Investigators have leads on serial blasts

COLOMBO: Investigators probing the back-to-back blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad have got some leads which indicated that the terror attacks could have been carried out on orders from outside the country with local help, Indian government sources said here on Friday.
   
Indian authorities believe that there was involvement of some local outfit, apparently SIMI, which has the "capacity and capability" to carry out strikes on a large scale.
    
"We have some leads. We are working on these," high-level government officials accompanying Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on his visit here said but refused to share details.
    
Government, however, is not buying the claims made by some unknown group 'Indian Mujahideen' that it carried out the blasts as it believes that no such outfit exists. The government feels that some terror groups could be using the name of 'Indian Mujahideen' as a cover.
    
Though the government is not yet clear about the message the perpetrators of the blasts intended to send by carrying out such large number of back-to-back blasts, it feels that Bangalore and Ahmedabad could have been targeted because of their being hub of economic activity.
    
There were similarities in the explosives used in Jaipur and Ahmedabad while the Bangalore blasts were sophisticated ones, the sources said.
    
Asked whether SIMI could be involved, the officials refused to confirm or deny but noted that the group has a large membership in the country and works in coordination with foreign-based terror groups.