Monday, July 11 2005 10:34 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Srinagar/Ayodhya: As investigators attempted to put together pieces of evidence to establish to identity of perpetrators of terror attack in Ayodhya, the government yesterday (July 10, 2005) said it has some information on them but it would be "too premature" to disclose it now.

"We do have some information but it will be too premature to disclose it. We have not been able to reach a conclusion," Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil told reporters.

In Ayodhya, Faizabad senior superintendent of police Avinash Chandra said investigating agencies have unearthed some "clinching evidence" on the Ayodhya attack but declined to elaborate.

"The investigation is almost in its last stage but we are avoiding undue haste so as not to commit any mistake," he said.

Had the attackers been local "we would have identified them by now... since they were outsiders, the investigation is taking time", the SSP said.

Chandra said police were probing the "Non-Resident account of Rehan, the driver of the jeep used in the attack." It was found that he spent about nine years in Dubai, he said adding his links with the Gulf country was being probed.

Rehan's jeep was financed by a bank but he later "paid the loan in one go", the SSP said. The "local links" of the terorists were also being investigated, he said.

Meanwhile, sources in New Delhi said the terrorists who attacked the Ramjanmabhoomi complex in Ayodhya may have been Arabic-speaking persons who entered India possibly via Nepal, according to investigators. Questioning of the driver Raj Kumar, who brought the five attackers from Akbarpur to Ayodhya, indicated the militants spoke with each other in Arabic, sources told PTI here today.

The driver indicated the terrorists did not speak in Kashmiri. Kumar was made to hear to in Kashmiri by his interrogators and asked if the language spoken by the militants was similar and his reply was negative. Then, Arabic was spoken before him and his reply was in affirmative when querried if the language spoken by the ultras resembled it, said the sources.

They said the identification of the terrorists was turning out to be difficult as no clear evidence of that was recovered from them.

Investigators suspect some evidence about their identities could have been "misplaced or destroyed" during or after the operation to repulse their attack.

"There must have been some more bags which could have contained something indicating the identity of the terrorists, but these have not been found so far," the sources said.