Terror Chooses Busiest Market at Busiest Hour

The seven blasts that rocked the pink city of Jaipur also wore off its charm and romance, at least for sometime to come. Known for its wonderful monuments the city was bustling as usual with tourists from all over the world. The sunset crowd at 7.12 was enjoying a whiff of cool air, one of the reasons of crowding, when tragedy struck. Among others: prayer, shopping and strolling. For the next fifteen minutes five hubs of public gathering became virtual inferno what with the dead lying on the roads and wounded crying in pain and almost every other person running in disorderly haste.

Are we caught in a vicious circle of reprisal as far as terrorism is concerned? A day before Jaipur is rocked by explosion; Hubli in Karnataka was scene of another explosion. That too, it was in the court set up for trying terror suspects.


Terror and politicking go hand in hand as is evident after every bomb blast. BJP president Rajnath Singh dubs Jaipur serial blasts as the work of Pakistan and describes it as ‘dangerous’. In a tow as is his wont Mukhtar Ahmed Naqvi calls the Prime Minister ‘weak’ and Home Minister a ‘coward’. They never bothered about it when their party-run Rajasthan state showed leniency in treating its police officer who bumped off Ram Prajapati, the accomplice of Sohrabuddin. That was no mean terror, though DIG Vanzara called it patriotism. Another part of mud slinging is that central government does not share intelligence with state governments. In the case of Ajmer the centre did alert Rajasthan government of possible attack.

The serial bombs exploded at a Hanuman temple in Tripolia Bazaar, Johari Bazaar, Manak Chowk, Badi Choupal and Choti Choupal. Nearly 80 died and 150 were injured. DIG AS Gill said that cycles were used to blow up the bombs. The gleaming cycles in the wreckage remind you of the ones used in Malegaon serial blasts at a mosque adjoining a cemetery and a nearby crowded chowk in September 2006. The IG of Jaipur said that there were eight blasts which went off in just over ten minutes.

As a knee jerk reaction the Intelligence Bureau pointed finger at Harkut-ul Jihad al Islami (of course by now the familiar acronym HuJI)—like a sudden involuntary reflex movement.

There are also self start groups of terrorists. They are modules. A module is each of a set of standardized parts or independent units that can be used to construct a more complex structure. This dictionary meaning of the word seems to be lost on the Intelligence Bureau. Even before reaching the site of the latest attack the bureau says in a chorus that it is the work of HuJI. Even before the details emerge you can hear the chant emanating from mostly Delhi. Jaipur is full 160 miles from there. But the announcement almost coincides with the event.

In the case of Madrid bombing of March 2004 humongous blame ala IB that al Qaeda was behind the attack was belied. A group of immigrants having no links to any terrorist group let alone the most dreaded chose to target trains. They chose what was easily had through some venal adjustment.

Bicycles stationary or parked are currently in use in our country. On the fringe of the crowds praying in a cemetery in Malegaon or the milling crowd around a temple in Jaipur, they can play havoc. But the question is where the security and intelligence people were. A new bicycle should be as much an object of suspicion as an abandoned bag. After Malegaon and Gorakhpur and Faizabad the security personnel should have been instructed into what to look out for. Ammonium nitrate and ball bearing and small pipes as splinters go as standard constituents of easily made bombs assembled at short notice. They can be put in containers and loaded on to new bicycles. They are sure recipe of destruction.

In Malegaon the buyers of the cycle did not ride them. They walked nearly a kilometer from the shop with the explosive material on the cycles. Yet this did not draw attention of the police and intelligence department personnel. A mammoth crowd as at the Hanuman mandir at Tripolia bazaar must have been impossible for the culprits to walk through.

Ajmer draws the attention of the world for the renowned shrine of Khwaja Chisti and Jaipur for its romantic monuments like the hawa mahal and numerous others. Tourist centres or environs were free from the menace of terrorism so far at least outside Delhi. This will be the first jolt to tourist industry. The heart of the old city is also the heart of tourism in Jaipur and in the whole of Rajasthan. The city is one of the three corners of the so called Golden Triangle of tourism in India, Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. Anyone visiting Rajasthan also visits the old part of the city. Choosing the shrine and the temples the unmistakable handwriting on the wall is clearly decipherable. There are people who do not want to see that we Indians live together. Therefore we must rise to the occasion in a national spirit of unity and solidarity.

However, the ground reality is different, 15 areas of the city are under curfew 9 to 6 for fear of communal riot. The day time curfew is a sort of ominous barometer of our civil life. This surely had not happened in a proverbially violence prone and intermittently communally charged Malegaon. Hindus and Muslims together donated blood and faced what turned out to be a nightmare where scores of children and women were killed.