By IANS,
Surat : City Police Commissioner R.M.S. Brar Thursday said that “local help” was involved in over two dozen unexploded bombs being found here, adding that the threat is not yet over with more bombs likely to be recovered in days to come.
Brar said in a statement Thursday: “It is simply not possible without local help, looking at the events in Surat in last couple of days with live bombs being found at many places.”
A bomb scare took place Thursday in Ankleshwar, 50 km away from here. A packet was found close to Bhavani Sweet Mart at Manav Mandir residential area. The shop owner, who was opening the shutter of his shop at 6.30 a.m. Thursday, saw a packet lying nearby. He called the police.
The packet turned out to be harmless with a “pressure meter” used for industrial purpose packed inside.
Integrated circuit chips, a technique of Al-Qaeda, has been used to assemble the bombs in Surat and Bangalore, the statement said.
With more bombs likely to be recovered in days to come not ruled out, the threat is not yet over since the terror modules are still out there ready to strike, Brar said.
Intelligence agencies are searching for an answer why the bombs were planted in the first place that obviously were not meant to detonate, he said.
A threat letter to the Vadodara Stock Exchange turned out to be a hoax.
A letter written in Hindi was received Thursday saying that that there was a bomb in the exchange and the building should be evacuated immediately.
The letter, which was addressed to VSE’s managing director Deepak Rawal and signed “Atankvad (extremist) Jihad Simi”, was handed over to the police. The letter was posted in Vadodara July 30.
Police personnel and dog squads searched the building but nothing dangerous or damaging was recovered, the police said.
Of the two entrances to the building, one was closed.
Chetan Shah, Southern Gujarat Chamber of Commerce & Industry president, told IANS that the textiles business has suffered nearly Rs.1.5 billion loss in last few days.
After the 28 bombs were recovered, panic gripped the city and if this state of panic continues for another week the loss could mount to Rs.3 billion or more, he said, adding many buyers are avoiding coming to Surat.
Investigators in Surat seemed to have identified the factory from where the detonators were procured.
The markings suggest that the detonators were manufactured by AP Explosives Pvt Ltd based at Bommalramaram village in Nalgonda district of Andhra Pradesh.