Bigger game-plan behind Malegaon

Ruksh Chatterji , CNN-IBN
Posted on Sep 09, 2006 at 08:00 | Updated Sep 09, 2006 at 12:46

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Mumbai: Since the beginning of this year, there had been signs of trouble brewing in Maharashtra.

After Friday's bomb blasts in a Malegaon mosque - two months after the 7/11 bombings in Mumbai - the larger terror game-plan seems to have become clear.

The first success of the Anti-Terrorist Squad was on the January 6 with the arrest of three alleged Kashmiri terrorists who were nabbed with bomb detonators.

"They were here to set up a base and spread terror," Mumbai Police Commissioner, A N Roy had said.

HAUL OF FAME: A large cache of ammo was seized from across the state in past few months.

Two months later, another clue. By this time, the sound of terror was reverberating across back bay, far away from its intended target - Mumbai's Byculla station.

After pre-empting three attacks on the city in a row, the ATS hoped it had found a winning combination to decipher the clues using the intelligence inputs.

"In fact, it is both. We rely on both local and state intelligence, structured intelligence and other state reports from UP and Gujarat," Joint Commissioner of Police, Anti Terror Squad, K P Raghuvanshi had said.

But those inputs clearly didn't predict the scale of terrorist activity across the state of Maharashtra, until the unit stumbled across the bigest haul of RDX in the state since the 1993 blasts.

In the ensuing chase across Nasik, Malegaon, Manmad and Aurangabad, a total of 43 kg of RDX, 15 AK-47 assault rifles, 3,000 rounds of ammunition and 50 hand grenades were recovered.

It was the first time the State police chief admitted that terror networks were fast catching up.

"They are attempting to pick soft targets and this is something we need to make our intelligence machinery gear up for," Director General of Maharashtra Police, P S Pasricha had said.

But neither intelligence agencies nor the police saw the larger game plan which became clear on July 11 when serial bombs ripped through Mumbai's local trains killing 200 people and injuring nearly 700.

MASK OF TERROR: The arrest of three alleged Kashmiri terrorists only added to the police's suspicions.

With the aim to ferment communal trouble, just after the Bhiwandi riots and the Shiv Sena demonstrations, the blasts shook the collective intelligence of the country.

In Malegaon on Friday, the terrorists attempted a different tack. They opted for explosions after the Friday prayers outside a mosque in the communally sensitive town.

However, the aim remained the same - to incite communal trouble.

But the reaction in Mumbai, this time too, has been the opposite.

"You can see for yourself, these is no tension, everything is calm," said a resident of Mahim, Rashid.

So if the aim of the terrorists was to create a larger explosion of communal trouble, then they have failed to damage the secular fabric they intended to rip apart.

More on: Malegaon, Nashik, bomb blast, crude bomb, Maharashtra