India wonders how deep "Hindu terrorism" goes

By Bappa Majumdar

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Reports that Hindu militants may be involved in bomb attacks first blamed on Islamists may open a Pandora's Box for India's beleaguered security services and become a key voter issue before general elections next year.

At least 10 people, including a serving army officer and a Hindu monk and nun, have been arrested over alleged involvement in blasts in the Muslim-dominated town of Malegaon in Maharashtra that killed four people.

The same Indian army officer is being investigated over a bomb attack in February 2007 that killed 68 people on the Samjhauta Express, a train between Delhi and Lahore, police said. The attack killed mostly Pakistani passengers.

The reports have proved an embarrassment for the main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as it prepares to take on the Congress-led government in both state elections this year and general elections in early 2009.

The BJP has been quick to criticise the Congress-led government for being soft on terrorism when it involves Muslims or Pakistan, but critics say it has been less willing to call for a clampdown on Hindu groups in the face of the latest allegations.

"In the wake of daily arrests of... (Hindu)... terror outfits, the BJP stood exposed," senior Congress leader Veerappa Moily told the Mail Today. "They cannot take a high moral ground."

While Islamists are suspects in many other attacks this year, the spectre of Hindu terrorist groups haunts many in India, which emerged from a traumatic partition in 1947 when hundreds of thousands were killed in religious clashes.