PUNE, 14 August 2007 — The Aurangabad police in Maharashtra foiled an attempt by militants to trigger explosions in various places in the state when they seized 40 kilos of deadly ammonia nitrate powder from two bags left by a passenger who alighted yesterday morning from the Secunderabad-Mumbai Devgiri Express at Aurangabad station.
According to reliable police sources reached by Arab News, the passenger was intercepted by the octroi officials outside the Aurangabad railway station with two bags, suspecting that the passenger was carrying dutiable goods and evading local tax. When questioned about the contents of the two bags, the passenger said that it contained old clothes.
The officials then took the passenger to the nearby tax office for examining the contents of the bags.
While the officials were busy opening the bags, the passenger quietly escaped. On searching the bags, the officials were surprised to find deadly ammonia nitrate powder, enough to trigger several powerful blasts and kill hundreds of people.
Though police officials were tight-lipped over the foiled attempt of militants to create disturbance through blasts, the gravity of the recovery of such a huge amount of explosive powder ahead of the 61st Independence Day tomorrow, has rung alarm bells in the ranks of high police officials. The Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) was summoned to carry out further investigations, and it is suspected that militants from Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) might have been involved in the smuggling of the explosives to Aurangabad through Hyderabad.
They planned to execute the blasts in Aurangabad, Pune, Mumbai and Nashik. Based on the description provided by the octroi officials, the police have drawn sketches of the passenger and are combing suspected places.
Police sources also confirmed that intelligence agencies were monitoring phone and cell calls originating from Pakistan and Gulf countries, and that all suspected calls were being recorded.
In another development, making an about turn, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday toeing the Shiv Sena line, warned the Congress-led Democratic Front government in Maharashtra of launching an agitation if it reopened the cases of the communal riots of 1992-93 on the basis of the Srikrishna Commission report.
State BJP President Nitin Gadkari warned that if the government dares to implement the panel report to appease the minorities and harass innocent people, then the BJP would not remain a silent spectator and would take to the streets.
Terming the panel report as politically biased against the Hindus, Gadkari said that it’s unfortunate that the Congress party was politicizing such a sensitive issue for its benefit.
Meanwhile, it does not appear that Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh would be in a position to initiate any action before October-end on the Srikrishna Commission report, though he had admitted his displeasure at the action taken on the panel report earlier by the then Sena-BJP alliance government.
According to sources, Deshmukh’s game plan is to be seen as doing something about implementing the Srikrishna report, but the state government says action cannot be taken till the Supreme Court issues its own directions in the petitions filed before it.
However, concrete steps can only be taken after October-end, when the Supreme Court will issue directives. In effect, the state will not reopen any old case or file new appeals in cases where the accused have been acquitted for another two months at least, sources close to Deshmukh said.
