11 deaths for Afzal Guru's life, according to 'HuJI' email

Nearly six hours after a bomb ripped through gate 5 of the Delhi High Court, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Delhi police made headway in the case when they cracked the password of the account from which an e-mail claiming responsibility for the attack was sent.

The e-mail was sent three hours after the blast from the address harkatuljihadi2011@gmail.com.

The e-mail claimed that the attack was to support the “demand that Afzal Guru’s death sentence should be repealed immediately” and threatened to “target major high courts and the Supreme Court of India”.

The blast came four months after an aborted bomb attack on the high court in May this year. Wednesday’s blast killed 11 people and injured over 76 just a few hundred metres from the historic India Gate, Parliament and Rashtrapati Bhavan.

“We have got details of the password and e-mail account from the service provider. We are waiting for the log entries to find out the location of the sender,” a senior intelligence officer told DNA.

In May, rain had dampened the detonator, as a result of which the bomb failed to go off. But security continued to be lax and a planned purchase of CCTVs was stuck in red tape. This gave the two suspected terrorists who planted the bomb ample opportunity to conduct a detailed survey of the area and pick the time and place for their attack.

A briefcase was left near gate 5 of the high court. It was left near the reception centre where litigants line up in hundreds for entry passes. The briefcase was placed closer to the senior citizens’ queue to ensure maximum damage.

As investigators from the NIA, Delhi Police, the NSG and the intelligence agencies rushed to the area, they found ample evidence of a meticulous terrorist attack that must have been months in the making.

“They must have used their experience of the aborted bomb attack on May 25 to plan this one,” a senior investigator told DNA.

The terrorists also chose a Wednesday for the attack, a day reserved for public interest litigations and usually draws crowds estimated to be 25 % higher than normal days. The terrorists also mixed a plastic explosive called PETN with ammonium nitrate in Wednesday’s bomb.

“This is a plastic explosive that is commercially available and can be used even during rains. This ensured that the bomb would go off even if it rained heavily today,” the investigator said.

Almost two kilograms of explosive was mixed with ammonium nitrate along with a mobile phone that was used to time and detonate the device.

“Earlier they would use quartz clocks that could be detected and used during an investigation. But the digital timer of a mobile phone is much more difficult to detect and when the alarm in the phone rings, it sends out an electric impulse that detonates the bomb.”

As intelligence officials rushed to the spot, officials were hard pressed to state that “intelligence inputs” had been shared with the Delhi Police in July this year. Sources told DNA that these were extremely “generic inputs”.

The e-mail sent after the blast claimed that this was the handiwork of the Harkat-ul-Jihadi-al-Islami (HuJI), a terror outfit which used to have a strong base in Pakistan and Bangladesh. 

With Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on a three-day visit to Dhaka, many in the security establishment felt that the attack was designed to hamper bilateral ties with Bangladesh and Pakistan.

But senior intelligence analysts DNA spoke to were quick to dismiss this theory.

“This has to be a case of the group of people who have gathered under the umbrella of the Indian Mujahideen with links to the Lashkar-e-Taiba. They are suspected to be behind the Mumbai blasts were desperate to launch an attack in Delhi as a show of strength.”

Union Home Minister P Chidambaram informed Parliament: “Intelligence… emanating from certain groups was shared with Delhi Police in July 2011. At this stage it is not possible to identify the group that caused the bomb blast today.”

Ironically, the minister admitted that the blast took place despite the fact that “when Parliament is in session… Delhi is placed on high alert”. He agreed that the capital was a target of terrorist groups. The NIA, which has taken over the case, is not ruling out the role of HuJI. “The first terrorist module goofed up the May 25 bomb. But HuJi was determined to strike at the Delhi HC so a second module was probably activated and dispatched to strike again,’’ a senior NIA official told DNA.

However, the Shaikh Hasina government has almost wiped out the HuJI in Bangladesh and after the death of Ilyas Kashmiri in a US drone attack, the outfit’s capabilities in Pakistan has also been depleted severely. A 20-member team from the NIA headed by a DIG, Mukesh Singh has been set up to investigate the case along with the Delhi Police. “We have constituted a team that also has P Nitish Kumar, a decorated IPS officer from J&K with extensive experience in handling terror cases,” NIA’s DG, SC Sinha said after his meeting with the Union home minister.