The nine bomb blasts within the precincts of the famous Buddhist Bodh Gaya temple in the state of Bihar in India on Sunday once again reveal the incredulous state of disarray the Indian intelligence agencies are in.
As repeated terror-related incidents in the last few years have revealed, they are unable to function as a cohesive front to pre-empt such attacks. The Bodh Gaya blasts, according to Indian intelligence, are a form of retaliation for the killings of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, an incident that is alarming in its ambitious spillover.
The fact that communal flare-ups between Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar are being used as a reason for a terror attack elsewhere — in this instance, on one of India’s most famous Buddhist shrines, also a Unesco heritage site, deserves to be accorded extreme priority by the region’s governments to ensure that further attacks, no matter where, do not take place.
But the task may be too big for India given that, despite being tipped off by Myanmar on the possibility of such an attack as recently as a month ago, it was caught napping.
Earlier this year, the Hyderabad bomb blasts too were a result of its woeful lethargy in responding to tip-offs. It is time India got its act together and ensured its intelligence agencies became a symbol of national solidarity to protect the country’s interests, above all.
Besides, how much intelligence does it take for it to realise that the fissures within its own central investigating agencies are catalysts for disasters-in-waiting?
