Bengaluru Church Street blast: Why the NIA came in 5 months later?

Bengaluru, May 19: The decision of the National Investigation to take over the Bengaluru Church Street blast probe may have come late in the day. It is almost 5 months since a blast occurred at the Church Street in Bengaluru in which one person lost her life.

While the state has been debating since long on whether to hand over the probe to the NIA, it appears now that the Union Home Ministry has decided to let the central agency probe the case. ['NIA probe can be ordered in Bengaluru blast']

Probe hit a road block:

It would not be incorrect to state that the probe into the Church Street blast had hit a road block. The officers from the Karnataka police have travelled far and wide and even questioned several persons who were already in jail at the time of the blast. [Bengaluru Church Street blast hits dead end]

The CCTV footage which the police claimed to have was not of the best quality and after five months, none of them really managed to put a face on the bomber. The NIA was initially reluctant to take over the probe as they have had their share of bad experiences while dealing with cases in Karnataka.

The alleged terror plot which was busted by the Bengaluru police in which it was said that some youth had planned on eliminating journalists and leaders was handed over to the NIA. However the NIA had to file a B-report (discharge) against some persons in the case and at the end of it all it was the centralized agency which was blamed for taking the matter slow.

Why has the NIA come in five months later?

The NIA coming into the picture now brings us back to the much beaten subject of the Khandwa jail break in which five SIMI operatives had slipped out of the Madhya Pradesh jail. Two were killed in an encounter in Telangana recently while the three others continue to give the police the slip.

The NIA believes that it is these members who have carried out the Church Street, Chennai train and Bijnor blasts. The NIA has filed a separate FIR on these persons and today has the responsibility of tracking these persons.

The NIA feels that since the accused are the same in all these cases, it would be best that they handle it instead of letting individual states probe the incident lest it leads to confusion.

The famous five of Khandwa:

NIA officials tell OneIndia that they firmly believe that the five who slipped out of jail had done so in a bid to establish a network. They have been involved in a spate of robberies and also three to four blasts in different parts of the country.

While two of them have been killed in an encounter recently, the remaining three continue to pose a great danger to national security. It is important that we look at all these cases as one and probe the incident instead of different states probing it.

There is a common FIR lodged against these persons and nabbing them would give a closure to all these cases. So far the Madhya Pradesh ATS, the Telangana and Andhra Pradesh police have been tracking the movements of these persons.

If the NIA probes all these cases, the problem of coordination between states would be resolved and we expect faster closure to all these cases, an NIA official further stated.

OneIndia News