Precautions could have helped avert incident: Chidambaram

Union home minister P Chidambaram on Sunday ruled out intelligence failure in the German Bakery blast in Pune. Describing the incident as “not a covert attack but an insidious one” he said it could have been averted through precautionary action.

Chidambaram said the area had adequate security since  the Chabad House and Osho International Meditation Resort — both close to the bakery — were high on the terrorists’ radar.

There were recent intelligence inputs on a possible attack on the Chabad house and the entire area was sensitised by Pune’s police commissioner, he added.

He said both places were “hard targets’’ for terrorists whereas the German Bakery and an Italian food joint, both frequented by foreigners, were “soft targets’’. There was no intelligence input about the latter two.

Pakistan-born American Lashkar activist David Coleman Headley, chargesheeted by the FBI in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks case, had surveyed both hard targets, he added. He said the culprit came to the bakery as a customer and left a bag below a table.

The bag did not appear suspicious and “it is not possible to check every collegian’s or person’s bag everywhere’’, he added.

Replying to a question whether Pune was a soft target for terrorists, Chidambaram, who was in the city to visit the blast site and the injured, said all Indian cities were as vulnerable as any other city in the world like London, New York or Tokyo.    

“Let’s not get carried away by saying that Indian cities are now vulnerable,” he said while stressing on precaution and vigilance on the part of the citizens. He urged the media, particularly the electronic media, to keep to facts and restrain from doing speculative stories to help smooth investigations.

Chidambaram informed that the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, headed by additional director general of police KP Raghuvanshi, would conduct the investigation.

The best officers had been deployed in the case and the investigation would be assisted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). Forensic experts from Pune would be assisted by a team from Delhi and the Indian Army in collecting samples, he said.