Is the Islamic State behind the Bhopal-Ujjain passenger train blast in Madhya Pradesh? While the Madhya Pradesh police was quick to link the arrested suspects with the terror group, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in a statement in Lok Sabha on Thursday avoided any direct mention of the group.

The Minister said the train blast was an act of a "suspected terrorist gang". 

The Uttar Pradesh police, which on Wednesday neutralised an alleged member of the gang involved in the train blast in Lucknow, said suspected terror operative Saifullah who was killed, and his associates were "self radicalised" and trying to build an "Islamic State Khorasan module". 

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan supported his state police's theory and said on Wednesday in Bhopal that those behind the train bomb blast had suspected Islamic State links.

Chouhan also revealed that the explosion was caused by a pipe bomb, whose pictures were sent to Syria through their mobile phones. A timer was also used in the bomb.

Making a statement in the Lower House, Rajnath Singh also said that the anti-terror operations had helped "successfully avert" a possible threat to national security and that further probe would be handed over to the National Investigation Agency.

The Minister said that Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh Police have so far managed to arrest six members of the gang related to the train blast. 

"The events present an excellent example of coordination amongst the state police and central agencies. Due to the prompt action taken by the police of both the states, a possible threat to national security was successfully averted. Further investigations will be handed over to NIA," Singh said.

Saifullah, a resident of Manohar Nagar in Kanpur, was killed on Wednesday morning in an 11-hour-long gunfight in Thakurganj's Haji colony in Lucknow while his associates were held from different places in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. 

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