NEW DELHI: A handful of local SIMI activists could be behind Friday’s serial blasts in Bangalore, say security and intelligence analysts based on preliminary inputs. They suspect this group could have used some Bangladeshis or other members of the floating population to plant the bombs.

Across the board, analysts are convinced that it was a purely local affair, with the worst case scenario being money coming from some mastermind outside India. “But the blasts were extremely cheap. The total spend for the terrorists could have been just a few thousand rupees,” an analyst calculated. He said the bombs were not so much meant to kill people, but to “attract public attention, and the media frenzy is doing more than they expected.”

The motive: to undermine the BJP government in Karnataka, stir communal passions, and retaliate for the arrest of several key associates. Trouble has been brewing since February this year when top leaders of the Students Islamic Movement of India were arrested by the police in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh

 “Since they couldn’t do a big blast, they carried out several small blasts. This was in the making,” a senior officer in the intelligence set up said.

Sources in Bangalore and Delhi pointed to a pattern emerging in Karnataka.

On May 10, a bomb exploded in a court premise in Hubli where arrested SIMI cadres were being tried.

And on July 11, violent protests broke out in Bangalore after the severed heads of several pigs were found in two mosques.