Terrorist attacks spreading in India beyond Kashmir: PM
India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Thursday that terrorist attacks in the country had spread beyond Kashmir.
"Attempts to take this threat to other parts of the country to create fear in the minds of our people are in evidence," Singh told a gathering of top police and intelligence officials in New Delhi.
Home Minister Shivraj Patil also told the conference on Wednesday that terrorist threats to India's infrastructure including its atomic plants had risen in the wake of a planned civilian nuclear energy deal with the United States.
The prime minister said India stood firm in fighting terrorism and "ideologies that justify it".
The prime minister said militants, who have also increasingly targeted mosques and temples in different parts of India, wanted to stoke Hindu-Muslim violence in the country.
"We have found repeatedly that one of the objectives of terrorist groups has been to disrupt communal harmony and foment communal violence," Singh told the conference.
New Delhi blamed Kashmir groups fighting Indian occupation in the held-territory for a series of temple bombings in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi in March, in which more than 20 people were killed.
On Wednesday, the home minister said installations of the oil and natural gas sector, defence, communications and IT sector were also vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
Patil's comments were the first to link the issue of security of India's infrastructure to the civilian nuclear pact concluded with Washington in March that is awaiting final US legislative clearance.
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