New Delhi, Sep 7 : Intelligence agencies are sceptical about the vercaity of the Harkatul Jehadi e-mail sent to some select media houses claiming responsiblity for Delhi High court blast, sources said.
While the National Investigation Agency, which is heading the blast probe, has said it will be investigating whether the email sent by HuJI is genuine, the question remains whether the HuJI today is really such a strong terror group and whether they be willing to undertake a blast since there's so much focus on them internationally.
A year ago, the United States had imposed a ban on the Bangladesh-based outfit, following which their activities had come down. However, a month ago the HuJI had been making attempts to regroup and there have been many instances that indicate their activities were becoming India centric.
An NIA source reveals that the HuJI mail seems like a quick job on the part of the sender.
Unlike the previous elaborate mails sent by the terror outfit Indian Mujahideen, this is short and is restricted to just two sentences.
The sender's list as compared to that of the Indian Mujahideen is also very basic. This particular mail sent by the alleged perpetrators has been sent to a few select news channels,while the IM mails would be sent to a minimum of 25 media publications and houses.
A key feature missing in this mail is the signature, which was a hallmark of sorts for all the IM mails which invariably ended with the ‘Al-Arbi'.
Meanwhile, the National Investigation Agency was today handed over the probe of the bomb blast. A special team of 20 members was formed to investigate the terror strike.
A notification was issued by the Union Home Ministry this afternoon handing over the probe to the NIA. This is the first case handed over directly to probe agency formed in the aftermath of 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
Briefing reporters, Director General of NIA S C Sinha said a special investigation team headed by Deputy Inspector General Mukesh Kumar with Superintendent of Police Nitish Kumar as Chief Investigating Officer has been set up.
The team will have one more SP and two Additional SPs and two DySPs and the total strength will be 20, he said.
Asked about the mail received by a TV channel purportedly written by Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami, Sinha said “it is too premature to comment on HuJI mail but we are looking at it seriously because HuJI is a very prominent terrorist group which considers India as target number one.”
He said there were no clear leads as of now but “we are working on several theories on several aspects. Some tests have been done on the spot which have been inconclusive...some more tests have to be done in the laboratory and that will tell the details.
“I think we will be able to know shortly the kind of explosives used in the blast,” he said.
The mail received by a TV channel claimed that the blast was carried out by HuJI to demand revocation of death sentence of Afzal Guru, a condemned prisoner in Parliament attack, and also threatened to carry out such attacks at Supreme Court if their demands were not met. PTI
