise relations with Pakistan can well be imagined.

Apologists for Pakistan in India will of course argue that too much should not be read into this resolution which has been made for purely political reasons by legislators who are about to go in for fresh elections. After all, notwithstanding all the hyperbole of this National Assembly having made the ‘historic achievement’ of completing it term, the fact remains that in many ways it was an effete and powerless collection of people whose resolutions were not worth the paper they were written on because these resolutions were observed more in their violation. What is more, these ‘elected representatives’ of the people of Pakistan are perhaps the meekest and weakest part of the Pakistani state and are treated with contempt by the overbearing judiciary, meddling military and self-righteous media. And yet, this is a resolution that cannot and should not be ignored, both because it reflects the unremitting hostility towards India of the political class in Pakistan, as well as for what this resolution portends in terms of another upsurge in export of jihadi terrorism to India.

To the extent that this resolution is a mea culpa on part of the Pakistani state for its involvement in the dastardly attack on the Indian Parliament, it needs to be welcomed. Pakistan, it seems, has finally officially taken ownership of Afzal Guru and his terrorist action and accepted that he was a Pakistani agent working at the behest of his Pakistani masters to attack the Indian Parliament. The resolution is a tacit acknowledgement of Guru’s links with the Jaish-e-Mohammed, one of the terrorist outfits involved in the Parliament attack. The mover of the resolution, Maulana Fazlur Rehman (better known as Maulana Diesel for his involvement in Diesel smuggling) is a Deobandi cleric who shares fraternal links with Deobandi terror groups like the JeM, Harkatul Mujahideen, Sipah-e-Sahaba, not to mention the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Rehman also happens to be the Chairman of the Kashmir Committee of the Pakistani Parliament, which is basically an organisation for providing foreign junkets to Pakistani politicians at the expense of the bankrupt government of Pakistan.

The Maulana, who also happens to be leading an effort to effect a rapprochement between the Pakistani authorities and the TTP, probably intends to use this resolution not only to cement his credentials as a dyed-in-wool jihadist who stands firm on the so-called ‘Kashmir cause’, but also to appease terror groups like TTP which have been threatening retaliation against India for the hanging of Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru. The same Maulana had in 2001-02 issued a fatwa calling for the murder of Americans and the notoriety as well as popularity he gained catapulted him to the position of Leader of Opposition (he was actually more of a lap dog of the Pakistani military dictator Pervez Musharraf) in the National Assembly that came into existence after the 2002 elections. The Maulana’s party, Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI-F) also formed governments in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, which were used to promote Talibanisation in both these provinces.

Perhaps, a similar game is once again being played by Maulana Fazlur Rehman, only this time it isn’t the US but India which is being targeted. In the process, the Maulana, who has been a frequent visitor to India where he has tried to convince his Indian interlocutors of his bonafides and his intense and sincere desire to play a role in improving Indo-Pak relations, has more or less burnt his bridges with India. He is unlikely to be welcome anymore in this country. He has only proved his detractors, who pointed to the undesirable company he kept and his links with extremist and terrorist groups, right. For the sake of playing to the gallery back home in the hope of winning some brownie points and perhaps a few extra votes, he has effectively become a persona non grata in India.

But if people like Fazlur Rehman are becoming an anathema for India, their acceptability is growing among the Americans. If anything, the Americans seem to have given a free hand to Pakistani Islamists as part of their plan to exit from the region. Just recently, the US Ambassador to Islamabad held a meeting with Maulana Fazlur Rehman. Subsequently, the US envoy told the Pakistani media that the situation in Terror Central (North Waziristan) was something that Pakistan had to sort out domestically, thereby indicating that the US was willing to turn a blind eye to a terrorist safe haven in return for Maulana Fazlur Rehman using his influence and contacts to push forward with the ‘reconciliation process’ in Afghanistan. Worse, with two utterly clueless apologists for Pakistan now at the helm of affairs at the State Department and Pentagon, the US policy on Islamist terrorism is likely to undergo a major transformation with appeasement of Pakistan and turning a blind eye to its use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy becoming the order of the day as a quid pro quo for safe passage out of Afghanistan for Western troops. The result is an emboldening of Pakistan, and its natural corollary is the political and military adventurism that is being seen on Kashmir and the recent acts of terrorism in other parts of India.

India cannot afford to let this challenge to go unanswered. Not only does India need to disabuse the Pakistanis and the Americans of the notion that they can trifle with India for their own ends, but more importantly, the political class in India, especially the Manmohanistas need to disabuse themselves of the notion that Pakistan is genuinely interested in normalisation of relations with India. Instead of formulating policy on the basis of the sweet-talk coming from Pakistani politicians who neither control any wing of the ISI nor command a single division of the Pakistan army (comprising of jihadis, some in uniform, others in mufti), India would be better served by seeing action on the ground by the Pakistanis to prove their bonafides. The unanimous resolution passed by the Lok Sabha is the first right step in this direction. This needs to be followed up by setting metrics on the basis of which Pakistan’s intentions will be judged. Equally important, India needs to stop giving the unnecessary and unwarranted importance to the mythical Pakistani civil society which is nothing more than a powerless, if also vocal, fringe group comprising around 500 (and if you want to be very charitable, 5000) people. Most of all, India needs to stop depending on the US for pulling its chestnuts out of the fire. The US will do what is in its interest and if this means sacrificing India’s interests, then so be it. India, therefore, needs to prepare itself for the coming wave of terrorism and develop capabilities to counter this scourge as well as pay back the adversary in more than equal measure.