Bombs point to two groups at work

Sleuths say B’lore, Surat explosives made by one group, another behind A’bad, Jaipur attacks

NEW DELHI: Investigations into the recent terror attacks have thrown up the possibility of two different terrorist streams targeting various cities of India.

According to dependable sources, central intelligence agencies have gathered significant evidence that sketch the alarming possibility of two different groups at work.
Detailed analysis of the bombs recovered from Bangalore and Surat show they were possibly made by the same group given the similarities in their composition.

The security agencies suspect another group was behind the Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Hyderabad serial blasts, as these bombs showed similarities but were different from the Bangalore and Surat explosives.

They are, however, yet to make up their mind about the train blasts in Mumbai and a string of attacks in several mosques in Malegaon, Hyderabad, Ajmer and Delhi.
“Two different violent ideologies,” is how a senior source in the security establishment termed the emerging trend. “We are yet not ready to say there are two different groups, but definitely two different training systems and ideologies are [there] for sure,” he said.
What has affirmed the belief that the same group could be behind the bombings in Bangalore and unexploded bombs recovered in Bangalore and Surat is the similarities in the trigger mechanism and the components used.

Investigators have found similar microchip-based timers in the unexploded bombs in Bangalore and Surat. It is for the first time that such microchips have been found in bombs used in India. In all other bombs, the timers have been simple clocks or mobile phones.  

In Surat, the bombs seemed to have been produced in an assembly line: 970 to 990 grams of ammonium nitrate, 1.2 to 1.5 kilograms of ball bearings, detonator and the microchip-based timer. And many of them were wrapped in a Gujarati daily’s Vadodara editions.

Also, in Surat and Bangalore, the intent was to create panic and communal division “not so much to kill people,” says one of the investigators.
However, in Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Hyderabad and the UP courts, the intention was to kill.

Also, other uncanny similarities in the serial blasts in Ahmedabad (July 26), Jaipur (May 13), Lumbini Park of Hyderabad (August 25, 2007) and UP courts (November 23, 2007) have baffled security agencies.

In most of the bombs “even the wires were from the same lot,” says an investigator. The wiring pattern had the same colours, and, it seems, most of the explosives were from the same batch, a source said, adding that they were “assembled by the same group”. Most importantly, in all these bombings the intent was to kill as many people as possible.