Temple town Ujjain sat on ticking time bomb, intelligence agencies didn't know

UJJAIN: Temple town of Ujjain was sitting on powder keg with suspected SIMI operatives stockpiling ready-to-blast bombs, gelatine rods and detonators for several months till the anti-terrorism squad personnel smoked them out in a late-night swoop on Friday.
The storage and supply of huge quantities of explosives from Mahidpur, a communally sensitive municipality in Ujjain district, is being seen as a massive intelligence failure on part of state and central agencies.Alarm bells are ringing in the police apparatus as Ujjain is not just a pilgrimage centre, but will also be hosting the mahakumbh in 2016.
As many as 24 primed bombs, one pipe bomb, 900 gelatine rods and 600 detonators were seized after the arrest of Mahidpur-based Javed Nagori and his three accomplices - Abdul Aziz, Mohammed Adil and Abdul Wahid from Topkhana area of Ujjain.
An embarrassed Inspector general (IG) of Ujjain district, V Madukumar Babu, said he was surprised by the arrest and seizure made by ATS from an area under his jurisdiction.
Mahidpur remains under constant vigil of district special branch officers and Central Intelligence Bureau.
"They were supplying explosives to terrorist modules in other states like Maharashtra. 'Un-primed' bombs and gelatine rods confiscated from Solapur also were supplied by the Mahidpur module," said an ATS officer.
Two weeks ago, three improvised explosives, 70 gelatine rods and 100 detonators were sized from Sadia and Umer Hafiz from Solapur after a joint operation by the Madhya Pradesh anti-terror squad and their Maharashtra counterparts. Both were allegedly associated with Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
ATS officials refused to share inputs of their terror plots. "Details cannot be revealed as some more arrests are likely to happen," said an ATS officer.
Asked if it was a major intelligence failure, DGP Nandan Kumar Dubey said, "We are yet to find out how long they had been into this activity."
Mahidpur, once known for its Nagori clan that drives the city's transport business, has now emerged as the epicentre of terror activity.
The SIMI network grew stronger in Mahidpur because of its ideological brain, Safdar Nagori, and the region's proximity to Mumbai. Porous boundaries with Maharashtra and Gujarat make smuggling of arms and explosives easy.
Safdar Nagori, former national general secretary of SIMI was arrested in 2008. He motivated several youths to join the cadre. Javed Nagori, who was arrested on Wednesday, was just one of them. Safdar's father Zahir-ul-Hasan Nagori, who retired from the Madhya Pradesh police force as an assistant sub-inspector avoids the media.