Police turn to technology in hunt for bombers

Careful forensic work could shape speed and course of probe, they say
NEW DELHI: Police and intelligence services in both Uttar Pradesh and New Delhi are hoping that a careful forensic investigation of an e-mail sent to television stations could propel the probe into Friday’s terror bombings in Lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad.
Based on the timing of the e-mail, investigators believe it was most likely sent after the author received telephonic confirmation that the court complex bombings had begun. While the first bomb in Lucknow went off at 1.10 p.m., the e-mail was despatched at 1.18 p.m. News agencies and television stations began broadcasting news of the terror strikes just before 1.30 p.m.
Records of calls made from eastern Uttar Pradesh to cellphone towers serving the Laxmi Nagar area in Delhi are being analysed, but communications intelligence experts say such research in itself is unlikely to lead to the detection of the perpetrators. “The cellphone used would most likely have been purchased under a false name,” noted a Delhi police official connected with the investigation.
However, he said, an analysis of calls could help to determine the structure of the communication between terror cell members scattered across eastern Uttar Pradesh, and their handlers in Bangladesh or Pakistan. “While the e-mail claims the perpetrators have no connections outside India, such links have been exposed in the course of every past terror strike of consequence.”
Delhi police forensic experts have determined that the e-mail was sent from the Rajdhani cyber-cafe in the Laxmi Nagar neighbourhood by a man who arrived there at 1.15 p.m. Based on their study of the hard disk of the computer used to send the mail, the police believe that the text was most likely pasted from a file stored on a key drive, or the drafts folder of the account.
An employee and four local residents present at the cyber-cafe told the police that the dark-complexioned man, about 170 cm tall, spoke Hindi with a Delhi accent. He left within minutes, paying just Rs. 10 instead of the fee for a full hour’s Internet use, after complaining that the cyber-cafe’s Internet connection was not working properly.
Investigators have determined that the address used to send the e-mail, guru_alhindi@yahoo.fr, was created on November 22. An e-mail sent on Saturday to India Television, threatening further strikes and calling on the Pakistan cricket team to leave India, originated from a similar address, guru_boys2000@yahoo.com, which was created on Friday.
Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh police said they were focussing on structural similarities among three bombs that went off in Gorakhpur in May, injuring five persons. Meant to explode in sequence at an electricity transformer, a petrol bunk and a shopping mall, the bombs, however, failed to inflict the intended level of casualties because of technical malfunctions.
The investigators are also considering the possible role of the Mujahideen Islam ul-Hind, a SIMI splinter group that carried out several small terror strikes in the wake of the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya. In June, the police arrested MIH operatives Mohammad Salim and Mohammad Aslam, after a bomb intended for use aboard a Delhi-Sitapur bus detonated prematurely, killing the man carrying it.
MIH founder Mohammad Taufiq has long been wanted by the Uttar Pradesh police, but he is evading arrest.
Source: hindu.com