The bomb that killed a woman on Bangalore’s Church Street on December 28 last year had a marking that was also found on the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) used during Narendra Modi’s rally at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan on October 27, 2013, according to police investigations. Investigators have found that the pipe used for the elbow-shaped bomb in Bangalore had a seller’s marking — ‘M’ — which was also found on the IEDs used in the Patna blasts that killed five people. The marking was found on the Bangalore pipe bomb after experts reconstructed the device. Investigations by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into the Patna blasts have revealed that the pipes used for the bombs were bought from Mishra Pipe Company in Allahabad by Haidar Ali, the arrested leader of the Ranchi unit of the proscribed Students Islamic Movement of India. Bangalore police suspect the pipes used for the Church Street blast and the Patna blasts were of common origin. “The IED used in the Bangalore Church Street blast is similar to the IEDs used in two or three other blasts in the country in recent times but it has a very close match to the Patna IEDs,” said a senior police officer familiar with the investigations. The Bangalore police have now sourced copies of reports of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), Kolkata on the IEDs used in the Patna blasts as well as copies of interrogation and chargesheets in that case as part of investigations in the Bangalore case. The CFSL report had revealed “the presence of post explosion residues of ammonium nitrate, aluminium, potassium chlorate”, which is the same as the post explosion residues found in the Bangalore case. Investigators have over the past month reported similarities in the device used in Bangalore and the devices used for blasts in Patna (October 27, 2013), Chennai (May 1, 2014), Pune (July 12, 2014) and Rourkee (September 12, 2014). Similar elbow pipes or L-shaped pipes that are 2.5 inches in diameter and 5 mm in thickness were found to have been used in all these blasts. Findings based on the nature of the IED used in the Bangalore blast had led the police to suspect the involvement of underground members of the SIMI. This theory has now been strengthened by the similarities with the Patna bombs, police sources said. NIA investigations in the Patna blasts revealed the involvement of SIMI members working under the guidance of leaders from Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. In a chargesheet against the SIMI module involved in the Patna blasts, the NIA had stated that Haidar Ali “purchased 12 pipe elbows of 2 ½’’ diameter from Allahabad” to prepare the bombs. The chargesheet identified Mishra Pipe Company in Allahabad as the source of the pipes used to make the bombs. According to a NIA chargesheet in the investigations against Haidar Ali and his men, a laptop that was seized from the group contained details of making elbow bombs as outlined in Al Qaeda’s online magazine Inspire. A seized laptop contained “a file of ‘Inspire Magazine’, wherein the entire process of making the elbow bomb has been descriptively laid down,” the NIA stated. While the role of five fugitive members of the Madhya Pradesh unit of the SIMI, who escaped from a prison in Khandwa last year, was initially suspected in the Bangalore blast, police are now expanding their investigations to look at active members of the Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh units of the outfit who have gone underground since the arrest of Haidar Ali.
