Samjhauta probe track leads to Indore where suitcases were bought

Investigators identify dealer who sold six suitcases, tailor who stitched covers and the shop from where bottles were bought to be filled with petrol; SIMI under the scanner

Investigations into last month’s terror attack on the Samjhauta Express which killed 68 people have finally yielded a breakthrough with the Haryana Police establishing that the material for the six timer-fitted firebombs was most probably purchased from Indore in Madhya Pradesh. A team of the Haryana Police has been camping in Indore for more than a week now.

Although investigators can’t conclusively establish where the bombs were assembled — a possible location, they say, could be western Uttar Pradesh given that the only recovered bomb was wrapped in a January 11, 2006, Aligarh edition of a Hindi newspaper — there is new evidence to show a strong Indore link.

Although IG (Indore) Rajendra Kumar told The Sunday Express that teams from Haryana are carrying out similar investigations in other cities across the country, official sources have confirmed the following findings:

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• The 24-inch suitcases in which the six bombs were kept were manufactured in Delhi but the manufacturer has confirmed that sale in Delhi stopped six months ago. He told investigators that there was a distribution outlet in Indore among other cities. Police have already identified a dealer in Indore who is said to have sold the six suitcases to the bombers.

• The bottles in which petrol and rags were used for incendiary effect are manufactured in Mumbai but only distributed in Indore and Hyderabad. These bottles are available within half-a-kilometre of the Indore dealer.

• The lunch box in which the potassium nitrate explosive was kept was of “Saurav Super” brand that is only available in Indore.

• Another corroborative evidence of an Indore link comes from a tailor who stitches suitcase-covers and initials them with “600” on 24-inch suitcases — the same initials found in the blast debris. Sources said this tailor, who is four shops away from the suitcase dealer, has admitted to police that he made the suitcase covers and confirmed his handwriting.

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The presence of this Indore link is leading investigators to track the local network of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). SIMI, whose general secretary, Safdar Naguari, hails from nearby Ujjain, has also been charged with Mumbai train blasts last July and the attack on the Barelvi sect mosque in Malegaon last September.

The banned outfit has proven links with HUJI of Bangladesh that is said to have provided bombers for the Varanasi Sankatmochan temple blasts last year and its cadres like Ehtehsham Siddiqui (picked up for Mumbai blasts) have been trained by Pakistan based Lashkar-e-Toiba.

While SIMI and its Muslim brotherhood have come under the scanner of the security agencies for a series of terrorist acts since the unsolved Delhi Diwali blasts, none of the bombers have been arrested. The fact is that 22 of the Pakistanis on board on the ill-fated Samjhauta Express were given permission to travel to Madhya Pradesh, in and around Indore.

Now the police have got names of all those who had permits for Madhya Pradesh and are looking into who all they were in contact with during their stay in India.

–(with inputs from Milind Ghatwai in Bhopal)

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