Re: Five major blasts rock Jaipur, 10 killed and 24 injured
But the real strength of the Islamic jihadi groups responsible for explosions in Indian-administered Kashmir and other Indian states lies not so much in the “foreign hand” but in the proliferation of these “sleeper cells” within India.
Usually a sleeper cell contains no more than three to four militants, armed and trained but asked to lie low until definite orders.
The Intelligence Bureau estimates the number of these jihadi “sleeper cells” as running into a few thousands.
“They have thrived on Muslim alienation in India since the phenomenal rise of the Hindu right in the country in the mid-1980s,” says Pradip Bose of the Calcutta-based Center for Study in Social Sciences (CSSS).
He says it all started with the demolition of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya in December 1992 and has been fuelled by large-scale violence against Muslims, such as in the Gujarat riots in 2002.
"A riot like Gujarat creates a few thousand potential jihadis seeking revenge, so there’s no use blaming the foreign hand. We in this country have created this problem," says Mr Bose, a distinguished sociologist.