Mumbai may never be completely safe, as its citizens found Wednesday evening when terror struck the city again over two and a half years after the horrific 26/11 attacks in 2008. In a bizarre way, Wednesday’s serial blasts took place on the 13th day of the month, a coincidence which the police might find hard to explain away, given that several earlier terror attacks in the country had taken place either on the 13th or the 26th of a month.
This newspaper had in 2009 reported that officials of Central intelligence agencies had stumbled upon an unlikely coincidence that pointed to a set pattern that terrorists were using to wreak havoc. An intelligence report noted that several terrorists were striking specifically on the 13th and 26th of alternate months.
Despite sticking neither to logic, not being overly superstitious or buying into numerology, the IB prepared the report and had informed the state police that this specific pattern should not be ignored.
The presence of such a pattern was brought to the fore again on Wednesday, after IB officials realised that the serial blasts followed the same uncanny sequence of dates.
In its report, the IB stated that if a bomb blast took place on the 13th of a particular month, then it was invariably followed by another in some other city on the 26th day of the month that follows the next one.
The IB also noted the locations where the attacks took place and believed the sequence of the location too formed some specific pattern. It all started with the Jaipur blast, on May 13, 2008. There was then a gap of one month, and on July 26, 2008 bombs exploded in Ahmedabad. There followed a gap of another month and then on September 13, 2008 blasts rocked the national capital. Following the same trend, there was then the Mumbai terror attack on November 26, 2008.
Since 26/11, the country had not witnessed any terror attack for nearly two and a half years. On Wednesday, July 13, the pattern repeated itself with the serial blasts in Mumbai.