New Delhi: “Indian Mujahidin” (IM) is a fictitious organisation most possibly created by the Indian Intelligence Bureau to justify the repression and terrorisation of the Indian Muslim community in the name of fighting terror. Apart from a few emails sent at the time of some bomb blasts, it has no real or tangible existence outside Intelligence Bureau and Police claims which are lapped by their stenos in the media. India has a free and fearless press but when it comes to the issue of “terrorism” it becomes ultra-nationalist and develops cold feet and starts parroting the secret notes pushed by faceless security agency officials.

Just as the huge nationwide saffron terror network was slightly exposed by Maharshtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare, the faceless “Indian Mujahidin” appeared on the scene through an email sent by “Guru Al Hindi” to some media organisations on 23 Nov. 2007. It was sent from a cybercafe in Ghaziabad near Delhi. Its Hindu owner, a local Congress leader, went unscathed.

At first, the Union home ministry did not ban it and kept saying as reported by the Kolkata Telegraph weeks before the ban, that it cannot ban something it does not know. Then, suddenly, on 4 June 2010 it together with “all its formations and front organisations” was banned under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967 as the 35th banned organisation in India and still retains that number on the home ministry website but without any further clarification as to why it was banned and what is the basis of the ban. The claim parroted by the Indian media is that it is a shadow outfit of the banned SIMI and Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Toiba. It is claimed the IM is involved in serial bomb blasts in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bangalore and Mumbai. It is claimed that this terror group is at present headed by Iqbal Bhatkal who remains at large.

You announced in the House of Commons on 5 July this year that the UK government has banned the so-called “Indian Mujahideen” organisation which, according to your reported statements, “had been engaged in indiscriminate mass-casualty attacks in India”. You were further reported to have said that this so-called outfit “uses violence to achieve its stated objectives of establishing an Islamic state in India and implementing Sharia law” (Asian Age, Delhi, 6 July 2012).

Your junior colleague at the Home Office Minister Mr. James Brokenshire reportedly told House of Commons on the same day that the decision was “not taken lightly” but after thoroughly reviewing all the available information about the India-based terror group (Pioneer, Delhi, 6 July 2012).