Unknown to its residents and the foreigners thronging the tourist sites, Jaipur was in the crosshairs of terrorists for some months. They struck on May 13, leaving 63 dead and 130 injured. The Sunday Express retraces the insidious trail.

THE PLOT
Police sources say the terrorists had hatched a plan to target Jaipur at least three to four months earlier. An advanced recce party is said to have visited the city, staying for a few days to shortlist the sites to be targeted.
Sources say that just two or three days before the actual strike, there was a dry run. “The terrorists seemed to have determined the time required to set up bombs, plant the bicycles and vanish from the spot,” they add.
The police believe a group of 18-20 people would have implemented the attacks and that local support was essential to make them possible.
The bombs, placed in bags and strapped to the cycles, were left at the sites earmarked by the terrorists 30 to 45 minutes before the timers were set to go off. According to the police, while a person parked the bicycles in front of temples and shops, another kept a watch from a distance. All the suspects are believed to have left the spot within minutes of placing these bicycles at the designated spots. The blasts took place between 7.30 p.m. and 7.50 p.m. In all there were nine blasts at eight locations in an area spread over less than 2 km.

THE BOMB
According to security experts who analysed a defused bomb recovered from Chandpole, it was a meticulously designed IED, fabricated for maximum impact. Preliminary forensic investigations have revealed that the explosive device contained a mixture of RDX, ammonium nitrate, metal pieces and ball bearings. Experts have concluded that each bomb had an average of 7.5 kg of explosive and shrapnel packed into it. The inner layer of the device was the explosive material, which was tightly bound in cloth and crepe bandage. Each layer was filled with metal pieces and ball bearings to maim and injure as many people as possible. A watch was used as a timer device to set off the explosions. The clock used as timer was cushioned with a pair of underwears. The bomb that was defused by the police was found in a khaki-coloured haversack.
The bombs proved lethal because they were directional chargers. This means that the explosive power was channeled into one direction to cause maximum damage there. Similar bombs were also used by extremists in last year’s Hyderabad blast at Gokul Chat Bhandar, an attack that the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HuJI) has been accused of engineering.

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