Pune: Dismissing "intelligence failure" in the Pune blast, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Sunday said the terrorists have hit a "soft target" like the German bakery which is frequented by foreigners and Indians alike.
He maintained that the "hard targets" like the Osho Ashram and the Jewish Chabad House located near the bakery had been surveyed by US Lashker-e-Taiba suspect David Headley during his visit to India and the area was "in the radar" of terrorists for some time.
"But apart from hard targets, there are soft targets... All these (the German bakery where the blast took place yesterday and an Italian restaurant nearby) are soft targets where foreigners and Indians congregate especially during the peak hours," he told reporters in Pune after visiting local hospitals to meet the injured in the terror attack.
The Home Minister said the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has taken over the case and constituted teams to investigate the blast.
He announced a compensation of Rs five lakh to the families of those killed in the attack.
Terror struck Pune last night as a powerful bomb ripped apart a popular bakery near the Chabad House, killing nine people, including five women and a foreigner, and injuring 45 in the first major attack since 26/11 carnage.
The improvised explosive device, kept in a packet outside the kitchen of the German bakery, exploded at around 7.30 pm (IST) when a waiter attempted to open it.
The Union Home Minister said it appears that a "person or more persons pretending as customers seem to have come to the German bakery and one of them might have left a backpack under a table" in the bakery.
Denying any "intelligence failure" with regard to the incident, he said police had been sensitised about Osho Ashram and Chabad House which are located in the area.
"So, this area is on the radar of terrorists. There is no intelligence failure, but please remember this is not an overt attack by gunmen. This an insidious bomb that had been planted in what appears to be a backpack."
He said the Pune Police had in the past "sensitised all the establishments in the area, especially in North Main Road... that they should take measures in order to keep away or at least identify potential trouble-makers.
"In some bigger establishments some mock-drills were conducted. But it is not that they were sensitised every day.
They were sensitised as this is the area which is on the radar of terrorists, being the location of Chabad House in the general neighbourhood... this area was vulnerable," he said.
Asked if anyone has been detained in this connection, he replied, "We will not give you hourly reports on detention or interrogation, that is very wrong. The police should not do that and they have been advised not to do that."
He said the media will be given information periodically whenever necessary and asked it not to "speculate".
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