India Timeline - Year 2008

January 1: Seven Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel and a civilian were killed in a pre-dawn terrorist attack on the para-military CRPF Group Centre at Rampur in Uttar Pradesh. Three more CRPF personnel, a civil police personnel and a home guard were injured in the attack. The Uttar Pradesh Principal Secretary J.N. Chamber said that the attack was carried out around 2.45 am (IST) by two suspected fidayeen (suicide squad) dressed as CRPF constables. They breached the outer security (which is the responsibility of the police), and started firing indiscriminately from AK-47 rifles on the security post, the guard room and the control room. The terrorists subsequently escaped under cover of darkness.

January 7: Police claimed to have arrested a militant of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) group from Kumili in the Idukki district of Kerala. Altaf Ahmed, a 29-year old native of Jammu and Kashmir, was involved in various crimes against the government, Assistant Superintendent of Police Vikramjith Singh said. Altaf was arrested on January 6 following information from the Jammu and Kashmir Police. He had reportedly applied for a passport in Idukki and the Kerala Police had sent his documents to their counterparts in Jammu and Kashmir for verification when his identity came to light, police said adding the accused got training from Pakistan.

January 8: The ‘Q’ Branch of the Tamil Nadu Police intercepted a consignment of explosives bound for Sri Lanka in Madurai and took six persons into custody, who admitted that they were meant for use by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). S. Sivakrishnan alias Nandan of Sri Lanka and S. Muthuramalingam of Kamuthi were found to be in possession of 5,000 detonators concealed in a travel bag.

January 9: The Hyderabad city police have claimed that the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HuJI) was responsible for the twin explosions in the city on August 25, 2007, that killed 43 persons. A top police officer said that "Narco-analysis tests conducted on Rafi alias Sheik Abdul Kaleem of Hyderabad gave us names of the key persons involved. Now, we are in the process of gathering evidence against them."

January 10: A suspected Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) cadre, Abbas Khan alias Akhdas Khan alias Mohsin Alam, was arrested for his alleged involvement in a fake currency racket in Kolkata, by the detective department from a house at Chamru Singh Lane in East Kolkata’s Narkeldanga area. He had earlier been convicted by a Gujarat court for the Godhra violence but was released on bail. He had jumped parole and remained untraceable.

January 16: Two Bangladeshi nationals, with suspected links to the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s external intelligence agency, were arrested from the Shibpur area of Howrah district in West Bengal. "Shamim Akhtar and Sheikh Alamgir were arrested on a tip-off from a former jawan of the Central Reserve Police Force whom they were trying to recruit," said Rajeev Kumar, Inspector General of Police (Special Operations). Believed to be part of the ISI’s espionage module, they were engaged in recruiting ex-servicemen to extract strategic information, he added.

The Tamil Nadu Police arrested on January 16-night Nathan alias Suruli alias Thambithurai Parameswaran, the LTTE Tamil Nadu intelligence unit chief, from a hideout at Madipakkam. They also arrested seven other Sri Lankan nationals, who worked under him as helpers to collect information about anti-LTTE leaders like Varadaraja Perumal and Douglas Devananda, besides posing as traders to buy items like spare parts for two-wheelers and boats to be sent back to Sri Lanka.

Three Sri Lankan nationals suspected to have links with the LTTE and a person from Chennai was arrested in New Delhi allegedly with forged travel documents. The Sri Lankan nationals, identified as Francis Jansan (29), T.S. Ranjit (28) and John Mary Agastan (22), were arrested from a hotel at Paharganj in central Delhi, an unnamed police officer said, adding that the fake travel papers were also seized from them. The fourth person, Ayakannu, was accompanying the trio who hailed from Jaffna.

January 20: Three persons, including an Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agent from Pakistan, were arrested by the Madhya Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) from capital Bhopal for allegedly passing on sensitive information about the Indian Army. "Mohammed Imran Warsi, the ISI agent hailing from Karachi, was arrested in Bhopal yesterday [January 20] with sensitive information regarding deployment, unit details and important phone numbers of the Indian Army," said Inspector General of Police (STF), Sanjeev Singh. On information gathered from him, police arrested two others — Iqbal and Akhtar—, who were acting as his local contacts and supplying him sensitive information.

Tamil Nadu Police arrested two more persons in connection with the smuggling of ball bearings, reportedly used by the LTTE to make explosives, to Sri Lanka. Following the trail of cell phone contacts of Nathan alias Suruli, arrested along with seven others at Madipakkam on January 17 in the same case, ‘Q’ Branch police intercepted Selvaraj, working in a sweet stall in Mumbai for the last 25 years, and seized small packets of ball bearings he had bought as samples.

January 23: A fast track court in Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh, sentenced five militants of the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HuJI) to life term for waging war against the State, sedition, conspiracy and other charges. The convicts, Mehboob Ali, Sayeed Shoaib, Mohammad Rizwan, Farhan and Mohammad Saad, were arrested by the Special Task Force from Lucknow on April 5, 2006, along with Waliullah, the prime accused in the Varanasi twin blasts which occurred in the Sankat Mochan temple and near the railway station in March 2006. The court also awarded them 32 years of additional imprisonment under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, besides imposing a fine of INR 40,000 each. All punishments will run concurrently.

January 25: Bashir Ahmed Mir, the HuJI ‘commander-in-chief’ for operations across India was shot dead by police in the Doda district. Operating under the code-name "Hijazi," Pakistan-trained Mir is believed to have ordered a string of strikes across north and south-east India in 2007, including the court complex bombings in Uttar Pradesh, the bombing of the Ajmer Sharif shrine in Rajasthan, and the multiple bombings which took place in Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh.

January 29: The Karnataka Police is reported to have recently arrested a cook and a medical student for alleged terrorist links, according to Rediff. The duo revealed that they had plans of bombing the Hubli airport. During the interrogation of Mohammed Riazuddin Nasir and his associate Assadullah Abbubukar, the police learnt that the Nasir’s father Mohammad Naseeruddin is a Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operative and has received training in Pakistan. Intelligence Bureau sources said that Naseerruddin is a trained suicide bomber, who was trained at Muzafarabad in Pakistan occupied Kashmir.

Security around former Deputy Prime Minister L. K. Advani and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was reviewed following intelligence inputs that "Global Terrorist" Dawood Ibrahim has been asked by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence to assassinate them. The inputs to central agencies have come from various sources indicating that Dawood had been approached by the ISI to carry out the plot, sources said.

February 2: Quoting the interrogation reports of Hyderabad resident Raziuddin Nasir, The Hindu reported that the Islamist fundamentalists planned serial blasts on the Goa beaches. Nasir, who is being interrogated by intelligence agencies and the police departments of more than 12 States in Karnataka, has disclosed that the purpose of his visit to Goa immediately after the twin blasts in Hyderabad on August 25, was to identify beaches for organising serial blasts.

February 6: The United States intelligence believes that Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and other Kashmir-based insurgent groups will continue to plan and execute "attacks" in India. Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnel has said that, "The intelligence community assesses that Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and other Kashmir-focussed groups will continue attack planning and execution in India. Shia and Hindu religious observances are possible targets, as are transportation networks and government buildings."

February 7: Chief Minister Digamber Kamat said that an alert has been sounded in Goa and police have intensified checking to track possible terror plots in the state. The move follows the arrest of a suspected militant Riazuddin Nasir in January 2008 in Karnataka who had allegedly confessed about his plans to carry out strikes in Karnataka and Goa. The militant had reportedly said that he could not translate his terror plans into action as he failed to receive a consignment of 50 kilograms of RDX explosive from Pakistan.

The Union Government decided to continue the ban imposed on the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) for two more years for its alleged links with certain Pakistan-based terrorist outfits. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. According to intelligence reports SIMI cadres are joining Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and the outfit is found to be providing logistical support in setting up of ‘sleeper cells’ in the hinterland.

February 11: The Tamil Nadu Police arrested an alleged supplier of explosives to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and seized from him 100 detonators, 83 gelatine sticks and 10 metres of fuse wire. The man had been shuttling between Tiruchirapalli and Pudukottai to procure the explosive substances, including gelatine sticks, Tamil Nadu Police's 'Q' Branch Inspector Thiagarajan, who arrested him, told reporters.

February 12: The Corps of Detectives, which is investigating a terrorist module unearthed by the Davangere police in Karnataka, arrested an electrician from Dharwad for his alleged links with the banned SIMI. The arrested identified as Shakeel, a resident of Koppadakeri in the Dharwad district, had helped the SIMI activists to hold two meetings, one near the Mastansab Darga on Saudatti Road and the other at the Halligere forests on Haliyal Road in Hubli in November 2007.

February 16: An ex-Serviceman, Shailesh Jadhav, was arrested, from the Pune railway station when he was about to board a train for Jodhpur, for having alleged links with Pakistan’s external Intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Some classified documents pertaining to the Army were seized from his possession.

February 21: The Corps of Detectives (CoD) arrested a software engineer for suspected links with the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) from Guruappanapalya under Mico Layout police station limits in Bangalore, capital of Karnataka. However, four of his alleged accomplices escaped during the police operation. Yahya Khan is a native of Kerala and was working in a leading multinational information technology company in the city and he was reportedly under watch by the Bangalore Police for the past few days. Police sources said that the arrest followed information given by Mohammad Asif, a final-year MBBS student, and another SIMI activist, who was arrested in Hubli recently.

February 23: Asian Age reports that the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) has tasked two groups of terrorists to attack the Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad and the Kaiga Nuclear Power Plant at Karwar in Karnataka. According to intelligence inputs and information gathered following the arrest of six LeT terrorists in Lucknow on February 11, 2008, the LeT operatives, with arms sourced from the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), have reportedly entered the country through Nepal.

February 25: The Deoband-based Darul Uloom Madrassa (seminary) denounced all acts of terrorism as un-Islamic. "We don’t have any link or association with terrorism, terrorists, whatsoever. We reject terrorism in all its forms and manifestations," Maulana Marghoob-ur Rahman, the chief rector of Darul Uloom, said at a conclave in Deoband. "Terrorism completely negates the teachings of Islam, which is the faith of love and peace", he added.

February 26: The Corps of Detectives (CoD) has arrested a Bangalore resident Syed Sameer alias Sameer Sadaq in Gurappanapalya for his suspected links with the SIMI. He is reportedly an associate of the arrested software engineer and SIMI functionary Mohammed Yahya Kammakutty who was arrested earlier. Sameer was earlier arrested by the Gujarat Police in 2004 for his association with the SIMI. The police in Bangalore suspect that Sameer attended SIMI meetings held in November 2007 on the outskirts of Hubli and the forests abutting Goa, which were attended by 25 SIMI activists from Karnataka, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh.

March 4: Press Trust of India quoting the Bangladeshi newspaper Pratham Alo reported that the Harkat-ul Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B) used to supply grenades to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) to carry out attacks in India. An arrested HuJI-B leader Abu Zandal has told the police during his interrogation in Dhaka that the outfit had sent several consignments of grenades to the LeT operating in India until 2004. The last such consignment however, could not be delivered as the LeT representative who was supposed to receive it was killed in an encounter with Border Security Force (BSF) near Bangladesh's Kaliganj frontier. Zandal reportedly told the interrogators that the LeT leader Yazdani, who was killed in 2006 by the Delhi Police, used to maintain links with the detained HuJI-B ‘operations commander’ Mufti Abdul Hannan.

Security around Tihar Jail in the national capital New Delhi was beefed up following intelligence inputs that militants were planning to carry out a suicide attack on the prison complex. This information was given in the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament) by the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, V. Radhika Selvi. The Minister said an intelligence input regarding plans of jihadi terrorist attack on the Tihar Jail was received in September 2007 prompting the authorities to carry out effective changes in the security apparatus around the prison.

March 6: Police in Hyderabad arrested an agent of the Pakistani external intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), identified as Billah following leads provided by a terror suspect in Karnataka. Billah was reportedly named by Raziuddin Naser, who was arrested in Karnataka in January 2008 in connection with a plot to carry out terrorist attacks in Goa and Hyderabad. Some sensitive documents and compact discs were recovered from Billah, who had previously been booked for two cases filed in late 2004. Hyderabad Police Commissioner, D. Prasada Rao, told CNN-IBN, "Billah was the person who helped Naser go underground and helped hide him after the twin blasts in Hyderabad. He is involved in Jihadi activities."

March 11: A senior cadre of the outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), Dr Arif Abrar, who had surrendered before a lower court in Nagpur in January 2008, was granted bail by the 10^th Ad hoc Sessions Judge. Abrar who was lodged in the Nagpur central jail after police interrogation is expected to be released shortly. Defence lawyer A.M. Rizway stated that court found no incriminating evidence against him.

March 17: National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan said that the Union Government has received intelligence reports that some sympathisers of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in certain "small" pockets of Kerala and Tamil Nadu were extending support to the outfit in various forms.

March 18: The Union Minister of State for Home, Sriprakash Jaiswal, said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) that the proscribed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and its associates were planning to commit serial blasts and other serious offences in the country. "While there was no present input indicating any specific plans of SIMI to attack important installation, ...One arrested person disclosed that he along with his SIMI associates were planning to commit serial blasts and other serious offences," Jaiswal said.

A retired sepoy of the Indian Army was arrested by the special cell of Delhi Police from the Jama Masjid area on charges of maintaining links with the Pakistani external intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The arrested person, identified as Javed Ahmed, was en route to hand over some classified documents related to the armed forces to an ISI agent, identified as Siddhqui. Several other papers containing details on training provided in the army were also seized from him. Police described Ahmed as part of an espionage ring operating in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh for the past several years.

March 26: National Security Advisor (NSA) M. K. Narayanan, delivering the 25th Air Chief Marshal P. C. Lal Memorial Lecture, said that the Pakistani external intelligence agency, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), continues to help terrorist outfits like the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) to launch attacks against India. "We have seen no change in ISI's attitude to mentor terror groups like Lashkar and Jaish... attacks on India from Pakistan's soil are likely to continue", he said.

March 27: Thirteen leaders of the proscribed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), including the outfit’s General Secretary Safdar Nagori and his brother Kamruddin Nagori, were arrested following several raids in Indore by the Madhya Pradesh Police. Police described the arrested persons as active members of the outfit hailing from Kerala, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. The arrested persons included SIMI’s Karnataka unit chief Hafiz Hussain and Shivli, who is the mainstay of the group’s operations in Kerala.

The police arrested there persons who were involved in smuggling activities for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), under the National Security Act. The arrestees were identified as Murugapandi, Muthuramalingam and R. Raja. According to a press release, four Maoists were also arrested from Varsanadu in the Theni district and cases were filed against them under various sections of the IPC, Arms Act, Explosive Substances Act and Criminal Law Amendment Act.

Times of India quoting intelligence agencies reported that underworld gangster Dawood Ibrahim’s ‘D-Company’ in Pakistan is now officially a part of the Lashkar-e-Toiba’s terror network. The merger has been described as a part of the plan by the Pakistani external intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), to further increase its anti-India campaign.

March 28: A designated Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) court in Tamil Nadu sentenced 11 persons to 10 years Rigorous Imprisonment each in the Kullanchavadi bomb attack case in the Cuddalore district, in which a constable was killed and three others injured in November 1993.

March 31: Zee News reported that the Madhya Pradesh Police arrested five SIMI cadres from an unspecified location. Meanwhile, the investigators interrogating the 13 SIMI leaders arrested in Madhya Pradesh last week have claimed that the SIMI was planning to kill top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, including the Leader of Opposition L. K. Advani, and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The investigators further claimed that the SIMI was even running training camps for militants to carry out terrorist attacks in the country.

April 2: The Madhya Pradesh Police neutralised a training camp of the SIMI in Choral, a popular holiday spot, 35-kilometres from the State capital Bhopal. Police claimed that interrogation of the 13 arrested SIMI cadres led to the information on the existence of the camp. The Superintendent of Police Chanchal Shekhar said, "We were told the camp trained SIMI activists from Jharkhand, Kerala, Karnataka and a few other states. Each training camp would train around 20 SIMI members. We have information of five such camps in the past one-and-half years, which would mean about a hundred SIMI activists trained in Choral." He also said that the trainees were made to climb the surrounding mountains and swim across the river daily. The police also found evidence of a firing range and exploded bits of petrol bombs.

The Coastal Security Group police neutralised a network involved in supplying uniforms to the LTTE. It came to light when a CSG team raided a boat used to make illegal trips to Iranatheevu, controlled by the LTTE, in Sri Lanka, near the fishing harbour in Rameswaram. There were five persons on board, identified as Oomaiyan alias Christhu, Vellaiyan, the owner of the boat Chellaiah, Murugan and Arasu, who possessed photographs of model uniforms, which were supposed to be delivered to a group of tailors in Tamil Nadu. A sum of INR 3000 and 50 soaps were also seized.

April 3: At least three persons, including a woman, were killed in a bomb blast inside a house in the Siliguri district. A senior police officer said, "The bomb was a powerful improvised explosive device and we are trying to find out what the people inside were up to." Police said they were investigating their links with several Madheshi groups operating in the nearby Terai region of Nepal.

April 4: Three persons, including a woman, were arrested for allegedly renting their premises to leaders of the banned SIMI in Indore and Khargone. A house in the Shyam Nagar locality of Indore was rented to SIMI's Andhra Pradesh unit chief Qamaruddin Nagori from where police arrested top 13 leaders of the outfit on March 27. The house rented to the SIMI by Gaffar Khan Bakerywale was registered in the name of his daughter-in-law Shahnaz Bi. Police arrested both Khan and Shahnaz for not providing information to the police about giving their house on rent. Separately, in Khargone, another person, identified as Shahzad Hussein, was arrested for allegedly providing his farmhouse to the SIMI for running training camps.

April 5: Three SIMI activists were arrested from Narsinghgarh town in the Rajgarh district of Madhya Pradesh. The Rajgarh Superintendent of Police D. K. Arya said that the SIMI cadres, identified as Irfan, Faizal and Shakir, were arrested on charges of aiding anti-national elements and indulging in illegal activities. An unspecified quantity of objectionable material, video cassettes and CDs were recovered from the house where the arrests occurred.

April 7: Six SIMI cadres were arrested by the Madhya Pradesh Police. While five of them were arrested from Guna, another suspected SIMI cadre, identified as Naved Irfan, was arrested from Indore’s Muslim-dominated Khajrana area for allegedly indulging in illegal activities and aiding anti-national elements, a senior police officer said. With these arrests, the total number of arrests of SIMI cadres in the State, since March 27, has gone upto 35.

April 10: The Mumbai Police arrested two SIMI cadres from the Thane district. The duo, identified as Irshad Salim Khan and Israr Ahmed Abdul Hamid Tailor, are believed to be close to the arrested secretary-general of the outfit, Safdar Nagori. Khan is a civil engineer by profession and was the former president of the outfit while Israr Ahmed is a computer professional.

The Madhya Pradesh Police arrested a SIMI cadre from Rishala area of Indore city. The arrested cadre, identified as Hafiz Yusuf, has been an active worker of the outfit and played a significant role in collecting funds for the outfit, police sources said. He was working in a mobile shop in Indore.

April 11: Three persons were injured when two bombs exploded in quick succession near the Alipurduar rail station in West Bengal.

April 21: Nagaland Post quoting Government sources reports that a Unified Command Structure would be set up in Arunachal Pradesh to combat militants from neighbouring Assam and Nagaland who are using the mountainous region as a base to carry out their hit-and-run guerrilla strikes. Militant groups like the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) are reportedly setting up well-entrenched bases in the Tirap, Changlang, and Lohit districts. "The Unified Command that is likely to be initiated would be similar to the one currently operational in Assam," an unnamed senior official said. "The ULFA is not only setting up bases in the state but also using Arunachal Pradesh as a transit to Myanmar. We cannot allow our State to be used by militants from other states for anti-national activities," he stated.

April 22: The Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Sriprakash Jaiswal, replying to questions in the Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament) said that the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) has links with terrorist groups, including the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). He said that the links have been revealed in investigations into a number of cases. The minister further said that 181 SIMI cadres have been arrested in various States since 2006 and arms, ammunition, incriminating literature and other items were recovered from them. Of them, 128 were arrested in Madhya Pradesh.

The Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Radhika Selvi informed the Lok Sabha that there are reports that some militant groups from the northeast have links with the Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and some other terrorist organizations of neighbouring countries such as the Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HuJI). "Available inputs also indicate that some Indian insurgent groups (IIGs), active in the North-east, have been using the territory of Bangladesh and Myanmar,’’ she added. She also denied that there is any such report that the HuJI has established its base camps in the Dhubri and Bonbaigaon districts in Assam.

April 23: The involvement of Pakistan-based outfits has been observed in most of the terrorist attacks in India as groups from across the border continue to sponsor terrorist and subversive activities in the country, the Union Home Ministry said in its Annual Report for 2007-08. "The hand of Pakistan-based terrorist organisations - LeT and JeM - and, increasingly of the Bangladesh-based HuJI, known to have close links with ISI, has been observed in most of these cases," the 167-page report said. The incidents showed these groups have been using sleeper cells in the country to carry out such activities, and have also been using the territory of other neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh and Nepal, it said.

April 24: The West Bengal Police arrested one People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK) militant, ‘capt.’ Boiyai, when he was trying to board a Jet Airways flight for Bangkok using a passport in the name of one Akash Sharma of Manipur at Kolkata International Airport. A briefcase containing some important files was recovered from his possession. He reportedly belonged to Moirang Khunou in the Bishnupur district of Manipur.

April 26: An arms smuggler and a linkman of the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), identified as Pradip Das alias Phagua, was arrested from his house at Botun in Kumarganj of West Dinajpur district. He was subsequently produced before the chief judicial magistrate in Balurghat on April 27 and remanded to police custody for seven days. Police sources said that Das was regularly smuggling arms to Bangladesh for the KLO and also helped the militants enter and leave Bangladesh.

April 27: A combined team of the Manipur and Karnataka Police arrested six People’s United Liberation Front (PULF) militants from a hotel in Mysore. They were identified as ‘general secretary’ Mohammed Ibrahim alias Qusi alias M.I. Khan, ‘secretary external affairs and chief of army’ Mohammed Nurjaman alias Deny, ‘organisation-cum-publicity-secretary’ Mohammed Abdul Jabbar alias Belal Khan, ‘deputy commander in-chief-cum-finance secretary’ Mohammed Nasir Khan alias Thadoi alias Keshorjit alias Boy, ‘private’ Mohammed Mustafa and ‘private’ Mohammed Nur Safi. Four mobile phones and incriminating documents were recovered from them.

May 8: Three suspected SIMI activists were arrested from the New Housing Board colony area of Morena in Madhya Pradesh. Fake currency worth INR 80,000 and four mobile phones were recovered from them. Police sources said that one of the arrested Naajmia belongs to Kayamganj in Uttar Pradesh, while the other two, Pappu alias Sudhir Jadaun and Rajbir Gurjar, were from Morena.

May 10: An explosion at the district court in Hubli in Karnataka caused extensive damage to the premises although no casualties were reported. The explosive was placed under the witness box of the JMFC court hall and was reportedly detonated by a mobile phone. Investigators claimed to have recovered the SIM card of the phone.

May 11: The Hubli-Dharwad Police Commissioner Narayana Nadamani pointed out that as per preliminary investigations, the May 10 explosion in the district court in Hubli in Karnataka could be the handiwork of the LeT and the SIMI.

May 12: A truck driver was killed and three persons were injured when a bomb kept in a plastic container hanging from a bicycle exploded near a tin shade alongside national highway (NH) 31C in Barobisha of Alipurduar in West Bengal. The tin roof of the shade was blown off and a telephone pole against which the bicycle carrying the bomb had been left was badly damaged. Alipurduar Additional Superintendent of Police S R Mishra said an unidentified extremist group had planted the bomb. "We suspect that a timer was used to set it off", he said.

May 13: At least 80 persons were killed and over 150 others wounded when eight serial bomb blasts were triggered at Johari Bazaar, Hanuman temple, Hawa Mahal, Badi Chaupad, Tripolia Bazaar and Chandpole in Jaipur, capital city of Rajasthan. The first blast took place at 7.20pm (IST) in the crowded Johari Bazaar and within 15 minutes seven more blasts occurred in adjoining areas in the walled city area - near the Hanuman Mandir, which was reportedly crowded with devotees, near Hawa Mahal, at Badi Chaupad, Tripolia Bazaar and Chandpole. "We have information that 80 people have died," Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria was quoted as saying. Earlier, Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje told reporters that 60 people had died and 150 were injured. None claimed responsibility for the blasts.

May 14: A day after the serial bomb blasts in Jaipur, the Rajasthan Police released the sketch of a suspected terrorist on the basis of details provided by a shopkeeper at Kishenpole Bazaar who sold him a cycle, which was used in planting a bomb in the crowded area of the Walled City. Inspector-General of Police, Pankaj Kumar Singh, told that the shopkeeper remembered the suspect as he behaved suspiciously and seemed to be in undue hurry to buy the cycle.

Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje said in Jaipur that the bombs used in the serial blasts contained RDX and ammonium nitrate. "The bombs had ball-bearings which worked like small missiles," she stated. Pointing to the sophisticated nature of the timer devices used to trigger the explosions, she said an international terrorist group could be behind the operation. She, however, did not name any group.

An e-mail by an outfit known as Indian Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for the serial bomb blasts in Jaipur. The e-mail, which was sent on May 14-night to various television channels, has given the frame number (129489) of the bicycle which was planted at Choti Chaupad near Kotwali in Jaipur. The frame number of a bicycle recovered by the Rajasthan Police from the spot is same, official sources said, adding the e-mail was written on May 14 from a cyber cafe in Sahibabad in the outskirts of the national capital New Delhi. The e-mail id used was "guru_alhindi_jaipur@yahoo.Co.Uk", the sources said. The e-mail said India should stop supporting the US in the international arena, "and if you do continue then get ready to face more attacks at other important tourist places...".

The Supreme Court dismissed the petition filed by Parliament attack case convict Shaukat Hussain Guru challenging his 10 years imprisonment. The apex court held that it did not find any ground to entertain Shaukat’s petition that he was not given the opportunity to defend himself for the offence under section 123 (concealing the conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code. "We do not find any reason to entertain the present petition and grant relief as prayed for by Shaukat," a bench comprising Justices P. P. Naolekar and V. S. Sirpurkar said. Shaukat had contended that he was convicted by the apex court on August 4, 2005, under section 123, the offence for which he was never charged. He had filed the petition after the apex court had dismissed his review and curative petition against the judgment sentencing him to 10‘ years imprisonment.

The Union Government issues notification extending the ban on the LTTE as an unlawful association by two years. The LTTE, an association based in Sri Lanka, has sympathisers, supporters and agents on Indian soil, the notification said, adding, the group’s objective for a separate homeland for all Tamils threatens the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India. It further said the LTTE continues to be an "extremely potent, most lethal and well organised terrorist force in Sri Lanka and has strong connections in Tamil Nadu and certain other pockets of southern India." The LTTE also continues to use Tamil Nadu as the base for carrying out smuggling of essential items like petrol and diesel besides drugs to Sri Lanka. The LTTE will continue to remain a "strong terrorist movement and stimulate the secessionist sentiment to enhance the support base of the LTTE in Tamil Nadu as long as Sri Lanka continues to remain in a state of ethnic strife, torn by the demand for Tamil Eelam which finds strong echo in Tamil Nadu due to the linguistic, cultural, ethnic and historical affinity between the Sri Lankan Tamils and the Indian Tamils in Sri Lanka," the notification stated.

May 17: The special investigative team conducted raids across the State targeting activists of the SIMI. A SIMI cadre, Mohammad Shajid, was detained for questioning. Raids were conducted at Jaipur, Ajmer, Fatehpur, Godhpur, Tonk and Sikar on the basis of Intelligence inputs. A senior police officer said, "Raids were conducted, but it seems most of the activists have gone underground fearing arrests."

May 18: The ‘Q’ Branch Police in Madurai (Tamil Nadu) arrested two Sri Lankan nationals allegedly supplying explosives and electronic gadgets to LTTE. The duo had sent huge quantities of explosives to the LTTE through agents along the Rameswaram coast. Following information, police intercepted a Tata Sumo vehicle near Villapuram and took into custody P. Jayaraja alias Viji alias Vijayan of Mannar and T. Chinnavan alias Padmaraja of Jaffna. They were in possession of 44 walkie-talkie sets and INR 4.59 lakh in cash. K. Senthil of Madurai who provided logistic support to the two was also arrested sources in the intelligence agencies said.

May 19: CNN-IBN reported that the Union Government is planning to set up a national force to deal with the Naxalites across the country. The Special Action Force will be modelled on Andhra Pradesh’s elite anti-Naxalite force, the Greyhounds, and would be trained in jungle and guerrilla warfare. V. K. Joshi, Director General of the Central Reserve Police Force, said, "The force will have battalions which will specialise in dealing with Left-wing extremism." The report also said that the Special Action Force would be headquartered in Andhra Pradesh and could consist of ten battalions comprising more than 10,000 select personnel. The force will mostly concentrate on States like Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa.

The Hindu reported that the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has proposed setting up a separate intelligence wing for itself in view of the increasing role of the agency in the anti-Naxalite (left-wing extremism) and counter-insurgency operations. A similar request made by the CRPF earlier had been turned down by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) citing lack of funds. Unidentified officials in the MHA said that the proposal is pending with the Ministry and now a serious consideration was being given to allow the CRPF to set up its own intelligence wing. The CRPF has also decided to set up a Special Armed Force to counter left-wing extremism.

May 21: A suspected HuJI militant, identified as Abdul Rehman, was arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police outside the New Delhi railway station. Police sources said that 3.1 kilograms of RDX, five detonators and a sophisticated timer device were recovered from the Janakpuri locality in west Delhi following his interrogation. No ammunition or weapons were recovered from the suspected militant's possession.

May 22: Special Cell of the Delhi Police claimed that the arrested HuJI militant Abdur Rehman, who was arrested outside the New Delhi railway station on May 21 planned to carry out explosions at markets and crowded places in the Capital.

A top ULFA leader Suren Borah alias Baba Sonowal, was arrested by the Army from Pasighat in the East Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh. Borah, was functioning as an important part in the outfit’s operation in Arunachal Pradesh as company commander of the Charlie Company of the outfit’s 28th Battalion. According to Army sources, "Bora was responsible mainly for providing logistical support to the members of the outfit who use Arunachal Pradesh as a major corridor for launching operations in Upper Assam." The sources also added that, "He used to ferry all articles for the cadres of the outfit. Arms, camp materials, clothes, food, medicines; you name it and he used to arrange it." Borah who was a constable in Assam Police was first arrested in 1992 for storing arms for ULFA. He was released later but he did not come back to join the police force. Instead, he joined ULFA and went underground.

May 26: Uttar Pradesh Police arrested seven persons in the Etah district for allegedly running a fake arms licence racket that could have helped Naxalites procure guns from Uttar Pradesh. The district Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), S.K. Singh, said that arms had been purchased using the fake licenses made by the arrested persons. Police also sealed a gun dealers’ shop that allegedly sold firearms against fake licences. The SSP said, "We have sealed one arms shop, the Raj Gun House, from where at least 48 firearms were sold against fake licences in the last three years. When we got in touch with the CID of Bihar police, we learnt that some of the weapons seized from Naxalites there were bought from shops in Etah." "We suspect some of these weapons, purchased using dubious gun licences, have gone to the Naxalites", he added.

May 27: The Special Investigation Team probing the May 13 serial bomb blasts in Jaipur detained a madrassa teacher and a telephone booth owner in Bharatpur for their alleged role in the bombings that killed 80 people. The teacher, identified as Hakimuddin, a resident of Nagla Imam Khan village of Mathura district, was living in Bharatpur for the past two years. The telephone booth owner, Kamil, had his shop at Khumer Gate in Idgah Colony in Bharatpur. The name of both persons had been disclosed by Mohammed Ilyas, the imam of the Jama Masjid, who was arrested on May 23.

Police arrested a SIMI cadre, identified as Nasir Liyaqat Ali Patel, from Belgaum for allegedly spreading messages of hatred. Police also recovered the hard disc from his computer.

May 28: Abbas Ali, an ISI agent was sentenced to 14 years in jail while two of his associates were sentenced to 10-year and 2-year prison terms respectively by a court in Gwalior (Madhya Pradesh). They were convicted under various sections of the Official Secrets Act, 1923 and Foreigners Act, 1946. Ali had been arrested on March 13, 2006 from Gwalior’s Daliawala Mohalla where he stayed in a rented house under the fictitious name of Madho Singh. Police had recovered maps of the Morar Cantonment area and other secret documents from him.

May 29: Assam Rifles accused the Myanmar Government for its inaction on Northeast militants taking shelter in that country. "We had given detailed information on the number and location of militant camps of the Northeast militants in Myanmar, but they are yet to respond," the outgoing Director-General of Assam Rifles, Lt. Gen. Paramjit Singh said.

May 30: Abbas Ali, a resident of Islampur in the New Jalpaiguri district, was arrested at Panitanki under Kharibari Police station on the border with Nepal by the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) personnel along with 350-gm of "high intensity" and 2.5-kg of "low intensity" explosives, four detonators and a wire to be used as fuse. Rajesh Tikku, Deputy Commandant of the 22nd Battalion of the SSB’s Ranidanga sector headquarters, said, "Based on a tip-off, our intelligence wing caught Ali at Doodhgate in Panitanki, 40km from here, when he was trying to cross over to Nepal with his friend yesterday. The friend, however, escaped." The SSB is yet to find out the motive behind smuggling the explosives but confirmed that Ali was headed towards Nepal.

June 1: The Kerala Government represented its case in favour of continuing the proscription on the SIMI. The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Tribunal appointed by the Union Government to review the ban on SIMI began a two-day sitting in capital Trivandrum. Representing the State Government, Inspector General of Police (Internal Security), N. C. Asthana, filed an affidavit before the tribunal stating that the SIMI was still carrying out unlawful activities in Kerala and hence the ban imposed on it shall be continued.

During the two-day meeting of the revived Joint Working Group (JWG) between India and Bangladesh held in New Delhi on May 31 and June 1, India asked Bangladesh to check cross-border infiltration and launch a crackdown on anti-India elements operating from its soil. The Indian side was led by Joint Secretary (North East) in the Union Home Ministry Naveen Verma and the Bangladeshi delegation was headed by Joint Secretary (Political) M. Hakim Chowdhury. The JWG met after five years. India also expressed concern over the continuous flow of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, and the support that the insurgent groups active in the Northeast were getting from across the border.

June 4: An explosion in the parking lot of a drama theatre in Thane injured seven persons. The explosive was wrapped in a plastic bag and was placed on a cycle. It exploded when staff of the theatre tried to remove it.

June 8: Supporting continuation of the ban on the SIMI, the Karnataka Government in its affidavit submitted to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Tribunal contended that some of the SIMI members had been in contact with militant outfits. The Tribunal, set up by the Union Government to review the ban on SIMI concluded its two-day sitting on June 8 in Bangalore.

June 9: The Special Operation Group (SOG) of the Rajasthan Police investigating into the May 13 Jaipur blasts case formally arrested Bharatpur cleric Mohammed Ilyas, who had been detained by the police on May 26 under the Passport Act. Ilyas was also charged with possessing disproportionate assets and has been taken to Jaipur for further interrogations. Police recovered two forged passports from Chandigarh and Jaipur, a computer, a mobile phone and diaries from him. Police sources said that Ilyas is the imam of the Bharatpur mosque and also the convener of the Madarsa Jamia Islamia Arabia Darool Uloom's Bharatpur chapter.

June 13: The Ajmer Police in Rajasthan received a letter from the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) threatening to carry out bomb blasts in the State between June 12 and 20. The letter, sent on a postcard and written in English, warns of dire consequences if the Rajasthan Government and Police do not stop their crack down on the illegal Bangladeshi migrants. The letter also demands the release of Bangladeshis detained in the State in connection with suspected terror links.

June 14: A suspected LTTE sympathiser was taken into custody and goods, including batteries and medicines, were seized from a high speed boat in the sea off Devipattinam at Rameswaram. The police seized INR 1000000 worth of batteries, army uniforms, medicines and gloves from the boat around mid-night, the sources said, adding, there were 25 bundles, including 18,000 batteries, uniforms, medicines, 'beedies' (locally made cigars) and other items. Inspector Thiagarajan told PTI that the occupants of the boat jumped into the sea on seeing the police but they managed to catch Vijayan, an LTTE sympathiser from Sri Lanka. Three others, who hail from Devipattinam, managed to escape, he added.

June 16: 2,400 detonators were seized from two civilians, identified as Ravikant Kumar and Shrawan Kumar belonging to Rohtas district, at Mughalsarai railway station. The detonators were manufactured by AP Explosive Private Limited, Nalgonda in Andhra Pradesh and Haryana Explosive Private Limited. Interrogation revealed that the two persons were carriers who had been given the consignment by an unidentified person at Dehri in Rohtas district.

June 17: Two militants of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) were killed during an encounter with Army personnel at Bandarkhati Khamti village in the Lohit district of Arunachal Pradesh. One pistol, a revolver and an IED weighing ten kilograms were recovered from them.

June 24: The Delhi Police arrested a cadre of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), Habib-ur-Rehman, from the Sarai Kale Khan area. He had allegedly provided logistic support to two Pakistanis who were caught with a large cache of ammunition, including RDX, from Delhi in September 2001. Rehman, who belongs to the Moradabad district of Uttar Pradesh, went into hiding after the arrest of two Pakistanis.

July 7: 41 persons, including four Indians, were killed and over 140 were injured when a suicide bomber rammed his bomb-laden car into the gates of the Indian Embassy in the Afghan capital Kabul. Among the killed were an Indian diplomat, V. Venkateswara Rao, and the military attaché, Brigadier Ravi Datt Mehta, whose car was entering the embassy compound at the time of explosion and two Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel. Others killed in the attack were local security personnel and Afghans who had queued up for visas to travel to India. Several shops across the road, including the Indian Airlines office, were damaged.

July 12: India confirmed that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's external intelligence agency, had a definite role in the suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul on July 7. The National Security Adviser, M. K. Narayanan, stated that "We not only suspect but we have a fair amount of intelligence (on the involvement of Pakistan)… We have no doubt that the ISI is behind this….people of the country deserve to know the facts." He also said "I think we need to pay back in the same coin. We are quite clear in our mind… The people of this country deserve to know the facts rather than being carried away by people who make statements that these are insinuations. There are no insinuations." According to him, "The ISI needs to be destroyed. We made this point, whenever we have had a chance... There might have been some tactical restraint for some time, obviously that restraint is no longer present," he told television channels according to the Press Trust of India.

July 14: The Additional District Judge court at Madanapalli in the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh sentenced to life imprisonment a Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militant Azad Ahmed Qureshi, who was arrested in Madanapalli on July 3, 2007. The 29-year-old Qureshi, a native of Kashmir, was sentenced and fined INR 12,000 under sections 121, 121a and 468 of the Indian Penal Code for waging war against India, conspiracy to wage war and forgery in the preparation of election identity cards in Kashmir by the Judge.

July 15: Police arrested Mohammed Muqeemuddin Yaser, a former member of the outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), from his residence in the Saidabad area of Hyderabad, capital of Andhra Pradesh. Yaser, who is a MBA student, is also the eldest son of Maulana Naseeruddin, the founder president of Tehreek-e-Tahaffuz-e-Shaan-e-Islam (TTSI) and is presently lodged at the Sabarmati jail in Ahmedabad for his alleged role in the assassination of the former Gujarat home minister Haren Pandya. Yaser’s younger brother Raziuddin Naser, a suspect in the twin blast cases in Hyderabad in August 2007, was arrested by the Karnataka Police in January 2008 for planning terrorist attacks in Karnataka and Goa.

July 16: The West Bengal Police arrested a Pakistani national, suspected to be an agent of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), from a hotel in Bagdogra on the outskirts of Siliguri town. Some documents and maps showing details of army installations in north Bengal were recovered from the arrested person identified as Abid Khan alias Samir Ahmed Sagar, who did not possess a passport.

July 17: India and Bangladesh held a day long foreign secretary level talks in New Delhi. Talks between Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and his Bangladeshi counterpart Mohammad Touhid Hossain focused around strengthening the ties between the two countries, particularly on security issues. "We are convinced that our security is interlinked and that terrorism will have to be tackled resolutely," said Menon after the talks.

July 22: The ‘Q’ Branch of the Tamil Nadu police neutralised a major LTTE procurement network, seizing five imported Yamaha outboard motors with a 40-horse-power capacity each. In connection with the seizures, the Police team arrested Kumargurubaran, a resident of Chennai, Ramesh, hailing from Ramanathapuram, and Manamohan from Pesalai in Sri Lanka, from near the Kattumanadi bus stop near Manalmelkudi.

July 23: A Border Security Force (BSF) trooper was killed and a villager injured in intermittent exchange of fire that lasted nearly two hours between the BSF and personnel of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) across the border in West Bengal’s Malda district. This was the second exchange of fire between the two forces across West Bengal’s border with Bangladesh within a week. Two BDR soldiers were killed in the previous incident.

The BDR and BSF personnel exchanged gunfire at the Chakpara border in Chapainawabganj, resulting in the shutting down of the Sona Masjid land port in northern Bangladesh.

July 24: A donation slip book bearing a Killinochi address in Sri Lanka, camera, video cassettes, INR 25000 in cash and two film rolls kept inside a bag was seized by the Police in Thoothukudi. The bag was found abandoned near the Thoondigai Vinayagar Temple in Tiruchendur. Police suspect that the bag could have been left at the spot either by some Sri Lankan tourist or supporters of the LTTE.

July 25: One woman was killed and seven persons injured in a series of eight low intensity blasts Bangalore, capital of Karnataka. The explosions were reported within 45 minutes from 1.15 pm (IST). The first explosion occurred at a bus stop near the Madivala check post, off the busy Hosur Road, around 1.15 pm. Sudha Ravi, who was waiting for a bus with her husband, was killed on the spot, while two persons were injured. Two more explosives went off in the adjoining Adugodi area, injuring three persons. Similar low-intensity explosions were reported from three places on Mysore Road and at two spots in the heart of the city — near the Mallya Hospital and near the Rashtriya Military School on the Langford Road. At Adugodi, the explosives were planted behind a telephone junction box near a commercial complex under construction and another near a storm water drain. On Mysore Road, the explosives were placed under a power supply transformer near a mall; one near a storm water drain; and the third near a car showroom next to the Regional Transport Office.

July 26: 40 people were killed and more than 100 others injured when serial blasts struck different parts of Ahmedabad, the Capital city of Gujarat. The worst attack occurred near the trauma centre of the government civil hospital, where at least 25 people, including two doctors, were killed. Police indicated that there were 17 blasts in 10 different areas and all, except the minority-dominated Sarkhej and Juhapura, were in the labour-dominated eastern parts of the old city. Most of the blasts occurred in crowded and congested points like traffic circles, near a Hanuman temple where a large number of devotees turn out on Saturdays or near bus stops. The first blast was reported from the Hatkeshwar locality in the Maninagar area at 6.38 pm (IST). Thereafter bombs went off at 7 other places - Bapunagar, Narol, Ishanpur, Saraspur, Sarangpur, Raipur, Sarkhej, Juhaapura - all within the next five to seven minutes. About 40 minutes after the first round of blasts, bombs went off near the trauma centre of the civil hospital and the main portico of the L.G. General Hospital in Maninagar, even as the injured were being rushed to the hospitals. About an hour later, three more blasts were reported from Maninagar and surrounding areas.

In a 14-page manifesto e-mailed to the media minutes before the serial bombings, an organisation calling itself the "Indian Mujahideen (IM)" claimed responsibility for the Ahmedabad attacks. Titled "The Rise of Jihad", the manifesto said the bombings were carried out to avenge the 2002 anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat. "In the light of the injustice and wrongs on the Muslims of Gujarat," it said, "we advance our jihad and call all our brethren under it to unite and answer these irresolute kafireen [infidels] of India." It warned of future attacks, complaining that the police "disturbed us by arresting, imprisoning, and torturing our brothers in the name of SIMI [Students Islamic Movement of India]."

July 27: The death toll in the serial blasts in Ahmedabad, capital of Gujarat, has risen to 46.

Police in Surat, the second major commercial centre in Gujarat after Ahmedabad, seized two abandoned cars - one with live explosives and another with ammunition - from different parts of the city. The cars were left abandoned at Punamgaon and Randel in the Varacha Road locality. Police said gelatine sticks, timers, ammonium nitrate powder, tiffin boxes and other material were found in one abandoned car which the locals said was lying there for a couple of days. The materials were reportedly enough to manufacture about eight to 10 powerful crude bombs, the kind of devices believed to have been used in the serial blasts. The police also defused a huge bomb found in an abandoned bag near a hospital on the City Light Road.

Two live bombs were recovered from a garbage can near a vegetable market in the Hatkshwar locality in Maninagar in Ahmedabad, where the first of the 17 blasts occurred on July 26-evening. Another live bomb was defused near a gate of a textile mill at Santhej on the Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar highway after midnight. One bomb was found and defused in Kalol, also an industrial town near Gandhinagar.

The Ahmedabad Joint Police Commissioner Asish Bhatia said an activist of the banned SIMI, Abdul Halim, who was wanted in connection with the 2002 Gujarat riots, was arrested during the combing operation in the city.

At least five persons were injured in a bomb blast near a bus stand in Godda in Jharkhand.

The Karnataka Police recovered seven kilograms of explosive material from Channapatna in the Ramanagaram district, a place where an explosion had occurred on July 24.

The Bangalore Police reportedly alerted the Kerala Police after a reporter of a local TV channel received a call from a person speaking in Hindi who warned that Kerala was the next target and bombs were likely to explode across the State (Kerala) after 7 pm (IST) on July 27.

The ‘Q’ branch of the Tamil Nadu Police neutralised a terrorist module with the arrest of a 39-year-old suspected fundamentalist who allegedly was part of a plot to cause bomb blasts on trains and in Chennai and Tirunelveli.

July 28: A Nepali man, Gokan Bahadur, was detained along with his sons from Bahalda town in Mayurbhanj district, over 350-km from State capital Bhubaneswar, after the news channel India TV revealed that it had got an SMS threat.

July 29: The death toll in the serial bomb blasts in Ahmedabad in Gujarat has risen to 53, said Government officials. Four persons, seriously wounded in the blasts, succumbed to injuries in different hospitals in the last two days taking the toll to 53, they said.