Sleuths find SIMI imprint

NEW DELHI: A handful of local SIMI activists could be behind Friday’s serial blasts in Bangalore, say security and intelligence analysts based on preliminary inputs. They suspect this group could have used some Bangladeshis or other members of the floating population to plant the bombs.

Across the board, analysts are convinced that it was a purely local affair, with the worst case scenario being money coming from some mastermind outside India. “But the blasts were extremely cheap. The total spend for the terrorists could have been just a few thousand rupees,” an analyst calculated. He said the bombs were not so much meant to kill people, but to “attract public attention, and the media frenzy is doing more than they expected.”

The motive: to undermine the BJP government in Karnataka, stir communal passions, and retaliate for the arrest of several key associates. Trouble has been brewing since February this year when top leaders of the Students Islamic Movement of India were arrested by the police in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh

 “Since they couldn’t do a big blast, they carried out several small blasts. This was in the making,” a senior officer in the intelligence set up said.

Sources in Bangalore and Delhi pointed to a pattern emerging in Karnataka.

On May 10, a bomb exploded in a court premise in Hubli where arrested SIMI cadres were being tried.

And on July 11, violent protests broke out in Bangalore after the severed heads of several pigs were found in two mosques.

“We have arrested many key leaders, but it is never possible to arrest all the members of such a group with deep local connections,” says a senior intelligence official.

Home secretary Madhukar Gupta said the bombs were of “low intensity”.
The serial blasts were executed using locally available explosives — either gelatin, which is used for blasting in stone quarry or chemicals such as ammonium nitrate. This was packed with nuts and bolts for further intensity. There would have been a detonator, and a timer mechanism to trigger the blasts simultaneously. The bombs were left on the ground probably in plastic packets.

Home ministry sources said over the past few days the Intelligence Bureau had issued general warnings about possible terrorist attacks in some of the states. Two meetings were even held over the issue. One was called by special secretary (internal security) ML Kumawat to review the security situation, and update on investigations into the recent blasts. The meeting was attended by senior officials from Delhi and seven other states.

Home secretary Gupta had held another meeting recently on terrorist funding, in the light of fresh inputs that there could be efforts to pump fake currency into the country for terror funding. Besides security officials, senior officers from the RBI and finance ministry also attended the meeting.