The previously unknown group that claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attacks across Mumbai has added to the growing belief that India is confronting home-grown Islamic militancy.
The vast majority of previous attacks on Indian soil have been blamed on groups based in or directly supported by neighboring Pakistan.
But attacks over the last year have been claimed by groups with names stressing their local origins.
“Deccan Mujahedeen,” which said it was responsible for the Mumbai assault, takes its title from the Deccan Plateau that covers much of south India.
The outfit sent e-mails to local media saying it carried out the attacks.
A similarly shadowy group calling itself the “Indian Mujahedeen” claimed responsibility for serial blasts in Delhi in September, which killed 20 people, and bombings in the western city of Ahmedabad in July when 45 died.
Another group, the “Islamic Security Force-Indian Mujahedeen,” said it was behind explosions last month in India’s northeast state of Assam that killed 80.
One of the gunmen involved in Mumbai’s multiple attacks told a television news channel that the “Deccan Mujahedeen” was fighting to end persecution of Indian Muslims.
The gunman, holed up in the Oberoi hotel, called for the release of fellow Islamic militants detained in India.
“We love this as our country but when our mothers and sisters were being killed, where was everybody?” he told India TV by telephone.
It is unclear whether the various groups are connected, but retired senior security official B. Raman has said their chosen names were a “bid to Indianize” the Islamic militant movement.
The “Indian Mujahedeen,” which also calls itself “the militia of Islam,” first came to public attention last November following serial blasts in Uttar Pradesh.
The same group sent another e-mail to the media after blasts in May in the city of Jaipur in which it said it would wage an “open war” against India for supporting the US, and warned of more attacks against tourist sites.
Security services suspect the groups may be fronts for outfits that have been banned by the Indian government over the past few years such as the Students’ Islamic Movement of India.
Others say they could be an undercover coalition of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed militant organizations.
Just minutes before the blasts in Ahmedabad, the main commercial city of Gujarat state, the “Indian Mujahedeen” sent e-mails to several TV news stations warning that people would “feel the terror of death.”
It said the Ahmedabad blasts were revenge for riots that swept Gujarat in 2002 in which at least 2,000 people, mainly Muslims, were hacked, shot and burnt to death.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS