MALEGAON/NEW DELHI, 10 September 2006 — Muslims in India attended peace and prayer rallies nationwide yesterday to denounce serial bomb blasts in Muslim-majority Malegaon town that killed 31 people and injured hundreds.
Meanwhile, the police started probing the incident with needle of suspicion pointing at Hindu militant group Bajrang Dal. However, the involvement of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohmmad militant outfits has not been completely ruled out.
The Bajrang Dal is known to have followed a similar pattern in blasts at Parbhani’s Mohammadi Masjid and mosques at Pona and Jalna earlier this year.
“We are probing this angle, though it is too early to hold any group responsible,” Director general of Police P.S. Pasricha said.
Another theory doing the rounds is that a Jaish-e-Mohammad could have engineered the blasts to create communal trouble. Anti-Terrorism Squad Joint Commissioner of Police K.P. Raghuvanshi, too, said: “It is too premature to say anything, but we are also probing the earlier Nanded and Parbhani blasts.”
The ATS arrested 16 Bajrang Dal activists for the earlier blasts, but there were allegations about cops going slow on the probes.
Four persons, reported to be Bajrang Dal activists, died while making bombs in Nanded earlier this year. Those arrested later told interrogators they wanted to avenge several blasts across the country.
Muslim leaders, however, said the three bombs outside a mosque and graveyard were aimed at stoking religious violence in the town, which has a history of sectarian clashes and is located in Maharashtra.
“The killing of innocent people who were offering prayers is an un-Islamic act,” said Maulana Khalid Rashid, a member of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board.
“It is an attempt to divide Hindus and Muslims and we should stand united,” he said.
Around 150 Muslims held a protest demonstration in western Ahmedabad city to condemn the blasts. Many at the demonstration accused Pakistan, which India has blamed for previous attacks on Indian targets.
Such charges have been consistently denied by Pakistan.
“We Muslims can see a larger picture behind the blasts that happened in Malegaon yesterday. We strongly believe it to be a handiwork of Pakistan’s intelligence service,” protester Rauf Bengali told the Press Trust of India. Police in Maharashtra state have launched an investigation into who perpetrated the blasts.
In Lucknow, the All-India Muslim Forum organized a joint prayer meeting yesterday of Hindus and Muslims in a show of unity, said forum Convener Nihaluddin Ahmed.
In the holy northern city of Varanasi, where triple bombings at a temple killed 23 people in March, more than 1,000 Hindus and Muslims gathered in the heart of the city to offer prayers.
“This attack has shown that these terrorists have no religion,” an unidentified man told the NDTV news network in Indore city, where hundreds of people lit candles in memory of blast victims.
The national government had ordered state administrations to impose tight security to prevent any revenge attacks over the blasts, which occurred as hundreds of Muslims left the Nurani Mosque following Friday prayers.
Immediately after the blasts, some Muslim leaders went around Malegaon in police jeeps asking people through loud speakers to maintain peace.
“I appeal to people not to believe any rumors. The situation is under control. Please do not touch any unattended objects,” religious leader Mufti Mohammed Ismail pleaded.
The Malegaon blasts came nearly two months after seven bombs, believed to have targeted Hindus, ripped through train carriages in western Bombay city killing 186 in an attack blamed on militants.
The blast-hit Malegaon buried its dead throughout the night and troops patrolled the streets yesterday to prevent communal riots, a day after the blasts.
Police said Malegaon, a town with a history of Hindu-Muslim strife, was calm and fast returning to normal. Many shops in the town were open and the narrow streets were filled with buses, cars and motorcycles.
Sonia Gandhi, the head of the ruling Congress party, urged all Indians to remain calm yesterday. She described the bomb blasts as a “terrorist” act.
“We all have to do our bit to contain communal violence because these terrorist acts were aimed at creating a divide in the society,” Sonia said after visiting the wounded and touring the blast site in the city.
“I came here to see the damage caused and above all to meet the people and give my condolences to them. The most important thing at this juncture is to maintain communal harmony,” she told reporters.
Tensions remained high yesterday as thousands of police and paramilitary soldiers remained on alert while relatives began burial of the dead. But the curfew on Malegaon was lifted, allowing dawn prayers at mosques across the city.
“We are keeping a watch in many places in Malegaon but curfew has been relaxed since the situation is peaceful,” said area Superintendent of Police Rajvardhan. “Heavy security will continue.”
Later yesterday, relatives of some of the victims gave vent to their anger and refused to accept government compensation offered by Home Minister Shivraj Patil and state Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.
“We don’t want money. We want justice,” Shafique Ahmed, who lost a son, shouted at the two leaders.
