Security agencies have found eerie similarities in the Church Street Blast to the Chennai Central railway station blast in May and the Pune blasts in July earlier this year – both in the intent and composition of the explosive. Agencies now suspect the involvement of a fugitive terror module of five Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) activists who fled from the Khandwa district jail, Madhya Pradesh, in October 2013, who are suspected to be behind both the blasts in Chennai and and Pune.
A group of six SIMI activists led by Abu Faisal, arrested for communal violence and SIMI links in 2011, fled from Madhya Pradesh prison on October 1, 2013. The kingpin Abu Faisal was arrested in December 2013, while the other five – Mehboob, Aslam Khan, Amjad Khan, Zakir Hussain and Aizazuddin – are still at large. Agencies have now established their involvement in a bank robbery in Karimnagar through CCTV camera footage and are also probing whether the money robbed ended up in Bhardwan, West Bengal.
The module is suspected to be involved in the May 1, Chennai Central blast on the Bengaluru -Guwahati Express and another blast in a parking lot of a police station in Pune on July 10, earlier this year. However, both the cases are yet to be cracked.
“Investigation is looking into whether the terror attack was the handiwork of the fugitive SIMI module, which escaped from Madhya Pradesh prison last year,” said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah here on Monday.
Meanwhile, intelligence agencies have provided the City police with photographs of all five fugitive SIMI activists and CCTV footage of Karimnagar, Vellore Railway Station and Pune, where the gang members were reportedly sighted during various attacks. The City police are now analysing the CCTV footage recovered from Church Street.
Bangalore police had initially suspected the involvement of a Tamil Nadu-based terror module, a regrouping of remnants of Al Ummah, who allegedly carried out the Malleswaram bomb blast here in April 2013, but subsequently almost ruled out their role in the Sunday blast. Though the explosive – a timer-triggered crude pipe bomb – is similar to that used by the group, the signature modus operandi of the group is targeting Hindu right-wing targets, which was absent in the Church Street blast.
