SUITCASE BOMB IN HELHI

SUITCASE BOMB IN HELHI

At least nine people were killed and 45 injured when a powerful bomb hidden in a suitcase exploded outside the Delhi High Court Wednesday, 7th September,2011, morning at its peak hour. This is the third major bombing in India since the 2008 Mumbai attack. Home Secretary R.K. Singh said the explosion took place around 10.30 a.m. outside Gate No 5 of the high court complex located close to India Gate in the centre of the capital.

The gate is usually crowded on weekdays with a long queue of visitors waiting to get inside. "There are nine dead. Forty-five are injured. This bomb was in a suitcase. We have remains of the suitcase," Singh told reporters."All the injured have been evacuated," the home secretary said. Eyewitnesses said the number of injured was closer to 50 or 60. According to an eyewitness, Bhagwan Das: "The explosion severed the limbs of several people."

The home secretary said investigating teams were already at the blast site. "We have the National Investigation Agency team right there. We have people from the forensic laboratories there, we have NSG (National Security Guard) team there to collect evidence." Special Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Dharmendra Kumar told reporters that police had cordoned off the area and were requesting people not to converge at the site. Wednesday's blast comes after the July 13 triple bombings in Mumbai that killed over 25 people. Before that, in February 2010, an explosion inside a popular eatery in Pune claimed 17 lives, four of them foreigners. The terror attack Wednesday is also the second time in four months that the Delhi High Court has been targeted. On May 25, a low intensity explosion took place without causing any damage. The explosives were hidden in a plastic bag near a car in a service lane outside the court.

Investigators probing the Delhi High Court blast have zeroed in on a Patna-based man and have launched a hunt to nab the owner of a car which is suspected to have ferried the perpetrators.

'The car's owner has cheated a few people and they have told the investigators that the face of the car owner resembles the sketch of a suspect released last evening,' official sources said today.The car has been traced to Faridabad neighbouring Delhi and efforts were on to trace the owner of the vehicle, theysaid.'Another man from Patna who was arrested on charges of using a stolen ATM card is being interrogated by the joint team led by NIA,' they said.Twelve people have died and 75 injured in the powerful blast that took place outside gate number 5 of the court yesterday. Meanwhile, Delhi Police and National Investigation Agency (NIA) teams met Delhi High Court Chief Justice Dipak Misra and discussed with him measures to beef up security in and around court premises and installation of CCTV cameras, metal-detectors and other security gadgets.
The sources said the government has also decided to hand over to NIA the case relating to the May 25 low-intensity blast outside the Delhi High Court.

                                                               Prof. John Kurakar