Al-Qaeda Outfit’s Claim of Bomb Scare in Ghazipur Mandi ‘Bogus’, Says Delhi Police

Delhi police on Monday said that they have found the claims of terror outfit Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, an Al-Qaeda affiliated Islamist militant group, regarding the Ghazipur Mandi bomb scare, as bogus.

New Delhi: Delhi police on Monday said that they have found the claims of terror outfit Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, an Al-Qaeda affiliated Islamist militant group, regarding the Ghazipur Mandi bomb scare, as bogus. However, senior officials from the special cell, the Delhi Police’s Anti-Terror Squad, said they are still probing whether the group is responsible for the terror attack attempt.

Notably, a bag full of explosives was recovered from East Delhi’s Ghazipur flower market around 10.30 am on Friday. The entire market was vacated and National Security Guard (NSG), and a team of the bomb squad defused the IED, taking it to an abandoned area. On Monday, NSG confirmed that it was a mixture of RDX and ammonia nitrate attached to a sophisticated device to cause the explosion.

“Ammonium Nitrate and RDX were the components used to manufacture the IED recovered from Ghazipur market. NSG submitted a detailed analysis report of the IED components to Delhi Police on the same day the explosive was recovered,” NSG Director General MA Ganapathy told ANI.

The Delhi Police which had registered a case under the explosive act to probe the incident, however, said they are yet to zero down on any terror outfit responsible for the attempt.

“During social media monitoring, we have come across a letter with Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind claiming responsibility for the attempted attack. This group is relatively a newer outfit. We haven’t found any authentic source to the note so far,” said a senior police officer.

The letter doing rounds on social media also mentioned that it was due to some technical error that the device did not explode. But it does not mean that the same will happen even the next time, it said. Police have said it could be an attempt to mislead the probe.

(With ANI inputs)