The need of the hour is to find the financial channels of these local modules, as well as unearth the bombmakers who are equipped with cheap but effective IED technology. One need not identify that someone, as every Indian policeman and intelligence agent is well-versed with the name and have used it time to time. Besides the objective of targetting a secular India, the modules also are out to spread their version of radical Islam.

The arrested SIMI leaders told their interrogators that they believed in Ahl-e-Hadees version of Islam, opposed to Sufism or any other sect. For them the ultimate is the Book. Instead of capping the investigations in haste, the police and in this case the CBI should look into the spread of the radical Islam movement that is fed on the Gujarat riot fears and Babri Masjid demolition. Perhaps, the clues to the bombings of Barelwi mosque in Malegaon in September 2006, Ajmer Dargah and even Makkah Masjid are buried in this militant debris. For the police, the game has just begun.

shishir.gupta@expressindia.com