India may be next target of Taliban: M K Narayanan

“Taliban extremism in both the countries shows no signs of muting itself... the basic weakness in administration there and presence of various terror groups, including Taliban, allowed them to do what they like. If they succeeded in Afghanistan, India is their next target. That has always been the premise and presumption and therefore we need to be on our guard,” he said.

Narayanan said Pakistan's newly revealed Army doctrine even stipulates “disproportionate responses” in future wars with India - implying a willingness to take recourse to the nuclear option in the event of India taking any counter measures against terror attacks like the Mumbai attack.  “We, hence, have to be prepared for more attacks of this kind,” he said.

Narayanan said an overwhelming number of terrorist incidents in the country have been the handiwork of Pakistan based terrorist outfits and these attacks have been mainly orchestrated by the LeT and the JeM and their acolytes, including the Bangladesh based HuH.

“The Indian Mujahideen, a creation of the LeT following the Gujarat riots in 2002, has been increasingly involved in terrorist incidents since 2005. There are in addition, quite a few indigenous Islamist militant outfits - many, if not all, aligned with SIMI who have carried out terror attacks, particularly in the Southern states,” he said.

The Governor said right wing Hindu militant outfits have also carried out sporadic terror attacks, such as those on the Samjhauta Express and at Malegaon in Maharashtra.

He said the LeT network has been operational in India for nearly two decades and the terror group is one of the earliest affiliates of al-Qaeda network, which is operating across the globe, including in North America, Australia, Europe and Africa, besides India.