life in general: this week's bomb blasts in jaipur

The city of Jaipur in the state of Rajasthan in India experienced tragedy this week (13 May 2008) when 5-6 bombs went off at different places in the city, mostly near Hindu temples. More than 70 persons were killed and many more were grivously injured. It is sad -- the got caught in the vicious cycle of violence affecting many parts of Earth today. May the killed ones' souls get healed in the astral world.

Jaipur clearly has been targeted this time because it is a major destination and transit point for tourists visiting India and June-August is the time when most tourists from Europe take their annual/bi-annual holidays. A newsreport or two also seems to suggest this.

The planners and executioners of the bomb blasts is very likely to be from Pakistan. It is not surprising but in recent weeks the level of activity from Pakistan's extremists camps has increased. The infiltration and firing incidents at the India-Pakistan border at Jammu & Kashmir has also gone up. This increase in extremists' activity coincides with the end of elections in Pakistan and the formation of a government by a coalition of political parties who won the contested seats. The military no longer has all the say in the government and so those divisive elements within Pakistan's military who are connected with the ISI (intelligence agency of Pakistan) appear to have decided to up the ante with regard to formenting trouble in India as well within their own country against the democratic system.

Pakistan's military's divisive elements and their ISI have in the last 2-3 decades, time and again, created trouble across the border in India.

But what is a new phenomenon is the rise of Hindu terrorism in India. And I am not just talking of the mini-genocides carried out by Hindu extremists in 1984 against Sikhs in Delhi and in 1993 and 2002 against Muslims in Bombay (1993) and Gujarat (2002). I am talking of a group that is carrying out bomb blasts similar to what Pakistan's extremists do.

The September 2006 blasts near a mosque in Malegaon in Maharashtra state and the May 2007 blasts in a mosque and other places in Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh state were, in my view, the work of Hindu extremists. 99 out of 100 mainstream media publications/channels attribute these two to Muslim extremists from Pakistan. But they do not ask the question as to why will Muslim extremists carry out bomb blasts near their own religious places. There is also no precedent of their doing such a thing in US, UK, Lebanon or any other country where Muslims are not in a majority.