A firing in one of the busy bylanes of the Masjid by two gunmen on a motorbike had two Taiwanese tourists injured. Shortly after this, a crude bomb planted in a car went off near the area where the firing took place.
Within hours of the firing and the blast at 1:30 pm, an e-mail was sent to media organisations like the BBC allegedly by the IM, threatening to carry out attacks during the upcoming Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.
The email, which IM allegedly sent to the BBC, does not directly refer to the firing incident, but says “in the name of Allah, attack is a tribute to Atif Amin and Mohammad Sajid”, the two suspected terrorists killed by the Delhi Police in Batla House encounter on September 19, 2008.
Security cover
Delhi Police Commissioner S S Dadwal on Tuesday briefed Union Home Secretary G S Pillai on the progress of the case as well as the overall security cover laid out for the security of the Commonwealth Games.
The special cell of the Delhi Police, which is investing the case, is now trying to find whether malfunctioning of timers and circuit had prompted an early blast in the car. They are also looking into the hand of sleeping cells of IM in assisting the two gunmen.
The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad are also looking for an “illegal arms supplier”, who would have given raw materials for the crude bomb, in Meerut, Moradabad and Aligarh.
Fake ID card
The probe has also stretched out to Mumbai, where the Crime Branch and the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad are jointly working to find the person who sent the e-mail, which has been traced to the Borivali area. The email was found to be sent using a Tata mobile phone connection procured through a fake identity card.
When the Anti-Terrorism Squad and crime branch officers reached the address in the North Western suburb, they could not find anyone bearing the name as in the identity card living there.
The hunt is now on for the person who procured the mobile SIM card, on the basis of forged papers in the name of a woman, that was used to send the e-mail. Two persons have been detained for questioning in this regard.
Investigators apprehend the IM may have repeated what it did two years ago when it hacked into the unsecured WiFi internet connection of an American national, Kenneth Haywood, minutes before the July 2008 Ahmedabad terror attacks.
DH News Service
