'Substantial local hand in terror acts'

AHMEDABAD: Gujarat Government and the police believe that there was substantial local support for the blasts that took place in the city and several bombs planted in Surat.
    
"Though the conspiracy has a pan-national angle, it could not have been possible without the local support," a government official said.
    
The investigating agencies are after the locals who helped in carrying out such a massive operations. They have also launched combing operations to nab them, the officials said.
    
Surat Police Commissioner R M S Brar also believes that the planting of so many bombs on odd locations in the city was not possible without the local support.
    
"The terrorist operations of such a massive scale is not possible without local support. The planting of bombs, the selection of places, transportation of explosive materials was not possible without locals," Brar said.
    
Both Ahmedabad and Surat police have launched massive combing operations since two days in various parts of the two cities to nab the locals involved in terrorist acts.
    
Ahmedabad crime branch had carried out massive operations Wednesday night and detained several persons.
    
The Surat crime branch had also carried out a massive combing operations last morning. "In the combing operations we had questioned 280 people and made preventive arrest of 90 people," Brar said.
    
He further said, "We have found some leads in the case but we will not declare about it yet."
    
The police has also found that the car used in the blast at city civil hospital had made several trips between Ahmedabad and Vadodara in the last month.
    
The details were found from records of the toll booth on the roads between the two cities. The car was stolen from Navi Mumbai, it bore a fake number plate and had passed through the toll gates between the two cities for about five times in last one month.
    
The police is also working to track down local support received by terrorist organisations from Vadodara city, official sources said.
    
Meanwhile, the state police is also rounding up former SIMI activists who were the active members when the organisation was not banned, sources said.
    
Bharuch police had detained 10 former SIMI activists for questioning on Wednesday.
    
The serial blasts in Ahmedabad have claimed 53 lives.
    
Police had found 23 live bombs from Surat in the last three days, in which 18 were found on a single day.