If the Hyderabad blasts have brought Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami (HUJI) under the scanner, nothing highlights the failure of the government to tackle this group than the stalled investigation into the March 7, 2006 serial blasts in Varanasi that killed 16 people — at the Sankatmochan temple and the railway station — and in which HUJI is the prime suspect.

Consider these:

• The Varanasi attack is perhaps the only one in the past three years where the alleged bombers were identified. New Delhi even sent the names of Bangladeshis Mustafeez, Jakaria and Bashiruddin — with their native towns and mobile phone numbers — to Dhaka during the Home Secretary-level talks last year but to no avail. The bombers had earlier studied in Deoband.

• As per records, the police arrested Waliullah, a cleric from Phoolpur in Allahabad district, on April 5, 2006, for allegedly harbouring the three “bombers,” a charge his family denies. But Waliullah’s interrogation report mentions Bangladesh-based HUJI operation commander Assadullah Munir-ul-Islam, who is also one of the mentors of Hyderabad twin blast accused Shahid Bilal.

• The Varanasi devices were placed in pressure cookers — the same technique and device used in 2005 Delhi serial blasts and in Mumbai train serial blasts later in 2006. But no one knows how to join these dots.

• Waliullah. who is in a Ghaziabad jail, mentions the name of a sitting UP MP for his “political patronage.” But the MP is absconding.

It’s the modus operandi of HUJI operatives in Varanasi that came as an eye-opener for security agencies. Waliullah, in his interrogation report, claims that Mustafeez, Jakaria and Bashiruddin crossed over from Bangladesh to India on March 5 and reached his madrassa with explosives.

... contd.