India remains at risk of fresh terror attacks: US

India remains at risk of fresh terror attacks, a US State Department report has warned, saying that New Delhi was receiving volumes of such credible intelligence.

Labelling India as one of the most terrorism afflicted nations because of "persistent and significant" threats from Pakistan-based groups like LeT and JeM, the report cautioned that New Delhi's moves to counter them were floundering due to its "outdated" legal system and law enforcement.

Though there was no major terrorist attack like 26/11, India remained at risk on the basis of volumes of credible threats, the government continued to receive, the report said.

"India continued to face persistent and significant external threats from groups including Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Harakat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami-Bangladesh," said the State Department's annual Congressionally mandated Country Reports on Terrorism for the year 2009, released yesterday.

The American report warned that New Delhi's efforts to counter these threats are "hampered due to its outdated legal system and law enforcement," at the same time, saying that the Indian government remain committed to combat the menace.

"Although clearly committed to combating terrorism, the Indian government's counter-terrorism efforts remained hampered by its outdated and overburdened law enforcement and legal systems."

"In the wake of the Mumbai terrorist attacks of 2008, India's Parliament has introduced bills to restructure its counter-terrorism laws and established a National Investigative Agency (NIA) to create a national-level capability to investigate and prosecute acts of terrorism," it noted.

The State Department said India remained one of the countries most afflicted by terrorism with over 1,000 deaths attributed to terrorist attacks in 2009, primarily in Kashmir and other parts of India.

The State Department said Jammu and Kashmir, historically victim to the largest number of foreign terrorist attacks, saw casualties decline significantly from previous years.

"The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) reported that 71 civilians and 52 members of the security forces were killed in terrorist-related violence in the state through November," it said.

The Congress mandated report said Home Minister P. Chidambaram "reported to Parliament in December that 700 foreign insurgents were active in the state, down from 800 earlier in the year".