Terror struck Uttar Pradesh on Friday afternoon with near-simultaneous serial bomb blasts rocking three cities of Lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad killing 13 people, some of them lawyers, and injuring over 60 others, prompting the Centre to issue nationwide advisories asking all states and UTs to step up vigilance.
The blasts rocked court premises of the three cities between 1:10 and 1:20 pm on Friday.
Blaming the Centre for the blasts, UP chief minister Mayawati said it was a failure of the central intelligence agencies and stated that the mastermind of the attack will soon be held.
Six low intensity bombs, three in Varanasi, two in Faizabad and one in Lucknow, were planted on cycles, and it appeared that lawyers were the main target as at all the blasts sites.
A few days ago, the Uttar Pradesh police along with Central security agencies had busted a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) module that was allegedly seeking to target Rahul Gandhi. Lawyers had thrashed the three JeM militants when they were being produced before a court.
Incidentally, the premises of all the three courts had recently witnessed lawyers thrashing the arrested JeM terrorists.
According to the police, evidences collected from the spots of incidents hint towards a timer device being used in all the explosions. A live bomb was also recovered from a bag that was kept on a bicycle near the main gate of the Lucknow district court.
Meanwhile, Mayawati squarely placed the blame on the Centre and said the state government had received no information or clue about any possible terror attack. ?It is the responsibility of the central intelligence agencies to inform about any such possibility and sound an alert. Ironically we were not intimated about any incident which is unfortunate,? said Mayawati.
She said that now the state government has put the special task force (STF) on high alert and very soon those behind it will be identified.