A team of technical experts from the National Security Guard’s Bomb Data Centre, after a visit to Hyderabad on May 20, cited the close resemblance between the Malegaon and Mecca Masjid attacks especially in the shrapnel. “The metal pieces used as shrapnel are exactly the same. These seem to be from a common source. It is very much like Malegaon. The black metal boxes used to pack the bomb are also similar,” said a member of the NSG team.

Experts at the Andhra Pradesh Forensic Science Lab have now seconded the opinion in a recent report given to the CBI on the exploded and unexploded bombs in Hyderabad.

“They sent us a sample of the explosives from Malegaon. We gave a report that it contains RDX. The explosive mix used here was RDX and TNT,” director of the APFSL O Narasimhamurthy said.

Investigators are fairly sure, given the discovery of a local dialect newspaper dated May 4, 2007, in the packing of the unexploded bomb that the bombs were locally assembled in the two weeks preceding the attack.

The chargesheet in the Malegaon blasts case, where 40 people were killed and 312 injured, incidentally states that nine SIMI activists executed the attack with the help of two Pakistanis to “infuriate the entire Muslim community and trigger communal riots”.

The unexploded bomb as clue

In terms of lines of investigation, the finely grooved iron pipes used in the unexploded bomb in Hyderabad, described as being rare by NSG officials, has become an important piece of evidence for investigation in the Mecca Masjid probe, with CBI investigators scouring foundries for a possible link to the makers of the metal pipes.

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