Impact on India continues....

There is serious apprehension in India that suicide bombings may become the most common form of terrorism in India. Such

fears are triggered by reports about LeT and JeM sending their recruits to training camps in Waziristan, where suicide bombing is an integral part of the curriculum, as booklets and documents

seized by Pakistani authorities have shown. LeT, for instance, known to be forming suicide-bombing squads to help the Taliban fight the NATO forces, has been recruiting Afghan refugees to take up arms against the Afghan government and NATO forces. A large number of these trainees, fighting in Afghanistan, can possibly return to Kashmir in the near future.

Some of these men could move to Bangladesh and, with the help of the support base these groups enjoy there, set up training centres for suicide bombers, or sneak into India through the porous India-Bangladesh borders into Islamic conclaves in east and north east India. The Bangladesh groups like Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Harkat-ul Jihad al Islami (HuJI) are closely linked to terrorist groups in Pakistan, besides al Qaeda. Recent events in Bangladesh raises fears about the resurgence of extremism, aided and abetted by transnational jihadist groups like LeT and al Qaida.

The possibility of women suicide bombers targeting India in the future cannot be overlooked. As the Lal Masjid episode (July 2007) showed, there were women madrasa students who were taking lessons in carrying out suicide missions. The foreseeable influx of suicide bombers, male or female, would critically imperil the security forces and considerably neutralise its control over the situation in Kashmir and other parts of the country.

The suspected involvement of women suicide bombers or Black Widows, in the twin bombings in Volgograd, Russia in December 2013, which killed over 34 people, has only magnified this threat. In August last year, the Indian airports authorities were instructed to pay special attention to al Qaeda’s women suicide bombers with explosives hidden in their breasts through implants.

To be continued...