New Delhi, February 16
Probing Monday’s car bomb blast in the national capital, investigators continue to focus on persons hailing from the Middle East, but with little success and no concrete leads to arrest anyone.

It has emerged that there was little similarity in the nature of explosives used in Delhi and Bangkok, where similar attacks were carried out.

Sources said the three blasts in Bangkok were caused by an explosive termed ‘C-4’. This is primarily a military use compound.

No such compound has been found in the fragments gathered from the site of the Delhi blast.

A final report of the Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory (CFSL) is still awaited. The initial reports had talked about potassium chlorate, nitrate and nitroglycerine.

Indian security agencies had got in touch with their counterparts in Thailand to know the details of the explosives.

Information from various airports is being collated while calls to certain numbers have been screened.

Records of the Foreigner Regional Registration Office (FRRO) are being scanned. There have been no leads so far to any person or country, top officials in the government said today. While the needle of suspicion points to the Middle East, two inferences have arisen.

First, the bomber has to be in line with the anti-Israel ideology that prevails among sections of people in West Asia. Secondly, the deftness with which he escaped indicates he was a local youth.

There are hardly any Shia Muslim groups active in India. The Hezbolah and the Hamas, two groups of West Asia, have no history of having a presence in India.

A motorcyclist travelling on a red-coloured bike used a magnet to stick an explosive to the rear end of the Innova owned by the Israeli Embassy.

The blast injured Israeli woman diplomat Tal Yehoshua Koren and driver Manoj Sharma.

Two others travelling in an Indica were also injured in the blast.

So far, efforts to nab the biker or even identify him from his accomplices have failed.