•Haji Syed Gulam Kibria, president of the Khadim organisation, has a different take: “CCTV cameras were removed but I won’t be able to say for sure how many. I was told they were faulty and needed repairs.”

When asked to comment on reports that a mob ransacked the CCTV control room, Mahajan said: “The police recovered some tapes and are now trying to figure out if the control room was damaged deliberately.”

But ADGP Jain says: “No recording was being done, so there is no question of tapes. There is nothing to suggest that the room was attacked deliberately and with the intention of destroying some vital evidence...The blast was an act of terror and people from outside are involved.”

Jain has a reason to say this. For, Zenaul Abedin, the Dargah Diwan — a self-appointed title (effectively an event manager) that dates back almost a hundred years but has no official administrative legitimacy — has accused the Khadims, the traditional volunteers who number about 5000 families, of being behind the bomb blast.

“The Khadims are responsible and they were targeting me. The bomb was planted at the spot where I hold my weekly gatherings on Thursday evenings and they meant to kill me,” he claims.

Outrageous, say Khadims, accusing him of being responsible — if not in action, at least in thought. “He was the one who had said at one time that he would blow up the dargah. That might have been years ago but it’s a thought that came to his mind not ours,” says Kibria, president of the local Khadim organisation.

... contd.