2008 Imphal Bombing - Investigation

Investigation

Police believed the bomb was to avenge the killing of at least eight rebels by security forces last month. They have suspected the separatist People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK) to be responsible for the attack.

The residents of Ragailong and its surrounding areas demanded a judicial inquiry into the attack. There was no word indicating the demands for a probe wered heeded.

After the arrest and interrogation of the prime accused in the case, Sachindra Debbarma, it was revealed that the blast was planned at a hideout of the Assam-based National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) in Moulavibazar of Bangladesh on July 22. Police said, besides the cadres of the Pakistan-based ISI and the Bangladesh-based DGFI, seven militant outfits of the Northeastern region attended a meeting at the hideout and chalked out the blueprint for the attack. Debbarma also claimed that militants in the region, backed by some fundamentalist groups, were spreading a fake currency net in the region and planning to destablise India. He also said that Sagam Ali, who had been arrested by BSF early in the year on the Tripura border, was sent for the same mission. Furthermore, four active mobile SIM cards, including one from Bangladesh, an amulet bearing his name, an international passport and address of a Karachi-based suspected ISI agent, were seized from Ali, a resident of Bongaigaon in Assam. This evidence led to the conclusion that he belonged to Hazrat Shah Sultan Gyasuddin Awalia and had travelled extensively to Bangladesh and Pakistan in 2007. He was remanded to judicial custody till November 20 after a court rejected his bail petition, along with that of all the other nine accused in the blasts.