The Hindu : Front Page : 13 killed as serial blasts rock Uttar Pradesh

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Saturday, Nov 24, 2007
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13 killed as serial blasts rock Uttar Pradesh

Atiq Khan and Praveen Swami

Bombs go off in Lucknow, Faizabad, Varanasi court complexes; terrorist reprisal against lawyers

— Photos: AP, AFP

new Target: Policemen and shocked lawyers witness the blast site in the civil courts complex in Varanasi on Friday as terrorists bared their fangs in Uttar Pradesh. (Below) An injured man is taken to hospital.

LUCKNOW AND NEW DELHI: At least 13 persons, including four lawyers, were killed and 60 injured when six bombs went off in three court complexes in Uttar Pradesh on Friday.

Loaded on cycles parked outside the lawyers’ chambers in Lucknow, Faizabad and Varanasi, the bombs were synchronised to explode shortly after 1.15 p.m.

All the explosions occurred in the courts where suspects linked to recent Islamist terror strikes have been attacked or denied presentation by lawyers, suggesting that they were intended as an act of reprisal.

Pakistani nationals Mohammad Abid, Mohammad Yusuf and Mirza Rashid, who police say were members of a Jaish-e-Mohammad module assigned to assassinate Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, were beaten up by Lucknow lawyers when they were produced in the court on November 18.

Five other Jaish terrorists, alleged to have been involved in a 2005 attack on the Babri Masjid complex, were denied representation by Faizabad lawyers. Their counterparts in Varanasi refused to defend Mohammad Waliullah, a cleric charged with facilitating the 2006 bombings of the city railway station and the Sankat Mochan temple.

However, investigators said, the operation might also have been timed to capitalise on the protests against Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, a trenchant opponent of Islamists in her country.

Police and National Bomb Data Centre experts said they expected to harvest valuable forensic data and fingerprints from two devices which failed to detonate. One bomb each was recovered from Faizabad and Lucknow, while three others were detonated in Varanasi and two in Faizabad. One bomb went off in Lucknow. Based on preliminary research, police sources said the bombs appeared to be made up of ammonium nitrate, widely used in fertilizers and industrial explosives. All eight devices were triggered by a detonator controlled by a quartz alarm clock. Similar bombs were used in the 2006 Varanasi serial bombings, which claimed 20 lives.

The police sources said a bag, in which the unexploded device was found in the Lucknow court complex, also contained an envelope addressed to Haji Nasir Ahmad in Riyadh. However, the investigators cautioned against drawing any immediate inference from the finding, noting that the bag and cycles could well have been stolen.

The investigators said they were using new computer software to analyse calls made between the three cities in recent weeks.

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