Drishtikone
This is crazy!! These guys just seemed so hard headed that emotions have no use whatsoever!
A Paharganj paanwallah who saw and overheard a bomber, a bus passenger who interacted with the second terrorist and a list of around two crore mobile telephone calls. Forty-eight hours later, this is what the Special Cell of Delhi Police and intelligence agencies are banking on to nab the perpetrators of the worst terrorist attack in the Capital. Portraits of two bombers would be out any time now.
‘‘Aage kafi rush hai, mein utar jata hun…tum rickshaw ko us chat wale ke paas lekar pahuncho (It’s very crowded ahead, I’ll just get off and walk, you take the rickshaw till that chat stall,’’ is what a paanwallah—who is with Delhi Police since then—heard the terrorist tell 35-year-old Sadanand Paswan, the rickshaw-puller. He then got off, leaving his bag behind. Barely 10 metres from the paan stall and five minutes later, the bomb went off in the rickshaw killing Paswan and 15 others. Based on the paanwallah’s description, Delhi police would soon put out their first portrait of the bomber, highly-placed sources say.
‘‘Paswan’s cousin told us that his rickshaw number was 17 and he always ferried passengers from New Delhi railway station to Paharganj and back for Rs 10 one-way. This implies the terrorist could have come from the station— or also escaped quickly after boarding a train soon after the blast. The station is just 400 metres from the blast spot,’’ a senior investigating official told The Indian Express. Investigators are now studying reservation charts of all trains coming in and leaving the railway station around the time of the blast.
The second major lead the investigators got was from an eyewitness who had talked to the second bomber wearing a red T-shirt on the DTC bus in Govindpuri. The passenger, in fact, had a brief altercation with the bomber who boarded the bus at Kalkaji Mandir stop. Police say he first stood two seats behind the driver as there was no place to sit but then he managed a seat in front of this particular passenger. The black bag, placed by the terrorist, under the seat was hitting the passenger’s feet and he had asked him to remove it. The terrorist, however, got up and just got off the bus prompting the passenger to raise an alarm.
‘‘This passenger also got off the bus and disappeared after the conductor asked all passengers to alight. The identity of the person will be kept a secret. They targeted chat shops at both Paharganj and Sarojini markets as they are generally crowded with women and children. The target was maximum damage,’’ Joint Commissioner (Spl Cell) Karnal Singh told The Indian Express today. The third bomber seems to have died in the Sarojini Nagar blast, sources say.
The police are finding out whether the bombers interacted with each other on the mobile phone before or after the blasts. Here, however, the police face the enormous task of scanning over two crore mobile calls generated from 18 mobile towers that fall in the areas of the three targeted spots. ‘‘We are trying to find some connection between these calls. The spectrum is being narrowed to calls from 4 pm to 7 pm made between Sarojini Nagar, Paharganj and Govindpuri. But it seems the bombers avoided using mobile phones during this time,’’ a senior investigating official said.
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