New Delhi: Probing the Indian Mujahideen-Lashkar link to the Hyderabad blasts, Central agencies are now looking for the crucial mis-sing links that helped the IM module busted by the Delhi police in October 2012 reconnoitre Dilsukhnagar and two other places in Hyderabad last year.
The agencies are on the look-out for an IM operative code-named Raju Bhai, who might be a key link to the Hyderabad blast probe. Raju is learnt to have provided logistical support to Sayed Maqbool, Imran and their associates to carry out a recce in Hyderabad in July 2012 on the instructions of top IM leader Riyaz Bhatkal. Investigators believe Raju is a Pakistani natio-nal operating in India and has been specifically tasked with liaising between the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and the homegrown terrorist outfit.
IM operatives Maqbool and Imran, arrested in the Pune serial blasts case in August 2012, had told the Delhi police during interrogation about their outfit's plans to target Dilsukhnagar, Begum Bazar and Abids in Hyderabad. Four months on, after Dilsukhnagar witnessed twin blasts, the arrested IM operatives are being interrogated again in Tihar jail, sources said.
Meanwhile, a blame-game appeared to have begun with the home ministry on Thursday claiming it had alerted all state governments on February 16, 19 and 20 about possible terror strikes. MHA officials said five cities, including Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Coimbatore and Hubli, had been asked to step up vigil after an alert about possible retaliatory action by Pakistan-based terror groups to avenge Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru's hanging.
Attack could not have been planned in 10 days, says MHA
MHA officials on Friday admitted that the "powerful" blasts on Thursday could not have been planned within 10 days of the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, hinting at a "larger conspiracy" behind the latest attack. Top intelligence officials also pointed towards rising communal tension in Hyderabad in the last one year. They said the strategy of the Pakistan-based terror outfits, backed by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, is to fuel tension and carry out their sinister designs using the IM network.
What continues to worry the security establishment is the fact that more than half a dozen top IM leaders, including Iqbal and Riyaz Bhatkal, Yasin Bhatkal and Ahmed Zara Siddibappa, continue to be at large in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the NIA and NSG teams camping in Hyderabad have gathered evidence that suggests the twin blasts were the handiwork of the IM. The use of ammonium nitrate and shrapnel in the IEDs used is typical of the IM's modus operandi, MHA officials said. In his interrogation, Maqbool had also revealed an IM plot to carry out a fidayeen attack on Buddhist shrines at Bodh Gaya, Bihar. He said that on August 1, 2012, he, along with Irfan, Imran and Asad, had discussed the plan. But since the Bhatkals wanted to avenge the death of another IM operative, Qateel Siddiqui, they decided to attack Pune first.
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