Home-grown terror a reality: PC

Home minister P Chidambaram on Thursday told the Rajya Sabha that India faced threat also from home-grown terror outfits. HT Correspondent reports.

Home minister P Chidambaram on Thursday told the Rajya Sabha that India faced threat also from home-grown terror outfits.

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Replying to a discussion on terrorism, he said, “Earlier, whenever a terror attack took place, we pointed fingers at our neighbour. The new reality is that it is not the only source of terror…Many terror groups are home-grown, modules that are totally Indian.”

He said there were indications that an Indian module was involved in the 13/7 Mumbai blasts. The home minister said right-wing fascist elements were on the rise worldwide and India was no exception.

Chidambaram said home-grown terror outfits did not belong to one religion. “For many years we thought all terror groups belonged to one religion. It led intelligence agencies down the wrong path and innocent people were arrested.”

Taking part in the discussion, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said India lacked the political will to fight terrorism.

“Every time a government decides to fight terror, it is told that it is either anti-minority or against human rights.”
He said NIA investigations into the 26/11 Mumbai attacks had led to only man being convicted while hundreds of conspirators would have been involved in carrying out the strike.

Chidambaram also accepted that the Pune and Mumbai blasts were two major blots after he took over as home minister. He said terrorism had assumed a new dimension that not only affected the nation’s security, but could also affect its survival.

He reiterated that the 13/7 Mumbai blasts were a case of no intelligence. “It gives me no comfort. Intelligence failure is a warning bell, but no intelligence means we have to be even more careful.”