Tarique Anwar, BeyondHeadlines
New Delhi: India has for the first time linked last month’s triple bomb blasts that killed 26 people in Mumbai to a home-grown militant group.
Home minister P. Chidambaram told parliament on Thursday evening that even though a police investigation into the case was still ongoing “all indications point to (an) Indian module”.
“We cannot live in denial. We cannot close our eyes to facts. There are home-grown modules,” he told the upper house of Parliament, the Rajya Sabha, in a debate.
No one has claimed responsibility for the July 13 rush-hour bombings that ripped through the Opera House diamond trading hub, Zaveri Bazaar gold and jewellery quarter and the suburban district of Dadar.
The Mumbai bombings, which also wounded more than 130, were the first to hit India’s financial and entertainment capital since the November 2008 attacks that killed 166 and wounded more than 300.
Indian blamed the attacks on the LeT and suspended a peace dialogue with arch-rival Pakistan that only formally resumed earlier this year.
Chidambaram told lawmakers that India was not exempt from the rise of militant forces across the world, as opposition leaders accused the minister of being soft on extremism.
He accepted that domestic extremists threatened the country’s unity and recognised that the Pune blast in 2010 and the latest attack in Mumbai were “two major blots” on the counter-terrorism fight.
