2011 Delhi bombing


The 2011 Delhi bombing took place in the Indian capital Delhi on Wednesday, 7 September 2011 at 10:14 local time outside Gate No. 5 of the Delhi High Court, where a suspected briefcase bomb was planted. The blast killed 15 people and injured 79.

Background

Previously, a low-intensity blast also occurred at the High Court outside Gate No. 7 on 25 May with no reported casualties.
The attack took place while Indian Prime Minister M.Singh was on a historic two-day official state visit to Bangladesh, to discuss Bangladesh–India relations. The attack also happened less than two months after bombings in Mumbai on 13 July which killed 26 people.

Attack

The blast took place at 10:14 IST on 7 September 2011. Explosives were placed in a briefcase at the high court reception where hundreds of people throng every day to attend court cases, home secretary R.K. Singh said to reporters. According to the special secretary in the Home Ministry, two kilos of explosives were used, with ammonium nitrate and PETN to cause considerable damage even though used in a small amount.

Responsibility

According to reports immediately following the blasts, responsibility for the bombings was claimed by the Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami group. In an email attributed to HuJI, the group is alleged to have demanded that Mohammed Afzal Guru, convicted for the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, should not be hanged as ordered by the Supreme Court. However, Afzal Guru strongly denied any such link to the attack, and said that his name was being "unnecessarily" dragged into the "cowardly act" which "must be condemned by all".
A day after this email, another email was sent by the Indian Mujahideen to television media, allegedly claiming that the attack was carried out by IM and not HuJI and also threatened it would carry out more attacks on shopping complexes on the coming Tuesday.
On 10 September, the Indian Union Home Secretary stated that it was not necessary that the emails claiming responsibility for the Delhi High Court blast were sent by the actual perpetrators and added that it could have been other people who, when they heard about the blast, sent the emails.

Investigations

A sketch of two suspected persons was released by the Delhi Police Department on the day of the bombing. According to police sources, the sketches were based on the description given by an eyewitness. The sketch showed one person in his 50s, and another in his mid-20s.
The National Investigation Agency took over the investigations, and set up a 20-member team to examine the email. The Central Forensic Science Laboratory is examining the composition of the explosives and it is expected to release the results in the next few days, on which NIA will act accordingly. The email sent by HuJI with the email address harkatuljihadi2011@gmail.com was traced to have been sent from a cyber cafe named Global Internet Cafe located at Malik Market in Kishtwar, Jammu and Kashmir. The NIA team in Jammu and Kashmir detained three suspects including the cyber cafe owner and his brother for questioning. However, the Director-General of the NIA, said that it was too premature to comment on the HuJI mail but were looking at it seriously because HuJI was a very prominent group which considered India its primary target. A NIA team arrested a man from Patna due to his alleged involvement in misusing a stolen ATM card and was cross-examined by the NIA team. Another email sent in the name of Indian Mujahideen was traced to a Monu Ojha, a 22-year-old school dropout in Ahmedabad, who confessed to deliberately creating a hoax email.
A separate investigation was set up by the Delhi Police Department after the Intelligence Bureau said that only one input was received, which specifically cited Muslim extremists who are supporters of the Khalistan movement and may conduct illegal activities in the city.
On 7 October, the National Investigation Agency arrested a medical student from Kishtwar, Jammu and Kashmir named Wasim Akram Malik, who they claimed was a key conspirator of the blast. Kashmiri Wasim Akram Malik, a student of Unani medicine in Bangladesh, was arrested from the Indo-Bangladesh border, on basis of leads derived from other detained suspects. The NIA team had zoomed in on Kishtwar after receiving emails from a cyber cafe in the area. The NIA claimed that the arrested have strong links to the terrorist group Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami.
Public Relation Officer Defence, Col R K Palta claimed killing of two terrorists on 6 August 2012 in the Trothil forest area of the Kishtwar district. These have been identified as Amir Ali and Mohmmad Shafi alias Sakib. Deputy Inspector General, Kishtwar-Doda-Ramban range claimed that Amir Ali is the prime accused in the Delhi High Court blast.

Court trial

In March 2012, the NIA filed a charge sheet against six accused, including a minor. The accused named in the charge sheet are: Wasim Akram Malik, Malik's brother Junaid Akram Malik, Amir Abbas Dev, Shakir Hussain Seikh alias Chota Hafiz and Amir Kamal. Out of them, Amir Dev turned approver and was granted pardon by court. Junaid, Shakir, Amir are still absconding.
On 4 September 2012, a special NIA court in New Delhi found sufficient prima facie evidence against Malik under Indian Penal Code provisions dealing with criminal conspiracy, murder and attempt to murder and various terror charges. However, the court dropped the charges dealing with waging war against the nation and conspiracy and collecting arms to wage a war against the nation. The court fixed 1 October for framing of charges.

Reactions

Domestic

President Pratibha Patil condemned the blast and condoled the loss of lives in the incident. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while on a two-day stay in Dhaka, remarked: "I just heard the sad news from Delhi about the bomb blast. I am told that 10 people have been killed. This is cowardly act of terrorist nature. We will deal with it. We will never succumb to the pressure of terrorism." Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram said the blast was likely a job of local militants and remarked that "India was concerned about how to prevent the radicalisation of its youth."
Indian Muslim religious leaders termed the blast as an act against humanity and suspected that it could be a deep conspiracy to destabilize the secular system of India. They appealed to the members of Muslim community to oppose such acts with loud voice and extend all possible support to the government in tackling the crisis.
As attack coincided with Manmohan Singh's visit to Bangladesh, and also because of the 13 July 2011 Mumbai bombings coincided with meetings between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan, some analysts suggested the attack was an attempt to divert attention from the agreements reached between Bangladesh and India.

International