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Thursday, May 15, 2008
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Jaiswal blames a ‘neighbouring’ country

Jaipur blasts an attempt to create communal tension, says Rajasthan Chief Minister

— Photo: Gopal Sunger

THE DAY AFTER: Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje comforts bomb blast victims at the Sawai Man Singh Hospital on Wednesday.

Jaipur/New Delhi: As fresh leads into the terror attack in the Pink City increasingly pointed to the involvement of Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami (HuJI), the Centre on Wednesday did not rule out the hand of a “neighbouring” country in the serial blasts that left at least 63 killed.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje said the eight serial blasts that ripped through crowded areas and near a Hanuman temple were the handiwork of an organised “international terrorist gang” to create communal tension.

The death toll rose to 63 and was likely to go up, an official said, adding nearly 130 injured people were undergoing treatment.

As investigators sifted for clues, police said eight persons, including a man injured in the blasts and a rickshaw-puller, were being questioned. However, no arrests have been made so far, police said.

Highly explosive RDX was used in the terror strike and the explosive devices were fitted with timers and planted on cycles, a modus operandi similar to the one used in last year’s blasts on the court premises in Uttar Pradesh in which HuJI was involved, police said.

After visiting the site of explosions, Union Minister of State for Home Shriprakash Jaiswal said in New Delhi that the blasts smacked of a “deep-rooted and very well-planned conspiracy” by a “neighbouring country” but refused to say he was pointing to Pakistan.

Mr. Jaiswal, however, suggested that the bombings were connected to previous attacks in India. The blasts were carried out with the help of high intensity explosives such as RDX or by using ammonium nitrate.

The Rapid Action Force personnel were deployed in the city to prevent any communal incidents while daylong curfew was imposed in 15 police station areas.

Without specifying any country that could have any link with the terror strike, Mr. Jaiswal told a press conference in Delhi that it could be any of the neighbouring countries — Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Myanmar — that were facing internal turmoil. To a query whether HuJI was behind Tuesday’s attack, he remained evasive, merely saying that those involved would be “thoroughly exposed” very soon.

Mr. Jaiswal said there could be a link between the Jaipur blast and those that had occurred in Varanasi, Faizabad, Ajmer and Hyderabad in the past. In most cases, the hand of HuJI was suspected.

The Minister said though the outfit behind the incident aimed to disturb the communal harmony, it failed in its mission.

The kind of timer devices recovered from the scene of blasts and the planned coordinated strikes within a span of 12 minutes clearly showed that only an international terror group could be behind it, Ms. Raje said in Jaipur.

Ms. Raje, who heads a BJP government, favoured a strong law like POTA to deal with terror attacks in the country.

There are some “slender leads” on which the state agencies are working and it was difficult to name any terror outfit at present, she said.

Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil said in Shillong that the Centre had definite leads on the “elements” behind the terror attack.

Additional Director-General of Police (Crime) A.K. Jain said: “It was a cent per cent a terrorist attack on the pattern of blasts in the court premises in U.P. in November last year. RDX was used in containers tagged to cycles along with timer devices.”

An examination of the blast sites indicated that the bombs were filled with ball bearings and small iron pieces to act as splinters, sources close to the investigation said. A National Security Guard team has rushed from Delhi to help in finding out the nature of the materials used to carry out the blasts. — PTI

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