Patil doesn’t reveal leads, his Jr says neighbour

“There is a design behind the strikes,” Patil said.

Later at Kohima, he said he was in constant touch with his Ministry officials in Delhi to monitor the situation in Jaipur.

He was also in touch with Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and had assured her of help from the Centre.

Patil lauded the people of Rajasthan for showing restraint despite provocation by those who were trying to disturb peace.

He said he would visit Jaipur on Thursday along with Congress president Sonia Gandhi to take stock of the situation.

Blasts have links with a neighbouring country’

The Centre said the Jaipur serial blasts smacked of a ‘deep-rooted and very well-planned conspiracy’ to disturb communal harmony in the country and suggested that the links of the terror strike were in a ‘neighbouring’ country.

Without specifying any country, Union Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal told a press conference that it could be any of the neighbouring countries — Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Myanmar — that were facing internal turmoil.

After visiting the blasts sites, Jaiswal refused to specify the organization, which was suspected to be behind the explosions saying that investigations were still on.

“I will not like to name the dangerous outfits,” he said.

To a specific query whether HuJI of Bangladesh was behind Tuesday’s attack, he remained evasive, merely saying that those involved would be ‘thoroughly exposed’ very soon.

He said there could be a link between the Jaipur blast and those that had occurred in Varanasi, Faizabad, Ajmer and Hyderabad in the past. In most cases the hand of HuJI was suspected.

The Minister said though the outfit behind the incident aimed to disturb the communal harmony, it failed in its mission. “Rather the communal harmony has become stronger as people who did not fall prey to its nefarious designs,” he said.

He said the blasts were carried out with the help of high intensity explosives like RDX or by using Ammonium Nitrate and the NSG team rushed from here would soon be able find out the nature of the materials used to carry out the blasts.

To repeated questions whether it was another case of intelligence failure, Jaiswal said there was no specific input when and where the terrorists would strike in Jaipur.

There was a general alert after the Ajmer blast in 2007, he said adding it would be wrong to say that there was an intelligence failure.

He said the incident once again underlined the need for having a federal investigating agency but till all states agreed to that, it would be difficult to do so.

As of now, state governments can beef up their security machinery and tone up vigilance. They should also make the state police hi-tech and fill the vacancies without any further delay, he said.

Jaiswal said the incident was highly condemnable and felt that whoever has done it ‘is the enemy of our country’.

Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta said all efforts were on to get to the bottom of the incident and try to get hold of the people responsible for it.

Teams of Central experts have been sent to Jaipur to look into various aspects related to the incident in close coordination with the state government.

Special Secretary (Internal Security) M L Kumawat is camping in Jaipur to hold discussions with state government officials so that further necessary action could be taken to identify the culprits and apprehend them.

Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil will visit Jaipur on Thursday to take stock of the situation.

Patil appreciated people of Rajasthan for showing restraint despite provocation by the perpetrators of violence who were trying to disturb peace.