Bruce Loudon, South Asia correspondent | September 16, 2008
A MASSIVE manhunt was launched yesterday for a church-educated bomb-maker dubbed "India's Osama bin Laden" as a major political firestorm enveloped the country's embattled Government over its handling ofIslamic terror attacks on its major cities.
Police identified 36-year-old militant Abdul Subhan Qureshi -- also known as Tauquir Bilal, a computer expert who previously worked for one of the country's largest IT firms -- as their No1 suspect in a series of bomb blasts, culminating in the terror attack on the heart of New Delhi at the weekend that killed more than 20 people and injured about 100.
One report last night described Qureshi -- a leader of the al-Qa'ida-linked Students Islamic Movement of India who "disappeared" after the Mumbai train bomb blasts two years ago, in which 200 people were killed and more than 800 injured -- as being "like Osama".
"His shadowy techie's signature seems to be on each blast, and getting deadlier," it said.
India's Government came under criticism for its handling of terrorism, with sneering contempt of a kind seldom before seen in the country directed at top security minister Shivraj Patil.
Mr Patil, Home Minister and close confidant of supreme political leader Sonia Gandhi, was pilloried yesterday over the seemingly unstoppable wave of terrorism that has cost the country nearly 5000 lives since 2004, when the Government came to power, placing it third only to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr Patil, a slick dresser, was attacked on the front page of the Mail Today newspaper in a scathing report, which revealed that within three hours from the time of the first bomb blast on Saturday he had found time to change his clothes three times.
"Patil finds time for three changes as city reels under impact of blasts. He hits the wardrobe as Delhi burns," the newspaper blazoned across its front page, above photographs showing his changes of clothing.
Mr Patil was reportedly furious over his unprecedented savaging by the media, but most commentators believe the Government is in dire straits over terrorism and that it is facing defeat over the issue in the coming election.
Much of the criticism of the Government is sheeted home to one of its first acts when it came to power -- the repeal, for no apparent reason, of the tough Prevention of Terrorism Act introduced by its predecessor.
Opposition leader Lal Krishna Advani, of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, said yesterday that the first act of a government headed by him would be the re-enactment of the POTA law, which gave security authorities wide-ranging powers to detain those suspected of involvement in terrorism.
Significantly, it is reported that even senior security professionals within the Indian bureaucracy are at odds with their own Government over its reluctance to take tough measures against terrorism.
"Terrorists have no fear because the (dominant) Congress Party and its Government are gripped with fear -- the fear of losing their vote banks -- when itcomes to uncompromising legal and administrative measures against terrorism," Mr Advani said.
Meanwhile, as New Delhi's 14million people nervously returned yesterday to start the new working week, many markets and shopping centres were deserted and travel agents reported mass cancellations of bookings by foreign travellers.
At the same time, further details emerged of the weekend tragedy in the capital. A grieving widow lost seven members of her family in the attack at the Ghaffar Market in the Karol Bagh district, and other victims have had limbs amputated because of a severe shortage of anti-gangrene serum in India.
With hospitals reporting that they have received no anti-gangrene serum since April, desperate family members of victims were reportedly trying to arrange their own serum supplies to save the limbs of their relatives.
A doctor at one hospital told reporters: "These are roadside injuries in extremely hot weather that are prone to infection and gangrene. That is why we need the serum.
"But it is always in short supply and we normally try to get it from the local market. Unfortunately, we do not have any of the medicine right now."
A MASSIVE manhunt was launched yesterday for a church-educated bomb-maker dubbed "India's Osama bin Laden" as a major political firestorm enveloped the country's embattled Government over its handling ofIslamic terror attacks on its major cities.
Police identified 36-year-old militant Abdul Subhan Qureshi -- also known as Tauquir Bilal, a computer expert who previously worked for one of the country's largest IT firms -- as their No1 suspect in a series of bomb blasts, culminating in the terror attack on the heart of New Delhi at the weekend that killed more than 20 people and injured about 100.
One report last night described Qureshi -- a leader of the al-Qa'ida-linked Students Islamic Movement of India who "disappeared" after the Mumbai train bomb blasts two years ago, in which 200 people were killed and more than 800 injured -- as being "like Osama".
"His shadowy techie's signature seems to be on each blast, and getting deadlier," it said.
India's Government came under criticism for its handling of terrorism, with sneering contempt of a kind seldom before seen in the country directed at top security minister Shivraj Patil.
Mr Patil, Home Minister and close confidant of supreme political leader Sonia Gandhi, was pilloried yesterday over the seemingly unstoppable wave of terrorism that has cost the country nearly 5000 lives since 2004, when the Government came to power, placing it third only to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr Patil, a slick dresser, was attacked on the front page of the Mail Today newspaper in a scathing report, which revealed that within three hours from the time of the first bomb blast on Saturday he had found time to change his clothes three times.
"Patil finds time for three changes as city reels under impact of blasts. He hits the wardrobe as Delhi burns," the newspaper blazoned across its front page, above photographs showing his changes of clothing.
Mr Patil was reportedly furious over his unprecedented savaging by the media, but most commentators believe the Government is in dire straits over terrorism and that it is facing defeat over the issue in the coming election.
Much of the criticism of the Government is sheeted home to one of its first acts when it came to power -- the repeal, for no apparent reason, of the tough Prevention of Terrorism Act introduced by its predecessor.
Opposition leader Lal Krishna Advani, of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, said yesterday that the first act of a government headed by him would be the re-enactment of the POTA law, which gave security authorities wide-ranging powers to detain those suspected of involvement in terrorism.
Significantly, it is reported that even senior security professionals within the Indian bureaucracy are at odds with their own Government over its reluctance to take tough measures against terrorism.
"Terrorists have no fear because the (dominant) Congress Party and its Government are gripped with fear -- the fear of losing their vote banks -- when itcomes to uncompromising legal and administrative measures against terrorism," Mr Advani said.
Meanwhile, as New Delhi's 14million people nervously returned yesterday to start the new working week, many markets and shopping centres were deserted and travel agents reported mass cancellations of bookings by foreign travellers.
At the same time, further details emerged of the weekend tragedy in the capital. A grieving widow lost seven members of her family in the attack at the Ghaffar Market in the Karol Bagh district, and other victims have had limbs amputated because of a severe shortage of anti-gangrene serum in India.
With hospitals reporting that they have received no anti-gangrene serum since April, desperate family members of victims were reportedly trying to arrange their own serum supplies to save the limbs of their relatives.
A doctor at one hospital told reporters: "These are roadside injuries in extremely hot weather that are prone to infection and gangrene. That is why we need the serum.
"But it is always in short supply and we normally try to get it from the local market. Unfortunately, we do not have any of the medicine right now."
Source: The Australian
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