Now, freelance terrorists posing a grave threat

Mangaloretoday/ CNN-IBN

New Delhi, May 5: Investigators probing the blast in 2011 at Delhi High Court say freelance terrorists, those without affiliations to terror outfits, are posing a grave threat and different brand of terrorists are now emerging.

 

Terror groups from across the border, home grown red terror and now another challenge - freelance terrorists or what the National Investigation Agency calls leaderless jihadis.

The NIA investigating the Delhi High Court blast of 2011 claims it was the handiwork of one such ’freelance terrorist’.

The main accused Wasim Akram Malik’s interrogation report with CNN-IBN paints the picture of a radical youngster not part of any terror group yet capable of conspiring to kill 15 and injuring 79 people.

As per the interrogation report, the 25-year-old, an MBBS student from Bangladesh, read Che Guevera’s motorcycle diaries, befriended women on the internet, cut college classes regularly yet also held special prayers at a Bangladesh mosque to lament the death of Osama bin Laden. The report also states that Malik termed the terror attacks by Kashmiri groups ’Chillar jihad’ and was allegedly convinced that Afzal Guru was sentenced to death because he was a Kashmiri. His argument; Rajiv Gandhi’s killers too got a life sentence but Guru who he sees as innocent is sentenced to death for he is a Kashmiri.

The Delhi High Court blast as per the NIA chargesheet was planned by Malik after watching a TV show on Guru’s sentencing in 2011. The High Court was selected as a target for he wanted to teach lawyers a lesson. Malik also allegedly believed that Guru’s death sentence will be repealed if the judiciary came under attack.

Malik reportedly used a school friend in Kishtawar to get in touch with Hizbul Mujahiden leader Amir Kamal and convinced him of his plan to attack the Delhi High Court. The NIA chargesheet also says Malik took care to ensure that non-Kashmiri boys were sent as bomb planters as Kashmiris were easily identified by Delhi police. Malik has allegedly even confessed that he wanted a remote operated bomb and not one with a timer device to have flexibility in timing the blast.

To bolster its claims, the NIA has even quoted from the book CIA man Marc Seagman’s ‘leaderless Jihad’ to show that Wasim Akram Malik is not an isolated case but that across the world terrorists not associated with any group or network are making their presence felt on the terror radar but question is, will this convince the judges enough to convict those charged by the agency?