Gujarat blasts probe hits dead end

Ahmedabad: It's been 10 days since the bomb blasts in Ahmedabad killed 49 people and the Gujarat police now say that the blasts were carried out by the same organisation that was behind the terror attacks in Hyderabad, Jaipur and Bangalore.

But the investigation seems to have come up against a dead end.

Earlier this week, the Gujarat police released the sketches of three suspects they said were made on the basis of eyewitness accounts.

In a report, the state crime branch has told the state government that:

The organisation that carried out the attacks in Ahmedabad also masterminded the earlier Varanasi, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Bangalore blasts.

Crude bombs used in Ahmedabad were identical in design to those used in Jaipur, Hyderabad and UP

Two teams of terrorists placed around 25 bombs containing Ammonium Nitrate in Ahmedabad between 5 pm and 5:30 pm on July 26

Nearly 100 people were involved in carrying out the attacks; and boat-shaped bombs were devised to give direction to the explosion.

Police teams across the state are working on the case :

Scanning nearly 10 lakh mobile phone records of calls made just before and after the blasts

Tracking Gujarat-based members and sympathisers of SIMI.

Rounding up and interrogating Muslim youth affected in the 2002 riots, especially those who have moved to new areas.

Muslim organisations in Gujarat plan to protest against such community profiling.

“Why is it that Muslims are rounded and picked up on suspicion of supporting or indulging in acts of terrorism even when there is no basis or proof to arrive at such conclusion,” says Maulana Hakimuddin of the Jamaat-e-Ulema Hind in Ahmedabad.

But police teams have already interrogated 200 Muslims across the state, and raided nearly 42 madrasas and religious institutions affiliated to the Ahl-e-Hadees sect.

The Gujarat Crime Branch also claims that cars were stolen from Navi Mumbai to divert investigations. But the Mumbai police have not yet supported the claim.

“As regards progress in the stolen cars which were used in Ahmadabad and Surat, we have some clues. We are working on those clues but as yet there is no complete breakthrough in that case,” says Hemant Karkare of Mumbai’s Anti-Terrorism Squad.

There has also been no breakthrough in finding out how detonators were sourced from factories in Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan.

“Though the Gujarat police has yet to contact them in this connection, they're collecting data of who all the supplies went to from this factory,” says IG, Rajasthan Police, Umesh Mishra.

Chief Minister Narendra Modi has often said he would hunt down the terrorists if they dared attack Gujarat.

But the Gujarat police are still desperately hunting for evidence to pin down the perpetrators of Ahmedabad blasts.

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