This article reveals something that those, who have been following the War on Terror closely, have warned about.
A suspected militant raid on one of India's top science universities has confirmed fears that the country's booming information technology sector could be a new target for terror groups, officials and analysts said.
A professor was shot dead and four other people were wounded last week when an unidentified gunman drove on to the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) campus in the southern city of Bangalore, India's tech capital, and opened indiscriminate fire from an automatic rifle outside a conference hall.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack on what security experts said is a "soft target".
But the nature of the attack – the use of a Kalashnikov rifle to open fire randomly and the recovery of unexploded grenades and cartridges from the site – points to anti-Indian Islamist militant groups, they said.
"Whatever information is coming out of Bangalore shows that one of these groups is responsible," said B. Raman, a former head of the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
"Although the damage was not much, it was a very daring attack. Unless there is evidence to the contrary, I would believe this is the work of jihadi groups," he said, referring to Muslim militants fighting Indian rule in disputed Kashmir.
India has been a victim of separatist violence for decades and Kashmiri militants have struck regularly in the disputed Himalayan region as well as at targets in northern India, including in the capital, New Delhi, since the 1990s.
Outsourcing to India is something most companies only considered from a cost perspective. Remember, during 9/11, only one military target was hit–the Pentagon. The other targets were commercial. 9/11 started a deep recession and the terrorists enjoyed it. Last Thursday's editorial on the incident in the Times of India (partially quoted in the article linked above) made excellent points.
Although no one has claimed responsibility yet, certain elements in the dastardly shooting of an IIT professor at an international conference in Bangalore make it probable that he fell to a terror attack: the weapons used (AK-47, hand grenades), the indiscriminate nature of the firing in which six others were injured, the victim himself (an elderly math professor who lives in Delhi, not Bangalore).
Security agencies have picked up indications that terrorist groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Toiba now want to open a new frontier: they would like to attack India's IT companies and related infrastructure, such as Software Park in Bangalore and Hi Tech city in Hyderabad.
Taken together, this suggests that the country is waking up to a new reality — its success in IT and concomitant economic boom has excited malice in certain quarters, who would like to attack symbols of that success.
Within the frame of this inchoate rage against modernity, an international conference of scientists is also a target.
…..
India's security paradigm will have to be revised to deal with this new threat.
Not just politicians and bureaucrats but professional and scientific workers are also now a target; and not just Delhi and Mumbai but also Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Kolkata and other emergent high-tech hubs will need to factor in terror as part of their security arrangements.
But I have to ask, why does it take direct violence for security to become an issue? These issues brought forward in the editorial are important. So if business and government, in a country as historically volatile as India, consider terrorism against commercial targets only after an attack, then what else has to happen for US companies to make it a priority? US outsourcing to India may save money, but can the companies risk having terrorist targets there? Have terrorist sympathizers programmed code for banking software? Is it possible terrorist sympathizers work in critical support groups that could bring a company to its knees if attacked? How much control do US companies have over their Indian offices?
I hope we don't find out after an attack.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Unrest by Parkway Drive