Security agencies pursue Bajrang Dal, Bangla links to Malegaon

New Delhi: A senior official of the intelligence community told DNA on Saturday that security agencies are seriously pursuing the possibility of a fringe group within the Bajrang Dal being involved in the bomb blasts in Malegaon on Friday that killed 32 people and injured more than 100.

“They have in the past proved their bomb making abilities,” he said, referring to Nanded, a Sikh pilgrimage centre, where in April this year an accidental bomb blast in a house had killed two Bajrang Dal members — Himanshu Phanse and Naresh Raj Kondwar.

“We recovered Muslim caps and clothes from their houses,” he said.

“A Bajrang Dal group was involved in bombing of a mosque in Parbhani this year and two other mosques in 2003 in Purna and Jalna.” Sources also suspect that Hindu fringe groups were involved in blasts in Aurangabad in 2002.

But within the intelligence community, another school points a finger at the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami. “Investigators are looking at the possibility of the Islamic terror group being the perpetrator,” an IB official told DNA.

“The use of bicycles and local bombs is its modus operandi. There is a nexus between HuJI and SIMI.” 

HuJI was founded in Pakistan in 1980 and has a strong network in Bangladesh. “Investigators are finding out if a HuJI motivator from Bangladesh or Pakistan came to Malegaon and created a local module,” the official said.