Days after the blast near Delhi’s Red Fort area, former Union home minister P Chidambaram took to X on Wednesday and said “there are two kinds of terrorists- foreign-trained infiltrated terrorists and home-grown terrorists.” He said that he had mentioned this prior and also after the Pahalgam attack happened this year.
The minister said that he had mentioned this even during the Parliament debate on Operation Sindoor but he was “mocked and trolled for the reference to home-grown terrorists.”
He further added that the government maintained silence on the subject because it knows “there are home-grown terrorists too”.
His comments come as several people have been arrested in connection with the Delhi blast. Among them are doctors Muzammil Ganaie, Adeel Ahmad Rather, Shaheen Shahid, and Umar Un Nabi, who are accused of being part of a terror group based in Faridabad with links to Jaish-e-Mohammed.
The backlash after Chidambaram’s prior comment on ‘home-grown terrorists’
In July, during a Parliament debate on Operation Sindoor, Chidambaram had said that the Pahalgam attackers might have been local terrorists, adding that there was no proof they came from Pakistan.
He had questioned the government’s handling of the Pahalgam terror attack and the operation that followed, raising concerns about the lack of clarity, asking why the attackers had not been caught or identified. He also referred to reports about the arrest of people who had sheltered the attackers and asked what action had been taken against them.
He also criticised the government for not sharing details of the NIA investigation, saying it was still unclear who the attackers were or where they came from. His remarks led to a strong reaction from BJP members, with Home Minister Amit Shah accusing him of defending Pakistan.
Amit Shah said the NIA had arrested those who gave shelter and food to the attackers and confirmed that the dead bodies found in Srinagar matched the three who carried out the Pahalgam attack. The weapons recovered also matched forensic reports.
Later, Chidambaram had responded to the criticism, saying his words were being misrepresented and accused his critics of spreading misinformation online.
Concluding his post on Wednesday, Chidambaram said, “The point of this tweet is we should ask ourselves what are the circumstances that turn Indian citizens — even educated persons — into terrorists.”