Even as the Delhi police obtained concrete clues about the perpetrators of the July 2011 triple blasts in Mumbai and the module involved in the attack, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) was simultaneously working overtime on the case.
However, the latter was not successful in identifying the culprits, and its investigations reached a dead end. DNA takes a look at how the ATS began work on the case, following the triple blasts.
The ATS was banking heavily on the examination of the scooter that was reportedly used to plant the explosive at Zaveri Bazaar. But the probe led nowhere.
Since the investigators could not gather many clues from the Opera House and Dadar blast sites, their initial concentration was on an Activa scooter and a Hero Honda Splendor motorcycle that were completely damaged in the Zaveri Bazaar blast. The two vehicles were sent for forensic analysis. A few days later, ATS sources confirmed that the vehicles belonged to shop owners at the site.
Although ATS chief Rakesh Maria claimed that no vehicles had been used at any of the blast sites, sources confirmed that an explosive had been planted on the Activa, which was stolen a few days before from Khetwadi.
The police firmly believed then that the dreaded terrorist organisation the Indian Mujahideen (IM) had a hand in the serial blasts. The IM is known to detonate bombs on the 13th and 26th of selectmonths.
Several IM sympathisers and arrested IM members were interrogated, but yielded little or no information.
Police teams had fanned out across the country — Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Kolkata, Delhi, Bihar, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Parbhani. More than 600 persons, including sympathisers of terrorist groups as well as friends and relatives of the wanted radicals, were questioned by security agencies.
Arrested terrorists, lodged in different jails, were questioned, but to no avail.
Several crack teams were formed by the ATS and crime branch to investigate the case from various angles. This included going through the voluminous data of closed-circuit television camera feeds and analysing them. One team was asked to record the statements of the injured, as well as shopkeepers in and around the blast sites. Another was asked to stay in touch with mobile phone companies to obtain call data from the tower locations of all three blast sites. One squad was in touch with central agencies, attempting to give and receive information on the terrorists.
But, none of these efforts bore fruit.
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