Times of India

JAIPUR/NEW DELHI, May 15: A little-known outfit, Indian Mujahideen , has claimed responsibility for carrying out the fatal blasts in Jaipur on Tuesday. And to buttress its claim, it sent video clips to the media of a cycle strapped with a bag that it claimed held the bomb.

As cops groped for clues to crack the serial blasts in Jaipur, the mysterious video of a brand new cycle added a new twist to the investigations.

While such claims in the aftermath of a major terror attack are not uncommon and have even been used by the real culprits to throw the investigators off the trail, what lends credence to the claim in this instance is that terrorist groups used an identical email ID to announce the blasts in Uttar Pradesh in November 2006.

The video was sent to the media in the capital by Indian Mujahideen late on Wednesday evening. It mentioned the number — 129489 — etched on the frame of the cycle shown in the clip. The Mujahideen claimed that the cycle was the one that was used for the explosion at Kotwali near Choti Chaupad.

In the case of the UP blasts, the email was sent from an internet cafe in New Delhi’s Shakarpur locality half an hour before the explosives went off in Varanasi, Faizabad and Lucknow.

The ID used this time is marginally different.

While the ID used for claiming the UP blasts was "guru_alhindi@yahoo.fr", this time the ID is "guru_alhindi_jaipur@yahoo.co.uk". Tuesday’s mail came with three attachments of videos showing the cycles strapped with bags that apparently had the bombs. 
 
The sensational development is sure to get the investigators focus more closely on the involvement of HuJI (Harkat-ul-Jehad-Al-Islami), a Deobandi outfit which has grown beyond its base in Bangaldesh to strike Indian cities at will. The UP blasts were engineered to punish lawyers who had thrashed the HuJI suspects arrested for earlier blasts in the state, and had vowed not to represent them during the trial.

The choice of the tag Indian Mujahideen also ties in with efforts to camouflage the foreign roots of jihadi terror and present it as a homegrown phenomenon.

Like in the earlier instance, Indian Mujahideen threatened an "open war against India" unless the country stopped supporting the US and UK on international issues.