AHMEDABAD/SURAT: On the morning after the Ahmedabad serial blasts, The Times of India ran the headline — Bangalore, Ahmedabad. Who's Next? The answer is here. With two explosives-packed cars and 18 bombs being discovered across Surat, it's clear that terrorists had planned a deadly serial attack on the diamond capital of India.
Gujarat's second largest city would have been sucked into another round of tragedy had the terrorists succeeded in blowing up what appears to be at least three dozen bombs — between the incendiary material found in WagonRs on Sunday and the assembled bombs discovered in the densely populated city on Tuesday. Surat is home to a Rs 70,000 crore diamond industry.
Late on Tuesday, media organizations in Gujarat received two emails threatening more terror attacks. "Indian Mujahideen will not stop even if our mission in Surat failed," said one email sent from alarbigujarat@sify.com. It was not clear if the emails came from a terrorist outfit or were just pranks. Police hope to get leads by Wednesday.
The discoveries in Surat brought relief but raised deadlier questions. How come a huge operation involving three of the country's largest cities escaped the intelligence radar? Did a police crackdown in Surat following the Ahmedabad blasts trigger sufficient panic among the merchants of death to abandon their deadly cargo? And abandon it carelessly enough — one of them on a tree top!
The discovery was also often quite by chance. Sanjay Kaporia , a lace-cloth supplier from Varachha, for instance, saw something odd in the dustbin outside his shop. Unmindful of the risk, he walked with the live bomb for 22 metres to Labeshwar police chowki. "I thought it is best to bring it here," he said. Bhimji Budhna, BJP councillor from Varachha, also detected one. "I was passing by Mini Market when I saw a green plastic bag stuck between signboards of two shops. It looked like a bomb, like the ones I've seen on TV. So I called the police."
Surat top cop wants more bomb disposal personnel
Surat police commissioner, R M S Brar, claimed that the bombs found in Surat were abandoned on Monday night. He has asked for more bomb disposal personnel. Surat's escape from terror was providential.
It was clearly in the jihadi crosshairs, even though Surat remained an island of peace while the rest of Gujarat burned during riots in 2002. There were no answers from security agencies, completely confounded by the rapid unfolding of what now has emerged as the biggest serial terror plot in independent India. Brar said he didn't know what's going on.
"But we'll get to the bottom of this," he promised. Brar said that after the Ahmedabad blasts, his officers had gone on a public awareness spree, asking them to maintain vigil and report anything unusual to the cops. Policemen also set up checkpoints and roadblocks around the city.
The first inkling of the impending attacks came on Sunday when the two cars were found with ammonium nitrate, shrapnel, detonators and binding agents for bombs. By Tuesday morning, the evidence was overwhelming. Citizens found 18 more bombs strewn around the buzzing diamond-studded Varachha area, densely populated marketplaces, road dividers, a tree and a hoarding on a flyover.
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