The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has conveyed to the Union home ministry its findings that Indian Mujahideen’s (IM’s) footprints had been traced in last Wednesday’s blast near the BJP office in Bangalore that left 16 injured.
The NIA, which is assisting the Karnataka police in the probe, has zeroed in on the Indian Mujahideen, suspected of carrying out the last few bomb blasts in the country including in Hyderabad, after analysing the components of the improvised explosive device (IED) and the modus operandi.
Ministry sources said top officials of the NIA had apprised North Block of the progress in the probe, though the perpetrators of the crime are far from being caught. A stolen motorcycle was used to plant the bomb packed in a container between the BJP office and a temple.
CCTV footage examined by the investigators showed a person pushing the bike to the spot, parking it and moving away, but the images are hazy. The sleuths are seeking forensic help to cull out features of the bomb planter, said ministry sources.
Though the National Security Group and the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Hyderabad are examining the 80 pieces of explosive components picked up from the blast cite, the preliminary report accessed by NIA suggests that nitrate compounds were used to assemble the IED, similar to the one used by IM in the Hyderabad blast in February.
The NIA, in its bid to track down the remnants of the Yasin Bhatkal module which is at large, had carried out searches in Bihar on Sunday for Tahseen Akhtar, an IM member suspected of being involved in various terror cases.
The agency has already announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh on information that leads to Akhtar’s arrest. The sleuths had questioned his Samastipur-based family, having failed to find him in places like Darbhanga, Munger and Madhubani.
