No longer is it about a few militants dressed in camouflage, armed to the teeth with automatics and assault guns, operating from hideouts in the hills and mountains of Kashmir, rich with their experience and training from battlegrounds in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and thoroughly indoctrinated in radical religious ideology.
The new age harbingers of terror, with their primary aim of transitioning Kashmir from a ‘Dar al-Harb’ (or land of war) to a ‘Dar al-Islam’ (land of Islam) is about a new breed of radicals who are well-educated, with professional degrees, urban, and articulate.
The November 10 explosion just near the Red Fort Metro Station gate in Delhi is an underlining of this fact, with new-age terrorists bent on creating mayhem and killing as many innocent persons as they indulge in a blood-letting spree.
As investigations proceed, the jury is still out on whether the blast was an intentional act or the bomb material exploded accidentally while being ferried in utter panic, as key members of the terror module had already been nabbed.
The terror module that was instrumental in the explosion had, over the last two years, meticulously accumulated a huge amount of explosive material in the form of ammonium nitrate and RDX and stored them in rented houses in Faridabad, a city very close to the national capital.
At the heart of the operations and planning of this module was a group of doctors who were obviously sufficiently well-to-do.
There has been another significant departure from earlier terror operations. The AOR (Area of Operation) of terror modules are shifting from Kashmir to outside the state with plans to mount attacks on a pan-India basis.
The government has also adopted a cautious approach, unlike in the past when Pakistan was named and shamed as the “foreign hand” behind such acts.
On November 12, the Union cabinet released a carefully worded announcement. It called the event a “terror incident” through a “car explosion” and not a “terror attack” and a “bomb blast”.
Pointing fingers directly at Pakistan would obviously require a follow-up action by the Indian forces, perhaps on the lines of Operation Sindoor, something that would be telling on the country at this point of time with the economy being at a sensitive stage even as tariff talks continue with the United States.