A month later, Delhi bombers still out of police reach

A month has passed since the serial blasts ripped through the national capital, but the Delhi police are still no closer to bringing all the culprits to book despite claiming to have got its hands on the main conspirator.

Investigations appeared to have reached a dead end as all four Lashker-e-Tayiba terrorists, who triggered the blasts killing 62 people and injuring over 200, are still at large with reports suggesting that they may have sneaked out of the country.

• Blasts rock Delhi

The only success worth announcing that the police got during the month-long probe was the arrest of Tariq Ahmed Dar, a sales manager of a multinational company, who acted as a spokesman of LeT, allegedly arranged the funds and even chose the bombers to carry out the act.

But since then, it has been a story of more misses and few hits for the Delhi police and the case seems to be in danger of being added to its growing list of unsolved crime.

During the investigations so far, scores of people have been picked up and questioned, but none of them have been found involved in the blasts, police sources said.

Two more people Mohammed Hussain Fazli and Mohammed Rafique Shah have been arrested in connection with the blasts, but senior police officials have so far refused to confirm this.

This is not be the only high-profile case where investigations of the Delhi police are leading nowhere. It has been more than two years since a Swiss diplomat was allegedly raped in a car park of the Siri Fort Auditorium in south Delhi, but the perpetrator continues to evade police.

One of the most talked about unsolved case is the sensational escape of Sher Singh Rana, the alleged killer of dacoit-turned-politician Phoolan Devi, from the Tihar Jail in February 2004.

Though a television channel even managed to interview Rana, police are yet to trace him. More unsolved cases have been added to Delhi police's unflattering list this year, including the gangrape cases of Dhaula Kuan and Mayapuri.

In both cases, car-borne assailants had pulled women into their vehicles and gangraped them before setting them free.

While police claimed to have arrested one of the men who had criminally assaulted a girl from north-east India after abducting her from Dhaula Kuan, it still has not got its hands on the three other accused.

In the Mayapuri case, not even a single arrest has been made.

However, Delhi police is still hopeful that the serial blasts case will not go down the same road. A police team is still camping in Jammu and Kashmir on information provided by those in custody hoping to make significant arrests.