• Another corroborative evidence of an Indore link comes from a tailor who stitches suitcase-covers and initials them with “600” on 24-inch suitcases — the same initials found in the blast debris. Sources said this tailor, who is four shops away from the suitcase dealer, has admitted to police that he made the suitcase covers and confirmed his handwriting.

The presence of this Indore link is leading investigators to track the local network of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). SIMI, whose general secretary, Safdar Naguari, hails from nearby Ujjain, has also been charged with Mumbai train blasts last July and the attack on the Barelvi sect mosque in Malegaon last September.

The banned outfit has proven links with HUJI of Bangladesh that is said to have provided bombers for the Varanasi Sankatmochan temple blasts last year and its cadres like Ehtehsham Siddiqui (picked up for Mumbai blasts) have been trained by Pakistan based Lashkar-e-Toiba.

While SIMI and its Muslim brotherhood have come under the scanner of the security agencies for a series of terrorist acts since the unsolved Delhi Diwali blasts, none of the bombers have been arrested. The fact is that 22 of the Pakistanis on board on the ill-fated Samjhauta Express were given permission to travel to Madhya Pradesh, in and around Indore.

Now the police have got names of all those who had permits for Madhya Pradesh and are looking into who all they were in contact with during their stay in India.

... contd.