Reddy fears foreign hand in blast

STONE AGE: People throw bricks at police during a protest in a Hyderabad locality on Saturday.

J & K | Chhattisgarh | Delhi | MP |
Mizoram | Rajasthan

Featured Blog

Rajdeep Sardesai

26/11: Terror comes precariously close

Featured Slideshows

New Delhi/Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S R Reddy suspects a “foreign hand” for the blast at Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid mosque on Friday.

“As the things stand today, the finger of suspicion is towards a foreign hand,” said Reddy in Hyderabad. He announced that 11 people died in the blast and five were killed in police firing later.

Andhra Pradesh’s Director General of Police M A Basith, too, hinted at foreign involvement. "It could not be a job of local people because it was a very sophisticated bomb," said Basith.

Patil admits: govt was warned

Agencies report that the Andhra police suspect the involvement of Bangladesh-based terror group Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), but Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who visited the blast site along with Reddy, said people must not “jump to conclusions”.

Asked if he suspected the involvement of foreign terror groups in the blast, Patil said: "We should not jump to conclusions. Premature disclosure of information does not help in investigations. Supposing if our conclusions are wrong it does not help us in the longer run."

Patil, who also called on the injured at a hospital, admitted that information had been available to the centre and state governments about terrorists planning strikes.

"What was not available was the time and place they will strike. They choose a time and a place where they can easily carry out their plans," IANS quoted him as saying.

Asked whether the same forces were responsible for the blasts in Muslim-majority Malegaon town of Maharashtra last year and in Hyderabad, he evaded a direct reply. "The Malegaon blasts are being examined and this blast will also be investigated into."

Patil said the government was trying to evolve a method to provide better security to places of worship as terrorists were targeting them to create bad blood among different communities.

Police sources said that the intricate design of the improvised explosive device, sophisticated technology and the explosives used in the blast at the mosque point towards involvement of terrorist groups. A deadly mixture of RDX and TNT is believed to have been used in the blast, which was triggered with the help of a cellular phone.