NEW DELHI: A day after a woman from Chennai was killed and three others injured when an improvised explosive device exploded on Church Street in Bengaluru, the finger of suspicion pointed towards the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).
Meanwhile, Central agencies, including the National Investigation Agency (NIA), inspected the blast site. Sunday's blast appeared to be similar to recent explosions in various places, including Chennai, Bijnore and Pune, experts felt. Last month, there were reports tying SIMI to the Chennai Central blast on May 1.
MoS for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju termed the blast a ‘terror attack’. “Definitely, it is a terror attack,” he said.
In Delhi, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh convened a high-level meeting with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, the Intelligence Bureau chief and the home secretary and discussed the involvement of five suspects of SIMI, who had escaped from a Madhya Pradesh jail in 2013, in the Bengaluru blast. When asked about the role of these SIMI members in the blast, Rijiju said, “There is a possibility.”
After reviewing the Bengaluru blast situation with heads of security, intelligence agencies and top officials of his ministry, Rajnath appealed to the Karnataka government to install CCTV cameras in all key areas in Bengaluru.
According to Intelligence Bureau sources, the terrorists seemed to have learnt bomb-making techniques from al-Qaeda websites.
The intelligence sources also claimed to have inputs that the SIMI was planning a strike in Mumbai. The police have sounded an alert at all 93 police stations across the Maharashtra capital. Meanwhile, Central teams comprising investigators and explosives experts have been sent to Bengaluru from Delhi and Hyderabad and they would join the police in the probe.