Church Street blast: Police check 1.5 cr call records but no clue yet

Though Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has directed the State government to speed up the investigation of Church Street bomb blast case, the Bengaluru City police are yet to make any headway in the probe.

While Singh has expressed fears that those who executed the bomb blast could carry out similar attacks elsewhere, the City police are yet to establish the identity of group that masterminded the blast and also the men who exploded bomb.

“We are working hard to take the case to a logical end. There are certain leads that point fingers to some terror outfits. We are pursuing the leads,” City Police Commissioner M N Reddi said on Thursday.

He said that there was no delay in completing the investigation as crime investigation, especially of terror cases, is tedious and time consuming. It depends on how the police pursue the available leads, he added.

The police said they verified details of more than 1.5 crore mobile calls made days before and after the blast and also verified data of CCTV cameras installed on every premises within the radius of 3 kilometres from Church Street. “Our teams visited Jalandhar in Punjab, Delhi, Chennai, Varanasi and Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Kerala and every district of Karnataka and collected information. However, we are yet to come to a conclusion about the foot soldiers,” investigating officer Alok Kumar said.

The police recovered several materials from the bomb blast site. They said they established the sources from where they were either purchased or supplied to establish the identity of the foot soldiers, he said.

Vijayanagar sub-division ACP S K Umesh went to Patna twice and brought Haider Ali, 28, and Umer Siddiqui, 37, suspected to be the members of SIMI to Bengaluru for questioning to ascertain the outfit and foot soldiers involved in the case. Though the two did not disclose anything substantial, they  provided some critical information related to the direction achieved, Kumar said.

Kumar is supervising the work of the investigation team which comprises DCP (Central) Sandeep Patil, DCP (West) Labhu Ram, ACP (Vijayanagar) S K Umesh, ACP (High Court) B A Angadi and ACP (Ulsoor Gate) Amarnath Reddy.

‘Bomb was assembled elsewhere’

The police suspect that the bomb was assembled elsewhere, but the finishing touch was given at a place close to Church Street. Ultras complete circuit-related final touches within the radius of about 3-4 kilometres. They do not transport the bomb for too long as the chances of explosion on the way would be high. They complete finishing touches in public toilets and poorly-lit desolate areas so that their identity remains a secret. They place the bomb at a fixed place and vanish. The same method was used in Church Street case as well, a senior police officer said.