Home Ministry reviews security situation in country

New Delhi, July 13: Home Secretary V K Duggal today held a series of meetings to review the overall security measures put in place in the country after the July 7 Mumbai blasts that killed about 200 people and injured 700.

Home Ministry sources said the progress made by the investigating agencies in the probe into the Mumbai and Srinagar blasts also came up for review.

On the reports that the involvement of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) had been confirmed, the sources said no announcement could be made on such issues.

However, there were indications that there was a clue regarding the local logistic support provided by SIMI activists for the blasts.

The investigating agencies have also reportedly found that modules of Lashkar-e-Toiba were operating in several towns of Maharashtra and a few in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

The existence of SIMI and LeT modules in Nashik, Nagpur and Aurangabad had come to light during raids there in the past few months. A huge cache of explosives, including RDX, were seized during the raids which also helped to bust some of the modules.

The sources said the agencies were awaiting the report of the CFSL on the explosives used. However, the magnitude of the explosion pointed to the use of RDX and use of timers to trigger blasts.

Police has sought the help of the mobile phone companies to analyse the cell phone calls made from near the explosion sites on July 7.

UNI