Pakistan-trained terrorists behind Pune blast - India

Indian Home Secretary Gopal Pillai has said that a bombing that killed 16 people in Pune last month was carried out by home-grown Islamists with alleged links to militants in Pakistan, reports Reuters.

“All the evidence which is coming currently is showing that it is the IM (Indian Mujahideen), rather than a Hindu militant group, involved in the Pune blast,” he told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

Mr Pillai alleged that Indian Mujahideen operatives were being trained in Pakistan and had links with the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba.

“The handlers are the same, the set of handlers which was involved in Mumbai,” the official said, referring to the weekend arrest of two suspected IM operatives in the city who were believed to be planning bomb attacks, including in the offices of energy firm Oil and Natural Gas Corp.

He said the growing power of the LeT was a big threat to peace in the region and the militant group was spreading its tentacles beyond India and Pakistan.

“At least in the Middle East we find people. In Dubai, in Sharjah, in Saudi Arabia, the tentacles are there of the Lashkar-e-Taiba,” he said.

He said the LeT had even spread to Hong Kong and Singapore.

Mr Pillai said the reason there had not been a repetition of an attack like the Mumbai carnage of 2008 was 25 per cent due to geopolitics and Pakistan holding back, perhaps fearing Indian retaliation, and 75 per cent due to the busting of at least 14 IM cells since then.

“There are several modules still there... Our real fear is something they are doing now for something in 2011 or 2012. We do not know who is doing it,” he added.

Dawn.com