NEW DELHI: The police on Wednesday released the sketch of one of the suspects who had placed the bomb that went off in the Delhi Transport Corporation bus at Govindpuri in South Delhi last Saturday.

According to the Joint Commissioner of Police (Special Cell), Karnal Singh, the sketch was 80 per cent accurate. The suspect, aged around 22, was sporting a French beard and was wearing a dark blue baseball cap. "It had New York written on the right side," said Mr. Singh. Two variants of the sketch, one without the beard and with moustache and another clean-shaven were also released.

The officer added that he was wearing a shirt with grey stripes on white base and grey cotton trousers. He was wearing sandals and had a bandage on his left forearm. Earlier, the police had drawn a rough sketch on the basis of some initial reports. But, in order to be doubly sure, they had issued an appeal to passengers of the bus to come forward and provide more information. "One of the main eyewitnesses came to us after the appeal and helped us with whatever information he had," Mr. Singh said.

After the sketches were released to television news channels on Wednesday, the police received many calls. "We are verifying them but at present there is nothing concrete," Mr. Singh said.

He added that the police were concentrating on the evidence on the ground and coordinating with the intelligence agencies. "We cannot go by the claims which are being made by various organisations," he said.

The police have been asked not to relax the vigil till the festival of Id, which is on Friday, is over. Delhi Police Commissioner K.K. Paul met all the district deputy commissioners of police on Wednesday morning and instructed them not to relax security measures.

Additional forces have also been deployed in sensitive places and market associations have been told about the steps to be taken to prevent any untoward incident.

Reacting to a query about increase in the number of hoax calls, the Joint Commissioner said these were not acts of mischief-makers but showed how alert people have become about unattended objects.

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