The probe into the Jaipur blasts is going to be a long haul. The only new clue that has emerged is from one of the three video clips in the e-mail sent apparently by the Indian Mujahideen: it appears to have been recorded in a house not far from rail-tracks since the sound of a train is audible.

Investigators believe that the clip was recorded nearly a month ago and the house could be the place where the bombs were assembled. As Jaipur has trains to Delhi, Ajmer and Kota, investigators are now focusing on houses along the 20-km railway track that runs across the Rajasthan capital.

After piecing the clues available so far and interviewing the lead investigators in the case, The Sunday Express found:

• Neither the Central nor State intelligence apparatus was able to pick up the presence of 18-20 persons, in all probability from western Uttar Pradesh and Bangladesh, in Jaipur, who might have had a connection with the blasts.

• Top intelligence sources are more or less certain that the decision to target Jaipur was taken more than a month ago in Pakistan with Bangladesh-based HUJI terror group used as the tool. The basic ingredients to build the improvised explosive device used in the attacks were all commercially procured near Jaipur — the ammonium nitrate slurry, APCL detonators, Samay alarm clock, wonder tape and wooden casing, all of which were then put in bags.

• None of the clues that investigators are examining now are unfamiliar since the bomb blast in October 2005 in Delhi. Also, like in Jaipur, bombs were defused after the blasts on the Samjhauta Express, and in Delhi, Malegoan, Sankat Mochan, outside a Lucknow court and Hyderabad.

... contd.