Post 26/11, India fights a new enemy: Homegrown terror

Three years have passed since India witnessed one of its worst terror attacks. While the National Investigating Agency tries stack up evidence against David Headley and Tahawwur Rana, security agencies across the country find themselves being foxed by a new wave of terror: unroganised hell.

All agencies including the NIA say that the biggest threat perception for India would be from within. Home-grown terror will continue to haunt the country.

"We do not dispute the fact that the Lashkar-e-Tayiba will look to launch bigger attacks. However, there would be these smaller cases every now and then which would continue to cause an irritant to security forces," said a source.

Radha Vinod Raju, former NIA boss too points out that such fringe groups would continue to trouble agencies thus making the job ahead very tough.

The Indian Mujahideen in particular, which has been revamped as the Bullet 313 is capable enough to carry out smaller strikes even in their weakest form. Although they are lying low today, there continues to be splinter groups within the outfit which carry out individual attacks.

In addition to this there has been some movement within this group which indicates they are trying to strengthen themselves. Intelligence Bureau reports suggest that some members of the Student Islamic Movement of India have been teaming up with Indian Mujahideen.

This is largely because of the frustration of the ban. Many members feel that the government is being unfair towards them and the better way to hit back is to join the IM which is a clearly a destructive outfit.

While the threat from the IM would continue to haunt India, the other headache comes from Babbar Khalsa International which has shown all signs of a major comeback. Although the area of focus for the BKI would be mainly Punjab, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence has been coaxing them to widen their area of operation to New Delhi as well.

The Ambala explosives seizure in October this year is a testimony to that fact. This outfit would however focus on hitting out using political reasons. Unlike the IM, which carries out attacks on innocents, the BKI would be used for bigger operations such as taking hostages and political murders.

The BKI, which has been sheltered by the ISI too has insisted on such type of attacks since they do not want to divert from their original cause.

Security experts also do not downplay the threat by some Hindu groups in the days to come. Recent investigations have sure put the breaks on them, but the threat cannot be ruled out completely.

Their attacks would however be retaliatory in nature, police and Intelligence sources point out.

The areas of concern in India in the days to come would be Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. The IB has sounded alerts regarding these states as they are considered to be the epicentre of terror.

A lot of movement by Islamic organisations have been found in these states and reports suggest that most of the modules are very much active in these parts of the country.

On the international front, the threat perception for India is largely from the Lashkar, Harkat-ul-Jihadi and the Jaish-e-Mohammad groups.

The investigations into the Delhi high court blasts point towards HuJI. This outfit had warned of an attack at Delhi recently. Their modules are active mainly in Hyderabad, Delhi West Bengal and Kerala.

The biggest threat from over seas however is from the Lashkar. The ambitious Karachi project is something that continues to be a concern.

Although Pakistan does claim that it is doing everything to curb terror, all reports from across the border show that the Karachi project which is a combine between Pakistani and Indian homegrown jihadis is on.

Stephen Tankel, an expert on matters pertaining to this outfit pointed out that Lashkar is still India's biggest enemy and the outfit could unleash fury in the coming days.