Chidambaram: Terrorism no longer restricted to one religion

India’s Union Home Minister, P Chidambaram, said that terrorism was no longer solely imported from across the border or restricted to one religion. Terrorism no longer restricted to one religion: Chidambaram Asserting it was not feasible to 'live in denial' about homegrown terror, home minister, while replying to a debate in Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Indian Parliament) on internal security, said that terrorism was no longer solely imported from across the border or restricted to one religion with even the recent Mumbai serial blasts likely to be the handiwork of indigenous groups. Outlining the threat of totally Indian modules, Chidambaram said although the government had not come to any conclusion in the Mumbai probe, the attack could -- like in the case of the German Bakery blast in Pune -- be a case of swadeshi terror (homegrown terror). 'Pune was by an Indian module and it seems that even the Mumbai serial blasts could have been perpetrated by an Indian module...Maybe both blasts were by the same module,' said Chidambaram. He also chose to point to the rise of right wing extremism the world over and said India was not immune from such processes. He said in the past wrong arrests have been made and while he was not concerned with the religion of those who wrecked violence, groups with fascist views had to be countered. Chidambaram said that there had been a failure in not recognizing growth of Indian modules even while cross-border terrorism remained a challenge. 'We can't go on living in denial. It is important to acknowledge three most important points here; we are going to live under the shadow of terror because of our troubled neighbourhood, that we have homegrown terror groups and also, that these groups practice only one religion no longer holds true,' he said. The minister's recalibration of the sources of terror is not entirely new as he has spoken of the emergence of Hindu right wing terror, even saying that BJP's criticism of him might be related to investigations into such groups. Chidambaram's reply came shortly after leader of opposition Arun Jaitley came down heavily on the government for not accepting that there had been an intelligence failure in the July 13 serial blasts. In his defence, the home minister sought to differentiate between 'no intelligence' and 'failure of intelligence'. He said, 'In Pune we had intelligence which reached even the German Bakery through state agencies. Pune still happened because of failure on the part of police and citizenry. In Mumbai there was no intelligence.' The home minister elaborated on the government's limitations, saying, 'There is a difference because we don't have intelligence staff everywhere and we also don't have a database on every module which comes up. There will be cases of no intelligence. However, while intelligence failure is a warning bell, having no intelligence is even more serious and should make us more careful.' Chidambaram admitted that Pune and Mumbai were major blots after 26/11. He, however, said that the security system had come a long way since 26/11 going by the manner in which government agencies had responded to the Mumbai blasts. He said as many as 51 terror modules had been busted by agencies in the past two years including a group which was planning to target Hindu leaders and Allahabad High Court judges who delivered the verdict in the Babri Mosque case. The home minister gave examples in which arrest of terrorists had foiled attempts to target the ONGC office and an MNC in south India. Chidambaram described NCTC, NIA, NSG and Natgrid as four important pillars on which the overall security and counter-terrorism architecture is going to be based. He was optimistic that issues raised in the Cabinet over NCTC were likely to be addressed soon. 'A huge amount of money has been spent for procurement. I have taken risks for this because I don't know which CAG will find fault with this in the future,' he remarked.