Zeenews Bureau
Pune: A day after a blast ripped through the popular German Bakery in Pune killing nine people, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Sunday said that there was no intelligence failure. He further underlined the need to monitor many soft targets.
The deafening blast also injured nearly 57 people, some of them critically.
Speaking at a press conference in Pune, the Home Minister said that the terrorists have hit a "soft target" like the German Bakery which is frequented by foreigners and Indians alike.
He maintained that the "hard targets" like the Osho Ashram and the Jewish Chabad House located near the bakery had been surveyed by US Lashkar-e-Toiba suspect David Headley during his visit to India and the area (Koregaon Park) was “on the radar for some time”.
"But apart from hard targets, there are soft targets... All these (the German Bakery where the blast took place yesterday and an Italian restaurant nearby) are soft targets where foreigners and Indians congregate especially during the peak hours," he told reporters here after visiting the Sassoon Hospital to meet the injured in the terror attack. He was accompanied by Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, Home Minister RR Patil and Pune Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh.
Unless these soft targets also adopt strict security measures, it would be difficult to detect things, he said.
He said whether the German Bakery had put in place any such measures would be probed.
Bomb in backpack?
It appears that a "person or more persons pretending as customers seem to have come to the German Bakery and one of them might have left a backpack under a table", the Home Minister said.
"The bomb was apparently planted in a backpack and left there. The person apparently came there as a customer, unlike the usual gun-wielding terror attacks," he said.
"Best police officers have been put on the job and the Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) has taken over the case," Chidambaram said.
‘Koregaon on terror radar’
The Home Minister, meanwhile, said that the police had been sensitised about Osho Ashram and Chabad House which are located in the area.
"So, this area is on the radar of terrorists. There is no intelligence failure, but please remember this is not an overt attack by gunmen. This is an insidious bomb that had been planted in what appears to be a backpack."
He said the Pune Police had in the past "sensitised all the establishments in the area, especially in North Main Road... that they should take measures in order to keep away or at least identify potential trouble-makers.”
"In some bigger establishments some mock-drills were conducted. But it is not that they were sensitised every day. They were sensitised as this is the area which is on the radar of terrorists, being the location of Chabad House in the general neighbourhood... this area was vulnerable," he said.
Nature of explosives
Asked if anyone has been detained in connection with the blast, he replied, "We will not give you hourly reports on detention or interrogation that is very wrong. The police should not do that and they have been advised not to do that."
He said the media will be given information periodically whenever necessary and asked it not to "speculate".
Chidamabaram said the forensic scientists, including those from Delhi, have gathered samples and "we would shortly have a report on what kind of explosives were used”.
"Let the analysis report come, then we will be able to identify what explosives were used and what trigger was used and then we can draw some conclusions."
Is IM involved?
Asked whether any particular terrorist outfit was involved, including the Indian Mujahideen, Chidambaram said "We are not ruling out anything and ruling in anything."
On links between Headley`s recce and yesterday`s blast, he said it will be "premature" to draw any conclusion.
"David Headley had surveyed the Chabad House, that is a fact. At the moment, it is a stand-alone fact. Whether this particular incident is related to that, it is premature to answer that. We have to wait for the investigation to find out who perhaps is behind this incident."
He, however, added that the Indian government is still putting pressure on the US authorities to give New Delhi access to Headley.
Blast to mar Indo-Pak ties?
To a question whether the blast would affect the proposed Foreign Secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan, the minister said, "I have not come here to answer questions on the diplomatic or external affairs side. Those are matters we will consider in Delhi...that we will discuss when I get back to Delhi."
Asked if the state government did not take intelligence inputs seriously, he said, "No, it is not correct. The state government had taken the advice seriously and the police put in place security measures in the hard targets... what has happened is an insidious planting of the bomb."
The minister further announced Rs 5 lakh each as compensation for the families of the dead in the blast in Pune bakery.
‘No foreigners killed’
Union Home Secretary GK Pillai has, meanwhile, announced that there is not any information about any foreigner killed in the Pune blast. Of the nine bodies found so far, three have been identified and are of Indians. Identification process of the rest of the five bodies is still on, he said.
However, some foreigners have been injured in the blast. Giving details, Pillai said that of the injured, four are Iranians, two are Nepalese, one is a German and one is a Sudanese.
Chavan announces higher compensation
Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan on Sunday announced a hike in the compensation amount for the kin of those dead in the Pune terror attack.
"The next of kin of the dead would be entitled to Rs 500,000 and the treatment expenses of all the injured will be borne by the government," Chavan said.
Chavan had on Saturday night announced a compensation of Rs 100,000 for the kin of the dead and Rs 50,000 for those injured.
Meanwhile, security has been tightened in Mumbai and other parts of the state in the wake of the Pune terror attack.
It was the worst terror attack in India after November 2008 when a group of Pakistani terrorists went on a killing spree in Mumbai leaving 166 Indians and foreigners dead.
(With Agencies’ inputs)
