Jama Masjid attack: Real targets in Delhi were police, media

The actual targets of Sunday’s shootout near New Delhi’s Jama Masjid were not foreign tourists, but the police, investigators, the media and onlookers. According to investigators piecing together the link between the random firing that injured two Taiwanese nationals and the pressure cooker bomb that went off inside a car more than an hour later, the motive behind both was to create mayhem in Delhi.

A senior intelligence officer said: “The firing on foreign tourists was used as a bait to gather police personnel.”

“Also, media persons and onlookers. The actual attack was planned approximately 45 minutes later. The bomb that was planted in the car was timed to explode after everybody arrived on the site.”

Explaining the chronology of the events entire incident, the officer said that at around 11.15am, two motor cycle-borne assailants wearing rain-coats and helmets opened fire at the Taiwanese tourists. “They were firing from a 9mm automatic firearm. After empting one magazine, they were attempting to load one more, but it fell down and they fled,” the officer said. The magazine has been recovered by the police from the spot. Immediately after the incident, a huge crowd gathered at the site.

At around 1.45pm, JK Sharma, the owner of the Maruti 800 involved in the second incident and a resident of the nearby area, was informed by a relative that his vehicle had been parked nearly 100 metres from the Jama Masjid.

“Sharma immediately informed the police, who reached to check the car. Smoke was coming out of it and, in an instant, it went up in flames,” the officer said. A pressure cooker, ammonium nitrate, two timers and two clocks were recovered from the gutted car, he added.

“Interestingly, the timing set on the two clocks was set to go off at noon, exactly 45 minutes after the firing incident. But, fortunately, the cooker bomb malfunctioned and did not go off because the cooker’s lid was not fitted properly,” the officer said.

“The reason the bomb malfunctioned was probably because it was assembled in a different place and hurriedly kept in the car, which too, must have been stolen last minute.”