New Delhi: The Centre has claimed timer devices were used in the serial blasts that rocked three UP towns on Friday afternoon, killing over a dozen people and injuring 59 others. Home Ministry sources also said that the deadly Ammonium Nitrate was used to trigger the explosion in Lucknow and Faizabad.
Union Minister of State for Home, Sriprakash Jaiswal, had earlier called the blasts a 'pre-planned conspiracy'.
"It is too early to name the organisation behind the incident, but it was certainly a pre-planned conspiracy as three blasts took place simultaneously in the state," he said.
UP DGP Vikram Singh, too, claimed that the attacks were pre-planned. "The bombs used in the blasts were not crude, it was all pre-planned. The explosives were not plastic. Pellets were used in the blasts," he said.
The Additional DGP (law and order) of UP police, Brij Lal, said there was a real possibility of these being terror attacks. The police also tried to draw parallel of the blasts with the ones that hit Malegaon a few months back.
While forensic experts were still studying the nature of the blasts, sources in the security agencies says they believe the banned Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islamia or HuJI may have triggered the blasts.
Hours after the blasts, a little-known outfit called Indian Mujahideen had claimed responsibility for the blasts. UN intelligence agencies said senior UP police officials have received an email in which the outfit has owned up to the attacks.
Security agencies, however, point out that the terror strike could be an attempt by the banned outfit to take revenge for the assault on its members, including the recent incident when lawyers manhandled three Jaish-e-Mohammed militants in Lucknow last week.
They said Jaish could have sought the help of HuJI as both the outfits followed the Deoband sect of Islam. HuJI, which is being mainly run from Bangaldesh, has managed to establish cells in the Uttar Pradesh and that the outfit was responsible for previous major terror attacks.
All the three court premises in Lucknow, Faizabad and Varanasi had seen incidents of manhandling of militants or anti-Ram temple activists by lawyers. Last week lawyers had roughed up three JeM militants and the bar association had refused to take up their cases.
The Faizabad court premises were witness to an altercation between activists of a Babri Masjid organisation and lawyers. The local bar association had banned its advocates from taking up their case.
The court premises in Varanasi was witness last year to beating of a Waliullah Khan, the main accused in the Sankat Mochan temple explosions.
(With agency inputs)
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