This evening’s serial blasts in Jaipur shook North Block as there was no previous alert by security agencies on a terrorist attack in Rajasthan. The closest was an alert regarding most popular tourist destinations. Although there was an “activation of terrorist sleeper cells” detected more than a month ago in the state, today’s strikes took both the State and Central government by surprise. A total of seven explosions took place in six places with an unexploded eighth device being recovered by the local police. Six of the blasts were set off on parked new bicycles, one underneath a car.

Given the fact that the terrorists aimed for religious places in the city, the state government till late night was contemplating a series of security measures, including a morning curfew to prevent any untoward incident or communal conflagration in the charged atmosphere.

Similar devices planted on new bicycles were used in Malegaon and the UP court serial blasts. The nature of the explosives — derivatives of ammonium nitrate mixed with RDX — and the type of timers with ballbearings or shrapnel match those found in a series of attacks: from the Delhi Id-Diwali blasts to the Sankat Mochan temple blasts in Varanasi, the Hyderabad serial blasts and the Gorakhpur explosions as well.

Although security agencies are ruling out the similarity with Ajmer Sharif blasts, Jaipur is an area of Lashkar operation that goes back to the now defunct Harkat-ul-Ansar planting a bomb nearly a decade ago. This border state has been of special interest to LeT’s Azam Cheema, who stands accused in Mumbai serial blasts, and has been responsible for training HUJI bombers in the past. “At present, the group behind the Jaipur blasts is only a learned conjecture,” said a senior Home Ministry official.

However, what can be said with certainty is that internal security agencies have picked up no cross-border communication or intercept in Kashmir and the linkage to the terrorists operating in the Valley is being ruled out at present.

The Jaipur blasts come after the terrorist attack near the international border at Samba two days ago and a week before External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon are to travel to Islamabad for their first bilateral interaction with the new government in Pakistan which will signal the start of the next round of the composite dialogue. The Foreign Secretary-level talks were called off due to the Mumbai blasts. This resulted in diplomatic bitterness that was finally resolved through the Havana joint statement that set up the joint anti-terror mechanism.