No clues yet to Varanasi blast

“We are yet to establish the nature of the explosives used in the blast….The investigation is on and anything concrete could be said only after the investigation is complete,’’ UP Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Brijlal said in Lucknow on Wednesday.

Intelligence sleuths and forensic experts  were busy collecting pieces of evidence from the site of the blast to ascertain the nature of explosives used.

Brijlal said that the agencies had not discovered any splinters, shrapnels, remote control device or battery from the site so far.

Terming the blast as a “terror attack,” the official said  the police were not in a position to clearly state as to which outfit, organisation or module was behind the blast. No arrests had been made in this connection so far, he said.

However, Indian Mujahideen   on Tuesday, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Meanwhile, the Centre and the Mayawati government embarked upon a blame game over the blast. Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, who visited the blast site in Varanasi on Wednesday, alleged that the state government had failed to act on a specific  input about a possible terror attack at Shitla Ghat. Chidambaram sought to put the blame squarely on the state government saying that the Centre had in February this year warned the government of possible terror attack at the site of the blast.

Countering Chidambaram’s claim, Chief Minister Mayawati denied having received any specific inputs from the Centre on the attack. ``The central agencies had not given any actionable specific intelligence input about the incident’’, she said.

Stating that it was not proper to hold any state government alone responsible for such terrorist attacks, Mayawati sought to know if the governments of Gujarat and Maharashtra could be held responsible for the serial blasts there a few years ago.

In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mayawati said that it would not be possible to tackle the terrorist attacks until the Centre, rising above politics, provide the same  weapons to the state as were with the terrorists.

Maywati also demanded that the Centre extend the same facilities to UP as were made available to the Maharashtra government after the Mumbai blasts. She also urged the centre to send 125 companies of central forces to protect the tourist and religious places in the state.