NIA given pending blast cases

Propped up as an agency to deal with terrorist attacks, the elite National Investigation Agency (NIA) continues to be burdened with cases that have already been messed up by the state polices’ shoddy investigations.

The blasts at German Bakery and Varanasi will be two more such additions in the NIA’s growing list of such cases where much of the leads have been lost or messed up by the anti-terrorism squads of the two states.

Sources in the home ministry said with both state polices failing to crack the cases, the ministry has finally decided to handover the two blast cases to the NIA.

The decision comes after the lapse of one month that the Centre had given to the respective state polices.

In a meeting in early June, the home minister took the decision to give a month’s time to both Mumbai and UP anti-terrorism squads (ATS).

NIA officials rue in private for being kept away from investigations in the beginning and then getting burdened all of a sudden.