THE author’s objective is to convey to the reader that contrary to the Central Government’s claim that every bomb blast in any Indian city is the machination of Pakistan-based Islamist groups, it is the home-grown terrorism that has been responsible for a majority of bomb blasts like the one on 7 March 2006 at Varanasi and at Malegaon on 28 September 2008 and the others. The author expresses his anger at the chain of explosions in Uttar Pradesh in 2002 and the serial blasts in New Delhi on the eve of Diwali in 2005 which suggested the involvement of Islamic radicals within the country, rather than terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba of Pakistan and the Government’s response to it being that “some minority country boys had gone astray”.
He feels that over the past decade, so long as the Indian youth were not involved, the public willingly bought the belief that terrorism was being exported into the country from Pakistan or Afghanistan or through proxy groups in Bangladesh and Nepal. It was only the events of 2008 that changed these perceptions and revealed the extent of the malaise within. The Indian Mujahideen has been found to be striking with alacrity in several major cities.
The author attempts to link up jihadists all over India and traces their linkages with terrorists based in countries like Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. With little knowledge available on the India Mujahideen, other than statements by senior police officials, this book charts the individual journeys and experiences of those extremists who are now in high-security regions all over the country. It studies the backgrounds and the socio-economic and political factors that turned the educated Muslim youth into extremists without justifying the cause.
(Hachette India, 612/614 (6th Floor), Time Tower, MG Road, Sector 28, Gurgaon-122 001, www.hachette.co.uk)
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