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3 more sketches released

Photo: PTI

A LOOK AT TRAIL OF TERROR:Congress president Sonia Gandhi visits a blast site in Jaipur on Thursday. —

JAIPUR: Sketches of three more suspected terrorists involved in Tuesday’s bomb blasts here were released by the Rajasthan police on Thursday even as the investigating agencies doubted the genuineness of an e-mail sent to the media on Wednesday by an outfit claiming responsibility for the blasts.

The State government also constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the blasts and announced formation of a Special Task Force to combat terrorism.

“The video footage could be an attempt to mislead the investigations,” Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje told journalists. She said there were discrepancies in the way the bags containing the bombs were placed on the cycles used in the blasts and the one shown on the video attachment to the e-mail. The video showed the frame number (129489) of a cycle before it was set off near the Kotwali police station.

Ms. Raje said: “We are making further investigations into the matter. I fear I cannot divulge much at this juncture of the probe. In fact we are in the middle of a war. Today’s terrorists are not thieves or burglars. They are well connected and use most sophisticated communication systems.”

“The whole operation was carried out with considerable skill, indicating that we are fighting a very formidable enemy,” she said.

The new sketches profile those who purchased cycles from different shops in the Walled City. The faces were drawn on the basis of the details given by the shopkeepers.

“The persons whose sketches have been released belong to the age group of 18 to 25. They have different complexions,” Superintendent of Police (North) and member of the newly constituted SIT Raghavendra Suhasa told The Hindu.

The cycles were purchased from seven shops. Though the blasts here were similar to the ones that took place in Uttar Pradesh, it was too early to talk about the involvement of the HuJI (Harkat-ul-Jihadi-e-Islam) in the blasts, he said.

Vinay Kumar reports from New Delhi:

The Union Cabinet was briefed on the blasts by the National Security Adviser (NSA) M. K. Narayanan and Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar on Thursday.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram told reporters after the Cabinet meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, that the NSA and the Cabinet Secretary briefed about the investigations.

Asked if any breakthrough was achieved, he said: “I don’t think we have reached a stage where we can say we have achieved a breakthrough.”

The Cabinet was also informed about the security and intelligence agencies’ efforts to see a definite pattern in the blasts with those that rocked Hyderabad and Lucknow in the recent past.

Asked about the Rajasthan Chief Minister’s statement that her State would not allow communal harmony to be jeopardised, he said the Centre and the State government had equal responsibility in maintaining law and order.

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