Sir — This refers to the report, “One dead, 14 injured in twin blasts on a Chennai train” (May 2). The blasts are a blot on a city which has had no history of terror attacks in the last two decades.
The theory that the train bombs were aimed to be used elsewhere, and not on the train itself, gains credence by the fact that the train’s route passed close to Tirupati where Mr Narendra Modi had addressed a rally and visited the Balaji temple the same day. Furthermore, the bombs were set to go off at a time when the train would be close to Nellore where Mr Modi had to address a rally. Since the train was behind schedule, the timing went wrong for the evil perpetrators. The Indian Mujahideen and the Al-Umma groups are hell-bent on targeting top leaders and disrupting the ongoing election.
It is said that the attacks on the BJP and the RSS leaders in Tamil Nadu in the last two years were carried out by the Al-Umma, which uses weak intensity bombs as compared to the IM. It may also be recalled that veteran BJP leader lK Advani’s Rath Yatra had to be diverted in 2011 when pipe bombs were discovered in Madurai.
With the final phase of voting round the corner, including in Mr Modi’s Varanasi, the Election Commission has to step up security on a war footing to prevent nefarious elements that are aiming to hurt top leaders.