As images from Jaipur flashed across television screens on Tuesday night, Hyderabad rewound to another hot day of May last year when a similar blast shook Mecca Masjid. The blast on May 18, 2007, killed 14 and the growing terror networks of Huji and SIMI, with links in Pakistan and Bangladesh, stared in the face of Hyderabad Police. A year later, CBI and the local police special investigation team (SIT) has not made much headway. A day after the Jaipur blasts, a Hyderabad police team is preparing to leave for the city to examine evidence and look for clues that might help solve the Mecca Masjid blast case.“When foreign agencies are involved, it is very difficult. So many leads, clues and angles have been investigated but nothing conclusive could be established,” said a SIT officer who was involved in the investigation till it was handed over to CBI. The involvement of Huji, SIMI, Shahid Bilal, all have been explored by CBI and the police but there is no conclusive evidence against anyone so far.Police did arrest 26 persons for acting as conduits or abetting those actually involved in the blasts. “But these persons were only involved in arranging fake identification papers or passports and did not know for whom or for what purpose they were meant. The trail went cold from there,” says Commissioner B Prasada Rao. Three persons, Syed Imran Khan, Naeem alias Sameer and Rizwan Gazi, provided important clues and revealed the conspiracy under narco-analysis tests. But even this information was not enough to nab the real culprits.
