Delhi blast probe heads nowhere; NIA says possibly PoK

More than 36 hours after Wednesday’s bomb blast at gate number 5 of the Delhi high court, which has killed 13 people, investigators led by the NIA were clutching at straws. Thursday saw a second e-mail (by the Indian Mujahideen, of course) claiming responsibility for the blast. It threatened to target a shopping mall in Delhi next. “Rok sako toh rok lo (stop us if you can),” the e-mail challenged.

The mail came even as investigators chanced upon three VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) calls made from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) on Wednesday minutes before the blast. Investigators are monitoring 250 phone calls and are also looking at 35 VoIP calls — of which three were made 45 minutes before the blast.

Intelligence sources said the first call was received at 9.27am, second at 9.43am and the last at 9.51am. These calls and an e-mail claiming that the attack was carried out by HuJI have led investigators to believe that the attack could be linked to Kashmiri terrorists.

On Thursday afternoon, a second e-mail was received from chotoominani5
@gmail.com, saying it was not HuJI but the Indian Mujahideen that carried out the attack. The e-mail was signed by a “Chotoo Minani Ayushman”.
Investigators were, however, inclined to dismiss the e-mail. “The author of the mail could not even spell Mujahideen correctly, so we feel this is a prank. But we have got the password and we will trace the IP address soon,” an investigator told DNA.  

Meanwhile, the mail sent on Wednesday was traced to a cyber cafe in Kishtwar, Jammu, a region that has seen some support to the HuJI till a few years ago.

The Jammu & Kashmir police swooped in on the Global Cyber Cafe and picked up its owner, his brother and an employee. Police told DNA that the owner had indicated that the mail cold have been sent by a student of a local college who had been frequenting the cafe for weeks. Thereafter, the police picked up two college students as a joint team of IB and NIA officials left for Jammu.

For all that, the NIA, which is leading the investigation with some reluctant help from the Delhi police, seemed to be clutching at straws. The terrorists had left behind very few clues and the few leads they had on Wednesday lead to dead ends. A Santro that was stolen in 2009 and believed to be the getaway vehicle for the terrorists was found abandoned in Faridabad.

What has surprised investigators was the use of PETN in the bomb. PETN is a powerful plastic explosive that is difficult to procure commercially. “This obviously is a major upgrade in the capabilities of the terrorist we are dealing with,” a senior intelligence official told DNA. In contrast, the Mumbai blasts had ammonium nitrate, an easily available chemical that can be extracted from fertilizers.

On Thursday morning, Union home minister P Chidambaram held a meeting with the two intelligence chiefs, Nehchal Sandhu of the IB and Sanjiv K Tripathi from R&AW, and SC Sinha, who is heading the NIA. An official who attended the meeting told DNA that Chidambaram was quite upset with the failure of the intelligence agencies to provide any major credible inputs in preventing these terror attacks. “While he has taken a public position in defending the agencies, he was upset with both the chiefs,” the source said.

In fact, Chidamabaram’s statement on Wednesday, saying that “intelligence inputs” had been shared with the Delhi police in July led to a war of words between different security agencies. However, detractors were quick to point out that both the IB and the Delhi police reported to Chidambaram and this reflected on his inability to reform India’s security infrastructure.

With the Delhi blast investigation likely to go the same way as the Mumbai blasts, a desperate centre called in forensic experts from Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.

They even scanned the blast site. Senior officers of various state police forces such as Himanshu Roy from the Mumbai police were also called in to lend a helping hand to the NIA.