NIA, Bengaluru cops think poles apart on Church Street blast case

Bengaluru, Jan 30: The National Investigating Agency had claimed on Friday that it had cracked the Church Street blasts, Bengaluru case with the arrest of Alam Jeb Afridi.

After the arrest the Home Minister of Karnataka, Dr G Parameshwar said that they had no such information and hence could not comment much.

Afridi has been blamed not just for the Church Street blasts case. The NIA note says he is also an accused in the Wagamon (Kerala) terror training camp.

Further the agency also notes that he is suspected to be an accused in the Ahmedabad blasts case of 2008 as well. The note also adds that he had confessed to his role in the incident of arson that taken place in the Israel visa centre, Bengaluru recently.

Killing four birds with one stone

If the NIA is able to ascertain that he was involved in all the incidents mentioned above, then they tend to kill four birds with one stone or rather solve four cases. The Bengaluru police which started the investigation into the Church Street case before handing it over to the NIA says that it has no concrete information relating to Afridi as yet.

However, the police in Bengaluru dispute the version that the attack on the Israel Visa Centre was an act of terror. On probing the case, it had found that it was a civil dispute which had led to the arson. In this incident someone had hurled a kerosene bomb at the centre thus setting off a fire.

The other point of dispute is that Afridi had planned on planting the bomb at a restaurant on Church Street as he was aware of a visit by an Israel delegation. He wanted to time the bomb with their visit, the NIA had stated. However both the Israel mission in Bengaluru and the police have denied any such knowledge.

NIA officials however point out that the investigations are at a very preliminary stage.

We are probing into the matter. The CCTV footage which we had put out a couple of weeks back shows the alleged bomber. The profiling of Afridi and the man in the video match, the NIA also points out. We are trying to find his handler who had instructed him to carry out the blast and will seek help of the Bengaluru police too, NIA officials say.

OneIndia News