On 23 November, five near-simultaneous bomb blasts hit the three cities of Varanasi, Lucknow and Faizabad in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, killing at least 15 people - mostly lawyers - and injuring more than 80 others.
All the blasts reportedly went off in or around civil court premises and within a couple of minutes of each other, demonstrating a certain level of sophistication in the planning and execution of this operation. A previously unknown group calling itself Indian Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the explosions. These latest attacks, coupled with last year's Mumbai train bombings, suggest India faces an emerging threat from home-grown militancy.
Various local newspapers have cited sections of an email apparently from Indian Mujahideen that was sent a few minutes before the third blast, which hit the Lucknow court complex. That message stated: "We are not any foreign mujahideen, nor [do] we have any attachment with neighbouring countries' [agencies or groups] like ISI, LET, HUJI, etc. We are purely Indian."
The group also attempted to justify the bombings, saying: "Now, Islamic raids are going to take place against lawyers within a few minutes, Insha Allah, because police nabbed two innocent groups and framed them with fake charges. Lawyers in these places beat up those innocent group members and refused to take their cases and also did not allow others to take their cases."
This suggests that the latest bombings were retaliatory attacks specifically targeting lawyers, particularly those that formed a mob that had assaulted three suspected Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) militants in court on 17 November. The three JeM members were arrested in Lucknow on 16 November by the Special Task Force of the Uttar Pradesh police. The task force claimed that it had foiled a plot to abduct a senior politician in order to secure the release of 42 JeM members, including Afzal Guru, who has been sentenced to death by the Indian government for his role in the attack on the Indian parliament on 13 December 2001.
Indeed, lawyers in Uttar Pradesh have repeatedly refused to defend terrorism suspects; for example, five militants who were arrested in connection with the July 2005 attack on the Babri Masjid complex at Ayodhya failed to secure a lawyer because the Faizabad Bar Association prevented lawyers from representing them. In addition, lawyers in Varanasi refused to defend Mohammad Waliullah, an Uttar Pradesh-based cleric who is awaiting trial for his alleged role in the 2006 twin bombings of the railway station and the Sankat Mochan temple in that city.
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