Delhi Police, IB teams in Karnataka for blasts probe

NEW DELHI: Special teams of Delhi Police and Intelligence Bureau have reached Udipi in Karnataka to investigate links to serial blasts in the Capital.

Times Now report suggests that teams have also reached Dharawad district, where terror camps were found. On Sunday, with the arrest of three more Indian Mujahideen-SIMI operatives for the September 13 Delhi blasts, the police said the group's "mastermind" Atif Ameen alias Bashir, had planned to deliver another deadly blow by carrying out 20 bombings in the business district of Nehru Place.

The three were arrested a day after the Delhi Police's special cell claimed they had unravelled the IM-SIMI network, with Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) leader Abu Al Kama ��� whose hand was also seen in the October 29, 2005, Diwali-eve serial blasts ��� emerging as a key collaborator. The linkages have led the police to say that LeT provided help to SIMI-IM in the UP court blasts. The role of HuJI in that attack is being probed as well.

This three-outfit alliance is now seen to be behind Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Varanasi, Hyderabad and Faizabad blasts, police said. Cooperation between LeT, HUJI and other jihadi groups is not a new development as their leaders often share operatives. While earlier SIMI provided foot soldiers, the need to "indigenize" terrorism saw the outfit moving to the forefront.

The interrogation of Zia, the son of Abdur Rehman, caretaker of the shootout flat L-18 in Batla House area, Mohammed Shakeel, an MA student living in Sangam Vihar and Saquib Nisar, a contact between Zia and Atif, has revealed that the IM leader was keen on striking at Nehru Place soon. It seemed to underline the confidence of the IM-SIMI group ��� reflected in the taunts in its emails ��� that it could avoid capture despite arrests in the Ahmedabad bomb case.

The three said that they did not leave Delhi after the blasts as Atif convinced them to stay put. They further said Atif used to work out minute details of attacks, right from timing to sites. His associates were given information only on a need-to-know basis.

Atif, who like many others involved in the IM-SIMI operations, hails from Azamgarh in eastern UP, was determined to carry on with his "war" against India and was apparently confident of procuring and assembling the explosives needed to carry out his next terror venture.

Along with other bombers, he has come across as revelling in the destruction and death caused by IM-SIMI. Police forces from neighbouring states joined Delhi Police in the probe, sharing intelligence on these outfits.