Centre, Oppn slug it out
More emails claim onus, warn of attack
The terrorrist-engineered blast in Delhi sparked off a war of words on Friday between Home Minister P Chidambaram and his BJP bete noire Arun Jaitley over security issues, even as investigators found no effective leads to arrest the guilty.
While a breakthrough eluded the investigators two days after the blast that took 13 lives, two more emails received by the media claimed responsibility for the terror attack at the Delhi High Court on Wednesday and warning of another “cruel attack”.
With security at courts coming into focus, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked Chidambaram and Law Minister Salman Khursheed to take steps to provide security to the Supreme Court while the home ministry asked state governments to enhance security to high courts.
Launching a tirade against UPA government, Opposition Leader in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said that just before the Monsoon Session of Parliament there were serial blasts in Mumbai and towards the end of the session there was a blast in Delhi.
“Saying we have zero tolerance for terrorism is not enough. Bringing it to zero level is important,” he said.
After the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, the government announced that new systems were being put in place, but such steps had failed to prevent big terror attacks, and referred to relatives of victims booing Chidambaram and Rahul Gandhi at the hospital.
Chidambaram hit back saying he was not heckled. “I was at the Hospital and I was not heckled. People and relatives of injured were asking for information on various things.
Jaitley has been out of office for a long time.” He also called the BJP immature for blaming the government for failing to prevent terror attacks.
“There are promising leads but I cannot call them conclusive leads. They are being pursued round the clock,” Chidambaram told reporters about the progress of the probe into the blast. Informed sources said the third email was sent to Delhi Police’s official email ID on Thursday night. The sender of the third mail identified himself as Ali Saed El-Hoorie. The mail was sent from the ID kill.india@yahoo.com. “This is to inform you that the India Mujahideen claims the terror attack on Delhi High Court.
I just want you to pass a message to the Indian Government that next blast will be so cruel that you people won’t be able to forget it for decay (sic),” the e-mail read, according to the sources.
“...and if you are willing to know the next attack, it is 1,8,5,13,4,1,2,1,4 till you come to know what it stands for the next blast will be done. If you have any questions because we don’t have time for anything,” the e-mail was understood to have said.
Chidambaram described the email as “amateurish in nature”. The fourth mail said the third mail was sent by IM.
Earlier, emails claiming responsibility for the blast were attributed to the Pakistan-based Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami (HuJI) and the home grown terror group Indian Mujahideen.
Interestingly, the HuJI email tracked to an internet cafe in Kishtwar district of Jammu and Kashmir’s threatened to carry out similar attacks if the death penalty to Afzal Guru, convicted in 2001 Parliament attack was not immediately repealed.
The investigators have arrested a man from Kishtwar town of Jammu and Kashmir for allegedly sending the email claiming that September seven blast was carried out by the HuJI.
The man, identified as Mohammad Sayeed, was arrested from Kishtwar, about 230 km from Jammu by state police on Friday afternoon. He is being questioned.
