New Delhi ,Feb. 14: The Centre has decided to adopt a wait-and-watch policy on handing over the Pune blast case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), constituted after the 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai. The Centre had set up the NIA with the important mandate of probing terror attacks in the country.
The Pune blast is the first major terror attack witnessed in India after the carnage of 26/11 in Mumbai. Saturday’s blast in Pune killed nine people, including two foreigners, and injured at least 60 people. Though the Centre can suo motu direct the agency to investigate offences which have “international” or “inter-state ramifications”, for now the government is waiting for the “preliminary investigations” to be completed by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) before it takes any decision. The NIA has concurrent jurisdiction which empowers the Central government to probe terror attacks in any part of the country and covers offences that challenges to the country’s sovereignty and integrity, bomb blasts, hijacking of aircraft and ships and attacks on nuclear installations.Top government sources said it is still “too early” to take any decision on handing over the case to the NIA. “It is only after the initial probe that we will know whether the blast case has international or inter-state ramifications,” the official said. The official said this is likely to be known in a week. The investigation has been started by the Maharashtra ATS and is being assisted by the NIA and forensic experts who are looking into all possible angles, a home ministry official said. The NIA, set up through an act of Parliament and seen as a “Central counter-terrorism law enforcement agency”, has been in existence for over a year. The agency recently got a new director-general, Mr S.C. Sinha, though it is yet to get proper office premises. The NIA has been functioning from a makeshift office located at District Centre Jasola in Delhi. Before that, the agency had been operating from Centaur Hotel near Indira Gandhi International Airport.During its year-long existence, eight cases have been handed over to the agency for investigation. These range from the funding activities of the Northeast militant outfit DHD(J) to the recovery of fake Indian currency notes handed over to it by the Mumbai ATS. It is also probing the bomb explosion at the bus stand at Kozhikode, Kerala.
Namrata Biji Ahuja