Delhi bomb blast testing India’s security vulnerability?

After a lull of almost a decade and a half, the national capital shuddered. A powerful blast near the Red Fort Metro Station ripped through the balmy evening air, killing 13 people and injuring several others. The incident instantly brought back memories from the 1990s and early 2000s, when terror attacks were more frequent.

- DR.S.KRISHNAN AND MS. RIMJHIM SONI

Bomb disposal squads examine the site of the car blast near Red Fort, in New Delhi. File photo

The attack in Delhi was not the first, nor will it be the last. On May 13, 2008, multiple bombs ripped across Jaipur, killing dozens and injuring more than 200. Later that year, gunmen rampaged through Mumbai, hunting both tourists and Indians. The number of terrorist attacks India suffers today is more than an order of magnitude higher than it experienced in the early 1980s. India weathered many attacks, but the 2019 Pulwama bombing and the 2025 Pahalgam attacks stood out for the shock to society and the nature of India’s response.

There is no secret about the nexus of most of the terror groups that strike India. All roads lead to Islamabad. Many of the suspects involved in planning the 2008 Mumbai attacks remain at large in Pakistan, where they receive protection. Nor should such complicity in terror be news to the outside world. After all, the same Pakistani officials who host anti-India terrorists also sheltered Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, who killed nearly three thousand innocents on September 11, 2001, to protect him from an international manhunt.

It is clear that India is facing a grave and growing terror threat. Its causes are twofold, and both outside India’s control. First, as India thrives, its rivals seek to tear it down. India today has the fourth-largest economy and will likely surpass Germany to become the third-largest economy by 2028. If India were able to better reform its stifling bureaucracy, there is no telling how far its economy could grow.