Is there a Kerala angle to Bengaluru blast?

The investigation into the April 10 Bengaluru blasts has branched out into Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Even though the Union home ministry has been pointing its finger at Indian Mujahideen, the Bengaluru Police say it is too early to come to any conclusion.

The police have been cautious ever since they burnt their fingers in the Bengaluru assassination plot in which they made a couple of wrong arrests.

However, in keeping with the history of blasts in Bengaluru, there has been one clear link -- that of a Kerala module headed by T Nasir who subscribed to the ideology of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami.

The July 25, 2008 serial blasts were the handiwork of this Kerala module. It was alleged that Nasir, who is now in the custody of the Bengaluru Police, had the support of politicians such as Abdul Nasar Madani and had managed to carry out the attack by organising a group of labourers.

The finger of suspicion in the Chinnaswamy stadium blasts of April 17, 2010, also pointed towards Kerala. The police said that the funds were arranged by the Kerala module although the plan was hatched in Karnataka-Tamil Nadu.

The Tamil Nadu link to the recent Bengaluru blasts has got the agencies thinking.

The bike that was used in the blast was from Vellore in Tamil Nadu. In fact, it was sold off to a second-hand bike dealer by a software engineer who is now in the United States. The police are now questioning four bike dealers who have so far said that they had sold to one person who could have forged the documents later.

This is the most that the police have got from the Tamil Nadu link to the blast.

It would be too early to connect the dots and say that the Indian Mujahideen, which had re-grouped in Tamil Nadu, could have been behind this attack.

However, Intelligence Bureau officials feel that a smaller group from Kerala could be behind this attack. There are at least seven such groups in Kerala who are interested in the politics of neighbouring states.

These groups become active during an election and the primary task is to evoke communal sentiments.

Some terror groups in Kerala have a lot of reason to be upset with the Bengaluru Police. The arrest of several persons from Kerala, including Madani, has put them in revenge mode, the police say.

Even Intelligence suggests that groups from Kerala are always looking to target Bengaluru in particular.

If any of these groups carried out this blast to time it with the election or the ongoing Indian Premier League is not clear as yet. However, this group also knew for a fact that all the state’s security resources were involved in the election process, which ensured that the culprit/terrorist slipped in easily and planted the bomb.