National

With Very Little Clue

We are none the wiser one week on

Advertisement

With Very Little Clue
info_icon

Well into the second week, investigators were still struggling to crack the July 13 terrorist attack in Mumbai. The three blasts, at Zaveri Bazaar, Opera House and Dadar, were carried out by the same group. “We have good clues, but it’s difficult at this stage to identify a group,” ATS chief Rakesh Maria said on Day 8. The situation is still more or less the same. Meanwhile, the toll in the blasts had increased from 17 to 20, and about a dozen of the 131 injured were still being shifted in and out of critical care units.

Scanning through roughly one terabyte of data—mainly CCTV images from Opera House and Zaveri Bazaar—and cross-checking it with locals took days. Investigators finally zeroed in on a suspect in the Zaveri Bazaar blast only on July 19; a sketch was prepared and shared with select investigating teams. Over 1.5 lakh calls made from and received in the three areas that evening were scrutinised; six numbers were found to have “suspicious activity”, leading to a Muslim-dominated area in Ahmedabad in Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh.

Advertisement

Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan stated “there’s no point in putting undue pressure on cops to come up with names and groups”. Chavan’s diktat to Maria was: avoid identifying a group till the jigsaw is solved. Police sources, off the record, say the needle of suspicion points to IM, but quickly add that “all groups, including Hindu groups, are on the radar”.

Investigators—drawn from Mumbai police, other state police units and ATS teams, NIA officers, all assisted by forensic experts from Mumbai and Hyderabad, and led by a joint command of Mumbai ATS and Crime Branch—agreed on the fact that all the bombs were made primarily from ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, to which were added potent one-inch metal pieces and nails to inflict grievous injuries. Investigators were unable to agree on the devices used to set off the bombs—mobile phones or timers. An unclaimed shattered motorbike from Zaveri Bazaar was the only clue as the investigations entered second week.

Advertisement

Tags

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement