Probe intensifies but no headway in Monday bombing

Investigators were Thursday yet to find any clue to the latest terror attack in Delhi, three days after a yet unidentified biker bombed an Israeli embassy car, injuring four people, sources said.

Officials said the investigation into the Monday bombing had gained pace but there was no breakthrough as Delhi Police, joined by an Israeli team of experts, were still piecing together the information they had gathered so far.

The attack on the embassy vehicle Monday wounded the wife of an Israeli diplomat and three others after a motorcyclist stuck a magnetic bomb to the car setting it ablaze in a high security zone in Delhi, metres away from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s residence.

The sources said the scanning of footage from 15 CCTV cameras was not yet over but there were very less hopes that the video clippings will give them any clue about the biker.

“We are still on it but it appears that the cameras were focussed not on the street on Aurangzeb Road (where the incident occurred),” an official told IANS.

An official of Delhi Police’s anti-terror wing said they and the Israeli team were examining the modus operandi of the bombing in a bid to trace if there was any connection with the botched attack in Georgia on Monday and three blasts in Thailand a day later.

The bombings in the Georgian capital Tbilisi and Bangkok were said to be targetted at Israeli people. Tel Aviv has blamed Iran for the attacks but officials in Delhi said there was no evidence to prove the allegations.

The officials said investigators were yet to receive a forensic lab report of the Delhi blast to examine if the explosive in the sticky bomb was the same as the one used in the Georgian and Thailand attacks.

The sources also said that experts were examining the records of phone calls made from Delhi to Lebanon, Iran, Israel and Pakistan in the last 15 days prior to the bombing.

Investigators also conducted night-time checks at various hotels and guest houses in the capital to see if any tourist from West Asia was staying or had had stayed there in the last few days.

But so far they had found nothing suspicious, the sources said.

An abandoned red bike, similar to the one used by the bomber, was recovered Wednesday. But police were still inquiring if it was the same motorcycle that was used in planting the magnetic bomb.

“We are yet to confirm whether the bike was used in the blast,” a source said.