Terror, violence and desensitisation

IN THE aftermath of the Jaipur blasts, a leading news channel had organised a discussion on whether India had become shockproof in respect of violence and if repeated terror attacks had desensitised us as a society. In my view, the answer is an unqualified yes. It may be debatable whether our country has become shockproof to terror attacks, but the undeniable fact is that the more noble and elevating responses of earlier times have yielded ground to a certain lessening of shock and a certain amount of cynicism.

In many ways, given the profile of those present, the debate should have been exceptionally moving. There was a young widow whose husband had just lost his life in a terrorist encounter and another woman whose son, also in the armed forces, had similarly lost his life fighting insurgents in Kashmir.

She told me something I will never ever forget. She told me how she mourns her son every day, yet she is proud that he died in uniform and gave his life to his country. Her heart went out to the families of innocent civilians who had been senselessly killed in terrorist attacks. I stared at her in awe. Here was a woman who had lost her son, an unthinkable fate for any parent, and she had it in her heart to feel both pride because her son had died in uniform, and sorrow for innocent civilians who die in terror attacks. There are simply no words to describe such simple goodness. It was an extraordinarily humbling moment for me.

Then there was another older woman who had brought along her 12-year-old granddaughter whose parents had been killed in the Sarojini Nagar blasts. While she wept talking about her son and daughter-in-law, all she could hope for was no one else to suffer like her. A man whose niece died in the Jaipur blasts spoke about how the agony was not just his but the collective angst of an entire society. This should have encouraged deep soul-searching. But, for some reason, the discussion became predictably dissonant and an exercise of apportioning blame.

This is, perhaps, the measure of the times we live in and how the recurrence of violence and our perception of it has somehow become a little unfeeling and cynical.

The response of political society to terror has to be both constructive and united. At no point in time should an internal blame game commence, which will only have an effect of dividing society. The Indian National Congress has always offered a spontaneous and constructive support to the government of the day at times of national crisis, such as in the aftermath of the attack on Parliament.

Unfortunately, the BJP has chosen not to follow the constructive path. It lost no time in launching a blistering attack upon the Prime Minister and the Union government. The chief minister of Rajasthan made snide remarks about the Congress president’s visit to Jaipur with L.K. Advani standing by her side. For some reason, it was wrong for the Congress president and UPA chairperson to visit Jaipur to offer condolences to the injured and to victims‘ families, but it was perfectly fine for Mr Advani to do the same thing.

It is nobody’s case that the principal Opposition party should not point out the mistakes that they might perceive the government has made, but, there is a time, a place and a constructive manner in which that can be done. Sadly, the BJP does not understand or observe the “Laxman rekha” between constructive and destructive criticism. It is also very important that terror should never be communalised or used for political propaganda, particularly in the immediate aftermath of an attack.

The shock, horror and trauma following a terror attack are a time of great human suffering and the victims need the entire nation’s support. It would be cynical and insensitive to muddy waters at a time when society has to present a united face against terrorism.

The response of civil society and institutions such as the media are also very important at these times. The ordinary Indian has shown exceptional qualities of humanity and concern during moments of crisis. Whether following a terror attack or a communal riot or a huge natural calamity like an earthquake or tsunami, local citizens have rushed to the aid of the injured and affected without a moment’s hesitation. It is always the nearby villager who wades into the devastated area and renders all possible assistance to people who need it. In the aftermath of the tsunami I was humbled by the sight of simple homemakers who cooked whatever food was available in their homes and fed those who were stranded or had lost their homes. The resilience of our people is legendary, as is our capacity to bounce back to normalcy. In far more developed countries we have seen images of looters and vandals taking advantage of the shock and disruption of a natural calamity.

Jaipur blasts: RDX not used

After a week-long analysis, the National Security Guard and the Rajasthan Forensic Laboratory have confirmed that RDX was not used in the nine blasts that rocked Jaipur on May 13.

Sources in the NSG as well as in the forensic lab said no traces of RDX were found from the places which were rocked by the blasts in the Pink City, and it mainly contained Neogel-90, an explosive comprising ammonium nitrate.

The bomb data squad of the elite NSG, after examining the remains of the splinters gathered from the location of the blasts, said all the splinters, mainly comprising cycle ball bearings, flew only in one direction A similar modus operandi of assembling the explosive material was used in the Hyderabad blasts last year

9 FIRs filed by Jaipur blast victims

Charges of attempt to murder and waging conspiracy against the nation were pressed in nine FIRs filed on Sunday by victims of Jaipur terror blasts that left 64 people dead.
The cases were registered under different sections of IPC related to unlawful prevention activities at public places, attempt to murder, waging conspiracy against the nation, and explosive act, a senior official said.

Four FIRs were lodged by victims in the Manak Chowk police station while five were registered with the Kotwali police station, the official said.

Nine bombs packed in separate bags attached to bicycles tore through crowded markets at five places in Jaipur on May 13 in which 64 people died and over 150 injured. Based on one of the seven sketches, a man was interrogated at the Jyoti Nagar police station.

But he was a priest on way to his job when a passerby alerted, another official said, adding that he was immediately set free.

A hardcore Simi activist Mohammed Sajid and his three accomplices detained on Saturday at Udai village in Sawaimadhopur district by Special Investigation Team were being interrogated separately, the official sources said. SIT is working in the areas concerning the bicycles, seven sketches, and twenty people including Simi activists detained for interrogation, the sources said.

The next terror attack could be from the sea

Tuesday evening’s serial bomb blasts in Jaipur, in which over 60 people were killed, has demonstrated yet again how ill-equipped India is to handle the new complexities of terror warfare. A new command must be created to protect the nation.
Jaipur was the eleventh major terrorist strike on ‘soft’ targets in the past three years. The political leadership has stuttered out its usual statements about ‘resilience’ and ‘foreign hand’ ad nauseam, while the bureaucracy has predictably kept mum on what is a colossal failure of leadership and intelligence at both the Central and state levels. The Intelligence Bureau, in the meantime, has suggested that terrorists are planning seaborne attacks against the dozens of oil rigs, including production and support platforms, along both the coasts of India. This appears to have fallen on deaf ears.

An oil rig, like the proverbial iceberg, has a small portion visible above the surface — leaving the vulnerable parts beyond visibility. What cannot be seen are the supporting legs of the rigs, the labyrinth of pipelines with interconnecting control valves that ensure flow of crude oil from the rigs to the mainland or to single buoy moorings (SBMs), which, in turn, permit oil tankers to embark the same crude for transportation ashore. In some places, like the Gulf of Kutch, these SBMs are also used to enable incoming oil tankers to pump out their imported crude to refineries ashore. Supporting this gigantic effort is a large number of logistic ships (OSVs, or offshore support vessels), which provide food, handle personnel transfers (sometimes also done by helicopters), pollution control response, fire tender duties, etc.

The extreme vulnerability of the oil rigs was vividly displayed by the massive fire and total destruction of an oil production platform in Bombay High in July 2005 when an OSV accidentally collided with the rigs’ underwater pipeline. This resulted in a massive search and rescue operation by the Indian Navy, the Coast Guard and by civilian ships, followed by counter-pollution operations by the Coast Guard to prevent pollution along the Mumbai coastline.

In addition to the financial loss, the nation had to face a massive drop in crude oil outflow from this offshore oilfield, located some 40 nautical miles off Mumbai port.

This event will not have been missed by the new breed of maritime terrorists, who would also know that India has invested over Rs 1,60,000 crore in these rigs. There is an organisation to deal with offshore security threats to oil rigs, coastal refineries, coastal nuclear power plants and ports.

The Coast Guard looks after peacetime security and is in regular touch with all stakeholders — the Navy, the port authorities, shipping, ONGC, Oil India and the intelligence agencies. Wartime threats are handled by the Navy.

In this era of ‘no-war, no-peace’, there is an ever-present threat to offshore and coastal installations. The threat from the sea can take various forms — trained ‘sea terrorists’ can attack by approaching the target in dhows or even submersibles, making the last mile in collapsible rubber boats, lay explosives in the most vulnerable parts and depart or carry out suicide attacks.

Another alternative would be to bring an explosives-laden ship and collide it against the target, or sink it in the harbour approach to block the port. And, of course, terrorists can enter coastal targets by land and cover the last stretch, as in Israel, in microlite aircraft to get in.

In any such terror attack, the repercussions would be severe — economic, envi ronmental and in sheer terms of shock.

India’s economic prosperity lies in being completely secure at sea — 90 per cent of our trade, 70 per cent of our oil imports and 70 per cent of our indigenous oil and gas production comes from the sea.

The issue of modifying India’s national security-cum-intelligence apparatus to address new forms of warfare has been hammered to near-death. Little may have moved but the need for a completely new machinery to fight terrorism is becoming all the more relevant in everyday incidents as in Jaipur’s. We are simply not equipped to address terrorism.

There have been reports that the government is considering handing over the 2010 Commonwealth Games project to the Army keeping in view the failure of the bureaucracy and civil administration to deliver.

The United States, in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, has been far more ruthless and successful in protecting its citizens. With Jaipur’s incident in focus, does it not look like it is time to hand over all anti-terrorist activities to three separate ‘empowered’ joint commands, which will include all elements of the military, paramilitary, police, intelligence, railways, ports, airports and any other agency that needs to be a part of the apparatus? These three commands can be headed by the Army, for land threats, the Navy for seaborne-coastal threats, and the Air Force to address aerial threats. There is also an urgent need to augment the force levels of the Navy and the Coast Guard. Each of these seagoing services should reach a strength of 200 ships, and each should double their aviation assets.

Laws to permit the Navy and Coast Guard to board and search suspicious ships need to be introduced at the earliest. The existing force levels — 75 ships and 45 aircraft for the Coast Guard; and 130 ships and about 200 aircraft for the Navy — are inadequate.

Getting our counter-terror mechanism in place should take priority over time-worn intellectual debates. Also, at some point in the future, these joint commands could also be pressed into action to combat the Naxalite threat, which today spans 11 states.

The protection of its citizens is the Centre’s primary duty. The buck stops there.

How seriously other nations take this threat is best exemplified by what I saw in the United States in 2005. All armed forces units were flying an additional flag — of a serpent with the inscription ‘Don’t Tread On Me’. This flag has been used by presidential proclamation only four times in 234 years. It was brought out during the wars that threatened the American nation — the War of Independence (1776-1781), the Civil War (1860-1865), the attack on Pearl Harbour (1942) and post 9/11 (2001).

India too faces this new form of warfare and its government cannot take the rather philosophical view that was once articulated by a television commentator, to my considerable amazement: ‘As everyone knows, there is no reality, but only points of view.’ Global terrorism is a hard reality, and it is here to stay, irrespective of individual perceptions and views. Dealing with this new form of asymmetric war will require the combined might and wisdom of all of India.

We need not emulate the Americans by hoisting a second flag to remind our citizens (and leaders) that the nation is in a state of war. But we do need to get our act together, and quickly. The present form of asymmetric war being waged by international terrorists who serve no nation is, after all, too serious an issue to be left only to the politicians, bureaucrats and the overstretched intelligence agencies and paramilitary forces. Remember the old saying: ‘Steel fist in a velvet glove’? That is what we need.

Simi activist detained in Jaipur for questioning

The Rajasthan police has detained a Students’ Islamic Movement of India (Simi) activist for questioning in connection with the terror blasts in Jaipur.

The man detained is Sajjid, a teacher in a madrasa from a small town under Swai Madhopur district. “We have brought him to Jaipur for questioning,” said Jaipur deputy inspector-general of police Sourabh Srivastava.

Swai Madhopur district is believed to be a base for Simi’s activities. The police on Saturday released three more sketches of terror suspects and also announced a reward of Rs 10 lakhs for information about the people who carried out the blasts that killed 64 people and injured over 200 in Jaipur. Additional directorgeneral of police (crime) A.K. Jain said Sajjid was picked up from Udai village, but bore no resemblance to any of the sketch es released by the state police. In all, sketches of seven suspects have so far been released and more are expected. On Friday night, the UP police detained a number of persons, including the landlord of one Afzal Khan, whose identity card was found in a car after the blasts in Jaipur. On the basis of the address mentioned in the I-card, the anti-terrorist squad of the state police picked up a person from his Hussainganj residence where Khan was stated to be staying.

LTTE SUICIDE ATTACK KILLS 10

At least 10 persons were killed, three of them policewomen, when a LTTE suicide bomber rammed his motorcycle into a bus carrying riot-control police personnel just a few hundred metres from the official residence of the Sri Lankan President on Friday noon, officials said.

Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said the dead included seven police personnel and two civilians, besides the Black Tiger. Over 90 were injured in the massive blast heard across the city.

Many civilians were among those hurt and some were in critical state at the National Hospital, he said.

“The LTTE suicide bomber rammed his motorbike into a bus carrying police personnel,” Brig Nanayakkara said.

The pro-LTTE TamilNet website however said the killer had used a three-wheeler (autorickshaw) to ram into the bus. The police personnel were on their way to provide additional security for the swearing-in ceremony of former Tamil Tiger Pillaiyan as the chief minister of the newly elected Eastern Province, at the Presidential Secretariat later in the evening.

The attack took place across a Buddhist temple in the highly guarded Fort area of Colombo’s commercial zone dotted by army and police checkposts. Apart from the residence of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the area also houses the five-star Hilton Hotel and the twin-tower World Trade Centre office complex—a previous target of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The blast site appeared like a battlefield strewn with shattered glass and twisted metal, not to forget the dead and the injured.

Appealing to the people to remain calm “and not be provoked by this further display of unmitigated terror”, President Rajapaksa said, “With this bomb attack on a busy street, the LTTE has once again demonstrated to the world its total commitment to violence and terror to achieve its separatist goals in Sri Lanka, and its absolute contempt for democracy and human rights.” The Black Tiger hit was obviously meant to demonstrate the LTTE anger at the Pillaiyan swearing-in and also its claim to be able to strike anywhere, any time.

It was the third big LTTE attack in a week—a bomb had ripped through a crowded café in the eastern town of Ampara on the eve of the May 10 provincial elections, killing 12 and injuring over 36.

And just hours before the polling started, a Sea Tiger suicide diver sank a naval ship docked in the eastern port of Trincomalee.

The government, however, is putting up a brave front in the midst of these deadly hits by the Black Tigers..

Prime minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake earlier this week ruled out resumption of peace talks with the Tigers and declared that victory “is within the grasp of our heroic security forces.” He had also claimed that the days of the LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran “are numbered”.

Crackdown on Banglas in Rajasthan

The Rajasthan government on Friday ordered a crackdown on Bangladeshis with criminal backgrounds and said the police has already begun questioning them. This was revealed by state PWD minister and government spokesperson Rajendra Singh Rathore on Friday. Jaipur returned to normalcy on Friday with no curfew being imposed in the city.

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.

City, Jaipur terror traced to PoK

Police has found striking similarities between the improvised explosive devices used in the Jaipur serial blasts and the ones used in the twin blasts on August 25, 2007, in Hyderabad.
Intelligence agencies said this indicated that terrorists who triggered the Jaipur and Hyderabad blasts learned their deadly tricks in the same camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Bangladesh and from the same trainers.

Sources in the intelligence department told this correspondent that contrary to initial reports, RDX was not used in the Jaipur blasts.

Forensic tests revealed that only ammonium nitrate gel (also known as Neogel) was used in them. The same material was used for the twin blasts in the city.

Neogel is freely available in local markets.

“About 1.5 kg of Neogel with metal ball bearings was put in boat-shaped wooden cases in Jaipur and Hyderabad,” said the source. “In both cases, timers were used.

The similarities in the signatures of the bombs are shocking.” On August 25, 2007, two IEDs exploded at Lumbini Park Laserium and Gokul Chat Bhandar in the city while one unexploded bomb was recovered from Malakpet and defused.

The Special Investigation Team and Counter Intelligence teams of the Hyderabad police reached Jaipur on Thursday to investigate the links between the two incidents.

While two bombs were used in Hyderabad, eight bombs were used at six places in Jaipur while one bomb was defused.

“Our information is that the terror couriers behind both blasts got trained in the same camps in PoK and Bangladesh and this explains the similarities in the operations,” said the source.

Bangladesh-based HarkatUl-Jehad-e-Islami (HuJI) is suspected to be behind both the blasts. “There are similarities in the bombs used in Jaipur and Hyderabad blasts,” said the city police commissioner, Mr B. Prasada Rao. “There are also slight differences.” He added that city and Jaipur police were sharing information on the blasts.

The special secretary (internal security) in the union ministry of home affairs, Mr M.L. Kumawat, an AP cadre IPS officer, is coordinating the probe into the Jaipur-Hyderabad blasts link from the Centre.

Bangla accent of bomber points to HuJI

The Rajasthan police has put together a sketch of one of the people it suspects was behind Tuesday’s terror blasts in Jaipur. The man depicted in the sketch is believed to have purchased one of the cycles used in the attacks from a local shop in Jaipur.
The Jaipur police on Wednesday evening zeroed in on a shop called Santosh Trading Company in Kishanpole market which is believed to have sold an “Enron” cycle to the suspect on the day of the bomb attacks. Police sources revealed that six cycles of different brands, used in the blasts, were purchased between 11 am and 2 pm on Tuesday afternoon.

The sketch released by the police revealed a well-built person around 25 to 26 years of age. The interrogation of the shop owner revealed that the person parted his hair in the middle and “spoke in a Bengali accent”. These fresh revelations reinforce the claims of the security agencies that the Bangladesh-based Harkut-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (HuJI) was behind the blasts, the sources said.

While three of the bicycles were “Hero Rangers”, the rest were of a different make, said the police sources. The Rajasthan police suspects that all the cycles used in the blasts were purchased from Kishan Pole market. The police is also questioning other cycle sellers to come up with sketches of other possible suspects.

The police sources revealed that the bombs that were carried on the bicycles were made of a deadly cocktail of RDX and ammonium nitrate. The bombs, each weighing 1.5 kg, were filled with cycle ballbearings made of iron before being wrapped in white plaster bandages, said the sources.

Clock timers were used to trigger the bombs, which were placed in plastic bags. Central security agencies are also probing the possible use of Neogel-90, an explosive used for commercial purposes, in the blasts.

The intelligence agencies have already started analysing STD and ISD calls made from Jaipur over the last 48 hours to establish if there are any international linkages behind the blast. The IG (Jaipur), Mr Pankaj Singh, said the eight blasts occurred in close proximity of each other.

“All the bombs weighed around 1.5 kg. The presence of RDX and ammonium nitrate has been detected, though the quantity of ammonium nitrate is more. The use of cycle ball-bearings in the bomb makes the bomb more dangerous,” Mr Singh said.

The use of cycles bears a striking resemblance to the Malegaon blasts in Mumbai and the blasts in three courts in UP last year, the police sources said. Police officials suspect the same outfit may be behind all three terror strikes — in Mumbai, UP and Jaipur. “There have been eight blasts at six places. Besides, one live bomb has been defused,” said the ADG (law and order), Mr A.K. Jain, in Rajasthan.

The use of RDX in the bombs has become a fresh cause of concern for security agencies. Intelligence officials revealed that around a year ago a special task force from UP arrested one Jallaludin, alias Babu Bhai, who was the northern area commander of HuJI in India.

Though his interrogation did not provide much in the way of information, Jallaludin’s associate Naushad told the police that the outfit had distributed 80 kg of RDX between various HuJI operatives across the country. The intelligence officials said so far only 40 kg of this RDX has been recovered. The security agencies fear that the RDX used in the blasts may be a part of that supply and much of it may still be in the hands of the terrorist group.

60 KILLED AS TERROR HITS JAIPUR

Eight bomb blasts triggered by terrorists over just 12 minutes on Wednesday night killed at least 60 people in the heart of Jaipur and injured 200.
The explosions, the first terror strikes in the Pink City, occurred in markets usually teeming with people and near the Hanuman Mandir in the walled city.

The bombings took place as India marked the 10th anniversary of nuclear tests conducted on May 13 in Rajasthan, but it was unclear if there was any link.

“According to the information I have received, 60 people have died and 150 have been injured,” said the Rajasthan chief minister, Ms Vasundhara Raje.

The Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HuJI) is suspected to be behind the blasts, home ministry sources said.

The sources ruled out the use of RDX in the carefully orchestrated low-intensity explosions, which were suspected to have been set off from cycles in areas frequented by tourists, including near the historic Hawa Mahal.

The blasts took place at Tripolia Bazar, Johari Bazar, Manas Chowk, Badi Choupal and Choti Choupal, all located within a two-km radius in the old city. Inspector-general of police (Jaipur) Pankaj Singh said in all there were eight blasts, a couple of them in the same area.

The police said one explosive device was defused by the bomb disposal squad near the Hanuman temple.

One of the blasts took place in a car and another near a handloom shop in Kotwali area of the city, home department sources said. Most of the injured were rushed to Sawai Man Singh hospital. The bodies of several victims lay strewn in the corridors of hospitals. The blasts triggered a near-stampede situation at the blast sites, which were crammed with peak-hour shoppers as panic-stricken people ran helter-skelter in search of a safe place.

Doctors said many of the victims of Tuesday’s blasts had shrapnel injuries. They feared that the toll may rise further.

The bomb explosions left blood splattered on the street and cycles and rickshaws in a mangled heap, television showed. “It’s a terror attack.

There was no (intelligence) report of this,” the Rajasthan director-general of police, Mr A.S. Gill, told reporters.

The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, condemned the blasts and appealed for calm.

Jaipur, which has a population of more than two million, is one of the nation’s top tourist resorts and a favourite attraction for foreigners.

State borders were sealed and a high alert sounded in Fol lowing the serial bomb blasts in Jaipur, Rajasthan, the city police and intelligence agencies are probing the possible links with twin blasts in the city with emergence of some similarities.

Interestingly, the twin blasts that occurred on August 25 last year at Lumbini Park and Gokul Chat Bhandar happened between 7.25 pm and 7.35 pm. The Jaipur serial blasts took place around the same time.

The task force office human bomb blast at Hyderabad in October 2005 too happened at about the same time. Both the task force office and twin blasts were carried out by Harkat-Ul Jehad-e-Islami. State intelligence agencies said that they are yet to get official communication of the explosive used in the Jaipur serial blasts though it is being suspected that RDX was used in Jaipur.

“Once the exact details of the explosives used in the blasts emerge then possible links between city and Jaipur blasts can be established. As of now, there has been no alert or inputs from the Intelligence Bureau in the Centre to the states. We are coordinating with our Rajasthan counterparts to establish any possible links,” sources in state intelligence agency said.

Sources said that the pre liminary information was that timers were used in the Jaipur blasts. The city police is trying to find out if they were the same as the ones used in twin blasts here.

Iron ball bearings were reportedly used in the Jaipur blasts. In the twin blasts too, iron bearings were used as splinters in the Improvised Explosive Device.

The state intelligence wing has got the Intelligence Security Wing (ISW) to put on alert places of worship.

Intelligence agencies are on the tenterhooks as the Jaipur blasts come days ahead of the first anniversary of Mecca Masjid blast.

City police commissioner B. Prasada Rao said that an alert had been sounded and security checks would be carried out extensively.