New Delhi/Nagpur: A day after it was targeted by terrorists, two messages written in blood have been found on the walls of the Indian consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif. While one message reads ‘Afzal Guru ka Intekam’ (revenge for Afzal Guru), the other reads ‘Ek shaheed, hazaar Fidayeen’ (one martyr thousand suicide bombers).
The Indian consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif came under attack on Sunday when gunmen attempted to enter the compound after twin explosions and shots were heard. Two terrorists were killed by security forces in the attack.
Later on Tuesday, a small bomb exploded near the Indian consulate in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad after a series of attacks on Indian installations in the region.
The attacks were followed by a deadly assault on the Pathankot air base in India near the Pakistan border. Seven Indian soldiers were killed in the attack and six terrorists were gunned down.
One of the survivors of the Pathankot attack – Rajesh Verma – had also claimed that the terrorists said that they were avenging the death of Afzal Guru.
Afzal Guru, a resident of Sopore in Jammu and Kashmir, was convicted for plotting the terror attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001 and was hanged on February 9, 2013 at Tihar Jail after President Pranab Mukherjee rejected his mercy petition.
The spike in violence has come roughly a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a surprise peacemaking visit to Pakistan following a whirlwind tour of Kabul.
India has been a key supporter of Kabul’s post-Taliban government, and analysts have often pointed to the threat of a “proxy war” in Afghanistan between India and Pakistan.
The Taliban have also stepped up attacks on government and foreign targets in Afghanistan, including a series of assaults in Kabul over the weekend, underscoring a worsening security situation.
The volatile province of Nangarhar, which borders Pakistan, also faces an emerging threat from loyalists of the Islamic State group which is making gradual inroads in Afghanistan, challenging the Taliban on their own turf.
