By IANS,
New Delhi : Amid conflicting claims on which outfit plotted Wednesday’s Delhi High Court bombing, investigators, battling for conclusive leads to crack the case, Friday arrested a man from Kishtwar in Jammu and Kashmir who sent an email hours after the deadly explosion claiming it to be Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami’s (HuJI) handiwork.
Meanwhile, a third email surfaced Friday claiming responsibility for the terror attack that claimed 13 lives and injured over 90 in the heart of the capital. The mail, attributed to the Indian Mujahideen and sent to Delhi Police, warned of another “cruel attack”, possibly in Ahmedabad.
Home Minister P. Chidambaram said the message was written “amateurishly” but was being taken seriously by the government.
“After the first email, another email arrived and a third arrived today (Friday). These are not being dismissed although the third one appears to be a very amateurish mail,” Chidambaram told reporters, elaborating that it was written with some numerical code pointing towards the next target.
“The code reads as Ahmedabad. So the email sender is hinting that the (next) strike will be at Ahmedabad. But since it’s such a simple code, very amateurish code, I am not sure whether it was sent by a serious person. Nevertheless, we are taking it seriously,” the home minister said .
Sources forwarded to IANS the content of the email.
It reads: “This is to inform you that we Indian Mujahideen claim the terror attack on (the) Delhi High Court.”
The email warns that the next attack “will be so cruel that you people won’t be able to forget it for decay (decade).”
“I just want you to pass a message to the Indian government that if you are willing to know the next attack it is 1,8,5,13,4,1,2,1,4. Till you come to know what it stands for, the next blast will be done. If you have any question get back soon because we don’t have time for anything.”
The email sender identifies himself as Ali Saed el-Hoori and the message was sent from an ID [email protected], according to the sources.
This is the third email sent in as many days since the deadly bombing ripped through the heart of Delhi.
The earlier emails were attributed to the Pakistan-based Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami (HuJI) and the home grown terror group Indian Mujahideen which owned up to the bombing.
The HuJI email was tracked to an Internet cafe in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar district. It threatened to carry out more such attacks if the death penalty to 2001 parliament attack convict Afzal Guru was not immediately repealed.
Chidambaram said the sender of the HuJI email has been taken into custody for interrogation. “We would like to wait for that report to come.”
The Kashmir police identified the suspect as Mohammad Sayeed who has admitted that he had sent the email from Global Internet Cafe in the town.
The second email, also attributed to the Indian Mujahideen, said the outfit had plotted the attack and warned that its cadres would strike outside a shopping complex on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, sleuths led by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) were pursuing scattered leads to crack the case but have not achieved any major breakthrough.
Chidambaram said preliminary findings of the forensic examination indicated presence of nitrate and traces of some other explosives used in the bomb.
“These findings are being reconciled to get a clear picture of the exact nature of the explosive used in the blast,” he said, in an indication that the investigators had not conclusively found what explosive was used.
Chidambaram admitted that the leads followed so far were “not conclusive”. “We found there are promising leads, I can’t say they are very conclusive leads. These are being pursued round the clock with help of other agencies, abroad too.”
The home minister said the investigators were not in a position to say if the blast was the handiwork of Pakistan-based terrorists.
“I cannot say if it’s the Indian module or the module from across the border,” the minister said.