Investigators have also detected startling similarities between the explosives used in the Jaipur bomb blasts and the Lumbini Park blasts in Hyderabad. Mr Rathore said the 10 bicycles used to plant the bombs in Jaipur’s walled city were bought from eight shops in the Kishanpole area of the city. All but two shop-owners have been identified. Investigators suspect that the bombs were assembled and the bicy cles bought and placed just hours before the blasts.
“We have ordered the identification of suspicious Bangladeshis within 30 days.
We have issued orders that names of Bangladeshi illegal immigrants found to be on the ration card rolls should be struck off. The Bangladeshis with criminal backgrounds are being identified,” Mr Rathore said. “Many of those questioned say they are residents of 24 Parganas and other districts in West Bengal. The claims are being verified,” he added.
“Our government took it very seriously. Our officials spoke to senior authorities in the Union home ministry and requested help in tackling the Bangladeshi issue,” Mr Rathore said. According to the minister, in 2004, there were 2,500 Bangladeshis in Jaipur and the number is now over 10,000. The first such action was reported from Ajmer, where the police had arrested eight Bangladeshi nationals.
All district collectors and superintendents of police have been directed to complete within 30 days the process of identifying Bangladeshi migrants living with or without voter ID cards and/or ration cards and get them verified, Mr Rathore said, adding that the procedure for deporting the identified illegal aliens could then be started. According to the police, there are a large number of Bangladeshi nationals living around the dargah area in Ajmer. These people came here as devotees and settled here, but the problem is that these Bangladeshis got involved in crimes,” said a senior police officer. The state government acted after investigators suspected the Bangladesh-based terrorist outfit Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) of being behind the blasts. Also, one of the cycle-shop owners apparently told investigators that a man with a Bengali accent had purchased one of the bicycles. DIG Saurabh Srivastava of the Rajasthan police’s special investigation team (SIT), when questioned about a Maruti Esteem car found locked near Jaipur’s railway station, said it belonged to one Afzal Dehlvi, a resident of Lucknow, who had apparently left the car and boarded a train to Chennai to visit his ailing mother. The car belonged earlier to a lady resident of Delhi who had sold it off a year ago. The police is also probing the claims of an Udaipur resident who claims he saw one of the suspects with a woman at his restaurant recently. The police has so far released sketches of four men who allegedly bought the bicycles (used to plant the bombs) on Tuesday.
The Rajasthan police SIT is working closely with anti-terrorist squads from Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh to crack the case. The Rajasthan police currently has a team camping at Sahibabad, UP, to probe an email sent to a TV channel. Investigators also point out that bombs were planted on bicycles in recent terror strikes in various cities of UP, a similarity with the Jaipur bomb blasts. According to the Rajasthan government, 63 people died in Tuesday’s blasts. Of these, 51 of the deceased have been identified and the families of half of these have already been given the compensation announced by the government.